DAYS OF CREATION THE BECOMING OF MAN by Bogdan Heretoiu SMASHWORDS EDITION * * * PUBLISHER: SMASHWORDS Copyright (c) 1998, 2010 by Bogdan Heretoiu All rights reserved. Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise) without the prior written permission of both the copyright owner and the above publisher of this book. Smashwords Edition License Notes: This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each person you share it with. If you're reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then you should return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the author's work. * * * * * 2010 – Author’s Note: Days of Creation was written and published in 1998. This electronic version of the book is made available for free download by the author. Since 1998, Bogdan Heretoiu has continued to research and explore brain functioning and ways to tap into our built-in potential. Twelve years later, in 2010, Bogdan Heretoiu returns with a newly published book: Evolutionary Exploration. ~ http://www.EvolutionaryExploration.com ~ In this book, he presents the results of his research over the last decade, a framework for exploring and learning how we can use our brain in a functional way, instead of an interpretative way. Although the author considers Days of Creation to continue to be very valuable, his revised concepts presented in Evolutionary Exploration are highly advanced and they bypass ALL of the processes described more than ten years ago. Nevertheless, the author hopes that you will enjoy this book, and disregard some of the English flaws you may occasionally find as you read through, considering that no editorial work has been done to the text since it was first published. * If you will enjoy this book and find it useful, please consider making a donation to support the author’s work: http://evolutionaryexploration.com/Days_of_Creation/index.html " If hundreds of thousands of children are condemned to die in starvation or struck by terminal illnesses - victims of our careless civilization - what can we do and how? Bringing a smile on an innocent little face could be the beginning of a long answer... I challenge the impossible: I challenge all of you to step out of your comfort zone and change. I challenge you to become more powerful, more alive, and more human then ever. Now. " Bogdan Heretoiu * * * * * ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I want to especially thank family for being the ground, when my head was in the clouds. To my friend and martial arts teacher, Stoia Sorin. To a special friend, Mr. Cioara Ilie whose enlightenment brought me the understanding of peace and happiness for the first time. To Peg for her wonderful friendship and to Donna for all her help with publishing this book, as well as to all of those who helped me by doing the editing and proof-reading. To Robin for the beautiful picture that makes the cover of this book looking so powerful. To Rossana - the computer artist whose talent and dedication I honor and recommend. To my friends, known and unknown. To all of you, souls around the world. * * * * * TABLE OF CONTENTS: THE QUESTION IMAGINATION - ILLUSION OR REALITY? THE THREE MIRACLES TOUCHING THE SOUL MOVING THE MOUNTAIN BEYOND THE LANGUAGE PROCRASTINATION AND A SCARY THOUGHT… ENCOUNTERS THE DREAM * * * * * INTRODUCTION I think this world needs a change. I think we deserve a better chance. I am addressing this book to those who need a flashlight as they search for the right spiritual path. It is nothing else but a tool - useful if you need it and use it. There will be many techniques and theories explained throughout the book. Take what you need and what you feel is right for you. You are the one to decide how useful the information will be for you and for your needs. Everything I talk about in this book you already have - You were born with it. I wrote this book for everybody: Muslim or Christian, men or women and young or old. Whether you agree or not with what I stated in this book, please do not waste your time analyzing it. You may end up with all sorts of side effects like confusion or disappointment. At the end of each chapter there are additional exercises. The physical exercises are part of different Martial Arts or Yoga routines. Some of them have been adapted to be easier for you to practice. As far as the mental exercises, you will notice that they are not preceded or followed by very long explanations. You are going to find a more in-depth and detailed approach to these techniques in the second volume of my book - "Universal Consciousness". These exercises will activate hidden abilities of yours, bringing forward from a different level of your mind, new aspects of your existence. Evolution should be the essence of our lives, and there is no evolution without movement. If your life flows unchanged day after day, then - using your will power - shift toward a dynamic existence. Make practicing a part of your daily life. Open your mind and try everything. Whatever you find in this book that is spiritually enlightening to you, go with it. And practice. The Becoming of Man, is the first volume of the trilogy DAYS OF CREATION. The second volume called "Universal Consciousness" explores practical ways to awaken ourselves to our full, universal potential. The third one called "Sanctuary!" is a soul rending testimony of innocence. The benefits from distributing these books are dedicated to the children all around this planet, suffering from terminal illnesses. I will search and even challenge the impossible, so they can have another chance to live. I invite you to join others and me in a soul-rewarding effort, which benefits those little souls that have no chance to live. Even if our work together will not prevent them from prematurely fading back into eternity, we will definitely bring joy into their short lives. A joy that for them will be the most beautiful gift and even if just for few moments, they will have you as their friends. I hope that one day, we will all speak the same language: life’s language. One day, we shall stop hating each other. One day, life will be more important then politics or money. One day, we will transform ourselves from human animals into universal beings. One day, suffering will make no sense anymore. One day, we will learn to respect life, because there is no life to spare. One day, we will all be happy. Until then, may your life become better! Thank you. “The unexamined life is not worth living” SOCRATES Chapter 1 THE QUESTION Life… Such a short word, though powerful and full of meaning. A word expressing the Creation itself with its infinite forms... Somewhere contained within this Creation - like a particle of water within an ocean - there is a wonderful life form. It’s us. Small and apparently vulnerable, but nevertheless - so much alike with Creation itself. Like lightning, we are passing through the Realm of forms trying to absorb as much as we possibly can learn and discover. But what are we really looking for? What are we trying to achieve? We are searching all over the place; we go to see masters and teachers; we follow rules invented by others, in which we may or may not believe; we separate good and bad, according to what we like... and all of this to find out what? Could it all be reduced to the fact that plain and simple, we are born one day and die another? In between ... there is love, hope, hate, fear, and all the things we know as life. Switching back and forth from suffering to joy, we search for happiness. Do we find it? Not too often, and definitely, not always. But who are we? This is the crucial question, the turning point of our lives, when we start looking around ... for more. For something different. For answers. I remember myself when I was a kid, trying to make some sense out of everything around me. I wasn’t really understanding very much, but the curiosity was obviously there. The more I learned, the more I realized how much I still didn't know. Likeall of us, I searched for the right spiritual path for years. I read books, took courses, bought tapes and traveled to see sacred places or special people. I ended up with a fairly vast knowledge of spiritual culture, as well as years of confusion. After so many years, I am still wondering why nobody told me the whole truth. Why everybody had just pieces of truth and pretended that "their" truth was the universal one. Most of the time they transformed that truth into a tool that served their own interest. If many years ago someone had told me what I am about to tell you in this book, I would have saved all those years of confusion. Wandering around, trying to put all those pieces of truth together, we become confused and puzzled. It is a life-long process. So, where should we start putting the puzzle together? The main problem during my spiritual quest was how to start. Almost every book I read or every master I went to see gave me the same instruction: to search within myself and find out who I am. But how? Some people told me that Jesus, or Buddha, would be the way. I was given special sounds and words called mantras to practice for hours and hours. I was given yoga postures and specific breathing and meditation routines. Another time I met a group of people whose method was a sort of rhythmical dance. I was asked to abstain from everything that was pleasurable; such things being considered a sin or just a waste of energy, depending on the culture or religious beliefs. All this training required a self-imposed discipline and in a sense, a limited existence. Years of hard and dedicated practice were necessary. If a Master, Guru or God was involved, then undivided love and faith was the law. Even so, too few people were able to obtain certain results that were so-called “divine”, and I wanted more. I didn’t know what I was searching for. It was instinctual. A feeling of wanting cosmic freedom. It was a hunger and thirst for knowledge, and it was a matter of NOW, not after death or for the next reincarnation. I wasn’t ready for years of practicing the same rituals. I had an explosive energy called LIFE within me and I had no the intention of putting a lid on it for the sake of a Guru or even God. I was ready to conquer the Universe with my spirit. I was a rebel. So I kept searching for the right way to reach the only trinity I believed in: Omnipotence, Omnipresence and Omniscience. There was only one thing that didn’t seem right to me: Why should I try to identify myself with a figure or a ritual - until I become one with it - in order to reach universality? Do I need an intermediary? Now, as you read, do you see the conflict? I wasn’t going to do any ritual to reach the Universe, but I was trying to become the Universe. If billions of people have tried for thousand of years to reach the Universe, Nirvana, God ... you name it, using any form of intermediary level between themselves and the Universe, and it did not work, then why keep on doing it? If for thousands of years people have killed, hated or even just disliked each other because this intermediary wasn’t the same for everyone, then why keep on doing it? Just because someone said so? For these reasons, at one point in my life I took the very risky decision of eliminating any intermediary - of any form - that could stay between the Universe and me. It was risky because I was actually stating that everybody else is wrong but me. I needed courage because I was going to get out of the system. I was going to break the rules. In the coming years, on the edge of a deadlock, my confidence and strength were going to be tested more then once. In time, I learned to go pass through hard times with fun and joy. I understood that freedom could be achieved without escaping from a system. I learned the paradox of controlling without controlling. My theory has proven to be right. Luckily, I learned an amazing alphabet of a sacred language, common maybe in any corner of the Universe. Maybe one day, I will speak it fluently and one day - Christian, Muslim or Buddhist - all will. I guess I was lucky. I guess I should share it. So, here it is - my book. I will ask you again, as we continue. Don’t just analyze the words. There is no system to follow. There is no trust or faith involved, and once you understand my words forget me; forget my name; forget the book. I am walking around this planet the same as you are. We aren’t different. I don’t follow you; you don’t follow me. I only spoke about myself to show you that it is possible for any ordinary human being, to search and to find … and search again. Once in a while, I will give a training seminar to share the techniques I practice and my personal experiences with other people, and they will share theirs with me. Any donations resulting from those seminars will also benefit the children, through the projects that my friends and I are initiating. In each and every second - as you read this book, eat or make love, innocent eyes are closing for eternity. Missing a cure or even food and water, they come and go silently, leaving a world too busy and tired to acknowledge their presence. They come and go with a blink of an eye. I guess we’re lucky for not sharing the same fate. For thousands of years people have been dying in sickness, fear, or darkness. For different reasons, lives were unsaved, memories were lost, histories vanished, and all along, people have been asking themselves who they are and how can they change? Some of them misunderstood the word “change” and therefore, wars and revolutions have come. Some people believed that they are better than others. Religions, cults, and their followers appeared, and every time that happened, the effects of that kind of change were devastating. A new system was born and fear was the root that supported it, carrying from the very beginning the seed of future destruction. The real change, as I see it, is in the way we live our lives. We are born one day and we will die another. What is in between, is our right to choose, and as long as we are alive, we have this power, as well as the ability to change. There is only one key element: Do we really feel the need for a change? If you desire to come to my seminars, do it after you have tried to do what I am about to share with you in this book. In this way, you will never be exposed to the risk of becoming a follower just because it sounds good and you trust it. You will be able to exist on your own. You will not need a system to follow. You will be free and you will have a power to share. You will be a Creator. I cannot say that what you are about to read is about the way you should go - all I ask from you is to read it and try it before you make any judgments. Because of our confusing and complicated society, some people will go completely insane and some will become good citizens with bank accounts, mortgages, credit cards and careers. The middle class - spiritually speaking - will end up of course, between the two extremes of our society. For all of them though, the process is very uncomfortable and generates conflicts . . . Everything starts with a question. A very simple and ancient question with an extraordinary power of creation, as well as of destruction: Who am I? To begin to answer this question, try this: Take off your clothes and look at yourself for a while in a mirror, examining all the details. That’s what you are - no more no less. If you add a name, remember... it is a given name; if you add a title or any sort of credentials, remember... those are given qualities even if you worked hard to obtain them. What you really are is that naked being, reflected in the mirror. Look straight into your eyes, asking and then giving yourself an answer. Here is the moment when everything becomes really complicated. If you answered that basic question with a basic answer, such as “I am who I am”, then everything would be simple. Unfortunately, we all tend to answer it in a very complicated fashion. We define ourselves based on so many things, such as our credentials; standards and rules; beliefs and judgments; therefore, the answer to a very simple question will become quite complicated and we end up being fooled. It wouldn’t be that bad though, if the result of this process had no effect on our lives, but it has. Being a very limited answer, given by our own brain, it generates a self-limiting program that traps us for many years, sometimes for life. Imagine yourself at the beach. Can you tell how many particles of sand the beach is made of? Your complicated answer about who you are would be just a particle of sand. The real you is the whole beach. The answer must be given through a process of self-realization instead of one of logical analysis. In ancient times, the Old Masters believed that a process of self realization is accomplished through many years of very strict discipline. Only the ones having the luck to be chosen by gods would be successful. I really believe that such a self-realization or enlightenment can be accomplished in a matter of hours or days. The only things we should change, are the long, complicated rituals that we are practicing. These rituals could be social, religious or just self-made habits, but all with an incredible power characteristic of any ritual. Some people smoke, others drink or play golf. Some go to church and pray, while others play the Wall Street lottery. We all have one thing in common though; we identify ourselves with these rituals. Without them we would be lost and panicked. So we create and hold on to them for safety reasons; but the side effect of this psychological process is that we loose the ability of being new and open at all times, and we become a reflection of the same set of actions - reflecting itself over and over again. Holding on to these rituals - just because it makes us feel safe - constantly reinforces our weakness and inability to adapt to the new. Changing the rituals does not mean giving them up. We would only change their value - they would not create us anymore, but we would create them. It has been said so many times, by so many wise people that we are the perfect tool to be used in our search; we are the perfect way. If we are the way, then what should we do? Why aren’t we happy and at peace? The most logical explanation is that there must be some confusion somewhere, caused by our own concepts. The ancient ones, the great-grandparents of our civilization and their mystical arts left us the fantastic treasure of their knowledge and experience. They expressed the idea that in order to find peace, the first thing to do is to return to the origin because there, Creation is eternal. It is hard and many times impossible for some of us to find a continuous peace within ourselves. We constantly seek this peace and definitely need it, but for the vast majority of us it seems an unattainable state of mind. Maybe this is so because of the rush we experience and call Life… It might be also because we were never trained to obtain this peace without tremendous help… and tremendous struggle. Among the many philosophies, rituals or exercises that we inherited from our history, stands a very powerful concept: simplicity. The most powerful thing that we are capable of doing is being simple. It is, according to our ancestors' wisdom, the true and only key to happiness. It is the necessary quality of our lives that allows us to return to origin. In our ancestors' times, simplicity was more than just a technique. It was a way of living apart from any tendency to complicate life. When faced with going to work every day, dealing with mean spirited people or odd situations, taking care of a house full of kids or who knows what else, simplicity seems to become almost impossible - an unsurpassable limit. In this state of being, the search for peace and happiness is a painful process. This happens because we expect happiness to be the result of our way of living - a result of our conscious effort to sustain against multiple social problems. But it doesn't necessarily have to be this way. I said before that the key to happiness is simplicity. "Working" with such a concept it is more a matter of art and expression than effort. There is no living soul whose access to a happy life can be denied. A beautiful quote from Swami Beyondananda's "Guidelines for Enlightenment" says: "If you're looking to find the key to the Universe, I have some bad news and some good news. The bad news is - there is no key to the Universe. The good news is - it has been left unlocked." Everything is here - within our reach. Simplicity is a very subtle and exciting form of art. Very private and unique, it is different for each and every one of us while at the same time it exists in all the ordinary aspects of life. To start using it, like any other form of expression, it simply requires our presence and action. Even if it might be considered common sense, simplicity as the key to happiness has little or nothing to do with our actions or their results. We are free to deal with as many or as few problems as we want. There is nothing that we have to give up or to obtain, because simplicity has no form. It is an entirely internal attitude. It is beyond desire because of its essence: immaterial and impossible to grab, hold or keep. If we want to obtain constant happiness, the following three conditions are a must: We first have to want it. Then, we must understand that happiness doesn't just happen to us…we have to make it happen, and at last but not least, we must be entirely honest with ourselves. Without these three conditions, simplicity has no chance to exist because the slightest deviation from our true nature would bring along confusion and conflict. Try something: For one day, choose to be happy instead of unhappy. For one day, no matter what happens to you - no matter how bad or ugly - remain within yourself committed to be happy. It might take some effort at first, but someday we all have to learn how to do this. Create your desires according to their accessibility and their necessity. For one day only, you will just need some food and water - nothing else. Need - not want! This is where you have to start - from what you really need in order for you to exist. For only one day it is simple, but enough to plant within your mind the seed of happiness. Being happy is a matter of staying silent within yourself, content with what you have and nothing more. In this way you will be very centered and your inner strength will grow second by second. Probably this will not be easy to do the first time, but remember that everything requires your presence and intention to change. And if somehow you are not happy this very moment, as you read… just stop and think for a second - what is missing? As you think about, answering your question, you might end up creating an entire list of missing things. It is excellent to identify the reasons why you are not totally happy, because you will have to work with them. When you are done with that list, write each and every "item" on a separate piece of paper, big enough so you can fold it twice. Then, just watch. Watch the little notes you wrote for awhile and start folding them. Like a magician, re-arrange their place or order - if there is one - and after you are done folding them, put them in a zipper bag. How did you feel? Take this as an exercise to test your willingness (not ability!) to detach yourself from your desires or problems. Create your own happiness from the very simple act of… just being! Returning to the origin could be a long journey or a very short one, but YOU will always be the one to set its length. Let me tell you a story I learned during my martial arts training. It is said that somewhere in this world, in an old village, monkeys used to come and steal food from the villagers. The old ones of the village decided one day to get even with the uninvited creatures, so they placed big jars filled with coconuts all over around their houses. The jars were very much like any other jars, except for one detail: they had their spouts much narrower than usual, though big enough for a small, empty hand to go through. Like usual, the monkeys came to steal the food. Each one of them stuck their hands inside the jars and grabbed a coconut, but when they tried to pull their hands out . . . they were trapped! All the villagers came out of their hiding places and started laughing. After that - defeated and humiliated - the monkeys didn’t bother the village anymore. It seems that the basic rule for when we are trapped should be to let go. Holding on to what we think we need just because we want it, could cause us a lot of trouble. Holding on to what we think we know may keep us trapped for a very long time… LET GO. Trapped by our own concepts, memories and desires, we panic. Our true nature is to exist free. Unconsciously, we seek freedom but being trapped, we accumulate stress. It is just a matter of time until we become sick. A matter of time until we die. Eventually, we ask ourselves the question “why”. Why me? It isn’t just you. Take a look around you. All over the planet, people are fighting for their existence. Where is their freedom? Many of them will die of starvation or sickness. Others kill or are killed in wars or terrorism. Meanwhile, the big majority of us holds on to a secure job, hoping that nothing wrong or bad will ever happen to us. We hope ... from fear. Trapped into a system that we create on a daily basis, we become more and more unaware of our sacred, universal origin. Somewhere in time, humanity took a wrong turn away from the wisdom and since then, we are getting further and further away from the truth. Can we correct the mistake of planting the seeds of greed and power? Can we correct it without isolating ourselves from the system? I believe so. It will take time, patience and COURAGE. Somewhere, as part of the Sacred Knowledge* of this planet, it is said: Lose life to find life. Does that mean that we should commit suicide? Or maybe, we should stop caring about our lives? It could mean to surrender our lives to a Divine power? Or maybe it is about a more profound concept - the one of detachment? Note: I am referring to the different old or new texts from our planetary culture as "sacred knowledge" because they belong to the entire humanity. It is not a sign of disrespect for any particular culture or religion, but more an act of deep respect for life and its manifestations through us. This is the first step on our spiritual journey back to our origin and essence. This is also the hardest one, and until you are able to say - "I took this step!" - don't bother going any further. I consider this step essential. Ancient history refers to it as an attribute of “enlightenment”, and it is not such a complicated or hard to experience phenomenon. Go to any grocery market and wait until you see a person coming out of there with his or her hands full of bags. Watch the way that person walks. It is different than usual. You can see the effort, sometimes the pain, if the bags are too heavy. Let’s say now, that the person you see is carrying his or her own life in those bags. The more the person walks the heavier the bags become. What do you think would happen if that person should somehow lose the bags…? He or she would die? Those bags are the past we all carry with us. The past we are holding on to, and refuse to let go. We think it's our life, and therefore we’re holding on to the best we can. Let go of your bags! What would have happened if - as part of our education - someone would have told us to "let go", as an every day habit? Instead of living free of our own shadows, we go through so much pain and anger. So much frustration and non-fulfillment; so many memories, happy or sad, coming over and over to the surface of our consciousness, forcing us to live again and again moments and experiences that passed so long ago…What happens if we just let go? Lose life, to find life. Let go, to be free. Let go, to live again. Let go of the "you - from the past", and find the "you - in the present". It’s hard and you don’t know how? Who said it would be easy? Some say that the hell is here… So is heaven - as you will see! Sit down with me. Look around. We have lived for quite a while already. When we first came into this life we were pretty small and helpless too. As time passed, we grew stronger accumulating technology and morals; values and rules of conduct. We learned all of these from somebody somewhere or just from our own experiences. All of these have become "us" or what we like to think of as "us". When we first come into this life, we come so open to the world, with an amazing power, genetic power, ... and maybe more. Our body changes and our consciousness too. Little by little, we mirrored the world around us. We mirror people’s habits, movements and emotions. We learn, and when we do not understand something, someone translates it for us. Every day holds something new for us - new experiences or new people surround us. We get burned sometimes. We laugh and cry. We learn to defend ourselves. We learn to love and to distrust. So, who are we? Who is the one that gives the answers when asked? Are we just a human body, mirroring the world around, reacting from memory and sub-conscious programs? The process of going back to the origin starts here. We first have to become conscious about who we are and about our presence here and now. Acknowledge your presence the way you are. Be honest. There is nobody to hear your thoughts - nobody to read your emotions. If you are a criminal or a drug dealer, acknowledge it. If you are a high-school teacher or a taxi driver, acknowledge it. If you need to, say it loud: “My name is so and so. My mother or my father gave this name to me. I am not my name”. And do the same with everything that comes to your mind that you think is you. It is a slow process. Learn to go through it, without emotions. You may be a prostitute - do not blame society. You may be the perfect husband and father - do not swagger. Acknowledgment is about who you are, not why or how. The secret is to remain detached and free of emotions as you acknowledge everything you consider as being you. Next, find out how you became what you are. Don’t answer with that 20 years-of-hard-work story. Find out who decided your career. Was it your father who wanted you to be a doctor? Was it an old uncle whom you admired and wanted to be like? Was it money? Be honest and go to the origin of what you think you are and don’t involve emotions. If you start to feel anything as you go through this process, stop and resume it the next day. There is time, and haste could be an enemy. Are you white? Are you Chinese, or black? Do you feel any different from the others? Why? Ask yourself and then find out from where and how did you know the answers. Be honest as you return, step by step, to your origin. Your origin is nothing to be proud of. It isn’t different from any other’s origin, but as you return, you will rediscover who you really are. As you acknowledge your presence on this planet, deeper and deeper, old and maybe forgotten emotions will emerge from your subconscious. These emotions will have their origin somewhere in the past, even if that means a minute ago. These emotions will reflect the nature of the world around you. Once again - not the real you. To overcome those feelings, just stop and remember that what you feel is just a projection of the past. It is still strong because you haven’t dealt with it in the proper way. Soon, you will be able to discern between who you are and who you think you are. Free of judgments… allow yourself to be. Return to your origin, free of emotions, and let go. There is no need to feel sorry for anything. There is no reason to be afraid, because you are not losing anything. You will just learn a new perspective of life. Actually, you may learn for the first time in your life. Learning is a living experience generated by each individual through a very private and internal process. All life experiences (school, marriage or jobs) are just cumulative information. We have the choice to react to those experiences as they come. We also have the choice to remain calm and at peace, knowing who we are. We can flow with the wave, be thrown here and there or we can surf it and become very good at this, …but we can also be the wave. Do you see the difference, my friend? It is matter of choice - and that reinforces again, the full freedom of which we are capable of. The acknowledgment process I am talking about includes not just who you are at this moment, but all your actions. The way you walk or run. The way you exercise and why. The way you eat, using your left or right hand. All of your actions defining who you are. Try to consider and pay attention to every detail. Nothing about what you are doing is unimportant. Focus your attention on yourself. There is a time-distance between intention and action, sometimes maybe less than one second. Identify yourself with both of them until you will be one complete living being. As you start practicing you may eventually feel tired. If that happens, slow down for just a little bit. If you walk - do it slower. If you eat, or talk - do it slower. Whatever you are doing - slow down. Between your movements or words, you’ll meet the sacred being that you are. Between your thoughts or emotions, there is an ocean of life. Once you have identified yourself with who you really are, and with your intentions and actions, you will feel a different energy within you. Acknowledging yourself is the first step toward freedom. By going through this process with sincerity, the true nature of your own life will be revealed. No matter what you have done in your life, now it is the time to accept it as it is. With no more value placed on it than a meal or a simple book. Because it belongs to the past - it is gone. Accept yourself as you are. Allow yourself to go on. If you felt destroyed until now, with a life in ruin, do not worry - you are not condemned. If your life is happy and you have achieved almost everything you planned for, or if you are somewhere in the middle... there is much, much more. Aren’t you curious? Here is an example: You go to a movie, alone. Go inside the theater and take a seat. The movie starts and it is all about you - playing yourself. For about two hours you are watching it, being aware of its reality. The images and emotions are rolling in a fast forward mode, and at the end of the movie, the final scene is you, sitting in a movie theater, watching the movie of your life. The real you, as well as the "you" from the screen, is standing up and leaving the theater. You have re-lived your life as you thought about it, but to continue from here, you have to let yourself to be in the present moment. Allow it to happen. Acknowledge and accept the creator of your life - yourself! You may be saying now that all this is just another philosophy or abstract concept, untouchable and far away from being practical. I would like to take a moment to prove you are wrong if you think that way. What I am talking about here, is a controlled - not controlling - daily process or phenomenon. It is an existence with physical results. There is one category of people who are using a technique similar to what I am talking about. The better they use this process, the more money they make, and you love them! I suppose it is not just them doing it, but I have had the chance to learn their ways: The Actors. Every professional actor has to do specific work in order to play a role. At first, after accepting a role, they learn as much as possible about the character they are going to play. Often, even if they play a 45 year old character, and the role has no reference whatsoever to its childhood, they ask questions like: How was I (the character) at the age of 5? If they feel they have insufficient data about the character, they will ask, or create his roots. Once that is done, they can fulfill their job and become that character. Mediocre actors play the character, while the very good actors become the character. What does this have to do with my book? Well, in order to play more than one role, and to return to a normal life, not fiction, the good actors have to practice the same kind of technique I advocate, otherwise you might see them always playing the same kind of roles. They have to go through a period of cleansing of identifying what came from the character, and clearing it, or in better words, separating it from whom they really are. Sometimes, this process takes weeks, or months. If they don’t do this, a new character and role will have the same tic, same movement and same speech pattern as an old character. Sooner or later they may loose control of their own lives. They reach a limit and can’t find the way to surpass it. Great actors will always know the difference between the role they are playing and themselves. So you see, this mental “cleaning” is possible and more than that - it is real and practical. Often people tell me that they have actually experienced this process, several hundred times. Some say they are doing it every day. Many times it is stressful and they become tired. This happens because they are forcing the process, instead of just doing it in the most natural and simple way. They feel the stress, the pressure. They struggle to come out of a situation by fighting it. Action, in any form, will attract and result in reaction. Pull one end of a rubber band. The other end will react. The rubber band will stretch. Action calls for reaction. Then, how is it possible to do something without doing it? The confusion is usually made between the actor and the character. We live our life - we play our character. The problem is that the above sentence becomes like this: we live our characters. So many people on this planet consider their "role" as being themselves. Mister so and so - general manager of whatever bank or Miss so and so - lawyer for whatever big time law firm, both believe that their job and careers are their lives. Consider this: Companies go bankrupt, banks are sold or transferred to another bank - and you're not needed anymore. Your job…what about it?! Now you have it - now you don’t. Have you died? No, but it feels disastrous because it’s like your whole life is ruined. You accepted a role, my friend. You learned and assimilated that character so well . . . and you are playing it almost perfectly. You have even beaten Robert De Niro . . . There is only one little difference between the two of you: He is having fun and you aren’t! We are born with life. We die when life within us slips away. A role is what we learn to play. We learn it so well that we become the character and live its role. A role is just a role and because somewhere, very deep inside us life is pulsing and ultimately is wearing down; we struggle to get out. Sometimes, we do not even know why we struggle, but we feel the pressure. It’s hard to live in someone else’s skin. So we struggle to come out of our own accepted character and we have no idea how to do it. We feel the stress instead of fun, wondering why… Your life is Sacred. Your role is just social life. What you did, was to surrender your sacred life to the social life. If you believe in any God, then surrendering your sacred life to something, other than God, is a sacrilege. If you do not believe in God, then the same surrender is just a stupid waste. You can’t control the social life being surrendered to it. You can’t make more money or have better sex... you cannot be happy. It will never be enough. I am not suggesting you quit your job, or retire in the mountains. It would be a shocking experience for everybody, including yourself. And it will make no sense; nothing will change. Social life is just part of the real life, the Sacred Life. Running away is not a solution. Life is a wave - be one with it. Our society will go on existing as you know it. It will change eventually, but this process will take years - generations of people working toward it. The change should be in our way of living: Be the actor playing the social role - not becoming it. In this way you will control your inner life, and not be controlled. I told you before, that I consider self-acknowledgment an essential step on this path because it is the engine that will propel you in one of the most exciting and enjoyable journeys of your life. Here is how: Becoming aware of yourself and acknowledging the difference between you and your role is the preparatory step toward enlightenment. It is like a warm-up for any athlete and it has to be total. Once you have started this process, somewhere along the line, you will feel the separation between you and your character. You will feel, not just understand, that if you die, your character dies; but if your character dies, you will still be here. This separation will allow you to feel a special strength that lives within you, and that, my friend, I promise you, is the first step toward being total and enlightened. From here, everything is within your reach. The concept of impossibility does not exist, because you did not set limits. The wave has started. You will still be a normal person, do not worry. This separation does not mean that you are going to walk around like some kind of smiling weirdo... it only means that your Sacred life - the real you - is taking over. You will be manifesting social life as well as anything else. Your power will make it happen. As you create this separation, another feeling will occur. You will feel more and more detached from all the issues and problems in your life. Problems will fade when facing your inner power. Even if this whole phenomenon looks very technical, or like a step by step procedure, it is actually a way to exist. It is part of existence, like a re-birth. There are no steps, even if I use these words. Do not stop at words. Understanding me is one thing, but feeling what I am talking about, is another. Words, as part of a form, a language, are limited. Understanding them will offer only a limited experience. That is why I said: Feel, instead of think. Experience. It is time to go on. Once you become aware of who you are, you find the real you, the real life. Separated from the illusion, you realize reality. Separated, though total. Powerful, and yet, detached. There is one word missing. I will put it in, at the end of this paragraph. After that... there is nothing. Or everything. No matter. Identified and unified, you have found your roots, deep inside your own existence. What is left to do after this? Nothing for now. Like an observer, aware of who you are, silent and powerful, just watch. Watch your own thoughts. They come and go. Just watch and have fun. Thoughts are passing through your mind, triggering emotions. Just watch and they will self dissolve; remain detached and they will float, and after that, blow up like soap bubbles. When you watch unattached, your perception grows. It becomes wider and faster. As you see life differently, . . . wonder and enjoy it. Be like a child. Somewhere, deep inside us, there is a child. It is still there because it never grew up in the real sense. We never became what we should have. Lost in a social labyrinth, the child is waiting. He cannot move, he cannot cry. But he can wait. The purest innocence in the Universe - the child within - is hidden, locked in and lost, but not forgotten. This is the reason we all strive. This is the origin. And as you find yourself, accepting what you are, a wave of freedom will rise within, and you’ll return to joy, spontaneity, and peace. You will play again, totally involved, totally detached. Free of fear, because there is no past or future, you will create your present here and now, with this extraordinary quality of a child who is able to wonder. To be able to see the miracles and make them happen at the same time in a very simple and ordinary way. To be able to just be . . . Alive. Somewhere, blended in the Sacred Knowledge, there is one little piece of precious advice: always keep secret our discoveries and achievements. For many years I wondered why. Somewhere else, in a different culture and history, it was said that if you have the light, put it in the window. Here we have two different opinions about our search and the results we are obtaining. At first sight, these two are completely opposite. However, if we consider that actually they were talking about the way of sharing, not the sharing itself, they are both saying the same thing. It took me many years to understand this. In fact, it was something I felt first and understood later. Trying to share some of my results with others put me in a very precarious situation. I was told that basically, I was crazy. This was said in other words of course, but that was the essence of the message. I was told to mind my own business and do what everybody else was doing - to get a normal, ordinary life. Now, allow me to give you a translation as well as some advice. Whatever you feel, no matter how excited you become about your experiences, try to avoid sharing and teaching them to others. Keep your achievements and powers a secret. No matter how right you will be, people will step back and think that you’ve lost it. There will be no hesitation to "execute" you, and a sad surprise will await you, even from the most unexpected people. What I am saying to you here is not egocentrism. It is reality. I am not talking about rules, ethics or morals. This is reality. The hourglass of your life is turned only once, when you are born. After that, your time is trickling down and nothing will stop it. When you think that the people around you need help, offer them a book, or even better, be a living example for them. But help only when you are asked, otherwise it’s just a waste of time and energy. Keep your light in the window. Don’t run around in darkness screaming that you have the light to share. If you do that, people will be disoriented and suspicious. Stay still, and distant like a lighthouse. Those in need will see it. Let them come. If I haven’t convinced you yet to try what I am talking about here - to try it, not to understand it - then forget about this book for a while. You have to be ready and willing to do the work! Just going to the next chapter will be a waste of time for you. You will just read it with your analytical mind - you will put together some opinions and you will label this book... Analyzing the words, you will only use your knowledge accumulated from somewhere or somebody. It will be an intellectual cocktail. You will have a memory of the book, but not a living experience. You will be able to say - "I know this", instead of - "I do this". If this is the case, this book may not yet be for you, because you would be actually missing one of the components that I think is necessary to become or grow and exist as a universal being: curiosity to experience and feel more or the need for more. Now, close the book and when you open it again, at a later time, see if you feel any different than when you first started. If you don’t, my message did not go through your shell and maybe it is just because of the language I use. Being in the United States for only a little more than three years, I did not mastered yet the use of the English language. In the back of this book you will find information about how you can find me. I am responsible for what I wrote. If something is not clear, then you can ask. Anytime. Take your time to discover yourself. Nothing is needed. The expression “have to” makes no sense here. Discovering is effortless, and fun. When you are bored - stop. When you are hungry - eat. When you are thirsty - drink. There are no rules to follow on this path. If you want to walk - you walk. If not - you don’t. The simpler - the better. Exercises The key to these exercises is to practice them as they are presented here, without adding any complications. Each and every one of these exercises can be practiced individually. If you choose to do more than one at a time, the order is irrelevant. Also, the time during the day when you practice is up to you. My only recommendation is that because you are not familiar with them, you should practice before a meal instead of after. Sit down in any position that is comfortable for you while keeping your back perfectly straight. Place one hand on your chest and one right below your navel. Breathe normally and observe which hand moves more. Pressing slightly with the hand positioned on your chest, breathe in pushing your abdominal area forward. This way, the hand on your chest will not move while your hand over your novel will rise every time you breathe in. Practice in this manner until your breathing becomes abdominal only, then remove your hands. Repeat the technique standing and walking. When practiced daily, these exercises will have at least the following results: they will reactivate your vital force; they will improve your digestion; they will increase your awareness over your posture as well as breathing. Anytime you have a chance, rub your palms together until they become hot. It is not the speed of the hands that counts but the amount of strength used in pushing one palm against the other. Then, for a few minutes, do a complete rubbing of your scalp. I also like to practice after I take a shower, a full body rub with a dry and rough towel. Because having a flexible and healthy back is imperative, practice the following rolling spine exercises - every night when you go to bed. Note: If you have any problems with your back, ask your doctor about these exercises and how can they might affect your current condition. Simple roll. Using your body weight and the movement of both arms and legs, roll back and forth allowing your body to be totally relaxed at both ends of the roll. As you practice this exercise, allow yourself to stay longer every time on each stretch. Breathe out at the beginning of each stretch. Advance level: your hands will hold the toes and your legs will be kept straight for the entire length of this exercise. Little boat. Crossing your legs in an Indian position - with your hands holding your feet and your elbows on the knees, do the same roll as the one above. At both ends of each roll you will stretch forward - touching the floor with your forehead; respectively backwards - touching the floor with your knees. Advanced level: keep your balance in the middle, for a few seconds, as illustrated below: Note: Practice these rolls on a firm mattress or on the floor, wearing at least a T-shirt to protect your skin. Cat Play. This exercise has been and it still is part of my Martial Arts training, as well as part of the classes I teach to the kids. It has many forms, but I will only tell you about five of them. You will need a partner, or, if you have kids is even better. Stand up - both you and your partner - facing each other, with your feet apart (at a distance approximately equal with the distance between your shoulders). The distance between the two of you should be an arm's length. The purpose of the exercise is to increase awareness, reflexes and self-control. This exercise trains you to take control over your emotions and over your body. Stay focus on your muscular tension, mood and breath. It is the speed and reactions that count, instead of the strength used. Do it slower or faster, depending on what effect you want to obtain: stimulating or sedative. When both of you are ready, start touching each other fast enough to make it difficult for each partner to avoid the contact. The task for both partners at the same time is to touch the "opponent" while avoiding being touched by him/her. Keep your hands open and relaxed - this way nobody will get hurt. Any body movement is allowed in order to avoid the contact, except moving your feet. Imagine or remember how cats play: fast but relaxed at the same time. If your moves become too strong, take mental control to relax. Practice the same exercise sitting with your legs crossed, or in Zazen (Japanese meditation position, using a cushion while sitting on your knees and ankles) if your ankles allow it. Use multiple "opponents" while one stays in the middle "attacking" and "defending" at the same time. Go back to two partners and have one of you blind folded, then both use blindfolds. Practice with your eyes closed and your feet tied together in the following way: your right ankle will be tied to your partner's left ankle and your left ankle to his right ankle. Infinite Stretching. I recommend this exercise to everybody for its quality of improving all the functions of your body. Use any stretching movements you know and move as slowly as you possibly can. For instance, if it usually takes you a few seconds to lift your arm above your head, this time go slower and make the movement last more than one minute. Use the full range of motion of each joint in your body, while you imagine yourself reaching for the infinite. Allow your breath to flow normally. It will adjust and slow down by itself as you relax and slow down your movements. At the end of each stretch, hold that position for a few seconds more every time you do it. Self-Postural Adjustment. This technique is to be used at anytime and whenever you remember to do it. It will save you from a lot of back pain and discomfort. It has two forms and you can practice them together, separately or combined with any other techniques. Standing/sitting form: Imagine your body stretched by an external force, pulling you by the top of your head and by your heels simultaneously. Take a deep breath in, compressing your abdominal area against your spine and rotating your hips forward at the same time. You can practice this, sitting on a chair or standing, as long as you keep your back straight. The illustration below shows the movements of your body during this exercise. Remember: they all happen at the same time. As you exhale, you will not move anything except your head and neck that will have a backward and upward motion - something like a turtle pulling its head backwards. Laying down form. This form should be practiced only after you mastered the standing or sitting form. Lay down on the floor or on your bed, with you hands under your head, right above the occipital ridge. Take a few breaths and relax. Take a deep breath in and at the same time, do the following movements: - lift your head and shoulders helping yourself with the hands; - relax your abdominal muscles compressing them like in the standing form and drop the entire weight of your head and shoulders in your hands; - roll your spine back on the floor or bed; - stretch your heels forward; - rotate your hips upward. This complex technique will improve your posture and sleep. The secret of these exercises is relaxation and joy. Practice them as if you were playing some kids' game. Some of them will probably seem totally stupid to you or you might not see the mental benefits of it, but they do activate unused functions of your brain. “If you understand, things are just as they are; if you don’t understand, things are just as they are." ZEN PROVERB Chapter 2 IMAGINATION - ILLUSION OR REALITY? I know this chapter should have been the first one, but I wanted to challenge you. Later on, I will share with you what I think is the most powerful and amazing key to a door that has many names and on which we are all knocking: TAO; GOD; UNIVERSE. But first, you have to be prepared. To go through such a difficult process, as the one that I call Acknowledgment, it takes a lot of courage. We are used to living our lives according to other people’s rules, so that in the end, what we really become is just a fake. “Changing” cannot even become the subject of our mentalities anymore. It does take courage to let go of our past and realize the fact that the only ones responsible for our life is us. Judging, blaming anything or anybody else, only shows our weakness. Our social life is not an easy task to control. Many times we become controlled, even though we have the impression of being in control. Please notice that I use the word “social” before life, because life - the way I understand it and as I said before - it is not the life we live as social animals. The real life knows no boundaries or concepts. It is a powerful energy that flows through everything. It is an amazing strength and instant knowledge, generating a wonderful feeling. It would really be a sacrilege to define life as being the social mess to which we have surrendered unconditionally. Can you believe how paranoid we are? Because of this social mess that we call life and because it’s such a hard and continuous fight, we even start to blame God for making it so! Or even worse, the deeper we go into the shadow, the more we say that all of this is just karma, or destiny... and of course, we HAVE to accept it unconditionally and to pay. Think about it, my friend... do you really think that God - if he exists - created all your car payments, all your house mortgages and all the things that are so frustrating for you? Don’t you think he made you out of joy? Don’t you think you should enjoy life? Don’t you think that you should change, and LIVE? And if you don’t believe in God, then don’t you think you should enjoy life anyway? However, there is no joy without freedom - within. I think all people could be soul-free and everybody could be happy. I think we all need to change. We have only two choices: to give some value to our lives and change, or keep on doing what we are doing now, transforming life into a boring and flat routine. We live our life or just be lived by it. LIFE has nothing to do with what WE do to ourselves, and if there is a God out there, we are wasting his creation tarnishing and destroying it; counting maybe on an after-death existence. And if there is no God, there is no after-death, so we are wasting it anyway, instead of being happy and alive. The choice is yours. The life is yours. Do you have the courage to gamble on it? As you read this book…you may be on the same wave with me or you may not. You may be a very simple and open-minded human being. You may also be a very strict and logical one. For you, perhaps, one plus one will always equal two. This is the reason I am writing this book giving both examples. This chapter is about a tool that we all have, use and need at the same time - some of us more than the others. But we all have it. In equal “amounts” . . . There may be a God somewhere or maybe not. Who am I to say which way is real? I do have an opinion, as well as you have one. We should respect each other’s opinions even if there are differences, and it’s better this way, because we may both be right or we may both be wrong. In this way, we can never argue. In this way - there is no conflict. Let’s say for now, there is a God. Think about God for a minute. Imagine yourself in his place, eternities ago... when there was nothing except you. Well, you, God for the moment, created the Universe, the Earth and Life - but how? In order to create - and that means movement - you would've had to consider an intention. If there is no intention to move and create, no movement or creation will take place. Now, what does it takes to generate intention? How can you intend to do something… anything… if you have no representation of that action? You will think “it’s obvious”... it’s simple, yes, but it is not obvious. Look at a baby. He wants to walk, but first he has to see it done by other people. And not just see, but become in his own way, aware of walking. With his little, gentle mind, he has to reproduce the action of walking in his brain. At first, he watches people walking around and that is all. Then, while watching people, he realizes that he wants his mama. Next, he relates the two: Move - to go to mama; walk - to go to mama, faster. From here, it takes courage and practice. It is an on-going process because few of us today, know how to walk. So, let's go back to pretending that you are God. You have an intention to create the Universe, but in order for your intention to exist, you need to acknowledge your own presence. You need to become conscious about yourself, and that means who you are, what you are, how strong you are... everything. Sounds familiar from the first chapter, right? You are God; you become aware of yourself, as God; you intend to create the Universe and that means planets, stars, trees, humans, bugs and everything. And you move; you manifest. Through action, you create. Didn’t I miss something? A link? To intend to create all this…“everything”, you have to imagine it. Because there was nothing but you around, you needed to imagine. So, it was your imagination, as God, that created everything around you. It takes imagination for reality to exist. On the other hand, if there is no God, we don’t need to bother thinking about how everything was created or who did it. We have scientists for that. How about imagination then? Now if I tell you about a juicy steak sizzling on the grill and the aroma of blended herbs and garlic... A huge salad with all the good stuff in it, and your favorite ice cream, next to an exotic fruit shake... how would you feel? If you don’t feel anything, then something is wrong with you, or you just had lunch. Or maybe you just don’t like my choices; then find your own example and you will see my point. You will actually feel it! If just a small quantum of imagination can make enzymes react and hormones tramp, it means that there is a lot of power in it, so why not use it?! We have the ability to control the primordial and the most powerful tool that ever existed: Imagination. There is no reason to deny it or refuse to use it, and still, millions of us are doing just that. Close your eyes. You will see nothing. For a blind person, there are no colors. Cover your ears. You will hear nothing. For a deaf person, there is no music. Shut off your imagination. You will enjoy nothing. For an unhappy person, there is no life. Look at all the kids around you, in your house, school, or park. The only thing they do is to imagine. Their perception about life, and about themselves, is very different then the reality, as we see it. On a daily basis, we try to educate them about reality. Our reality and our limits. Interfering in their process of perception, we alter, most of the time, their ability to feel happy. Not for the moment, but for later on, as “grown-ups”. Children have to be allowed to discover for themselves. They have the best way to do that: through imagination. Conventional learning will just slow their thinking process and limit their perception of life. Imagination is freedom, strength and growth. Any world record, in any sports, happens because of imagination. Any invention happens because of imagination. Your lunch, your socks, and car... all of them are imagination. Music, dance, healing and emotions - they are all the product of imagination. If I would have to define (although I know how limited words are) imagination, then this is how it would be: Imagination is Life and Death. Life and Death are just Imagination. Because of this definition, I challenged you in the first chapter to realize and accept who you really are. Because this is the only way to begin the creation: The Becoming of Man. Using imagination, we can redefine ourselves the way we want to. We can change our behavior; our life patterns if we want. We can control our habits and make them happen or have them disappear from our lives. It is a wonderful, powerful ability that we have, as long as we are alive. An ability that has killed so many people, but also saved many others. It could be used as a weapon, as well as a medical tool. We just need to know, first, who we are. I will focus of course, on the positive, creative side of imagination, but first I would like to point out some of the destructive ways we are using it, against ourselves. One day, this could save you. To be ridiculed by our boss at work, or by some mean girls or boys calling us names when we were kids has happened to all of us at one time or another. Remember the frustration you felt? Remember the pressure in your head, or your heart beating like a bunch of drums? Is there anything - right now, as you read - that if you start thinking about it, you would feel the same way? Something that bothered you so much, that it’s still hard for you to deal with it in your mind and it still makes you nervous? Well, you just felt the power of your mind over your blood pressure and heart rate. If you are healthy, these effects on your physical body become just accumulated stress, but if you are not, they are a warning. In your moments of high conflict, imagination can keep you safe, but it can also provoke a stroke, because our brain controls all the functions in the body while at the same time, the brain is controlled by our mind and its perceptions. Imagination is the link between the brain and the mind, and we can have control over it. Or we should.. Imagination is a powerful tool, used by all of us during our life. With training, we can learn to control it and use it to its highest potential. I would like to show a few ways to protect our health through imagination. Remember though, no matter what level of control you achieve, for many generations to come, we all have to give credit to the established medicine. Alternative or complementary medicine comes to help not to replace. For this reason I like to use the term “complementary” instead of “alternative”. Saving a life is more important than the way used to do it. Maybe this is not the place to do this, but I recommend that all the medical doctors learn as much as possible about all the complementary ways of healing, and use these modalities themselves or through practitioners. On the other hand, of course, it would be helpful for all the other healers to know exactly what established medicine can do, and when it is the time to call a medical doctor and exchange information about their cases. Soon enough, health practitioners will work together, regardless of their fields of training. Soon - I hope - saving lives will be more important than making money and playing ping pong with the patients. All this knowledge that human kind has accumulated during its history, should be gathered for only one purpose: so millions of lives could be saved. Do you know what it takes to make this possible? Abolition of vainglory. All the actions, of all of us, are vital for so many other people on this planet. The more we grow as universal beings, the better this world will become. But we need to imagine it first. Unfortunately, because of the rhythm of our society, humankind has less and less of a chance to adjust itself to the Universe. The faster we live our social lives, the slower we grow as universal beings. The faster we go the faster we become tired, losing energy and life. The slower we go, the easier it is to observe, and after that, to adjust ourselves to the energies around us. Running around like crazy will never help us find what we really are supposed to find. Let me give you an example. Have you ever tried to catch a train while it was moving? Or have you seen someone trying to do this? Let’s say you are on the side of the railroad track and a train goes by really fast. If you move back and forth, the train goes by and you never have the chance to jump on. If you will stay still first, you will be definitely sure in which direction it is going. You will also be able to observe its speed. Your eyes will target the movement of the train and follow it. If you start running, the speed between you and the train will decrease and you will have more chances to jump; but if you start to run and forget why you are running, it will never go through your mind again to jump on the train, and you are lost. Unless you stop and start again. The Universe works the same. It is the train, speeding next to you. If you want to jump in, and become one with it, you need to adjust. You have to observe its speed and power. Imagination will be your run and you will jump. Forget about imagination, and you will go nuts. Running and running . . . Because of my work, I have the opportunity to meet a lot of people with problems. Some of them cannot walk, move an arm, or their heads. Some of them have headaches or weakness in their bodies. Most of the time, they expect their doctors or somebody else other than themselves, to take care of their problems and to heal them. If you are in some way injured or sick, you may not like what I am about to tell you right now. If you are not doing anything to help yourself, healing will occur much later than it is possible to occur or maybe never. Now, if you enjoy pain, I can understand you, however, if you are like me, and think of pain as something unnecessary, then you should learn to help yourself. And for that, one thing is important: that you accept your ability to self-heal. Once you have done that, imagination will be on your side. It is you, this time, in control and self-confident. What is therapy? The treatment of an imbalance. Its purpose, according to our knowledge, is to fix something that goes wrong. So, a particular disease has to happen within the limits of our bodies. The human body is a very complex mechanism, made out of many systems, all of them working together and independently at the same time. We are running this mechanism from our brain, the organ that has the ability to coordinate everything, using energy. Our brain controls 100% of our body and its functions. It coordinates digestion, movement, moods, speech, breath and cell replacements. It controls everything we know as “bodily” activity, through a continuous energy movement. It is functioning according to the general rule that seems to make things happen in the Universe: transformation. Many times though, our brain starts to work at a lower capacity. Things within our body are not taken care of at the right time or not at all. It seems that somehow - for different reasons studied by medicine - our brain does not have enough energy to generate a permanent self-healing process. As this phenomenon takes place, we all know what happens to us. Can we reverse it? I believe so, but we need to involve ourselves in this process to make it possible. There is something I once learned about knowledge. Imagine you have a glass of water that is full to the brim. The water inside the glass, is what you know - at this very moment. Next to you, a spring is whispering, refreshing and inviting. The original story says that in order to fill up your glass with the sparkling water from the spring, you would have to throw away the old water. Here is how I changed that story creating a smoother transition. You do not have to throw away the old water - old knowledge. In our world, people are using it. You might need it. The water from the spring though is something that flows. It is spreading knowledge and it cannot be bottled, or it will lose its miraculous qualities. Put aside the glass - knowledge you are holding on to - and just make a cup out of your hands and drink water straight from the spring. That is why it is there. That is why you are there. Once you drink, those qualities will be transferred into your body, into your life. They will become you. Identify yourself with everything you do, with every move you make - physically or mentally. With every word you say, and every thought you think. Identify yourself with your own feelings. This is the spring, so drink from it and it will work for you. Walk. Identify yourself with your own walking. Become conscious about it. Be your legs and arms as you move. In this way you will be able to adjust your posture. In this way it will not harm you, but invigorate. Talk. Identify yourself with your own words until you will express only the truth. In this way it will not harm you, but protect. Eat. Identify yourself with the food, as you are eating it. In this way it will not harm you, but heal you. You will know what is good and what is not... and when to stop. Make love. Identify yourself with your emotions and your partner. In this way it will not harm your feelings, but help you grow and be happy. Whatever you are doing, identify yourself with it. Because in everything you do, energy is consumed, and that brings an imbalance within the body. So, by identifying yourself with all of your actions, everything you do becomes therapy. Do not search for healing. It happens anyway, when you are total. Everything is therapy. Our brain controls our body, but to do that, it has to listen to the signals coming from the body. When you identify yourself with your own actions, thoughts and emotions, you become total. When that happens, your brain receives and translates all the signals from the body, in the right sequence. Its ability to control and interact with the body will increase, and from here, there is only little distance to a healthy and powerful body. This is the translation of that famous Zen saying: here and now. As long as you live within “here” and “now”, as a total being, you have all the chances to improve your condition - no matter what condition you might have. I could give you thousands of techniques for using imagination. You could try all of them. But this is not what I want. There are hundreds of books on this subject and dozens of courses trying to teach it. My intention, with this chapter is to show you a way of thinking about imagination. Once you understand that, you will be able to create your own exercises if you need to. You know better than anybody else what works for you and what doesn't. You will have everything you need to discover, because when you discover you learn. But learning doesn’t necessarily mean discovering. I will include a few exercises I practiced with pretty good results. The main thing remains that you understand the value of imagination. It is just a tool and you have the ability to use it. That is all. I always had fun feeling myself within my skin. You know, we could compare our skin with a sack. It contains and protects us. Imagine yourself within your own skin. Move a little…stretch. Re-discover the process of movement. You have a temperature. Feel its quality. Is it warm, or cold? Feel the areas on your body where temperatures are different. Move within your body. Become aware of your muscles and organs. Have fun doing it. Be a kid. I said before that our brain is controlling our body and it is doing this by receiving signals from outside our body, as well as from inside. It governs based on perception. In school, we were taught that many functions of our brain are sub-conscious processes and we have no access to them. They happen just like that because of a genetic formula. We were taught wrong. We have the ability to control any function in our body. When I say control, I mean change the function’s parameters. We can control metabolism, thereby increasing or decreasing it. That means we can actually lose or gain weight at will. We have the ability to control our breathing. Change the volume of air exchanged by our lungs. If we can do that, it means we can control the pressure within the body. Combined with muscle control, it will help us adjust internally and avoid unpleasant stress on our blood vessels. That means no strokes! Controlling ourselves, at this level, was never made part of our education, just because some people have never been able to do it themselves. So they came up with theories about what we can do and what we cannot. And we accepted and swallowed it, as usual. That doesn’t mean they were right. If you can run but you cannot fly, it is normal for you to tell everybody that WE cannot fly. You will generalize your limits as being universal although levitation is proved and recorded as a "paranormal phenomenon". We are so stuck in our system of beliefs that we call normal things paranormal or abnormal and limited existence as normal. How can we expect to use our brain at 100% capacity, when we, the ones that control it - are programming it to "cannot"? Our brain works at 5 or 10 or who knows what percentage... It all depends if you are a genius or not; a matter of numbers, as if anybody can measure something never understood… I have a test for you. You read through the first chapter and eventually some lights started to blink in your mind. Hopefully, you changed a little and you accepted yourself as you are, willing to become more. To become what you want. This is the test: T H I N K O F Y O U R S E L F A S B E I N G G O D T H I N K O F Y O U R S E L F A S B E I N G THE U N I V E R S E Say it to everybody you meet for one day. Say that you are GOD. Say that you are the UNIVERSE. Read carefully. I said think, not imagine. That means to identify yourself as either one. Dare. See if you are able to do this for a full day - no matter what people you meet or what happens to you. If you can do this for a full day - no matter what people might think about you and your sudden and "weird" change in attitude - the odds that you will be able to control your brain at 100% capacity during your life time are in your favor. It means that you are able to go through your own limits, to step out of a comfort zone and a routine. To take charge. And it makes sense. It is our brain. It just does not go through our mind to use it more than we are told we can. It is a fake limit but very strong. We are a power that created its own borders. CHANGE Sit down for a moment. Create an empty space around you. Create the stillness and the silence that allows you to be quiet for few moments. Bring your attention within yourself and focus on your brain. Feel its size and weight. Become aware of its position and what holds it straight. It has a pulse. Find it. Connect with your own brain. Acknowledge its presence. To go any further, you will need to be very relaxed and alert at the same time. You can use any relaxation technique but here are few that I recommend and few that I do not. “Guided relaxation” - when somebody is leading you through a progressive relaxation - always seemed a little banal to me. For me, those words - you are fully relaxed now - sounded very funny. How can anybody say if I am relaxed or not? Nevertheless, if you have never experienced a full body and mind relaxation, it might be something worth a try. On the contrary, if you can control your own fingers, at your own will, then you can try the next exercise. Lay down on the floor. It is helpful to have a thin mat under your back, to avoid any discomfort. For a few minutes, anywhere from 2 to 5, breathe normally. It is not necessary to count or to start breathing as deep as you can. Breathe normally, it is safer and more natural. As you breathe in, be aware of your weight, pulled by the gravitational field of the Earth. As you breathe out, allow yourself to sink in from head to toes. You can slightly move your toes or fingers, at any time. This way you will send signals to the brain, triggering a soft process of relaxation. Keep doing this for a few minutes, moving your attention target. Pay attention to your feet, then hands, then stomach and so on - you choose your own order. Once you feel relaxed, or at least much more relaxed then when you started, move your attention inside your brain as you exhale. Later, I will explain a different approach to relaxation, but for now this would be the simplest. At this point come to back where you started. Feel your brain. For a few minutes forget about your body. Pay attention only to your brain. Feel. Palpate. Connect. Our brain holds many surprises for us. Discover and remember to have fun. Stay a kid. Do this several times a day. If you are at work and you cannot lie flat on the floor without an ambulance being called, then do this in your chair. It will be less comfortable in the beginning, but more than likely, you will become used to it as with any body posture. That's it. Do it again the next day. Take it easy, without rushing. This is the most precious time you will ever spend. It is actually a beautiful investment in yourself. Enjoy it. The next day, or whenever you want, start in the same way and when you feel connected with the brain, imagine the floor - or chair you are sitting on, suddenly heeling to the left or to the right, like a boat on a very agitated sea. Imagine your whole weight shifting toward left or right. Observe how your brain reacts. Observe the changes in how it feels and then relax. A few moments later you can do it to the opposite side. Later that day you can start having the intention of doing something, but never really doing it. Think of raising a hand but with no muscle contraction. Where in your brain did you feel your intention to move? Think of speaking, but keep your lips together. Where did you feel your intention to speak? Our brain reacts to our commands, and we have the ability to feel where all that information exchange takes place. Once you start to feel this, you can do it anywhere you want: as you work, eat, read, talk and so on. Be totally relaxed and observe where, inside your brain, everything is happening. If we want to increase or strengthen our muscles, we observe how they feel as we work out. If we want to “work-out” our brain, we have to feel it the same way. We need to observe it and be aware of the changes taking place as we work with it. Anytime you decide something, anything, “feel” where that decision took the form of a thought. It happens every day, within your brain, so be aware of it. This way you will become able to control your bodily functions and reactions down to the cellular level. It will take time, especially if you are going to practice only when you are in the mood for it. But soon, it will become easier to control a flu and, of course, much more than that. I suggest that if you want to live longer and healthier, you start these kinds of techniques. If you do not like mine, take time and discover your own - there are endless possibilities - but make contact with your body and with the brain that runs it. It is important for any living being to be in control of its own Life - once it become aware of itself. You might think this is new age type of stuff. In reality, the new age is a very old age. We are so new that we can not remember anything older than a few hundreds years but the new age is ancient. Controlling yourself is not a matter of being cool or smart. It is about survival. It is about the survival of the ones that will follow us. When people will become aware of their strength, there will be no more fear from each other. No reason to fight. Nobody stronger. No opponent. Imagination is the right tool for us. It is a very complex phenomenon, taking place everywhere and nowhere. That is because of its size. I will tell you about another thing I do that makes me feel very strong and flexible at the same time. It is one of my favorite techniques and it has a value that you will feel later. I would tell you about it, but I really do not like prefab thoughts, so I will not give you any. Just the plain technique. Stay in your room. Wherever you are, watch the opposite wall. With your mind, measure the distance between you and the wall. After that, palpate, feel that distance. Watch the objects around you, one at the time. Feel the distance between them and yourself. Close your eyes and project your mind through the window. Feel the distance between the street and yourself. Bring your mind back within the brain. Relax. Breathe. Relax. For better results keep your eyes closed from now until the end of the exercise. Later on, you will be able to practice this with your eyes open, staying still or doing anything. In any case, after each projection, bring your mind (attention) back within your brain. Project your mind to the sky - through the atmosphere, toward the stars. Come back. Project your mind to the sky. Further. And back. And again. Faster. And faster. Project your mind to the sky. And further. Beyond stars. To the infinite. Another word for infinite is unlimited. There are no limits. Project yourself further. Faster, deeper into the infinite and back. Pulsate. I promised you at the beginning of this chapter a key to a door. I said it is the most powerful key I have found to a door leading toward the Universe, or God, or whatever you believe in. Some cultures on this planet had a similar approach and they were very happy and content. Very appreciative of life, those ancient people used to acknowledge the nature around them as being the same as they were. Form did not matter, only essence. A man, a tree, a dog, a pig or a fish, all had something in common: they were alive. I have used this key, as I call it, for quite a while already. It works every time for me. As far as I am concerned, this is a good key to access higher dimensions of this Universe and to connect with it. When I was a kid, I always wanted to understand that advice given by people or books: become one with God - you are one with it, or, become one with the Universe - you are one with it. Years later, abandoning myself, I understood how it works. I struggled because of the way the information was distorted on its way from the Universe to people's minds. I think we live in a huge misunderstanding, and of course, there are major interests to keep us at this puppet level. Unluckily for those pulling the strings, the times will change. The times are changing now. Well, this is the key: In your search and quest for the Universe and God, be free of human nature. Be free of thinking human. Feeling human. Being human. If you want to touch the Universe, you are too small and slow as a human. Human - is an adjective given to an object that makes a perfect host and transport vehicle on Earth. Our ancestors were close enough to this truth but some of them wanted to rule over the others. Those swelled heads had the superciliousness to declare that we, the humans, are some special unique creation and then they quickly created some rituals and rules for people to follow and obey. To bow and fear their creator. It is still happening, today... You have a life and there is nothing in between you and the Universe or God. Respect this life and rise instead of bow. Accept your power to imagine and create. You are the Sacred artist creating yourself continuously as the Universe changes around you. You are Life, not human. Before I go to the next chapter, I would like to draw a conclusion and pass on some advice at the same time. Too many times I have seen people become interested in meditation and such and they begin to do random procedures or exercises. I like to practice techniques that are real and hooked into reality. I am a real person. I might be aware of only 1% of what I could really be, but that 1% is a very significant start for me. It shows that I am alive, not dead. A lot of relaxation techniques contain instructions to be followed by the one practicing them. One technique may start with something like - imagine yourself in a beautiful place, with white, little angels, and you feel relaxed, and safe...and so on, where is that place? I know what I said about imagination, that it is the source for our reality, and that we have to imagine - in order to create. But I would like to give some additional information on this matter. It will bring you back to here and now. Use your imagination to grow, to become LIFE, not just to escape social situations. One day, not a very long time ago, man used to watch the flying birds looping in the sky. Watching the birds, man invented the kites. Making bigger kites all the time his wish came true: man flew. Now, we all can fly. Take a look around you. See the world. Start from here. Use it now. People who misunderstood the value of imagination have created all the techniques that give you instructions about imaginary worlds. The world around us contains beauty, as well as ugliness. Music, as well as noise. Love, as well as hatred. Life and Death. Use your imagination to palpate and feel the world around you. Do not isolate yourself trying to avoid ugliness or noise. They are part of the world, as well as you are. Isolating yourself, you restrain the power of the Universe from flowing through you. It might feel good to imagine little fairies and worlds of eternal peace, but this is more of a hobby. You can do this too, along with other things, so you can have fun. But when it comes to your growth, grow from reality, otherwise you might become one of those misled souls with an angelic smile on their face. And when something really shocking happens in your life, your smile will drop and you will drop too. Some people use drugs to isolate themselves from the world. Some people join monasteries to isolate themselves from evil.Some people paint, have sex or work - to isolate. Some people use imagination to escape a world of ugliness. If that happens to you, my friend, go back to the first chapter, because there is still conflict within you. Beauty and ugliness is only where your perception says: I like it or I don’t. The Universe exists unaffected by your opinion. And when you have such an opinion, you already have isolated yourself from the Universe, from being total. Accept everything that’s out there, good or bad, for no other reason than just because it is. Be part of everything and you will discover the true freedom. Isolate yourself and you will be trapped by your own conflicts. The only thing that counts is that you are - this is where your strength comes from. I hope you have - now - the means to live your life discovering it. I hope you found within you, the joy to search and to become. And if you did, share it with others by being yourself. Before you go to the next chapter, stop for a while and enjoy life because it is the best thing you can do. Live your own creation, as you are making it happen and smile like a kid playing the best game ever imagined. Exercises Body movement. Take a plastic plate and hold it in your palm with your hand open. Play with your hand, moving it in any possible direction keeping the contact between your hand and the plate at all times. Move slowly, like a dance, until all your movements become smooth and round. Later, you will practice with two plates - one on each hand. You will also change the rhythm, moving accordingly to different types of music. At first, move only your hand, but when you become familiar with this "dance", start taking steps. Change your stances, create your own art by moving your body in any imaginable form without losing contact between your palms and the plates. Breathe softly as you move. It is an art, not a workout. By moving, you express the very essence of your soul, getting in contact with your deepest emotions or memories. Slowing down. As part of an exploring journey and discovering new aspects of your inner life, the slowing down exercise is meant to train your self-awareness as well as increase your perception about the world around you. Slow down your movements whenever you have a chance: when you walk, when you eat, when you write or when you turn your head to look at something and so on. Control every move you make and bring grace and calm into your lifestyle. Slow down your speech so you can hear your own thoughts between the words. Control your emotions and let self-confidence be felt by you and others when you speak. Slow down your reaction. Even if a situation requires a certain reaction from you, make it slower. By controlling your emotional response and your muscles, your external reactions will slow down. Then work on your internal reactions - those that nobody else but you could be aware of. Work from within an ocean of inner serenity. Slow down your thinking. At first practice alone in quietude. Let yourself hear your thoughts and slow them down as they appear in your mind. Slow down until you can actually feel the space between two thoughts. When you reach that level of control over your mind - even if just for a moment at the beginning - allow yourself to plunge into that silence between the two thoughts. You will discover a special "nectar", if I may call it that…absorb it. Inner movement. Begin a journey within your body. Identify all the movements that are taking place there. Feel your heart beat, your lungs, your blood. Everything. Then, with your mind, go deeper into yourself visualizing the muscles, the bones, the nerves and the blood vessels of which your body is made. Allow yourself to go even deeper, to a cellular level. Identify yourself with all these and vibrate within each cell of your body. Every cell is made out of molecules that could be broken down into atoms and electrons, and all of them are in essence - energy. Identify yourself with this energy that vibrates within every cell of your body. Explore. Human geometry. Find simple, geometrical forms such as a triangle, a circle, a square or a straight line, that could be expressed by your body by taking different positions. Imagine one geometrical form and project it into your body by taking a position that would best express it. Identify yourself with that form and project it to the infinite. Hold that position for a few moments and then choose another one. Find a position that could be a projection of a point. “Those who want the fewest things are nearest to gods.” SOCRATES Chapter 3 THE THREE MIRACLES I think that miracles happen all the time, everywhere and to everybody. But because we are so serious and preoccupied, we have no chance to see the miracles under our nose. Because of that, miracles remain for us, just fragments from heroic legends, or fairytales. Part of a mysterious existence, miracles take different forms. They become divine signs, appearing to ordinary people and telling them something about their lives and change them - dramatically. If there are no miracles happening in your life, then you grew up too much...come down a little. Miracles happen much easier to kids because they keep the wishes and dreams alive. We all grow up... it is something we cannot avoid. But, the result of it, we can avoid. The main difference between kids and grown-ups is the size of the world around them. As we grow, we isolate ourselves causing the world around us to be in a continuous process of shrinkage. The world surrounding kids is huge. It reveals new things, new discoveries every second and it’s fun. It expands to the infinite - where there are no limits and miracles become possible. Expand your perception to the infinite. How can you do this? Use what you already have. I tried, in the first two chapters, to show you that life is not a self-limiting phenomenon, but on the contrary - an infinite one. And because we are made out of this infinite life, we are infinite too. But no matter how much of a genius we are, we still exist in an embryonic form. We can start growing whenever we desire, and expand our power and perception to the infinite. Expanding means, from the very beginning, a cancellation of any limits that are set within ourselves. Remember the test from the previous chapter? Have you done it? Did you have the courage to say that you are God or the Universe? Tests like those are endless and could go on and on for a long time... Do you like to eat? Fast. Do you like watching TV? Look out the window. If you hate your mother-in-law - pay her a visit and chat together. Do you smoke? Quit. If you really wish to expand your perception, your life, then it is very important to be able to define your limits and to find their origin. It will take some time but you are the most qualified person to do it. Challenge your limits all the time. This way you will expand to infinite, and it is obvious, the infinite has no limits. Limits annul the infinite. Choose. Our mind expansion is possible, and it brings physical benefits into our daily lives. When I began to use “meditation”, I was taught to focus my mind within myself because that was the place where my own Master awaited. I was told to withdraw my senses from their targets, and by doing this, my concentration would grow. Maybe you are taking meditation courses right now. Maybe you are being told the same thing. Meditation is a life time practice and most of the time we don’t know what we are doing. Maybe for you those techniques work but I must tell you that they did not work for me. You should already know why. I am alive. The world around me is part of the Universe. My intention is to expand myself to the infinite without limiting the expansion in any way. If there is noise, then I must be aware of it and use it.If there is agitation and I am part of it, then I must use it. Withdrawing myself from reality into a world of fantasy makes no sense to me. It is this Universe, with this world and life as part of it, that I intend to know, to absorb until I become one with it. If we respect Creation (no matter who did it - the Universe or God), then there is no way we can’t accept it as it is. Acceptance is just part of the expansion of the mind. Use everything you have and everything there is around you, because as long as there is something, your perception can touch it. Use everything, all the time. Sometimes we leave this reality and fly through the clouds of our fantasy. It is fun, but only do this once in a while, otherwise you may end up confused without knowing what is real and what is not. Because of its infinite quality, the Universe allows everything to exist: Everything is right - nothing is wrong. For this reason I prefer and recommend reality as the starting point. If we start expanding from reality as we know it, rather then from our fantasies, it would be more useful, because this will fill our lives as we live them, not as we dream about them. Within the form you will find the essence. There are many ways to generate and control the expansion of our perception. Our brain has the ability to perform incredible functions regarding this matter. I will try to explain how I see those functions and how we can increase their accuracy. Perception, by definition, is a very simple phenomenon. It is about a signal coming from somewhere into our brain, through our senses and transformed into sensations. This is all we need to know - not the chemistry of it. In order to increase our perception, we need to increase our senses. Increasing the use of our senses, the brain starts to function at a higher rate of precision. One of the results of this process could be an increased I.Q., a higher level of life force and so on. With practice, you will be able to identify, on your own, what changes take place and how you can use them. You will eventually try to understand how, or why it is happening, but remember: perception has nothing to do with analysis. If you start thinking too much about what you feel as you practice, then stop for a while. Perception flows faster than you can possibly think at this moment in human evolution. Allow it to happen, as an observer. In this way, the evolution becomes possible. Make it simple and take it easy on yourself. Increasing the precision and strength of our senses is a very simple process, as long as you allow yourself to be simple. I wrote this book in such a manner that by the time you reach a new “level” of life, you would be ready to accept it as a natural thing that you can do. You don’t really analyze yourself every time you drink a glass of water, do you? Drinking is, for you, a very natural and simple function of your body, right? This same natural, simple approach is what you should have about practicing with your senses in order to expand your perception. If what you are doing is natural and pleasant, no effort and no concentration will ever be necessary. We have five senses that we know about: sight, hearing, smell,taste and touch. We have, at least one sense that we do not know how to classify, the sixth sense: intuition. In my opinion, intuition is part of a large category of senses not accepted yet by the medical authorities because of its very hard to measure essence. In this chapter, I’m trying to reveal a new approach to our five “established” senses. All other extrasensory functions of our brain are, at this moment, part of scientific research all over the world. Some of these functions have been proven to be true and some are yet to be discovered. There are ways to tap into those functions and use them at will, but it takes special training and I will elaborate more in the second volume of this book. Our minds have been “programmed” to perceive the world the way we do. This programming has been a very long process and throughout history there have been a few attempts to start a mass de-programming of human consciousness. To a certain degree, these attempts have succeeded and failed at the same time, reaching a limit that I will discuss in the sixth chapter. In time, human evolution will eventually override the pre-programming that controls it. For now it would be too costly for this to happen, because of the possible social changes. For us, considering only those five senses that we’ve learned about, the world would not exist without them. Imagine a person that has no sight, hearing, smell, taste and touch. For that person there would be no images, no sounds, no odors and no flavors. There would be no heat or cold. No pressure, no caress. Nothing. An impossible survival without artificial life support. As we receive signals from the outside environment, we begin to create a picture in our brain - a representation of the surrounding world - a 3D map. It helps us coordinate our body mechanics, our nutrition, our speech, everything. In a jungle, a wild animal will have all of its senses very active and very strong. If its perception of the territory is wide enough, it can defend, as well as hunt. Survival is the only goal in the jungle. In a human society, where the jungle takes a more sophisticated form, survival is no longer a matter of now; it becomes a matter of time, taking a slow motion aspect compared with the real jungle. From the senses’ point of view, we, as humans, compared with tigers, are lacking alertness and that means the atrophy of the survival instinct. As far as we are concerned in this context, an atrophied perception. I always recommend that before you start anything new, or sort of new, sit down, relax for a second, and disconnect yourself from anything that could distract you. We keep thinking about what we have done and about what we have to do, non-stop. It keeps us busy, I guess... Disconnecting from this perpetual thinking process is a very important step toward our evolution. After the first chapter, you should be able to do it easily enough. Here is another technique to achieve that temporary disconnection. Before you need to do something, sit down for a moment. Think about everything you have done that day - in very little, even insignificant details. Once that is done, think about what you have yet to do today, again include all the details. It should take you anywhere - from five to ten minutes. After that, you will be actually temporarily disconnected from your daily worries and be able to use your brain for something else - something more useful maybe. During those five to ten minutes, please think about everything you want and everything that comes or goes through your mind...Until there is nothing more to think about. Something like a small break will occur, because perception has nothing to do with thoughts, it has to do with signals and what we feel. Perception is not how we respond to signals but how we receive them; how we first interact with these signals before analyzing them. By taking this break from thinking, we will be able to perceive the world, the Universe in a very different and miraculous way. Remember that we do not see the daily miracles because our definition of miracle is incorrect. Our expectation concerning miracles and our definition of them, is actually a statement of human weakness. Therefore, we define a miracle as something that it is suppose to happen to us. I have the feeling that the correct definition should be about something we are suppose to make happen. I said before that miracles happen all the time, to all of us. Miracles are magic! This entire world and Universe are magic. How unfortunate for man to miss it... I do believe in miracles, but my definition, as I stated above, is probably different from yours or the one found in the dictionary. Usually, miracles are associated with something paranormal or extraordinary, compared with regular manifestations of events or phenomenon. My perception of life is that everything is ordinary and extraordinary at the same time. A limited perception of phenomenon will reveal the paranormal. An infinite perception of phenomenon will define the paranormal as ordinary. What separates the ordinary from the extraordinary, the normal from the paranormal, is the border that we place between what we know and what we do not know. WE separate the ordinary from the extraordinary; otherwise, they would both be one. When we start expanding and discovering the Universe within and around us, we start to live on the edge, between what we know and what we don’t know. It is a sort of “no man’s land”, if you want, where miracles can be seen and felt. As a living creature on Earth, we are capable of doing an incredible amount of things. From all of these things, I’d like to consider only three. These three, based on my definition above, are miracles. I will share with you these three miracles that help me live – “on the edge” - where I can see and feel the Magic of the Universe. For you, these three “miracles” may be just ordinary things. For me, they have an incredible power; they are the bridges between our dimension and other dimensions. ATTENTION. The first of the three miracles I would like to talk about is attention. It is about our ability to live in a neutral state of mind. A state of mind receiving signals - not analyzing them. Please note the difference between the following two terms: attention and alertness. Attention keeps our mind neutral, expanding our perception with no limits. Alertness, on the other hand, is expanding our perception but with limits; targeting something - a danger, an action. Being alert, your attention is focused and controlled - limiting the perception to an area of interest. Here is where your senses come to help, and if you “practiced” them like a workout for your muscles, they will be stronger, increasing your perception - transforming an ordinaryfunction of our brain into a miracle. Sight. Most of the information processed by our brain comes from our sight. Generally, we are visually oriented - the other senses are playing, more or less, a secondary role. We absorb information reading, watching TV, and so on. We use our eyes to gather information and to forward it to our brain, like a video camera into a computer. Once there, the information will be analyzed and stored in the memory. From that point, we will react according to our brain’s translation of the information. All this takes less then a second. This process is happening daily, except during sleep, to all of us and throughout all of our lives. This is alertness’ way. When we involve attention - as I defined it - the information is received through our eyes, transmitted to the brain, and…it stops. No translation will take place within the brain and no reaction will follow. This is attention’s way. Just watch. Look around. What do you see? You might see people. Just watch them, without thinking about them. If you analyze, or define people as you watch, noticing who is tall, fat, or ugly, you have already generated a thinking process. As in watching a movie, move your eyes over the images, with your attention wide open. Let the colors surround you, pass in front of your eyes, as you move, as you live. Go to a Shopping Mall on a Sunday. There must be plenty of people there for you to practice on. Have a seat somewhere. Watch all the people at the same time. As they move, run, turn, or gesture. “Feel” them moving, all at the same time. With practice, you will be able to perceive each movement around you, coming from a person, a bus, a car or a bird... from everything. This instantaneous, permanent perception of everything around you will develop your brain through your sight, training it to an increased perception beyond your regular limits. The same is valid for all the other senses. Hearing. Listen to the sounds of the world. Music, as well as noise. Continuing with the example of the Shopping Mall, in addition to what you see, you will also hear. Without analyzing, listen to peoples' steps as they walk or run. Listen to their voices, not their discussions. Listen to all the whispers flowing in the space. Do all this while you look, combining in this way two of your senses. You will receive signals from a world of images and sounds - an expanding world. Smell. Move to the Food Court, where at least ten different restaurants cook different foods, with different aromas and flavors. As you watch and listen, open your attention wider. Smell all the aromas from that place, as they invade the space and as they cross each other between the stores and customer's tables. Use just the neutral state of attention. Free of hunger, free of emotions, watch, listen and smell at the same time - an expanding world. Taste. Paying attention to everybody and everything that moves, listening to all the sounds - voices, chairs, cash registers - catching all the scents around, now go and buy yourself a slice of pizza or something else. Meanwhile, observe the taste of it. Observe the taste of each ingredient, as you see, hear and smell. Touch. Your hands are touching the plate; the glass; the fork. Your body stays on the chair, creating a pressure, your skin is touching and is touched by your clothes. As you see, hear, smell and taste everything, you are in contact with an expanded world, touching your brain through your senses. It will take time, of course, to reach such a level of conscious perception. When you first start, you will become tired in one, five or ten minutes. Then rest and wait for a while. Your brainis not used to working like this. It receives all this data, but at a sub-conscious level. It is a natural phenomenon, because our conscious perception is too slow compared to the speed of life around us. By taking charge here, little by little, the "frame" that separates the conscious activity from the sub-conscious, will become thinner and thinner. At one point, eventually, it disappears. This "frame" that separates the two mind activities, as well as the conscious and sub-conscious levels, is only a definition. They do not exist separate from each other but because this is the understanding of the brain function, at this time, we have to compromise on words. For those of you who start practicing, the results will go beyond any definition, because you will be experiencing this phenomenon in a new way, rather then learning a new way to understand it. You may want more words to define this phenomenon. I have the inclination to say more. But enough of this, for now. Enough words. Go and experience on your own. Discover. Live. Expand. Neutral, beyond all conflicts, stay aware of yourself. Keep your attention on your gestures, on your attitudes and expressions. Free of any judgments, just watch, listen, smell, taste, touch and be here. From the place where you are, to the end of your perception. Now. Total. If you are reading, and at the same time you remember something about your job, your mind just flew away. You are not total anymore, but divided. Bring your attention back to what you are doing at the present moment. In this case, keep reading. If you eat, run, or make love, keep your attention undivided, wide open toward everything. Be aware of what you are doing, as well as of what surrounds you. I know you are smart, but can you put that intellect aside for just a little while? You think too much... Just be. In simplicity. With training, a sort of tune-up will take place. The more you stay aware, the closer you are to feeling total. If your mind does not go anywhere, there will be no energy used to follow it, so you will gain instead of lose. And with power, you can move mountains. In this way, you will transform the first ordinary thing you do into a miracle: attention. By this time, at least few days should have passed since you started to read this chapter. Did you have enough time? If not, why don't you wait longer? Allow yourself to adjust naturally to a different kind of perception, to a new kind of mental activity, more intense. However, if you are ready, let’s go on. The second miracle I would like to tell you about is also very simple to experience. First, you should have experienced what I said before about attention. In this way, you will be able to absorb the full value of the information that follows. WONDER. Another ordinary thing we do, so many times in our lives, especially when we are little kids. We wonder. We use our attention to perceive the world at its fullest level and wewonder. I have only few words to say about this “miracle”, whereas the one that follows, the third one. I could say so many things and tell so many stories; but some things cannot be fully expressed with words. If you took your time, practicing and experiencing attention, then you will be able to feel this miracle at all times. If your attention boosted your perception, then you already know that everything is a miracle. Now you wonder like a child because everything is new and extraordinary. Wonder is a miracle that happens when you are open to the whole Universe. When you return from the journey that I called social life. When you find the miraculous child within you. When you find yourself. Then, you can wonder. Wonder is a miracle that happens when you can watch the sky, the trees, people loving or hating each other and the traffic on the highway - all with the same attitude. When you are wondering about the world and when you can watch with full perception and remain quiet, with your eyes wide open and a smile on your face. Wonder is a miracle that happens when you are alive. When you live the same life that vibrates in a tree, a bug, a criminal, or a piece of asphalt on the street. When your attention is awake and you expand your perception to the infinite, then you can see the miracles around you all the time And wonder. INTENTION is the third miracle I want to tell you about. Or how to be free of yourself first, and then, free of anything you want to be free of. This third miracle is as powerful as the other two. Take time, after you read, to identify your own intentions. Take time to identify the origin of your actions, as well as, the origin of your wishes and dreams. Similar to the way a computer works, they are all programs running at the same time. Some of them are very old; so old that we do not even care about them anymore. But the brain still does, so it works, keeping the “program” running. Our brain is a good computer: executing everything we ask it to execute. Life time warranty... Computers have different programs installed into their hard drives. They have the capability of running applications from several programs at the same time. If a computer has many programs, but limited speed, and someone tries to open all the programs at the same time, the computer will freeze. To make it work again requires shutting down the computer and restarting it again. All unsaved work would be lost. We all know something about intention and we know that if there is something to be done - anything at all - an intention is necessary. If you intend to make some waves in a puddle, you have to first intend to throw a stone in it. And then after that, you need to intend to find a stone to throw. Everything we do requires an intention. For every action, there is a preparatory intention. Imagine for a few minutes that your brain is the computer I was talking about earlier. Now, start to intend to do things that you really want to do. Call your friends. Eat. Do the laundry. Work out. Sleep because you are tired. Pay the bills - they are due. Clean the house – you’re having visitors. And so on... Think about and intend to do all the things that you want and have to do. After you start, in just a few moments, you will feel some sort of stress. If you would do this on a daily basis, your brain would start to shut down different programs or it would record your non-stop intentions; but be frozen at the same time. You would then ask yourself why you are not doing all the things that you are supposed to be doing. Sooner or later, you will be very stressed and looking for help. Eventually issuing more intentions, in order to de-stress; such as, “I need a vacation” - right in the middle of the year when a vacation is impossible! Your brain will react to these intentions too. We do this all our lives and we do not understand why we are so stressed - why life goes by with us being just passive parts of it. Even the way we are asking ourselves these kinds of questions, is done in such a wrong manner, that, in the end, it becomes a stress for our minds as well. Do you want to know why all of this is happening to us? Because real computers comewith a manual and we do not. We start running all the programs we can access, almost all at the same time, without knowing how to operate this machine called the brain. And we “freeze”. Your practices from before will be very helpful now. You will start feeling the results, the effects on your life. One more time, I will ask you to experience instead of understand. Observe. Your life is the result of your own intentions, at one time or another. Your present is the result of the past, and right now, you are creating your future. Through intentions. Watch your own intentions, as they take the form of a thought, in your mind. Honesty is very important here. It is actually vital for your happiness, for your success, for your marriage, for life. Paying attention to everything around you was the first step toward introspective attention. As you intend your actions, be aware of how valuable they are to you. And how true. If your intention has something to do with the future, cancel it. A real intention, one that will help you live, free of yourself, is an intention that becomes action in the present. If you intend to quit smoking, quit the same very moment you intended to do so. Otherwise, it’s a lie. Live in a true way. Live in the present. If you are having dinner with your family, be free of intentions concerning your job, like: "I have to call so and so company..., " or "I have to take care of X’s file.... " You will lose the value of your family dinner, you will not be able to call anybody or take care of anything at that time and eventually, in time, you will end-up stressed and with insomnia. Why? Is it worth it? If you live in the present, if you pay attention to your own intentions and make them happen when you think about them, not later, you will be stronger. You will be more determined than ever. And most importantly, you will be free. Doing now what you intend to do now, will give you a special freedom of thought. Controlling the intentions can bring you the freedom of your own thoughts and worries, or on the contrary, self-slavery. Intention could be an ordinary function of the brain for those that live unaware of its power or it could be a miracle for those who control it, at all times. These are the three Miracles I wanted to tell you about. There are many others and often, all are within our reach. Discover and use them for your life. Miracles happen all the time because everything is a miracle. We can see and live all these miracles if we find who we are and accept it; becoming one with everything around and withinus. When you are one with everything, with this wonderful infinite miracle, then every second of your life will be miraculous. And you will enjoy it like a child. Do you consider unimportant and ordinary all the trees around you, all the buildings sprouting to the sky, all the cars on the street, all the people you do not know as well as everything else around? And the reason you do not pay much attention to them is just because of that? Then you think ordinary, my friend. And your life could be very ordinary, just because of that. On the other hand, if you can see the miracle wherever you turn your eyes, then your life has the value of the miracle because it is one. I think it is a matter of respect and self-respect. If you consider yourself or everything around as ordinary, then, the miracle will never reveal itself to you. Not necessarily because the miracle has to be found - it isn’t hiding anywhere - but because you cover your eyes. Look around - be alive. Exercises Universal Movement. This is a more complex technique, combining elements from other exercises that you practiced before. Its purpose is to put you in resonance with different vibrations at different levels of existence. Take your time to relax your body completely before starting. Sit down in a comfortable position and quiet down the noise of your thoughts until you create a complete silence within yourself. This process might take you a few seconds or a few minutes. Then, identify the movement within yourself until you become one with it. Identify all the movements happening in your immediate vicinity, a door opening, a flying bird or a person walking by, everything, and become one with it. Identify the movement of all things and beings on this planet. Feel and be one with it. Identify the two combined movements of Earth: one around its own axis and one around the Sun. Become one with it and with its incredible speed. Identify the movement of the galaxies within this Universe and become one with it. Identify all of these movements, starting from deep inside your being and all the way to the infinite size of this Universe. Physically still, allow yourself to mentally move at this incredible rate of speed, knowing that you are now, a conscious part of it - for the rest of your existence. If you feel any pressure while you practice, increase your mental awareness of the cosmic movement and imagine your body as well as your mind taking the size of the entire Universe. Before you go any further, stop and look at yourself. See if there is anything different in your attitude. See if you are any different then when you started to read this book. See if you are a better person. See if you have changed. Are you more alive then before? If you are…it is an extraordinary sign of your evolution. Apply what you have learned and live life to its fullest. All sixty seconds of every passing minute. Enjoy it. “The fundamental delusion of humanity is to suppose that I am here and You are there.” YASUTANI ROSHI Chapter 4 TOUCHING THE SOUL We are not alone. We never were and we will never be alone. It just looks like we are. All the people we know or almost all of them, including ourselves, are living on a fast forward mode. Always in a hurry, running around day and night, carrying our worries, we are all chasing our dreams. Lost between illusion and reality, between shadow and light, we usually stop only once... when it is too late for us to “fix” anything. We make friends. We fall in love. We start families. And as we grow older, one by one, people around us disappear. Until it is our time... to go. Many times we consider ourselves alone. But it is just an impression originating from our self-isolation. During our lives we are hurt, both physically and emotionally; and as a result, we start to protect ourselves, isolating, building an ivory tower, where nobody can reach us - to hurt us. There is a little trick to stop being hurt. At least emotionally, because against physical violence I recommend self-defense classes and fast jogging training... Here is the trick: wait for a day when you feel in the mood for introspection and when it comes, start thinking about everything that is happening to you. Start early in the morning, when you wake-up and finish only at night, when you are ready to go to bed. Every time something frustrating or annoying happens to you, think about how you would want that particular situation to be, in order to remain calm and undisturbed. If someone hurt your feelings that day, think about what that someone should have done, so you would not become upset or sad. Once you know the answers, then you can be sure that what actually is upsetting or annoying you, is what you actually had expected to happen. If you did not have expectations, either consciously or subconsciously, the actual situation you are confronting would not bother you. For instance, let’s talk about a friend of yours. He or she has done something to you that placed your friendship at risk. Your feelings are hurt. You are hurt because you expected something else from your friend. Maybe that person isn’t even a real friend and what he or she has done proves that. If this is so, you should be happy to have that revealed. But you are still sad. Again, it is because of your expectations regarding that person. The reasons you expect something from somebody may be different but the result is always the same. You are hurt if your expectations are not fulfilled. Many times I heard couples talking about their relationship as an investment. It is shocking because an investment is supposed to have a good return, and when it doesn’t, we are in trouble. How can someone invest life and feelings in another person? It is a little bit against human freedom. By investing our time and feelings in someone, we are not taking their freedom away; we are giving ours away. Investing means expecting something in return. This means that if our "investment person" was different than we imagined, we would be hurt sooner or later. The return cannot be exactly as we expect it to be. Next, we blame everything and everybody else except ourselves. However, if we do blame ourselves, it sounds more or less like this: “I should have never trusted/loved this person”. I think that the only thingto blame is the investment concept itself. The process of creating expectations will always lead to negative side effects. In my opinion the attachment phenomenon is what is ruining our social relationships, the same as caries are decaying our teeth. It happens only because of human weakness and inability to accept and live within pure freedom. The freedom I talk about has nothing to do with doing just anything that comes to mind. It is accepting everything and everybody as they are, without any intention to change them according to our image. Freedom is about ultimate respect for life - and all of its forms. Changing this limiting attitude toward everything around us is one of the most difficult psychological processes to accomplish, because again, its roots are grounded very deep in our weakness. Can you imagine a bird that is scared to death to fly, throwing down from the sky thin strings with anchors, to hook the ground because that would provide her with the confidence or the security of being safe? Being attached - where is the freedom? How can she fly? How can we become universal beings as long as we accept being hooked - attached - to people, objects, jobs or whatever? Staying free, unattached to anything, does not mean that you will now fly away from everything without caring about what you leave behind. A bird flies free of attachments. However, she always comes back to her nest bringing food. This freedom is about how life flows within each living being. It is a state of mind from which all of us can still do the same daily things. Our actions will look the same. We will just feel different. Better. Old texts say that killing the desire will solve the problem. No desire - no suffering. Because it was translated wrong, this statement concerning our desires misled some people. It created for them a very negative attitude while others never agreed with it. Just replace the word “desire” with “expectation” and you have a different meaning with different applications. You don’t have to “kill” anything. Just stay aware of yourself and your relations with the world around you. If you are able to feel this non-attachment and live free of expectation, you will develop a new kind of relationship with the people you meet, with social situations and so on. You will be happier than ever because nothing will be able to hurt you. No expectation - no suffering. To readjust our lives to the Universe, we need freedom. If our minds/souls are not free, we remain trapped within insignificant conflicts until we are able to detach from them. When we achieve freedom from our own limitations, we don’t become some cold-blooded beings with no emotions, no feelings. On the contrary, since we are no longer vulnerable because we don’t generate expectations, our feelings and emotions will increase in intensity. Everything can be reduced to the life we are living right now. When we live free, unattached to our own actions, we spend less time thinking or suffering because of insignificant frustrations. Let me tell you how I changed... some people will call me a “thick-skinned individual” because of my attitude, but it definitely feels better. It started in a place where I use to work. I was feeling tired of that job, tired of my boss, tired of everything. I’m sure you know the feeling. Thinking about my situation and the possible solutions, I came up with the following two options: the first one was to quit. Not very smart at that time, money wise... Second option was to figure out why I was feeling this way - what exactly made me so mad. After I visualized all my reasons as graphically as I could . . . I understood that it was me.I was the one suffering. It was my life that had to suffer. Instead of being at least okay, if not content and happy, I was miserable. The decision I made at that time was to transform everything I had to do into a non-stop practice of my abilities. If there was something physical to be done, it became a reason for me to test my speed and strength. At the same time, I started to have fun watching everyone who was around me. Studying their moves, their words, everything, it was fun. When conflicts took place, I just observed them, so when others got upset or mad, I was having fun. At first, this may not seem to be the right attitude, but can you tell me one thing that is more important than your life? Please notice, I said thing. I know - your children, family or even your dog is important - but I asked you about things, not lives. Can you find one thing that is more valuable than you are? Now, maybe you don’t have much confidence in yourself, so let me help you gain a little bit of it. It will then be yours to use for the rest of your life. Can you see all the objects around you? Furniture, television set, books, whatever you have in the room where you are reading this book...see them? Close your eyes. Do you still see them? Go outside your house, or into another room in your house where people are. Do it now, as you are reading. Do you see all of them? Walking, driving cars, or whatever they are doing...can you see them? Close your eyes. Do you still see them? Open your fridge. Pick out something you know you like to eat or drink. Can you taste it if you don’t open your mouth to eat it or drink it? Turn on your radio and search for a favorite song. Found it? Now cover your ears really tightly so no sound will go through. Do you like the song...? Too bad you can’t hear it anymore. You see, I think this is the best way to achieve a strong self-confidence. Some people just don’t give a darn about anything! Their life goes on and on in suffering or misery just because they don’t value themselves. I will show you your value right now. Shut off your senses. The world around you will cease to exist for you. For me, it will still be here; but for you, the world disappears at the same time you do. That is your value. As long as you are alive the world exists for you. Cease to exist and the world will, too. Set yourself free from the traps of your expectations. Set your life free. Every second is precious, don’t waste it on the irrelevant conflicts that you might have today. Stay present, now and here, unattached to anything. When you live within this state of mind, misery will never bother you again. Success will never blind your senses. Staying in the middle of everything, yet unattached, you will re-discover the true power of freedom. It will definitely take some time to achieve this, especially if you have never done anything similar to this, but don’t worry. Because it is a natural process, it will happen, as long as you allow it to happen. Maybe in the beginning, it will seem impossible to stay involved in everything you do, and at the same time, to remain unattached. Don’t worry; just be. On this path, remember, nothing has to be done. “Having to do something is stressful”. Freedom is fun, not stressful. Everything about a free life is in your reach, within your mind, depending on how much you stay in control of your intentions and expectations. Stay in the middle. You have probably noticed that I use words like mind, soul and so on. They are all characteristics of the same thing. We are not divided up into little pieces such as body, mind or soul. They are all characteristics of ours as universal beings. If you have a glass of cold water and a glass of hot water in front of you that does not mean that you have two different things. It is the same thing, water. Different in form, but the same in essence. This also happens with the words we use to define our “structure": different in form, but the same in essence. We are one, total, undivided being. Our mind, body, soul and whatever else we can find in our language, are all one, defining just in part what we are in reality. Over time, we started to separate these characteristics from each other, and we lost the ability to use them in instant interaction. For this reason, our control over our own lives is getting weaker and weaker. Instead of going through an evolutionary process, we are degenerating slowly from generation to generation. Evolution is a natural process and it happens anyway to everybody. Look at all the kids nowadays. They grow up much faster. They live more intense lives than our grandparents did at their age. You could say it is a normal evolution of the species. On the other hand, our kids become less and less in control of their lives. Their problems outnumber the amount of problems people had a century ago. The amount of individual life wasted today is much greater than it used to be. It is perfect to evolve, but evolving only in certain directions will cause our destruction as well. It’s a time bomb. What is the use of an extraordinary mathematician, capable of programming high-performance computers, if he can’t express his feelings? What is the use of a priest that teaches love and humiliation in front of God, if he can’t address and help with day-to-day problems. You may say that both types, and many others, have their perfect place and function within our society... What society are you talking about? A society that didn’t exist, in this form, 500 years ago and will cease to exist in this form, even sooner? It is the human evolution that should count - not the evolution of the way we organize ourselves. What is the use of a perfect human machine, in a highly sophisticated world, where everybody is busy performing their job, so they can stay within the social mechanism, so they can perform a job, to keep them within the mechanism?!… What is the use of such a “perfect” human machine running faster and faster all the time, if there is no place for laughter, no place for joy? Are we going to allow a system to take over our lives? Are we going to evolve to a “superior” race as Homo-Machina? It’s our choice because the present creates the future. It’s our choice. It always has been. We are responsible, each and every one of us, whether we want to be or not. One of the most powerful abilities we all have is emotion. Our emotions can be both creative and destructive, emanating tremendous power. Each one of our feelings can manifest latently over a long period of time or can be extremely explosive, generating violent passions. These emotions are usually ruling our lives instead of being used properly. People are rarely educated about emotion and when they are, they do not know what exactly is happening to them. All they know is the name of a feeling and how it feels - not how it started or how it could be controlled. You might ask, why would anybody want to control their emotions, and what is so good about doing it? Considering what has happened up until now within our society, you are right. There is nothing good about it. People hiding their real feelings or expressing fake feelings (just because they learned how to do it) is not the best thing that has happened to our species. These abnormal reactions come from educational methods. The complex of inferiority or superiority is very often the reason that causes a real person to act unreal. The origin is the same: education. Coming from everywhere - school, family, friends, social interactions, and so on education is forming the personality, planting the seeds of all future reactions including emotions. When I talk about controlling emotions, I am not saying that we should stop having them. We should just make full use of them. An emotion is a different vibration of our energy. Using that vibration for our own benefit would only be common sense. Think about love... When you are in love you can “fly”. The whole world is pink and it’s yours. Think about anger... When you are furious the worst in you comes out, hurting everybody. When you are depressed, nothing in the world is enough for you at that time. Hate can ruin your life. The essential energy is very powerful and when it manifests within such a small recipient, as our body, it can really be felt. I remember one time that I was very close to dying. I can remember the hate and anger I felt, against everything, exploding within my mind and my body. It was enough of a reason for me to stay hooked into reality - enough, to help save my life. Some people experience the same thing with love. For instance, their love for somebody helps them fight a terminal disease. In many cases, people were “miraculously” cured. During war situations, fear saved thousands of lives, sharpening the survival instinct. The examples could be countless. The main point is that any emotion could have a great influence on our lives, sometimes vital. Emotions can also have a negative impact. We all have our own examples, some more or some less. One minor way this could have impacted us is with stage fright. Starting to control your emotions is very simple. First, have them. Choose one emotion at a time and practice it the whole day. In any situation where appropriate. Let’s say - love. Do you love somebody or something? Feel it. Think about those people or things that you love until you feel that love for them, as deep as you can within your being. Then, transfer this love to other things, especially things or people you don’t like. Experience love as an emotion generated by your own will. Do the same with all the other emotions that you know: fear, hate, physical attraction etc. Spend a whole hour or day on each emotion. The reason for doing this is to gain control over your emotions - for the rest of your life. Once you have experienced all the emotions you are capable of feeling, you will then be able to control them to a certain degree whenever they happen. If for some reason you are overcome by anger, knowing its form, you would be able to limit its effects. Or, if you are in love and your lover leaves you, you would be able to keep on smiling. Knowing how to generate an emotion will help you feel its effects at anytime. It might sound very technical, talking about emotions just like any other thing, but can you imagine how it would be to feel like you’re in love - all the time? Can you imagine what you could do, if an emotion would generate such energy that you could conquer your own fears and insecurities thereby helping you to go beyond your limits of social endurance? Once you learn to control your emotions and know how to generate or repress them, what conflicts can still affect your inner life? Walk down the street and watch all the people. Stare at one person for a few seconds and see how he moves. Look at his facial expression. Feel, palpate the way that person walks and talks. Connect with his mind. From his exterior to his interior, feel his feelings. Pay attention to all the details that could reveal something about that person’s life. In a matter of a second, observe what kind of emotion is generated within you as you look at him. Connect with people’s souls. When you live their emotions, your life is multiplied and enriched. There is joy and suffering in this world. See it. Feel it. It will give you a new sense and meaning to your life. Experience and discover the new - pleasant or unpleasant. All of it is part of this infinite creation. Acknowledge it and you will embrace the Universe itself. The Universe is in permanent motion and vibration. With the help of your emotions, you can adjust to a wider perception of reality. Emotions are vibrations. If you learn how to control them, there is no longer a reason to hide them or hide from them. Some people say they don’t feel any emotion. Are they robots or dead? No living creature is alive without life within. No form can exist without a form. Every single form in the Universe has a vibration and that vibration acts like a computer chip or like a storage form, containing information. Every human I know has the ability to feel an emotion because an emotion is a response to something. It is the manifestation of life itself, connected through its common form: the essential energy. When I say “connect”, it doesn’t mean that you are not connected. You are born connected, you just don’t acknowledge this fact or you refuse to do so. Nobody is separated from anything. You have to be strong to open yourself to so many emotions coming from every direction. There is no reason to fear this, because it is an energy vibration. It can be stopped at any time, by using your own will. Exploring your soul while connecting and exploring other people's soul, is like exploring yourself at deeper levels. The more you explore, the stronger you grow. The quest for the Universe or God is one of mind and soul and body because all are one. Separating them or from them, will only leave us incomplete or weak. Why would someone choose human weakness instead of universal power? Up until now, have you ever asked yourself, what has stopped you from being one with God or the Universe? Is it something from outside you? Is it God? Is it the untouchable Universe? Or is it you? Watch life…nature. Until the flight of a bird, the whispering wind through the forest or in the early morning, the song of the falling dew touches your soul; and as it touches, allow your feelings to grow deeper - creating the purest tear, a tear of plenitude embracing within a rainbow of emotions. You will know, then, that life touched your soul again, giving you the most invaluable gift: the gift of happiness - the gate to the heaven within yourself. Exercises This is a complex exercise intended to activate your intuition and increase your empathy. Start the exercise with your eyes open. Generate an emotion within yourself and let it fill your entire being. When you are filled with that emotion, close your eyes and imagine the emotion transforming into a shinning ray focused straight in the center of your brain. Keep this mental image until it starts to fade away and then, slowly open your eyes. With your eyes open again, stay still, free of any thoughts or any emotions. Then, after a few moments, generate another emotion and practice the same technique. Do this using all the possible emotions, one by one, including those you don't like. Don't run away from your emotions - love or joy, hate or anger - transform them into your allies. When you think you practiced this exercise enough and you begin to have results, practice its next level. Choose a person that you can constantly see for a minute or two. Identify what emotion that person might feel at that moment, and then, imagine it like a powerful shinning ray coming from that person straight into the center of your brain. Let it come until it fills you up and you can feel the same emotion as that person does. The trick is to choose people that are very expressive, so your practice can be easier at the beginning. Think about all the events and things in your life that touched and influenced you. Go back into your memory to the first experience you can remember. When you finish reviewing everything that changed your life, think of all of your actions in life that brought a change into the world. Are you done? From now on pay attention to all your actions and their impact on the Universe surrounding you. Do a good thing once a day. Or once a week. You don't have to donate money. Give what is necessary. Find an older person or a sick kid and help them with what they need. Maybe all they need is a smile from someone, so…smile. Eventually, your gesture will touch their soul and it will open up, like a blossoming flower touched by spring's wing. “Experience is a hard teacher because she gives the test first, the lesson afterwards” TENNYSON Chapter 5 MOVING THE MOUNTAIN While reading this book, you rediscovered a better use of five of your senses in order to increase your perception. Also, you rediscovered imagination as a useful tool. Combining your perception and imagination, you rediscovered ways to connect yourself to everything around you. Redefining yourself, you learned that life isn’t about thinking and it isn’t about feeling either. It is about both, because you are capable of both and one without the other will leave you incomplete. This chapter is about one word: power. This is a word that often scares people because of the translation that has been attributed to it. With few exceptions, people don’t like to think about power considering it “evil” - but subconsciously we all seek it. Accepting that we have power would change the whole social system, the whole world. Power, as it is seen today, belongs to God. What Man has now, is financial, political or military power. But this chapter is not about that kind of power. It is about our inner power...LIFE. You know we all have it… just look in the mirror and if you see your image, then you must be alive! Anything in this Universe, as long as it exists, has to incorporate within itself a smaller or larger quantum of energy. No matter what it is - an object, a natural phenomenon, a living being – it’s alive. I should make a note here and explain the difference between the scientific definition of life and mine. I define the quality of the Universe as LIFE. In any form, organic or inorganic - material or immaterial - as long as it exists, it is alive. For the scientific society, something "alive" is a bug or you and I, but definitely not a pair of socks. The essence of all things is their Existence in itself. And that existence is LIFE. Energy. Each form in the Universe is in permanent transformation and that takes energy. Because we are not identifying ourselves with this energy - the essence of the Universe - we barely use it. All the manifestations of the universal energy, such as mechanical, thermal, gravitational and so on, have the same essence; however, because we are not using it directly, we “progressed” and invented different devices to do it for us. This technological progress has been a very long process. For this reason, it will take us a while until we are able again to connect with the essence of all forms and use it at will. Omnipotence, one of the qualities we attribute to God, actually refers to the quality of all things in the Universe because everything is made from the same essence. Living in permanent contact with this essence would give instant access to all forms and their manifestations. Achieving this state is possible, but under specific conditions and after certain training. The ultimate goal of Yoga, Transcendental Meditation or any other method or religious cult is to reach the ultimate evolutionary level: Nirvana or Heaven. This is the state of the mind or soul - it depends on the system - where the individual is dissolved into the infinite power of the Universe or God. Each individual striving to reach that state would have to first go through a process of self-mastering. Discipline would be required, but only for the purpose of speeding up the process of unfolding the power within. In my view, discipline is a self-imposed limitation with a negative impact on energy if it is used improperly. I have seen a lot of people going through hell just because they have imposed a certain discipline on themselves. If we like and identifyourselves with what we are doing, no discipline, commitment or determination would be necessary. A natural state of existence doesn’t need supplements. On the other hand, it doesn’t mean that everything is going to “just happen” to you, simply because you want it that way. Why? You aren’t using enough power. But to use it, you must first feel it. There is a tremendous power within you. Every second, there is a tremendous power flowing through you. If you would just stop for a while... Stop doing what you are doing now. Stop chasing ephemeral and illusory purposes, then you could feel the power within you. For only one second, if you would totally stop, you would feel like a mountain: Powerful, between the Earth and the Sky. You would absorb power from the reality you are connected to, as well as living within the Universe. Being one with the Universe means identifying yourself with it. Acknowledge and accept it. The concept of energy is a very controversial one. Some people think about it as they learned it in school. Some people consider energy as material and immaterial at the same time. They may or may not feel it; but they believe in its existence. Most of the people, however, don’t believe in something they can’t palpate. All of these people, no matter what they believe, are right and wrong at the same time. They are right because they accept the energy in their own way. They are wrong because energy doesn’t manifest in only a certain way regardless of what people believe or not. The Universe has existed for millions of years before humankind and it will exist for millions of years after humankind has disappeared. Because we are so small compared with the time-space size of the Universe, we are curious and afraid of it at the same time. Of course, we would like to know more about this “big everything”, but it is safer to take small steps. And it’s safer to let other people do the research, that way we can just read about it and think we already know it. It is our curiosity pushing us forward and our fear pulling us backwards. The reason we are such a curious species is that within each of every one of us there is a hidden power: the power of being one with the Universe or God. This power triggers us to become enlightened - to remember who we are. The reason we are so afraid to come out of our comfort zone, without accepting anything new or different, is because we think about ourselves. We don’t feel God - we think about him. We don’t feel the marvelous power of the Universe - we think about it. We have identified ourselves with the manifestation of the power, not with its essence. Let me put it to you in a different manner. When you walk, you can do it with a certain speed. When you run, the speed is increased. Compared with the speed of light, our speed is similar to the speed of snails or turtles... So, we think about light and yet, we are not the light itself. But there is a phenomenon that happens much faster than the speed of light. And we have the ability of provoking and controlling it by becoming one with it. But I’ll discuss this a little later... Imagine your curiosity and fear on a scale - the scale is you, and within you, curiosity and fear are each pulling their own weight - controlling your path in life. When your inner power reveals itself, curiosity will take over the fear and your life will change for the better. But nobody or nothing will ever do this for you. You either do it yourself through a process of self-awareness and extended perception, or you don’t. If you don’t, your life will go on as it is. There is nothing wrong with being powerful; because power is life. But first, we should work on understanding a little more about the manifestations of this energy. Remember what I said before, that LIFE - essential energy - is manifesting in multiple forms and these forms are what we see or imagine that we see. Material and immaterial forms. The best way to understand this energy is to feel it, which is a very easy thing to do. Everything you see around you is energy. Light is energy. Heat is energy. Wind is energy. This is easy to understand, but by what method do we feel the energy within our bodies and how can we use it? Stand next to a fire or a grill and put your hands above the flames, at a reasonable distance, of course. Do you feel the heat in your palms? Stay there and wait...soon, the heat will start traveling from your palms to your arms, chest and face. You will feel it on your skin. Then you will feel it inside your body, the energy has just traveled. It traveled through you, and became one with you. Grab something heavy. Do you feel its weight? This is the gravitational field of the Earth pulling the object as you are holding on to it. With enough effort, you are counteracting the gravity of the planets. That is energy. All of these manifestations belong to the same energy and are easily accepted by everybody because they can be perceived at all times If we agree to define Life as everything there is, then Life is energy, in any form - organic or inorganic. If you can’t yet feel the life energy of an object or organism, then start with what you CAN feel. Reality is a huge infinite puzzle. Start the creation of your existence from a piece of reality that you are connected to through your five scientifically established senses. Use your own limits to define the piece of reality accessible to you through your perception and understanding. In this way, being aware of your own temporary limits will become an advantage. A useful tool in your quest. Always start with and within yourself because you are the first piece of reality that you are in contact with. When you walk, be aware of your muscles contracting and relaxing. Your walking is the effect of power interaction. Earth’s gravitational field is interacting with your inner energy. They meet at your feet, perfectly balanced. If either one increases or decreases, the balance would be broken. It would become impossible for you to walk or maybe you would fly. Stay within your skin - feel each step you take, each breath. It is your energy moving. When you eat, be aware of your hands bringing the food to your mouth. Be aware of your food with its qualities of taste, flavor, texture and so on. Can you feel the energy you use when you eat? Inside your stomach, chemical reactions are taking place. Feel that activity. It is your energy moving. You can find thousands of little things like this. I will not spend too much time revealing what you already know. Rediscover. As you become fully aware of the energy within your body, you can start connecting with other forms such as objects, plants, animals or natural phenomenon. This is not an understanding process – it’s something to be felt. When you feel it, it is called revelation - and that gives you the understanding of the phenomenon. The mystical revelation that religions and cults speak about starts from the reality. It is an ongoing phenomenon. We don’t know its start or end. It is an ongoing creation in itself. A becoming. So practice everything from the reality. If you are driving a car or riding a bus become aware of the vibrations of the engine. You can feel the vibration in the steering wheel, car seat and on the floor. Feel that vibration, which is energy, going through your entire body. It doesn’t have to shake you; it might just be a slight trembling. Once you feel it, you will realize that you are able to connect with a different form than yourself and feel its energy. Find forms similar to this and experience them. A refrigerator for instance - once in a while it will start buzzing for few minutes. It’s the motor inside that is running. Touch it. Feel that vibration going through your hand and penetrating your body. The more relaxed you are, the deeper you will feel this vibration going into your body. When your sensitivity and awareness grows, choose other forms. Forms that you can’t touch, but you can see or hear. Like a radio, for example. Listen to the sounds around you in the room and then listen to the same sound, but this time isolate the impact of the sound within your ear. It is like selecting only certain instruments from a performing orchestra. Relax. Sink into yourself and allow the sound to resonate in your body. This is a vibrational energy wave. Feel the impact between this energy and you. You don’t know how to feel that impact? A sudden scream will make your heart jump – that’s an energy impact. Feel it. Sensual jazz music will change your mood; it’s just another energy impact. Feel it. Use any sound you hear. Allow it to resonate within your body and stay aware of its impact. Next, whenever you feel you are ready, choose forms that you can’t touch with your five traditional senses... If it rains, feel the impact of the millions of drops of water hitting the roof, the street, the Earth. Feel the power and speed of those drops shooting down from the sky. If it’s summer, feel the power of electrical storms. Connect with them. All of that is energy, absorb it. From the moment you can feel and connect, you can experiment with any form or phenomenon you would like: a TV or a phone cable; an airplane or a bird; a child or a dying person; a building or a friend you are talking to on the phone. Anything and everything… At the beginning, stay still, like a statue. Allow the Micro Cosmos within you to resonate and react to the Macro-Cosmos around you. Like an infinite mountain gather within yourself the powers of the Universe. In time, you will react instantaneously to the energy within the forms or natural phenomenon around you. Your own energy will resonate with theirs. This type of connection allows energy to be felt as it moves and it transforms continuously. Feel it and use it. Move the mountain within you. Be a mountain within you. This is a power we all have. Once you feel it and accept it, there is no way to deny it. At that moment, acceptance will be irrelevant because you will be one with everything, and have no need to accept it or believe it. From that moment on, conscious evolution starts. Before this, it was just a natural unfolding of our existing potential - a process that could take days or millenniums. It sounds weird and impossible? Well, then you just skipped the first part. Return to your piece of reality. Experience. Feel it. If it sounds impossible, it's only because you are thinking about it - and that is exactly what I asked you to avoid doing for awhile. We are capable of doing many things, some very powerful but not used as often as they should be. From all of them, there are only three I chose to explore: relaxation, breathing andmovement. But before I start talking about them, I would like to add a necessary word, together with its definition: healing. Most of the people consider healing as being the final result of the spiritual quest. I must say that I think they are mistaken. Healing is just a normal “side-effect” of life. It is happening anyway, whether you are doing something or not. The medical term would be homeostasis and it means a tendency towards stability in the normal physiological states of the organism. In other words - balance, which is a function of our body that is constantly active. Many people have invented different courses, to teach others what everybody should already know if only they would accept the process of self-discovering. Some of these courses are “extremely affordable” for the average person - ranging from a few hundred dollars to a few thousand, plus the travel expenses. Have you ever thought about selling something that doesn’t belong to you? Well, some people have... This sacred knowledge is accessible to everyone, at any time, for free or for very little money. Right now, around the world, simple people are sharing their knowledge and power. I’d like to call them the Quiet Masters. They walk among us. We might see them in a grocery store or in a park. We might live on the same street with some of them. They are quiet because they never reveal themselves. Why should they? I am the one calling them Masters. They don’t call themselves names... they just are. Their houses have an open door all the time; but they are not waiting for anybody. They are the real Masters, carrying a piece of information that you might need in your quest. The becoming of Man takes place among men. I know that you might feel the urge to go away... to travel beyond any limits, to go and try tens of thousands of courses, to bend yourself at the feet of hundreds of so called Masters hoping for a tiny bit of shared knowledge. I felt it so many times myself... Maybe sometimes you might feel desperate and lost. No matter how empty you feel allow yourself to stop. To stay still and quiet. Planets attract each other and at the same time their tremendous inner force keeps them perfectly balanced, preventing them from colliding into each other. Stay still and from within yourself, like a mountain, absorb and emanate power. This is how the conscious contact with the Quiet Masters starts. They were, they are and they will be here. Always. You too. The becoming of You takes place right where you are, in this very moment. During my practice and studies, I discovered a lot of “tricks” that enabled me to go faster through different transformation processes, then I had expected. Because I believe that we are all born with infinite power, it is a non-sense to try to find it. It would be like looking for your glasses while they are on your nose... So what we actually need is a way to activate that power; but nobody knows how to do it. There are many schools pretending to have the key to this power, but none of them have proved it yet. Most of these schools advise isolation and abstinence; hard and long years of practicing the same techniques or rituals, over and over again. But what should we do - those who are born to live within society, dealing with jobs, bills and all the other little details that are detriments of a modern life? There are ways to reach the infinite... if you know the shortcuts. We all are already powerful, but from our place of evolution, we cannot see it. I learned a small algorithm about the laws of the Universe. It applies to almost anything I know and it is about Creation or how to get things done. An algorithm made out of three words, three abilities that we all know about and have. Each one needs the other two because they don’t exist in separation. It’s like a triangle...it cannot exist without one of its points. If you could control the power they symbolize and, in time, feel all of them simultaneously and instantaneously; then you would be one, total being again. Remember, all of these powerful abilities are inseparable parts of what you are. They have been conceptualized and translated into words. I try to do the opposite but I still need to use a common language: yours. When I speak of three powers or steps it doesn’t mean that there are really three. All are one, but you learned about them as being separate. Escaping from the illusion of the concepts reveals the inseparable infinite reality. One second, only one – that’s all it takes to understand the infinite... and once you feel it, you will always want to expand more, beyond unimaginable limits. The three words are relaxation, breathing, and movement. Relaxation. Have you ever been nervous? How about sick or depressed? How about tired? Did this ever happen to you when you had to keep on doing something without stopping, like a job? It is not very difficult to relax when you go to bed. It happens even if you don’t want it to, and you fall asleep. But the best thing would be to be able to relax while you’re in full motion, within an action that you have to do and you can’t allow yourself to stop. Doing this will save you from being exhausted at the end of a day. It will save you from wearing yourself down. It will save your life. My main concern here is just to point out a few ways of relaxing in this way. People live very active and demanding lives. Isn’t it obvious what they need to keep up with it? Ways to relax, without stopping from their daily rhythms. The first thing you should know is that the first cause of stress is your personal affective involvement in life. In this case, the first thing you should do is to unhook yourself from what you are doing. Don’t stop - just unhook. To do this, review your values in life; decide what is important and what is just a technique to accomplish that important thing. Identify yourself with the purpose, not with the way taken to achieve it. The way could change. I am talking about social life, about jobs and money. Detach yourself from all of it. Keep on doing it, but identify yourself with your inner life. Unchangeable and more powerful every second. If you are doing things from within, nothing can stop you or ruin your life. This is all about where you are placing yourself - affective. Next, discover physical relaxation within motion. Loosen up, change the way you move. Make it smoother. Use every second to induce physical relaxation. Do it from within your brain. I like to feel myself within my brain and then, in a second, sink from head to toes. It is like an internal shower. In time you will learn to do this in a fraction of a second, so do it as often as you can remember to do it. A funny way to relax is to do it by parts.Relax an arm to the point where you can’t move it anymore. Keep it that way for few seconds. Try relaxing your entire body this way. Internal and external. For me the hardest part to relax is my brain. Relaxation is not strictly related to the muscles; however, the muscles are the last ones to benefit from this process. Relaxation is a process of slowing down any motion to a minimum. Within the muscles this motion is called contraction and within the brain it is called thinking. Both are, in essence, the same: motion. Stop and think about this for a while. Our brain controls the rest of our body, so where would it be the best place to start our relaxation? For instance, many times I have heard, “start from the toes”. But to relax your toes, don’t you have to go through a process of thinking? It works both ways; but, in my opinion, doing a relaxation from the brain saves time and energy. Switching off the thinking process is an extremely fast phenomenon, and with practice - instantaneous. While you enter "an altered state of mind", the physical body relaxes entirely in a matter of seconds. You just need to learn to control yourself completely. Contract your muscles. Relax your muscles. Repeat this several times. Identify the area within your brain where you can feel the process taking place. Identify where you feel the intention to contract and to relax. Close your eyes, stay within your brain then switch off your body within the area you just identified. Don’t worry if this doesn’t happen right away at then very beginning of this exercise. It will just take a while until your body will readjust itself. I will give you an example that many of us have seen. Have you ever seen a cat or a dog, just dropping on the floor and falling asleep? Cats do this the best. In the house (because they feel very safe) see a cat walking very slowly and then suddenly, in a second, she drops to the floor. A very small stretch, but not always, and the creature sleeps. That’s relaxation. Shutting off the body from the brain. Do you think she’s thinking about relaxing toe by toe? She is doing it very naturally. No thinking is necessary. Try it yourself. Put a mattress on the floor so you will not get hurt. Stand up for few seconds. You can shake you body slightly, more like an athlete ready to perform an exercise than a person having seizures. Whenever you are ready - drop. Entirely. From your brain, let go of your body. Shut it off. Fall. Drop. The softer the mattress, the less you will fear getting hurt as you fall. If you still didn’t find the feeling of complete instantaneous relaxation, go to a swimming pool. Stand at the edge of the pool, face the water and drop. Let yourself fall until you discover the “secret”. I think this is the way relaxation should be done or at least practiced at the beginning. Later on as you control your body from within the brain, you will start to relax deeper and deeper, being able to target certain areas. A very good tool and a helper with healing is cellular relaxation. After you have learned to relax entirely in a second, then from that state of relaxation from within your brain, go deeper into your body. Relax your organs and go deeper - all the way to the cellular level of the body. Each cell has a specific motion. Relaxation is about controlling that motion. When you relax a tight muscle, you are in fact relaxing cells because all of our body is made out of different types of cells. Doing it consciously adds power to certain cellular reactions. For years I had problems with my sinuses. A great help was relaxing all the cells from that area to a point where I could breathe freely and stay free of pain. Most of the time I refuse to take any medication; mainly because I want to reinforce a function of the brain - the one of self-healing. I am not saying that you should give up medication. That could lead to a huge lawsuit. What I am saying is that for a faster healing you should help your treatments with what you can do. For example, if cellular relaxation could help your arthritis, then do it. If you don’t at least try it that means it doesn’t hurt as much as you say. Our body has a specific chemical balance. This balance is regulated from within our brain. Any medication we take alters that chemical balance. If you can control something from within, such as a headache, then find ways to do it. With a special diet you could be able to boost your immune system. Try to change your life into a more natural and safer mode. Then you can use techniques, such as relaxation with astonishing healing results and not just healing, but more complex effects connected with life itself. Breathing. We all breathe. That’s what keeps us alive. The absence of oxygen would terminate us very quickly - so we have to breathe and feed our bodies with it. As you know we are different from each other and our breathing is different from one person to another. Each individual has a rhythm of living and the process of breathing changes as the individual life rhythm changes. Maybe for 99% of our lifetime we are unaware of our breathing. It is a sub-conscious process and most of the time uncontrolled. If the atmospheric pressure would change, our breathing would adjust also. If we are scared or panicked, our breath would become shorter and faster. Depending on our emotional or physical state, our breathing would change accordingly. On the other hand an experienced yogi will breathe very totally, using his lung capacity more efficiently than anybody else because he controls his process of breathing. It takes years of practice before a man can master his breathing and transform it from a physiological function into a transcendental art capable of awakening dormant powers within himself. The learning period starts with an unnatural process, imposing a certain rhythm of breathing. There are many formulas for rhythmical breathing, such as 4-4-4 or 8-8-8. 8-8-8 being 8 seconds of inhaling; 8 sec. of holding breath; 8 sec. of exhaling. These are even rhythms. Also in the beginning of his practice, the student learns the uneven rhythms, such as 4-4-8, 8-4-12 or others. All of these exercises have to be executed under strict professional supervision. Because they are unnatural rhythms, they force physical, emotional and mental changes, which can be both positive and negative. For this reason every beginner willing to learn the secrets of breathing should first consider taking classes with a professional instructor. I believe that every action we take should be natural. The method I use for breathing is a little different than the one practiced in Martial Arts or Yoga. Within my method there might be some unpleasant side effects, but only when it is forced. First - before I explain how I practice what I call natural breathing - I should give you more information about the concept of it. Everything has a rhythm of itself - from a little stone to the entire Universe. Within each particle of matter there is a quantum of energy pulsating and spinning in its own rhythm. If you pick up a stone from the street you will only see a simple object; but within that object there are atoms made out of electrons and neutrons spinning with incredible speed. You will see perfect immobility where there is a tremendous, continuous movement. We, the humans, are made out of such particles of matter too. Down to the very microscopic structures of our bodies, there are molecules formed by atoms. Each of those atoms is made out of electrons and neutrons and so on... There is an incredible movement even within our hardest bones. On Earth, filling every empty space, there is air. The air also has the same structure: molecules, atoms, spinning electrons and neutrons - each of them made out of even smaller particles. In other words, between you and any object you may choose, there is a powerful, permanent movement. And this can go on and on from the most insignificant object to the grandeur of the Universe. For as long as we are alive, in this form, our physical bodies interact non-stop with everything around us. From the entire human body our skin and our breathing are the one organ and the one function in 100% uninterrupted interaction with the environment for as long as we live. We all can stop eating for a while. We all can stop drinking for a while. But our skin is in permanent contact with something - clothes, water, air etc. - and we all breathe until the last second of our lives. Through these two systems, we physically interact with the Universe 100% of our entire lifetime. As you may already know, human skin is the largest organ of the body. Of all of its functions, which are used in more than one way, I am going to talk about only one: perspiration - the skin’s capacity to allow waste products to be eliminated through its pores. As a preparatory exercise for this method of breathing, you will have the possibility of using every moment of your work-out or physical labor in an additional way. Every time you sweat, feel the perspiration coming out of your body, through each pore of your skin. In a very short period of time, as you practice, you should be able to gather and feel independent signals, simultaneously from hundreds to thousands of pores, depending upon the amount of your effort. A sauna or a steam-room could be a place to start; but your perception will be altered because of the distribution of humidity in the room. This is why I recommend any other type of action, such as physical effort or exercises that will facilitate sweating. Start from wherever your sensibility is more active, then increase the area of the skin that you can feel. The most important thing is to be aware of the whole process and see how it feels. Each pore of your skin will give you an individual sensation. Sometimes in order to sweat you may not have to exercise. For example, being stuck on a highway - inside a car with no air conditioning - in the middle of the summer, could be a very good time to practice. You then change a frustrating situation into a new experience. For a few days or weeks focus your attention this way, or for as long as it takes you, to increase your perception to the largest possible skin surface. Even if this exercise doesn’t make too much sense, it has a clear purpose. I will not explain it to you yet, because right now I want you to practice. After you have practiced and felt the result, you will better understand my explanation and it will come to you faster. We are use to being taught exercises along with their results. This way of teaching an exercise is good; however, it facilitates the process of “faking it until you make it”. I personally think that the order in which information is to be assimilated should be different. Parallel with the exercise described above, you can practice a very safe and simple breathing technique. Parallel means in the same period of time, not at the same time. This technique doesn’t require any special position or anything else. It doesn’t even require prior training or a special place, because we all know it and have practiced it on numerous occasions. It is called a sigh. It is that simple. As I have said before, the most powerful things in the Universe have within themselves the quality of simplicity. Why should we complicate them? So this exercise is very simple. Just sigh. In its natural form, a sigh generates a state of temporary relief and it’s usually triggered by an emotional factor. Between each sigh and the next breath, there is a break. It could be just more or less than a second long. The length of that break could tell a lot about the level of stress within a person and about his emotional state - whether he’s experiencing a major conflict or just a temporary reaction. In our case, since we are practicing, we will not focus on these details. This time it is a voluntary action with the value of a simple exercise. Therefore, don’t worry about the how's and why's of it. Later on you will be able to transform this exercise into a veritable self-healing method. For now, just sigh. Whenever you can remember to do it. In the beginning just observe the pause between each sigh and the breath that follows it. Determine its length. Is it a second? Is it more or less? Is there such a pause between the two of them? Practice in a very relaxed mood. Just one sigh at the time. Forcing two or more sighs in a row will alter the quality of the exercise and diminish its effects. A sigh could have different forms but I will point out only two of them: a) A shallow sigh - not preceded by a deep enough inhale. This type has no positive effect on our state of mind; therefore it isn’t part of our exercise; b) A profound sigh - preceded by a deep breath in. This type is of interest because of its qualities. Wherever you are reading right now, allow yourself to relax and sink into the chair or bed. For few moments just stay still. Sink. Relax. As much or as little as you want. Either way is perfect. Take a deep, relaxed breath in. Just allow the air to fill your lungs as naturally as possible. Without holding your breath, release the air immediately after you have inhaled. Now practice for few minutes, and when you are through, come back to reading. The profound sigh has two parts: One - when we inhale. Two - when we exhale. This second part has different lengths. Each second or fraction of a second added or subtracted from the length of a sigh has an immediate effect on us. Still this is not the purpose of our exercise. After a certain amount of time spent practicing it, if you are interested, you may want to start studying the effect of different sigh lengths. From beginning to end this exercise is to remain as simple as possible end. It is just an introductory technique to the art of breathing. Now I will separate the process of sighing into three parts, just for the purpose of explaining the process, even though it is a totally inseparable phenomenon. Our focus will be on the third part. 1. Initial deep breath in (irrelevant length). 2. Exhale (irrelevant length or strength). 3. The pause before the next breath in. Observe the pause that your lungs are taking after the sigh and before the next breath in. Just observe this for a while without trying to modify anything. Whenever you feel you are ready to take control of the process, relax deeper into yourself during the pause. After a few repetitions increase the length of this pause. It isn’t necessary to count or keep track of seconds. Breathe in, sigh, pause as long as you feel comfortable without using any effort and breathe in again. In time this period of breath suspension will increase naturally. Relaxation is an important key while you practice. Stay present, free of thoughts and keep your attention on the pause between breaths - this is how it starts. This method of breathing is not new and it is not mine. Nothing in this book is new for anybody. Even if you never knew some of the things explained here, you have had them all along in your mind as latent potentials. Like dormant knowledge and power. Just let it happen. You already know. Just allow it. Next, try combining the breathing exercise - the sigh - with the exercise I have told you about the skin - feeling the pores as you perspire. Observe both of them for a few days on a daily basis. Naturally increase the surface of the skin from which you receive signals (sensations). Hopefully we agree about the scientific fact that movement and energy are combined within each molecule of air. Now can you imagine what we could do and how we could be if we were able to assimilate and use this fantastic energy through the simple process of breathing?! Well here is the good news: we can. I have heard about those Yogis who can breathe IN for few minutes, HOLD their breath for few minutes, and EXHALE for another few minutes. And, they can breathe like this for hours, days or weeks depending on how mentally strong they are. Being curious I wanted to learn their secret. I especially wanted to find out how is this possible, since the longest formula I used, for any prolonged period of time, was 20-20-20. In seconds - not minutes... So I went to see this human phenomenon with my own eyes. I remember watching a swaying man who was very colorfully dressed. He had his eyes closed and he was sitting on a pillow with his legs crossed in a painful-looking position... He said to us, those watching, that every thing he does, along with everything he says, is essential and necessary if we wanted to achieve the same level . . . So we watched. I watched. At one point he stopped every movement and became still like a statue. He remained like that for more than half an hour. In the meantime I was observing his chest and abdomen. Nothing was moving. Like a Buddha he had a delicate smile on his face. For him it looked like time and space ceased to exist for a short period of time. When he “came out”, he told us what he did. It was a “pretty basic” procedure: a 60-60 rhythm, which meant that he was breathing in for 60 seconds and immediately breathing out for another 60 seconds - with no pause in between. After that the only additional information he gave us, was to start small and grow from there, let’s say a 12-12 rhythm. For years I tried to figure out how was he doing it. I mean, if I start to inhale for 10, 20 or 30 seconds, how many lungs do I need? My only pair wasn’t enough. One trick was missing. So I searched and realized that the missing link in what that yoga master was teaching, the very secret of his practice, was a way of pressurizing the air. He was balancing the pressure between the internal body pressure and the pressure created by his own breath. The next exercise makes a transition between the first two I told you about and the actual method. It's also very simple and it makes a lot of sense. Try this: when you breathe, do it as you would sniff the air; as if you were following a scent coming from very far away. Watch a dog. When it smells something under its nose, the dog has a specific type of breathing: short and in fast repetitions. When the dog sniffs something that is far away fromit, the breathing is different. You will almost not see it breathe anymore. Its breathing is very slow and shallow. This method of breathing is a transition. Allow your body some time to readjust to a natural rhythm. For a few days, just breathe as if you wanted to smell the scent of every thing or every person in the world. Observe and study. Experience, but don’t expect any special effects or changes - if they come, they come; if they don’t, they don’t. This is the pleasure of living unattached to the results of our actions. However and whatever happens, it is perfect anyway. As you breathe in this manner, keep increasing the perception through your skin as much as possible. It would be best to become sensitive throughout the whole surface of your skin, no matter what else you might be doing. The last part of this breathing method comes with no additional explanations. Just feel this on your own. Study the results. Have fun and experiment. Breathe shallow and slow as if you were following a distant scent. Then start to breathe through the millions of pores on your skin. Millions of pores…millions of molecules, each and every one of them at a tremendous vibration and speed. Infinite energy in an instant breath. Movement. Throughout history and everywhere on the planet there have been perfected physical exercises known to have the quality of awakening the dormant powers within our bodies. Forms like Qi Qong in ancient and modern China, Yoga in Tibet and India or Shamanist Dances in Native American Culture - and so many others all around the world - all having something in common. They have been used for hundreds or thousands of years to awaken or increase the human inner force. In many countries and over time, these sacred exercises have taken a folkloric aspect. They are especially performed on joyful occasions such as religious holidays or earth celebrations. They were derived from the same origin. When the masses emulated these dances and exercises, the essential meaning and purpose were lost. The social event itself became the celebration and the ritual’s purpose faded. Originally these sacred forms of expression through movement were used to contribute towards a common purpose with all other rituals: to reach out from this earthly life and touch the Gods - transcending into a supernatural existence. In every geographical area of this planet, different forms have evolved - all of them holding their secret key to a divine gate. People from every country or tribe, all nationalities and lifestyles, have different ways and means of expression. It is understandable why humankind had not discovered and used a single key to a unique gate. There was a huge, physical distance between these people. When this distance was shortened, conflicts started. Think about Christianity. How many “barbarians” died during those famous crusades? How many ancient cultures were annihilated in the name of Christ? People, in their thirst for power over other people, thought that they could conquer the world just because they were Christians. In India, the transition between ancient and new religions also brought a lot of suffering. Entire social classes disappeared or were persecuted. It happened all over the world, as history made its own way. It happened in the name of something - a name, a symbol - a paranoiac idea. It happened in ancient history. It happened in our times too. Think about Hitler and his demented intentions... And it’s still happening today: Tibet is under the devastating occupation of Chinese communism. All of these “side-effects” happened because of the human inability to accept the new and different. People living within the United States of America are an example of human exception. They have at least the aspect of accepting each other the way they are. The USA is a unique prototype of a future civilization. It is a prototype because most of its citizens learned to live together without trying to change their neighbors. But this is not enough. If people do not understand and activate their inner power, everything will remain just a form, not an essence. History melts everything in its eternal way - empires, cultures, religions. Whatever has a beginning, also has an end. Everything is in perpetual transformation. History melts forms. So the secret of reaching the Universe or God cannot be found in form. In other words millions have died for nothing. They were defending an empty form from others trying to change it into a new form, which was empty as well. You might be a strong believer in something - your religion, your spiritual concepts -and I respect that. But wherever you are, in whatever corner of the world you are living right now, regardless of whatever form of spiritual belief; you are missing something. Otherwise, you wouldn’t be seeking anything... What you are missing is the secret... Another well-known secret. A few years ago, I realized that humankind has all the knowledge necessary to accomplish its spiritual goals. It has all the information. Almost everything was told and almost anyone can access that information in the library, on the Internet or on television. The missing secret hides within ourselves. It isn’t something that we don’t know or we can’t learn. It is the "know how" - the shortcuts, as I like to call them. People should begin to learn differently, at least, regarding God, Universe, spirituality, and their connection with it. All forms are the result of an energy manifestation. It isn’t the form that counts. It’s the essence of it - the phenomenon of transformation itself. To become God or Universe, we should manifest as essence again, not as form. What we are manifesting now is the result of the continuous transformation that takes place in the Universe. We are not manifesting as then transformation itself because we never change. We are stuck. The whole Universe is moving and changing non-stop and we are struggling to stay the same, stubborn and blind. You want to be one with God? You want to be one with the power of the Universe? Then move. Movement is transformation, the essence of all creation. Moment by moment. Physical exercise is definitely something very healthy, as long as it does not involve any kind of injuries. Tai Chi is an extremely beautiful form - a moving meditation. Yoga has its own gracefulness, although some of the postures are nearly impossible even for a gymnast. There are other powerful forms as well, with more or less accessibility due to their complexity. All of them have proven their capacity to obtain astonishing results, especially in our modern society where stress is declared the “#1 public enemy”. Millions of people, all over the world, are practicing these forms. Because of their focus and effects induced on our bodies, any individual capable of moving regardless of his religion or age can practice these forms. Their main purpose is to increase the energy level within the body, balancing all systems, but especially the endocrine system. When practiced more in depth, the purpose of each set of movements or postures is working at deeper levels activating the manifestation of essential energy within the body in resonance with the Universe. Once activated this energy brings forward the hidden abilities of which we are capable. The main one, in my opinion, is the ability of healing. You will notice that the practice itself is not focused toward healing, but toward a Universal state of mind. Healing occurs once the energy flows again undisturbed without any obstacles. It is just an effect and does not represent a goal. Making a purpose from these hidden “powers” is limiting the possibility of obtaining them. Each one of them is part of the others, so how can we think of separating them? From within yourself move within the Universe and then all the hidden abilities will reveal themselves as you transform yourself into a total being. Since it was not my intention to write a manual on this topic, I will not go into details of the forms or methods. Shop around and find a school where movement is taught. When you find one, I recommend you join their classes. They usually give away a free trial week so there is nothing to lose. If you like it, go for it. If you don’t, keep on looking - you will find what you need. I also recommend that you take at least a few classes of Yoga, to learn how to stretch. Stretching feels very good especially after a good warm-up, such as slow jogging or even after a few minutes in a steam room. Another effect of stretching is that it releases deep tensions, usually chronic tensions. The benefit of releasing these tensions, using a natural way rather than medication, can be found in the origin of the tension itself. Tension, most of the time, is due to accumulated emotional stress - which is subconsciously active. No medication can release those tensions. Once you have taken a few classes of Yoga, try a dynamic form, such as Tai Chi, Qi Qong, or the more demanding physical form of Aikido. All of these forms will generate a general state of well being and bring your muscles back into shape. You will not become a body builder, but a healthy muscle tonus will replace constant fatigue and lack of energy. Of all of them, Tai Chi is the most accessible to everybody, regardless of a person’s state of health or age. Nevertheless, to obtain the best results out of it is a little harder and it takes practice. It also requires a little patience and understanding of a new concept: moving meditation. All of the movements are slow, circular and continuous. Breathing is of great importance in order to obtain the best effects. The whole purpose of Tai Chi is to control and balance the life force within us. When you start practicing remember that you are actually dealing with your energy not with your muscles. If your movements simultaneously come with the proper breathing - relaxed and total - then your entire body will be free of muscular contraction, allowing the energy to flow freely within you and between you and the Universe. The main reason I wrote this chapter was to describe a different type of movement - a movement that I consider to be much more powerful than anything else, precisely because it is not a physical form. Remember that all forms are the manifestations of the essence. Controlling the movement of forms gives a great advantage in life, to those who are studying it; but being the movement itself - as essential energy - is the power of all forms. The following exercises are not a method - this is just how I practice some of them. Once you feel something while practicing them, find or imagine new ones. Your instinct will guide you, and more importantly, without following anybody you will remain free of all forms. Able to adjust and connect easier and faster with the essence. Once again, I have to remind you about the difference between understanding and feeling a phenomenon. When you understand something, through analytical algorithms, you are separated from it. When you feel the phenomenon, you are one with it - inseparable. My advice for you is to be one with everything you study, all the time - it is faster. These exercises can be practiced with open or closed eyes. This depends on what type of person you are, you are free to decide which way is better and faster for you. In the beginning, it might be easier with your eyes closed, but don’t set limits on yourself by making it a habit. The place you are practicing, before or after dinner, sitting or standing and so on are irrelevant details. Anytime and anywhere is perfect and it couldn’t be better. Take a few seconds to bring yourself together. Breathe slower and deeper with every second. Sink into yourself. Focus your attention on your skin, on your muscles - moving less and more slowly. Allow yourself to go deeper with every breath you take. From the real, physical size of you, shift your mind into a compressing mental action. Compress more and more, as you breath and relax deeper, with every passing second. Continue until you become a highly condensed point somewhere within your body. Feel the compressed energy within a point, now, as fast as you can, expand from the size of that point to the infinite. You cannot reach the limit of the infinite, so keep expanding. Faster. Faster. Whenever your mind gives you the impression of slowing down, compress back to the size of a point. For a second, stay within that point and then expand again to the infinite. This is a very strong exercise when done with the right speed. Until you develop a certain degree of routine, your speed will be slower. Later, when you consider yourself ready, you will be able to reach the highest speed in the Universe. The speed of thoughts: instantaneous. Another exercise is to connect with speeding objects, actually, with their speed. Look at all the cars speeding on a highway moving at least 55 miles/hour. For several minutes, follow these cars with your eyes. As you do this relax to a comfortable point, not tense but not sleepy either. After a few minutes choose only one car at a time and follow it with your attention. Feel the speed as it comes closer to you, passing by you and going away. Feel it from within your head. Your eyes see each car speeding by. Your brain records that speed. Focus your attention within the area that gives you that feeling of speed. It is a very delicate procedure but far from being impossible. Every action we take - every thought we think - happens within our brain. Discover the areas of your brain where everything you are and everything you do takes form. Another way of doing this is using motionless objects. Feel from within their forms, their shape, color, weight. Everything. And as you watch, discover where in your brain, you can feel all this information. Stay relaxed. Tension will alter your perception, so when you get tense stop. My favorite exercise is to connect with birds. I like to feel their loops and sometimes their stillness in perfect balance against the wind. I like to connect with a bird until I become one with it. Its movements become mine too. Its wings are mine too. Even if for only a second, being connected with that bird in the sky… I fly. Explaining in detail this type of connection, how exactly it happens and how we can use it would be too long for this book. It is part of a special training, explained in depth in the second volume. It will contain all the details I know and discovered about this. The main thing that you should understand, once you practice an exercise and feel its results, is that you can discover millions of other techniques. There is no need to follow my method, which actually as I told you, it is not mine. How could something that everybody has be only mine? Move from within. This is the real origin of all movements. The real power. If your blood pressure goes up, relax, breathe, and control it. Everything that happens within you is movement. You - moving. Move from within and you will control much more of your life. Later on as you practice, there is another beautiful exercise to do. Relax… sink within yourself. Connect with the movement within. Connect with the movement around you. Expand your perception, as you have learned to do it. Expand and connect with everything in motion. First, expand within the area where you are; next, within your town; then, within your state…your planet. Include the atmosphere with its winds and storms; the planets of the solar system…and beyond. Everything there is - is in motion. Expand and connect. Be one with everything and little by little, its power will be transferred into you. How long it will take you? I don’t know, but… does it matter? I like to think about an end, as being a new beginning, so it’s the way and the journey that counts. At the end you will just choose another way, another journey. Be on your way, here and now, powerful like a mountain, fast like a thought, happy like a wondering child. Exercises It will be useful for you to do a few minutes of warm-up before you start the following exercise. A little jogging and stretching would be excellent. Start by becoming aware of your current muscle tone. Relax every muscle in your body. Breathe deeply for a few moments while you relax even more. Then preferably with your eyes open, start to increase your muscle tone. Slowly contract every muscle in your body. Do it from the inside outwards. You will feel like you are slowly solidifying from within your body. When you have increased the contraction to its comfortable maximum without cramping, imagine yourself growing roots into the Earth until you feel one with the planet. Then in a second, relax completely, breathe normally and start stretching again for a few moments. A good helper but not necessary, is the following breathing technique. Allow yourself to take a deep, slow breath in. Without holding your breath, start to exhale through your mouth. Keep your mouth open and your entire face relaxed. The air should go out slowly and like you were breathing through an obstacle, such as a towel or your hand. Your lungs will push the air out, creating a constant inner pressure. Inhale through your nose, maintaining the internal pressure continue. With your entire being totally relaxed, imagine the space around you becoming thicker and thicker every second. Move as you would against a powerful wind; then through water and then through sand. When you can feel all your muscles vibrating from the effort, imagine yourself moving within a mountain and being the mountain at the same time. Relax. Sink into yourself deeper than ever… Transfer every emotion you have into a movement. For instance, for anger lift your right hand on the side of the body. For joy, do the same but with your left hand. For sadness, step forward. For hate, make a circle… Identify all your emotions with a movement of your choice. Combine the movements. Play with your emotions. Create your own "emotional dance". In between the moves, once in awhile, stop. Stay still. Call it "calm". Silent. "The Tao that can be told of is not the Absolute Tao" LAO TZU Chapter 6 BEYOND THE LANGUAGE This is the most important subject of this book because it is about messages, information, and symbols. It is about spiritual growth and the only thing between us and the Universe or God. Think of it as a secret and whoever knows* it, opens the chance for himself to find answers to everything. It is a secret but not hidden. We just don’t see it. We don’t want to see it. If we are fortunate enough, we will reveal this secret before our own eyes and when that happens, humanity will enter a new era. If we are not lucky enough... well, it might be the end of this human jungle that we like to call “civilization”. In my opinion this human drama experienced all over the planet, throughout history, including today, has only one source: language. Not the language spoken by mouths, but the language beyond the words, the meaning of things. In the beginning of time, where we can only reach with our imagination, people were different. They saw the world, the Universe, differently. All of them had a different point of view and they had to communicate with each other. They were translating the pure information of the Universe into sounds and signs. In other words: language. Yet each one of them expressed something else because they all had a different perception of the same experience. They had to communicate, so they started to use a language even though it was limited. It is something we still do today. Note: know: Knowledge has the regular meaning of understanding. If you change “understand” with “control”, it will offer you a new perspective over the world, over the Universe. Over what we “know” and what we do not. In this way, knowing becomes the power to be one with everything, free of separation. Human language - for as long as will be necessary in this current form - proves the human inability to communicate the real, living experience. It is somehow still primitive. Due to the human lack of perception and of total (conscious) instant connection with the Universe around and within, language - even at its highest level of accuracy - can not express the full experience of life. For this reason, humanity is experiencing a tremendous isolation within itself - isolation that plays the role of a slow disease, a sure destruction. Because of the limits within their language, people hate each other for some stupid reasons... Because of their own limits, language becomes the origin of conflict and this conflict is poisoning their lives. It is a biological, chemical, and psychological fact that all people are alike and different at the same time. This is the beauty of nature. It does not duplicate itself. Even a perfect clone will not have the same psychological characteristics as the original. Does that mean that some of us are right and some of us are wrong? There are a few major religions on our planet and hundreds of other ones. But the number is limited. They all believe in a different kind of God or if the God is not different, then the “chosen land and people” are. No matter how much you love and respect God - if he would come on Earth and show himself different than anything ever imagined by the human mind, you would not be able to accept him. It would be even worse, if you are Chinese and God would show himself as a Jewish God. Or if you are Jewish, and God would come as a Hindu God. You would just turn your back on him. Throw a stone, maybe. Or start a war to defend what you think is right. What if instead, we are all wrong? I will give you another example. We define our home place, as being the geographical area in which we live. Generalizing, that would include our village, the city or the country, along with all the people that live in that particular area. To a certain degree we are patriots, so of course, where our home is our country is. If necessary, we would die for it. We would kill for it. We train our kids to do this too; because it is their country... I am not talking here about reasons. People can always come up with reasons. The main thing is that we would be willing to sacrifice the most valuable thing we have - our life - for a concept, whatever the concept might be - a country, God or honor. Living on this piece of stone, big enough for all of us - called Earth - we would die or kill for our piece of land, sacrificing the purest and most sacred thing in the Universe - LIFE - as if we have the right to do it. Whether we are the defendants or the attackers is irrelevant. Serving major political and financial interests, people become just marionettes in the hands of those ruling their lives. Docile puppets who serve one or more paranoiacs obsessed with power. Power over what? In the name of God, people died. In the name of Honor, people died. In the name of Man, people died. Limited in its essence, language became a powerful string attached to people’s minds. Some people pull, some people are pulled... Because of the level of our evolution - as a human race - which is still very primitive, we transformed the simple meanings of living into complicated concepts, restricting the experience of life within invisible boundaries. So much arrogance is filling our minds, thinking that we are somehow better than others...We judge instead of search for the origin of events. Isolated within our own limits, we can not perceive and understand the complexity of human evolution. Because of our weakness and lack of knowledge, we tend to define everything we can see or touch according to our limited perception. A limited perception will generate a limited language so a limited communication develops between people. Combined with the conservatism of the human social conscience, it leads to conflicts. Either a small argument at home or a wiped out city in a war… the origin is the same. We all use words to communicate between each other and with ourselves. Each word has a significance of its own, and is able to translate an emotion, an action or a concept. A word defines something making it understandable for everybody. When necessary more then two words are used to express the same idea; therefore, there are less chances of misunderstanding it. Once the language is programmed in our brain, words become empowered with a fantastic ability - the one of being able to trigger feelings and memories. Depending on how words are used they can make a person fall in love, become angry or depressed. To a certain degree we all are able to use the power of the words in order to obtain these kinds of results. Words are just a language. The essence of them isn’t within their form. If an Indian would say “you are a pig”, in his own dialect but with a wonderful smile on his face, you would return his smile and say “thank you” - unless you speak his language. The essence of a word’s power is its unanimous acceptance within a group of individuals; otherwise words would never mean anything. Living within any social organization, such as human society with its different forms of expression and different languages, is not vital for humans. But if we decide to be part of this society, we should learn to become aware of the entire human society regardless of race, wealth and so on. When we will go beyond the limited language that separates us right now, we will become a conscious human race. We will evolve, but for now we just defend our little insignificant borders invented just to keep us apart. For now we still need concepts. We still use language to hide, instead of express. For now we still fear each other. We still fear life and death. We still prefer to be weak although we are not. So many prophets have said that our world is coming to a disastrous end. They said: "The Apocalypse is coming. Fear it!" with different words but the same meaning. Apocalypse means revelation. It means knowledge. New. It might come with changes that we might not like. But maybe, this is the price we have to pay for our arrogance and ignorance. For our disrespect for life. Maybe you are a smoker. Just pretend that all tobacco will burn and you will have no cigarettes to smoke. You knew that cigarettes were dangerous for your health but you ignored it. Now you have to pay because there are no cigarettes to smoke and you did not quit by your own will but by an accident of nature. So you suffer. Craving a cigarette and pitying yourself. Heaven can be found within us, same as hell. What if we are the apocalypse? If there is something to fear about an apocalypse, maybe it is us with our limits. If we could only accept the new, understanding that human society - as we think of it - has to change… If we could only acknowledge that the human race is part of the whole Universe - not separate, not more, not less than what we are - then when the change comes, in its natural movement, we will be part of it. We will have its strength. We will be one with the wave of change striking the past and becoming the future. If we keep holding on to what we consider to be our values; our concepts - remaining hooked to our own limits; the wave will rise and strike. From that point you may want to call it fate...but remember that no matter how much power can be gathered together, going against the universal order will always be a losing battle. Being unable to adapt to the natural flow of things will never give us an opportunity to survive or evolve. Think for a moment about those great and powerful dinosaurs, which are now just pictures in our books or objects of fun for our kids... I heard a humorous remark somewhere, which applies here as we’re thinking about the future and our ability to adapt to it by our own will. “When you have no reins, always ride the horse in the direction it is going”. Do you have the reins of the Universe? Human life as it is lived for now, is dictated by concepts. There is a beautiful teaching in the old Chinese texts describing Tao, The Way. A long time ago in ancient China, lived one of the greatest visionaries that ever existed on this planet. His name was Lao Tzu. Nobody knows for sure if the following words were said by him or just attributed to him. In a very simple manner, he described the Universe and how everything was created. In his modesty Lao Tzu said that the Universe, the Creation, can not be described in human words. But because he had to speak of them, he called them Tao - The Way. He also said that who speaks about Tao doesn’t know Tao. Who speaks about God or about the Universe doesn’t know them. It is a matter of language. Human language, in its present form, can’t express what God or Universe is. “Knowing” the full Creation, divine or not, is an experience of the mind, not one of the brain. Let’s say that my brain is a two-gallon bottle. No matter how hard I'd try, I will never be able to put ten gallons of water in a two gallon bottle. Our brain, as it works now, is very limiting. How can we think anything about God? So whoever speaks (thinks - through concepts) about God, doesn’t know (have the ability to feel) God. All our concepts are the same. We limit our ability to express ourselves to the level of the language used. Take “time” for instance. It is such a complex concept, impossible to comprehend though measurable. An intellectual concept ruling our existence, time is material and immaterial as well. We are so far from understanding time and so many things are yet to be learned about it. It would be a mistake to start analyzing it here. However, there is a story about time that a friend told me a while ago. I don’t know where it came from originally, but I remember this story for its beauty. From my memory it goes: “Somewhere, on the boundary between the ocean and the land, there was a cube. A huge cube made out of granite with its side one mile long. Everyday an albatross would come and peck the cube only once. From this impact everyday a small particle of granite would fall away. When this whole granite cube is transformed into sand, forming a piece of beach along the ocean, then you will know that one second of the Universe has passed... For how long did you say we have known each other?” I know we would like to think of ourselves as being some sort of descendants from God created after his image. Or we see ourselves as a very evolved - if not the most evolved - species in the Universe. However, all our planetary history goes back only a few millions years; and that could be just a second in the life of a Universe. Compared with the immensity of the Universe, we are just in the process of being born... When we will learn to go beyond the language we imposed upon ourselves, we will start to evolve into new forms of existence, based on new - stronger - ways to perceive and communicate. Since we are the past of the future generations that are to come, we also are their source of origin. It is up to us how we build the future. At first, in order for humankind to have a better way of living, our willingness to change would be the seed that we have to plant within ourselves… To give again an example with a computer, if someone sets up a password in it, the next time the computer is turned on, it will ask for the password. With the right password the programs can be used. A wrong password will eventually shut down the computer. The computers are modeled after our brain. With far less capability then our brain has, computers are trying to match the speed of human thoughts. Although our brain is much more sophisticated and powerful then a computer, it works very similar: in order to run its programs/functions: it uses a language. For example if we believe - program - ourselves that we are not prepared enough for a test, we will perform it poorly. In order to counteract the effects of the "not being properly prepared" belief and change that “command”, we need to use a different program – let’s call it self confidence programming. Based on this process different methods to control the human thinking have emerged. By using the self hypnosis, self suggestion, subliminal tapes, neuro-linguistic programming and so many more other similar techniques, we try to achieve better control over our own brain. We are incredibly complex and powerful; and yet almost all of our actions and decisions are dictated by a multitude of external and internal factors interacting with us. We define ourselves, as well as the world around us, based on our perceptions. Defining ourselves, we constantly define our abilities. Through ability we understand everything we are capable of doing. In our case then, our abilities are strictly related to our perceptions. A limited perception will limit our abilities. However, if our perception expands, our capacity of understanding will expand too. The same will happen with our abilities as a result of this expansion. In the human language, there are at least two restrictive words. They are impossible and never. Both words, like all others, are part of a language - expressing limited concepts. The problem is that language for the brain has the equivalent power to the commands of a computer. It can open programs allowing perfect functionality; but it can also restrict the access to different programs/functions/abilities. If an ordinary person with no special physical skills and training sees a very difficult exercise, his limited perception will create the impression of impossibility in his mind. That individual will have two basic choices: to give up the idea of doing this exercise or, if it is vital to his life or honor, do it. After making the second choice, that person has to begin a self confidence programming to induce a certain state of mind from which he can perform the “impossible”. Using the opposite computer command for “I can’t”, he will visualize himself doing the exercise and enforcing and re-enforcing the positive affirmation – “I can do it”. Sometimes, people use the sentence “You can do it!” as a self-suggestion method. This shows the necessity for those people to be told that they can do it, which reveals an even deeper lack of self-confidence. Programming or re-programming of our brain to execute something is the same process in both cases. Nevertheless, a number of people, such as athletes, don’t need to practice these methods. Although they are humans with emotions and limited perceptions of reality, as we all are, they don’t need shots of self-confidence. The best of them will be considered “talented” and potential champions. It’s not a matter of talent, but one of brain. The brains’ ability to react and execute. I have injured my muscles or joints several times during martial arts practice. Even though for a few days or weeks I was unable to train, I was still going to the school to watch my colleagues and follow with my eyes every movement they made, every stance and trick. Later after recovery I was able to perform the same exercises, including the new ones, with almost the same accuracy. The key? Sitting there on the bench, I was doing a special kind of assimilation of the information. Identifying myself with the exercises and with each movement, my mind was following each effort made by those practicing. My muscles felt as if I was physically doing the effort myself. The same rush of adrenaline was spreading through my body. It was at that time when I started to learn about the power within myself. Later onI had a few of my students trying the same thing. They all had the same result as I had. It is nothing more the just a different approach to what people are use to doing. We all are able “to do it”, but most of us have been brainwashed and have been told the opposite. It doesn’t even go through our mind to try this approach or to figure a way out of our own limits. This is my concept about impossibility: if something can be imagined then it’s already possible. A very long time ago, hundreds of thousands of years ago, or maybe millions, a major change occurred with a strong impact on our evolution and history. A change that modified an energy path and later on, in time, re-programmed our brains limiting our potential. From that time, human life has changed. How and if it did happen…? I hope we will all know sooner or later. Right now I would like to give you an example concerning how I started to look beyond the language, beyond the form of texts and teachings. At one point in my life realizing that doing what everybody else was doing was going to get me in the same situation, I started to do the following thing (remember I am talking about my spiritual quest and my effort toward understanding). First I started to change words within the text that I was reading; then I started to change the exercises I was doing. Thinking that all the texts and exercises must have some value and power, I realized where the mistake was. It was within the human mind - because of the language. For practice try to doubt everything you ever learned. For instance if somebody is telling you that snow is white, think about this for a while. White is a quality of light containing all other colors. Snow could be white because it reflects the light in a certain way. Any photographic filter or dirt would change the color of snow reflecting only certain rays of light. Thinking in this way, when you see white, you actually see a bunch of different rays - all of different colors. However, your eyes can only see them together, so the concept of white is created: one color. Seeing the color white, 99% of us excludes seeing it as a sum of other colors. When they are asked what color do they see, they will answer: "White, only white". Look up at the sky during a clear night. What do you see? "Stars", you will answer. I don’t think so. A bunch of them don’t even exist anymore. You just see their light reaching us after millions of years of traveling at light speed. What stars? Go to a man paralyzed from waist down. When you reach him, stop in front of him and tell him: "Walk!" Is he going to walk? No?! Why not? You used the same word as Jesus did, so what is different? The power. Just imagine that Jesus wasn’t talking the usual way people do - with their mouth. Maybe he was using a telepathic form of communication much stronger than any other primitive form. Maybe his words were reaching the human mind in its deepest abyss, the place where creation and healing takes place. Isn’t it thought that in the beginning of time people from all the places spoke the same unique language? What if that old, ancient and unique language is another forgotten ability that we have or it is a form of communication between minds? An instantaneous phenomenon of connection beyond language? What if the Bible, as we know it, is in reality a manual in physics and mathematics, but we have only read the stories? Do you consider this a blasphemy? The experts in reading and interpreting ancient books might know something different then we are led to believe. However, no one tells us, and why should they? Would we ever listen to them anyway? Drop everything you know and have learned. Explore and discover life, don’t just swallow information that is given to you, accepting it as it is simply because you don’t know another way. Just imagine how it could be if your life became new, every second, in permanent connection with the Universe... We are not connected with the Universe all the time, second by second. We fall daily into the mythical mistake of eating the fruit of the “knowledge’s tree” and for this “sin” we get expelled by God, from heaven, all the time. Translate that like this: a) The tree of knowledge = the thinking process; b) Its fruits = concepts, limits; c) Sin = programming of the mind/brain; d) Expelled = disconnected from the conscious connection with the Universe; e) Heaven = a state of mind, a state of consciousness; f) God = everything there is, known and unknown - the Universe and beyond it. Maybe I am wrong or maybe I am right. Either way you decide to label my words - you will not know. You will think - eating from the sacred tree. Nobody tells you to do so. You have been programmed to do it. The original sin transmitted from civilization to civilization, from one generation to another. For which we now all "pay". I think that Jesus died in vain on his cross. Revealing the truth about our origin and essence, he took the world's sins upon himself, re-programming peoples’ minds with truth. From the day of his death, humanity could have been free of itself living within its true nature. Somehow his words were not enough. Somehow people didn’t care. They thought about it and some of them decided that it was a hoax. Some of them, on the other hand, believed in what happened to them and spread the word in the form of stories. Soon he became a legend. Too soon people started thinking about him or believing in him. Nobody did what he said; nobody did what he did. Or maybe only a few did, at a fraction of his power, because somewhere in a small corner of their minds, they still believed in him and in believing they were living separated from him. The "sin" was committed again and transmitted forward in time. Until now, he has died for nothing. What will you do? Right now, as I look back through this book, I realize that no matter to how hard I tried, my words do not express everything I felt and feel. Between you and me are the words - part of a language that maybe is not common. Some words for me will mean one thing, while for you they could have a different meaning. Same in form but different in their meaning, words separate us. They are limited and insignificant compared with the real living experience. For this reason, I must ask you one more time: do not follow or believe my words, don’t even trust them! Stay free of language and its fruits - intellectual concepts. Be alive. Feel. Discover and experience life around and within you. Beyond the language there is instant knowledge. Omniscience. Be part of it. Every second. Every new second. There is still much to learn. This is just the beginning. Exercises These are few exercises of the mind that I would like you to try. Read different texts that belong to different cultures, but translated in English, of course. Find similarities within the text itself as well as within the techniques explained there. Combine fragments of texts belonging to different cultures. Re-translate the entire meaning of those texts as they are combined; then find their common element. Choose a concept and analyze it from a different point of view. For example, analyze "happiness" from a dolphin's point of view. Analyze "short" from a galaxy's point of view… and so on. Imagine there is no language - of any kind - anywhere on this planet. How would you express yourself? Make somebody feel an emotion, without using any kind of expressions/language. How would you define time, if you were immortal? If you were God, what would you like to do next? Run, but imagine you fly. “The shell must break before the bird can fly.” TENNYSON Chapter 7 PROCRASTINATION AND A SCARY THOUGHT... Most of the people I know, including myself, have said, at least once in their life, that because of their agitated life - work, families, friends, social obligations etc. - they have no time to do things for themselves. They have no time to stretch, meditate and contemplate; to live within themselves being aware of their own life; a life that’s passing by and is irreversible. "I’ll do it tomorrow..."; "There is time..."; "It isn’t the time yet..."; "If it is meant to happen, then it will" - and so on... how many times have you heard or said something similar? I have seen fat people who said: "I will change my diet and exercise." I have seen sick people who said: "It is God’s will." I have seen unhappy people saying: "I am paying for my sins from who knows what past life." I have seen drug addicts, smokers, and alcoholics saying: "I will quit." I have seen children and parents living away from each other because of misunderstandings or lack of love and respect. "There is enough time to make-up with them later", they said. No. There is no time. How old are you now? 20? 40? 60? You will die, no matter what job you have or how rich you are. No matter how young or how healthy. No matter if you want to or not. If you like it or not. If you pray or not. You will die. Imagine a line that starts from where you are sitting right now and extends as far as you can see with your eyes. At the other end of the line, very far - you would hope - is your shadow looking back at you, like from a mirror. Every second that passes - no matter in what direction you walk or run - it makes the distance between you and your shadow shorter. With every second that goes by, you take a step toward your shadow as it is making one toward you, in a mirror-like effect. When you and your shadow become one, that is the last instant of your life. Don't you see it coming? There is time, people say. No, there is not. The Bible says that God created the world in seven days. Actually in 6, the seventh was for rest. Why would such an omnipotent entity, as God, need rest? In six days he made the world. The seventh was for rest... after that, action follows. It never really stops. The resting time in between two actions, shows how cyclical everything is. Each of those cycles has its own infinite value. For instance within such a cycle our world, including you, has been created. Your life is a cycle. How valuable is it? You draw your own conclusion... Of course, the Universe was not created in six days with a seventh day dedicated to rest... it is a metaphor but the teaching tries to show us the value of creation and the way to do it. Seven days equals 168 hours; that is 10,080 minutes, as well as 604,800 seconds. It took each of those seconds to accomplish this cycle of Creation as we see it. Our lives usually go like this: we start doing something; the next day we remember what we did the day before; the third day, we remember what we should have done the day before; the fourth day we do some of the things belonging to the second day and blame ourselves for what we didn’t do on the third day...and so on... If God had started creation doing what we do, he would have never finished his job and we would have nothing to remember from the day before... Well maybe we do not necessarily remember or think about the past every second; but for sure, all of our actions are the results of yesterday. With negligible exceptions, we (the approximate six billion people living on the Earth right now) never perceive life the way it actually is: new. Every second we live is new but we do not even acknowledge its existence. And it goes by, becoming the past. It never comes back. Flow with the present - now. The scary thought I have is that maybe, this positivism we have about an after death existence - this trust we have in a guiding power watching over us - is the root of human procrastination. Man does not act today because of a tomorrow. Because, consciously or sub-consciously, he knows - or he was programmed to believe that he knows - that he has a destiny anyway. The ruling concept that the vast majority of us have learned about destiny is that because it has a divine origin, it cannot be changed or denied. Guided by faith, we can only beware and obey. Let's just play a scenario for a few moments. If you or I were God, accepting his existence as real and humankind as his creation... today’s people would be our children - all grown-up now. After so many thousands of years of evolution, we would be very disappointed in how these guys turned out. I think we would be able to accept the fact that humans still kill each other or have available a nuclear bomb, or at least a bullet for each and every one of them, but how could we accept that grown-up children are still waiting for us to do things for them that aren’t our responsibility anymore?! This is what I would think if I were God… And I would wait, until the day people would understand that the Creation of Life was my job and living it is theirs. But I am not God, so I cannot tell people all this. Actually, maybe you have never even read it. Try to understand that I am not judging religions. They had their purpose in human evolution. In the future sooner or later, they will be just a page of history. But for now millions of people are still kneeling and waiting for salvation from a God that possibly, doesn’t even exist. Who are we to say? Which one of us can reach with our mind, all the way to the beginning of time? We don’t know - we just believe. We never dare to use the power with which we were born, we never raise our eyes. We ask permission from God to do this and that... Don’t you think that if something is possible to be done, then it is already done? Some people leave God do whatever he wants with their life... and he doesn’t do anything. Some people say that God is working through them and they are just divine instruments of his power. Are they special and the rest of the people aren’t? Is life given drop by drop? Maybe there is a divine reason for everything we do or maybe there isn't. But either way the risk is too much for our stuck minds; so taking our own faith in our hands is the last thing we think about. I am not talking here about our 70 years average life span. I am talking about our life as universal beings. Let me give you another example. Imagine yourself being born in a castle. The room in which you first saw daylight has a lot of people and things inside, being actually the entire world, as you know it. As you grow up, you discover and learn everything that could be known about your world - your room. At one moment, maybe because you paid attention or maybe just because you were lucky, you heard new noises coming from other rooms. You think about what you have learned - that your world and the sky around you it is the only one there is. You think about the Devil and believe that it is his Evil presence doing the temptation or that you just have gone mad. All of your values are based on what you learned from somebody else who believed, like you, that this world is the only one along with the God who created it. In another room of the castle, somebody else, just like you, thinks similar things about his world. And in every room of this castle there are living creatures believing in their unique world and unique God. And in every castle floating through the dimensions, millions of Gods and worlds are adulated. From time to time a few living beings have the courage to step outside their world and visit other “rooms”... Being so miraculously different, they are mistaken for descending, long awaited Gods. Later just as they came, they go. Exploring the rooms, the castles, the infinite... Some of them stay for a while in each room, long enough to build a legend or leave a message such as: "Do like me and you will be like me"... Unfortunately, many times, those who travel don’t speak the language used in certain rooms; or their words mean something different. Or they just come at a wrong moment in the general evolution of that room...and it would be like a scholar speaking to a monkey. It’s nobody’s fault. The monkey was there and the scholar just happened to pass by. Simply wrong timing. Thousands of years later the monkey evolved being now a scholar. But from generation to generation its specie passed down a sacred story with the value of a law. It is said that a long time ago when the monkey-scholar was just a monkey, a scholar stopped by and brought the word of God and words from other worlds. The scholar also said that he would return to lead those who believed in him. And those who didn’t - beware of his punishment. But those who wrote the story were monkeys. How could they understand the real meaning of scholar’s message? He was a traveler. So if he said to follow him because he is the way, then why do the scholar-monkeys still have their roots grounded deep in fear? Maybe he was just saying that he is an example of traveling. If everybody trusted him so much and he said to do like him, then why isn’t anybody doing it? I bet this would be a mystery, even for him... It is really a question of courage. Humankind proved itself one miserable, cowardly species. If we do what we do to ourselves, then imagine what we would do to other worlds and other forms of life. Think about all the increasing interest in aliens and extraterrestrial life. Could the aliens themselves generate it, as a way of inducing fear and respect at the same time? Maybe life in the Universe is worried that some savage creatures, such as humans, are close to having the tools to travel between the parallel worlds. A species that doesn’t care about its own and allows them to die in starvation and sickness is not worthy of help. In fact it might be smarter to stop their technological progress until they grow to respect life a little more. I wish I could say that we are better than we were a thousand years ago. I wish I could be optimistic about the future and about the possibility of God descending on Earth and pulling everybody up to a different, more evolved spiritual level. But you know what? There is a warning out there among lifeguards: "Beware of the drowning person, in his desperation he might pull you in as well; help him but be ready to knock him out for few moments". Maybe there is also a similar warning among Gods. Maybe we don’t look so friendly... We tried hard to pollute this planet from the bottom of the oceans to the highest edges of the mountains and we almost made it. So, as long as we still have a habitable planet, I think that humankind should stand up for herself. I think we should start caring about all the living creatures of this planet and about their environment. Time is running out and I think we should do what the Universe is doing all the time: CHANGE There is a way to live free of the daily routines, free of procrastinating from one day to the next. It takes respect to do this. Respect for life and everything around us. It takes a profound self-respect as well, because how can we respect something if we have no respect for ourselves? Maybe you want to change, but tomorrow. Always tomorrow. Because you are busy all the time. Because you are not yet ready or it rains... Reasons will never end but you will. For those of you saying - "I do not have time for myself" - I have only two words: You lie. You should be aware of the fact that our physical life span is really short. Unexpected things can happen and shorten it even more. If you don’t care too much about your life, then it doesn’t matter; but if you do, it makes you think a lot about how you should live. I’ll tell you how: as if you could die tomorrow. The first day you try to do this it might be hard. You will find yourself in a position that requires honesty. Living the full run of each second of every minute is an extraordinary experience, but to feel it, you should be able to be yourself all the time. That means being able to express your thoughts; able to dress as you like; able to see who you like; able to learn what you like and so on. It is hard in the beginning, especially when you are already deep into so many social habits and obligations. People know you as you have revealed yourself to them, not necessarily as you are. Many times maybe not even you can tell which one is the real you. Living in the present, from second to second, is a big commitment. The commitment of being a real person, with real feelings expressed as they are felt, with real opinions stated up front, not kept secret. It is a commitment to a real life lived by a real person, not just his summation of educational factors. You might ask, "what happens if we don’t change and why should we change anyway?" I don’t know what might happen if we don’t change, but thinking of the way history has evolved I am not anxious to find out – I’d rather change. I see no reliable solutions within the current model of social life. For a few thousand years nothing was right. Why should we make the same mistakes? Why should we walk on the same path of living on the run - chasing illusions of desires - as all other people do? Just because this road has been traveled by millions before us, but all dead and all with unanswered questions? As for the second question, why should we change...I hope I have already made it very clear in this book: because nothing in this Universe, as we can perceive it, is in perfect stillness Existence itself is pure energy. Essential power in continuous transformation, continuous creation. On the other hand even if the content of this book wasn’t clear enough, I only have a small question to ask you. Why not? Exercises Inner Sanctuary. This technique has two forms. You can combine the two of them or practice them separately - this will be at your discretion, according to how you feel. Like an ancient monk, allow yourself a few days of isolation. A spiritual retreat or a cabin in the mountains would be perfect, but if your lifestyle doesn't allow it, your room will be sufficient. Make sure you unplug the phone, the radio, the television set or anything else you think that could disturb you for the next 2 - 7 days. If it is hard to isolate completely for seven days, then at least two days over a weekend is easier. Fasting during these days is not necessary, but it would be very helpful for your health (speak with a nutritionist before entering a fasting period). This technique, in both forms, is very powerful. Your life can change dramatically - for the better - if your "involvement" is total. Focus on what you are and what you are doing. Once you start, for the entire length of this period, you will abstain from communicating with anybody or anything - and that includes "talking to yourself". First Day: Close your eyes and relax - both physically and mentally. Create in your mind a silent, empty space. Nothingness. "In the beginning there was nothing" - says the old text . . . Create your nothingness - the Void. Be - within yourself - the origin of all creation. Pure energy. Grow this "essential" space within yourself for a full day, until you become free of thoughts - free of forms - free of intentions. A silent Universe. Second Day (and the rest of the period you choose to practice it): Vibrate. Become aware of yourself. Aware of the tremendous power that you are. Be "The One" - the Creator . . . The beginning of all things. Vibrate until the moment when you generate the first point of light. A first thought - a first form. Increase your inner vibration until the initial space - the Nothingness - becomes Light - "…Let it be Light…" - The Existence itself. Then in less than one second let it explode in an infinite number of new points of light. Let them spread to the infinite, with tremendous power and speed. As they travel, they become the Origin of new things: stars, planets - gates to other dimensions of an unfolding Inner Universe. Observe how Life is created all over this Inner Universe. Free to evolve and take any form imaginable. Silent and powerful, within all things, observe how you The Creator become The Creation as well. At peace. B. First Day: It remains the same as in the first form. Second Day (and the rest of the period you choose to practice it): Once you "created" the Nothingness - the Void - Vibrate. Become aware of yourself. Aware of the tremendous power that you are. Be "The One" - the Creator. The beginning of all things. Vibrate until the moment when you generate the first point of light. A first thought - a first form. Increase your inner vibration until the initial space, the Nothingness, becomes Light - "…Let it be Light…" - The Existence itself. Slowly and gentle (you have a few days to do it - don't rush), allow this Light, or thought - however you name it - to take the look and shape of who you are in this lifetime. Include everything you are: the "good" and "bad"; the "beautiful" and "ugly"; the "strong" and weak". When ready, allow this light - now in your form - to grow bigger. To expand beyond your physical and psychological borders. Let it "create" the space where you live. Include every little detail: family members; pets; plants; furniture and so on. They are all part of your inner universe. And then, let it expand again. Include your friends and your enemies. Things that you like or dislike. "Create" the entire Universe, because you are the "Creator". Include all the details and keep in mind to go beyond the psychological limit called "difference". There is no positive or negative. "In the beginning it was chaos" - let the conflicts be, because they are the origin of evolution. It is you the Creator and Creation at the same time. Allow your Inner Universe to include and simultaneously be included within the Universe around. Live at peace with all things because they are only expression of your essence. “The most beautiful thing we can experience is the mysterious. He to whom this emotion is a stranger, who can no longer wander and stand rapt in awe, is as good as dead: his eyes are closed” ALBERT EINSTEIN Chapter 8 ENCOUNTERS In this chapter I will tell you a few stories about my encounters with different entities of the Universe. Some of them are still around, some of them are not, but this is irrelevant anyway. For me the knowledge that was transferred is what counts. Again it is very important that you do not take my words just as you read them. I will tell you about my encounters the way I experienced them at the time. Maybe they mean more, maybe less. The reason I wanted to place them in this book is because of the message they carry and the form they took in my mind. Also maybe because something similar happened or it might happen to you at any time. You should know how to react and how to learn from such an experience. Before I start I must share with you something I found in the old Indian texts. The exact words were a little different but this definitely was the idea. It is said that Buddha, during one of the lessons he was giving to his disciples, was asked by one of them about the powers that man could achieve during the spiritual practice. The legend says that Buddha answered like this: A man (living being - my note) can achieve great powers on his way to Nirvana (the place of total liberation - my note). If that happens, the disciple should go on without paying attention to those powers because they are just illusions (limited perceptions). Demons, as well as, good spirits will come to stop or to help the disciple. But he will have to go on...and so on. The end of the story says that when the disciple reaches Nirvana and a miraculous feeling of joy and power takes over his being, it is the time for him to keep on going because it is only an illusion of his mind. You will say: "Wow, so when do I stop?" Why should you? The Universe never stops transforming! Our mind has the ability to access Universal knowledge. Universal Knowledge, as I can feel and talk about it, is not just simple information about this and that...etc. It is actually much more than that. Each piece of information, as we can receive it, has a key to an infinite dimension. That key is carrying a tremendous amount of energy and it could be used like a joystick of a computer, to shift between different dimensions. Our mind, as we control it in the moment, has a specific speed. Any information we receive at a conscious level is already translated according to our speed of receiving. For this reason, I believe, if 1,000 people would receive a certain mental signal (information), they would react according to their state of mind, as far as speed is concern. Maybe 800 people would believe they had a vision of the Virgin Mary or of an alien spaceship. The other 200 would see no visions whatsoever. Now, any of them could be wrong because of their untrained ability to translate Universal Knowledge. At the same time, a lot of those people would stop at that vision and become very strict believers and followers - denying any other information that would come in any other format than the one accepted by them. This is a very dangerous attitude toward the Universe because, in its transformation, it sends permanent signals that could mean a lot to our evolution. If we do not transform with it, it is unnatural and it takes a lot of energy to keep going against it. Spending or losing abnormal amounts of energy means death and this is what has happened to all of our civilizations. This is what will also happen to us if we don't decide to "grow up" and accept our position in the Universe; instead of just caring about our own backyard - our comfort zone! The first encounter I would like to tell you about, is the one I had with so-called “aliens”. It is already well known that many people have or had this type of encounter. Many of them declared that they have been abducted by the aliens and terrible things have happened or have been done to them. Almost all the cases I know about are definitely negative experiences. People were forced into different types of perception and - the main thing here - against their own will. It is not my purpose here to analyze and try to explain those experiences and encounters. I will tell you about mine, and how I see it now, a few years after the experience. At that time, I used to call forth the spirits a lot. When I say a lot, I mean, hours and hours almost daily. During those séances many unusual phenomena took place - most of them unexplainable. Seeing spirits, ghosts, or strange entities was a regular thing. One night, I was awakened by a weird noise around me. When I opened my eyes, I had a shock. There were five “things” - five beings all around my body. They were talking to each other but without using their mouths. There was a certain kind of noise but it was coming from within these creatures. Almost instantly, I had a feeling of comfort and something in my brain took the form of a thought telling me that I was safe. It was obvious to me, at that time, that I was being studied very intensely by them. Before I go any further, I have to tell you that it was my first encounter with something like this - ever in my life. Besides that, at the time, I had not heard or known anything about "AREA 51", and all those strange things...I was not familiar, in any way, with this kind of being. After that first night, those five beings started to be around me all the time. Soon, I was able to see and hear them without any problem - no matter what I was doing: walking, eating, talking etc. A non-stop transfer of information was also taking place. We became good friends. I knew where they came from and how it looked over there. I learned extraordinary things about life and about the Universe. Part of this “training” had a purpose: I was given a mission. The problem was that, at the time, I was very obsessed with freedom. I was not ready to accept a mission for any reasons. The reaction came very quickly. The information flow stopped and a feeling of sadness and pain took its place. I was asked to do things without being given an explanation about purpose, reason, meaning or whatever... and that was against the way I was willing to live my life. I asked them to leave. I ordered them to leave. I guess I was a little nasty. They left. For months, I felt an irremediable loss. It was physical. Palpable. And they were gone. Now, years later, I am still confident that I made the right decision. I do respect those beings, but because I make my own destiny, I would never be able to do what I was asked to do. More than that, other people lives were supposed to be involved. However, I did learn to be aware of much more than I could see and I learned to accept that I was just another piece in this puzzle called the Universe. Being in control and knowing who I am, determines my destiny. The infinite Universe allows existence in any form, and whoever, or whatever tries to set limits on this hasn’t reached the infinite. Existence isn’t either good or bad. As long as we exist, we are part of the Universe. There is no purpose for existence to exist. In purpose, there is limit. Whatever encounter you may have or whatever message you may receive, remember, the ultimate way to discern which way to go is to be one with the Universe - where there is no good, no bad; no right, no wrong. Where your existence, as well as everyone else’s is sacred. Part of my training and experiences are strictly related to my opinion about our ability to shift through different dimensions using information, as I have discussed before. To obtain control over this ability, it is necessary to control a shift consciousness phenomenon. Trying different methods to obtain such a shift, I experienced different changes in my body, as well as, unusual mental perceptions. To date, I have done this process three times. Twice I had remarkable results and the third time - no information was revealed and no inter-dimensional access occurred. As I said before, the Universe is transforming continuously but, it has a rhythm of its own. I think the same is true for us. Let me give you an example. Have you ever played with an electric toy train? It functions with a very low voltage. If a curious kid touches the rail, the only thing he would feel, would be a sensation something like a pinch or a tickle. Not pleasant, but not dangerous either. If the same kid would plug his fingers into the wall connection where there are 110/220 volts running; it would be lethal. The shift consciousness phenomenon (SCP) follows the same rule. Trying to provoke a shift without proper transit might be lethal or a person could end up somewhere in between dimensions and illusions. He could be considered crazy and hospitalized. It is possible for us to provoke this phenomenon but the training is vital if we want to succeed. The next three examples are about my three attempts to obtain SCP and they have something to do with the importance of my prior training. I did all of them within the same year. This is the only thing in this book that I DO NOT RECOMMEND to be done without proper training. Any attempts on your own will be your responsibility. For this reason, my explanations are going to be vague and insufficient and in any case, they will only contain a limited message. The true meaning of the phenomenon can be comprehensible only through individual experience. My upcoming book, Universal Consciousness contains a full description of the phenomenon from my point of view, as well as, the training that I consider strictly necessary in order to obtain the healthiest results. My first attempt to achieve SCP took a lot of energy. At that time, I had not developed any kind of “technique” so it was a 100% intuitive process. First, I have to tell you how it started. For a few months I was feeling a tremendous vibration within my body. It was giving me strength and a special kind of joy for everything. On the other hand, it was beginning to make me nervous because of its length and increasing energy. Intuitively, I felt that what was happening to me was something very similar to Bernoulli’s theory concerning communicating vessels. And, I was the obstructed vessel, slowing a natural phenomenon of expansion. Those of you who have been very conscientiously dealing with Yoga or Martial Arts, know what I am talking about here. It is the physical manifestation of Kundalini (Yoga) or Ki (Martial Arts). It is the energy within us which is triggered by the Universal energy that flows through everything. The more you resonate with the Universe, the more energy flows through you. The more you swim, the more you change and become the wave. But the wave moves, transforms, and so do we. And to transform, I believe we need to experience a series of SCP. I waited and experienced that energy, growing and pulsating within myself for about three or four months; then I decided to go for my first attempt at a shift consciousness. I had no idea what I was about to do, but I knew it had something to do with a shift. In that situation and many more similar, I simply allow my intuition to take over. Using different techniques, such as breathing, mental contraction and relaxation, and so on, I was finally able to adjust myself to a different pulse than mine. I suppose it was a pulse of the Universe, pulsating at a certain level of vibration. At that moment, the shift took place. Instantly, I was mentally transferred into another dimension. I was very aware of my body and of the fact that I was actually using it. A tremendous vibration was shaking me rhythmically. The level of energy moving through my body was something I had never experienced at such a high intensity. When I stopped, it was because of my level of training; I was unable to continue to hold and to process that much energy. At one moment during this experience, I saw a face. I knew it belonged to some strange character, a teacher, a master, or something... Not cold, but not warm either, the entity transferred to me a certain volume of information. It was strange, because for the first time, information was coming in the form of emotions and then after that, it was actually taking a thought form. It was teaching me about communication between living entities, no matter what form they had. The way it happened gave me the impression of something very primitive and very old. And maybe I should say ancient. At that moment, I think, I was able to receive energy through my heart Chakra, more than anywhere else. Imagine this for a second: the energy comes toward you and flows through you. At the same time, because you are more sensible or adjusted at an emotional level, the energy is shifting its vibration into emotions. They vibrate throughout your body and a quantum of that “emotional-energy” is translated again, into thoughts - by your brain. I was “thinking” and understanding as much information as I was able to translate - not as much as that being transferred. There is no limit set on our knowledge. There are no secrets held by the Universe. It is a very simple way to communicate even when the entities communicating are using one hundred different languages. At that point, it does not matter anymore if you speak French and I speak Chinese; or, if you speak English and I am an alien. What matters is each and every one's ability to absorb and translate, at will, that energy into information. Additional information was transferred during that occasion, but I think, the most important piece of knowledge was discovering this amazing way to communicate. Later, at my second attempt to provoke SCP, I was able to use this system of communication and this is what happened less than two months later. This time I was more prepared for it. I knew already what could happen to my body and how to avoid heart failure or any of the possible damages that could happen. But still, I was not ready. I have to say it again. Being ready has nothing to do with how much energy can possibly be transferred and translated into information; but, it has to do with my ability to do it and I knew that - nobody had to tell me. Nothing would have limited or stopped the experience, except myself. Energy flows anyway and we are born ready to access it. We just think too much, within limits. The beginning of the process was the same. The energy started to increase and my body began to vibrate and then . . . the shift. All around was space. I should say dimension, because it felt like space but it was something existing within something else. I was a huge vortex spinning at an incredible speed. I did not feel dizzy - I was the vortex. Even though I was huge and extremely powerful, my movement was directed toward something I never seen in my life: another vortex. But it seemed to have an infinite size. I was spinning with tremendous power, but at the same time, I was being pulled and kept “prisoner” by the other vortex. I felt that if I wanted to "escape", it would have taken a lot of strength and I had no idea how to do it. In a matter of seconds, I think, a third vortex appeared and in its rotation, there was a face. The face of Jesus. A thought vibrated through my body: “I am the gate”, it said. At the next moment, I felt the decision to go through his vortex, and instantaneously I was away from both of them. I became myself, a vortex with infinite size, same as they were. Back in the "conscious - fully awake state”, I had an image in my mind. In the dark, a street lamp shines very strong and thousands of flying insects are spinning around it. A stronger lamp is lit and all the insects fly toward it. But it is daylight... and they do not know it. This was one of my most beautiful experiences I have ever had. It had so much freedom in it and so much power. I learned to blame only myself for what is happening to me. I learned that my position on earth, as well as in the Universe is my decision and that it is this way because of the wonderful freedom that rules the Universe. I learned how to respect being respected. There are millions of Jesus, Buddha and others...out there. I am one of them. You are one of them. Sometimes we feel trapped but it’s all part of a journey that WE have decided to take. We can go left, right, up or down - any way is correct. There is no wrong or right. Being alive is the real value. I know that for many people my experiences could be considered just hallucinations. For others, they see them as tests that I was supposed to pass in a certain way. I may disappoint some of people... I have not yet found a quality of the Universe that limits us from accessing knowledge. I have not yet found, a superior entity or a superior “level” that is testing us and says: “You passed or you did not”. All I found was respect for life. Everywhere I turned my perception there was freedom. All I was told was about the beauty of life. The good and bad, Heaven and Hell belong to limited perceptions. Guilt makes no sense. I was respected and accepted as I am, so forgiveness never had to occur. I learned that I am the Universe. Life and Death. And so are you. The "divine”, as we are used to calling it, is manifesting all around us. Miracles are ordinary and this is the beauty and the wonder that makes Life possible. Within this universal freedom, everything is possible, as long as we are able to identify ourselves with the infinite size and power of the Universe. As long as for any reason, you say - I CANNOT - it will be your perception. Limits, as you perceive them, exist and have power over you, as long as you let them. Because you are the one who sets the limits. You make them happen or you just accept them - makes no difference how... If you need to do something or you need to change, do not look around you for help; nobody is stronger than you are and you are not stronger than anybody else. Maybe at work or on a sport’s field, we may not seem to be equals, but as Universal Beings - living and dying, we are. I have as much life as you have. Nobody has more - nobody has less. Life, in its splendor, allows everything to exist. So go ahead and ask yourself if you are alive... Are you alive or dead, my friend? Then make things happen... Exercises Invent movements that you never saw or practiced before; Invent meditations that you never experienced before; Explore, with your mind, further than you ever explored before; Follow your concepts back to their origins, and there, step beyond all words - all symbols; Identify and fly beyond all your psychological limits. Be a better person everyday. Know more and be able to do more, every single day of your Life. Life is like your favorite fruit - ripe and perfumed. Bite from it with all your appetite. “As for the future, your task is not to foresee it, but to enable it.” ANTOINE DE SAINT EXUPERY Chapter 9 THE DREAM I do have a dream. Just like you and everybody else who is alive. Once in a while I think we should all dream about the future. Not live in the future - just dream about it. Imagine it as good as you want it or you would like it to be. Living in the present creates the future, but dreaming about it, brings its beauty. It is "cool" to be grown-up. You are tough and powerful. You can do things you were never allowed to do when you were a kid. You can drive. You can go to bed as late as you want. You can eat what you want. You can come and go when you want. On the other hand... You are trading something for all these “privileges”: your inner smile; your trust in people and nature; your little secrets with your friends, sneaking around the basement of the house, creating a fairytale world... Step by step, as you grow up, you give up your wonder world. You become more and more involved with “life”; with social duties; with how you look and what the world thinks about you. You build another value for yourself, one that will bring you recognition and respect from others. You do this in order to be allowed inside a world that will never again, let you go. You trade the little kid you were for what everybody else is doing. You become a replaceable piece in a huge machinery which will never acknowledge your presence. It only acknowledges your capacity to yield a profit for it. For this purpose you willingly give up your life! A sort of “social food” . . . for a “social machinery”. We all make this trade, at one point in our lives; then after years and years when we wish to trade it back, it is nearly impossible. Slowly, this trade occurred so we didn't give it too much thought. Now that it is a "done deal", don’t you consider it a losing one? I dream about Utopia - a world of infinite happiness. I dream about life and joy. I dream of this beautiful pearl of the Universe as being a playground for the souls. Descending into form, we are making friends. When the childhood of our souls comes to an end, it is then time to rise again. And, flying through Dimensions, we spread our light and joy. I dream about Utopia - a world of simple people just being who they are. I dream in colors... I changed and I keep changing because this is my way of living. I do not try - I either do or I don’t. I allow it to happen. I am alive and I am happy because I can see this entire, wonderful world. I can taste it. I can love and suffer. I can feel. I can stay still and my life would be multiplied to the infinite by everything I connect with. I am the beginning and the end. I am so alive... and so are you. I learned about patience and passion. And I am happy for all the mistakes I made. How else do you think I could have learned what life is? How else do you think that I can still learn? And who’s perfect anyway? Let’s play... Drop everything you know - everything you learned. What will remain is you. The real, sacred you. Allow yourself to be. After so many thousands of years and all the twisted history, after so much suffering and fear... allow yourself to be. For generations that are about to come, allow yourself to be - so they can also have a chance to be and learn. Millions of souls have come. Millions of souls have left. All wounded by invented limits. Millions of souls will come. We loved the ones that left. We will love the ones to come. We hold the future in our hands and we can make a difference. And we should, because if we don’t, nothing will ever be different. It is hard to change. It feels like you have to give-up something. So don’t. Changing isn’t about hard work; it is about being natural, being yourself. Is it going to hurt? It might. But it has to be done, especially if you care about the future of your beloved ones. A lot of people will misunderstand you. They will judge and blame you. Some of them will be very dear to you, but remember that your life and happiness is more important than anything else because only when you are happy, you can offer happiness to others. It is the time to find ourselves again. We are not different one from another, so why do we keep on hurting each other? Why spend precious time in conflicts? Just because we have been taught to do so? It is the time to heal, my friends. The time is now. I dream. Don’t you? As I find myself ready to end this book, a final question arises within my mind. It shows me that the beauty of my existence, the beauty of the Becoming of Man, is in its wonderful existence. Beyond life and death, in infinite transformation, a part of the manifestation of life . . . Who am I? Exercises The most powerful things in life are really simple. We are used to believing the opposite, but only because nobody told us how simple everything could be. The next ten paragraphs are just an example of this simplicity. However, they do not represent a system of rules but a sum of healthy tips that I learned over time from different people. I call them: - Ten Short Tips For A Long Life - Respect your health and life more than anything. Take control and care of it. Take control of your diet. We are made out of matter, which is energy manifesting through chemical elements and their inter-reactions. Reduce your food intake to multiple meals daily. This is healthier than “one big heavy meal”. Eat slowly. If you don’t have time eat less, but still slowly. If you are tired in the morning when you wake-up, stop eating dinner for a while. Always alternate or at least end your shower with cold water, followed by a firm and strong rub with a dry towel. When you go to bed for a nap or for a night's sleep, stretch for a minute or so; it will balance your energy and release some of the stress that you accumulated over the day. In the morning, don’t get out of bed without a few minutes of stretching combined with an invigorating self-rub - head to toes. When you get out of bed, first thing in the morning, clean your tongue. Over night, a lot of toxins are accumulated on the surface of our tongue. If we don’t clean our tongue it is most likely that those toxins will go back into your system. Use a spoon made out of wood for safety. Drink water in the morning (at room temperature) - at least a half of glass - right after you cleaned your tongue. If you wake-up during the night, because of insomnia, open the window to let fresh, clean air in; clean your tongue; stretch for few moments; drink some water and go back to sleep. As you can see, these are really simple and easy to do things. If you don’t remember to do them, don’t worry – it’s ok. Anything - exercise or habit - transformed into a routine will eventually end up being stressful, and that is exactly what you want to avoid. For me, most of the “tips” above are already a reflex, but if I forget to do any of them for a day or more, believe me, I am not going to judge myself too hard for that! As I said before, these are simple but powerful things to do. Give them a try for a while and see how they work for you. Long life to you! Dear Friend, Thank you for reading this book, and I hope you will find it useful. Share it with your beloved ones and your friends. Pass it along to whoever needs it and always remember how beautiful and powerful you are. Now, more than ever, the tools and the spread of this "informational era" encourage us to take actions such as working in a group. So much harm has been done throughout history - including nowadays - that the only way to counteract its effects is by working together. You will be amazed to see how much help you are capable of offering - even with your busy schedule - and what astonishing results your help can bring. I am asking you to create a future: to be part of a collective action, in a very hard, but rewarding effort to build a better world for the future generations. It is our choice. It has always been. The sooner we assume responsibility for our evolution, the brighter will be the future of our grandchildren. Thank you. Bogdan Heretoiu 2010 – Author’s Note: Days of Creation was written and published in 1998. This electronic version of the book is made available for free download by the author. Since 1998, Bogdan Heretoiu has continued to research and explore brain functioning and ways to tap into our built-in potential. Twelve years later, in 2010, Bogdan Heretoiu returns with a newly published book: Evolutionary Exploration. ~ http://www.EvolutionaryExploration.com ~ In this book, he presents the results of his research over the last decade, a framework for exploring and learning how we can use our brain in a functional way, instead of an interpretative way. Although the author considers Days of Creation to continue to be very valuable, his revised concepts presented in Evolutionary Exploration are highly advanced and they bypass ALL of the processes described more than ten years ago. Nevertheless, the author hopes that you will enjoy this book, and disregard some of the English flaws you may occasionally find as you read through, considering that no editorial work has been done to the text since it was first published. * If you will enjoy this book and find it useful, please consider making a donation to support the author’s work: http://evolutionaryexploration.com/Days_of_Creation/index.html