As Being comes alive in me, fear and anxiety dissipate.
I feel more peace.
Every action I take has meaning.
Heaviness yields to lightness.
Clarity, simplicity, and focus become second nature.
The future is uncertain yet full of possibilities for creativity and enjoyment.
I can make every breath serve a higher purpose.
David Gittlin has written three feature length screenplays, produced two short films, and published three novels. Before quitting his day job, he spent more than thirty years as a marketing director building expertise in advertising, copy writing, corporate communications, collateral sales materials, website content/design and online marketing.
I have found one of the best ways to keep my life interesting is to make a regular practice of doing things I haven’t done before.
If I am bored, apathetic, uninspired, or generally in a rut, it is usually because I have allowed myself to become a creature of habit. I have found the best ways to renew enthusiasm include exposure to new ideas, a new hobby, continued education, or even a new career.
We are all born with a natural curiosity to explore the world around us and the world within ourselves. This innate curiosity is often most evident in children. As we grow older, there is a tendency to lose touch with this curiosity as survival needs, responsibilities, and pressures to conform literally choke the life out of our thirst to know more.
Nature hates a vacuum. If I am not moving forward, I am automatically moving backward, even though it may seem I am standing still. Within us, there is an urge to expand. I must make a conscious choice to move forward; to expand. If I don’t, the default choice of moving backward and becoming smaller will automatically be engaged.
It takes an act of will to grow, to reach my highest potential. It takes courage, determination, and perseverance to blaze my own path. I must constantly remind myself the rewards far outweigh the risks.
I must always remember Self-realization and the achievement of personal freedom require discretion, discernment, and self-examination. I am endowed with the creativity to shape my life into the reality I carry in my heart. The path stretches before me. I only have to take one step at a time.
How do I begin? I listen to my heart. I summon the courage to follow my heart, even if it tells me things that may make no sense at first. I live with my heart on fire as much as possible.
I am very clear about what I want now. I am Love. I am Peace. I am Joyful. I am creative in a way that benefits others. I am Radiant. I am having fun.
The most important thing to remember is that I am not alone. I make an effort to connect with my Divine Self every day. I seek the things my heart yearns for, and then prepare to receive them.
David Gittlin has written three feature length screenplays, produced two short films, and published three novels. Before quitting his day job, he spent more than thirty years as a marketing director building expertise in advertising, copy writing, corporate communications, collateral sales materials, website content/design and online marketing.
The title of this blog is misleading. I wrote it to get your attention. If you feel manipulated, PLEASE DO NOT STOP reading. I promise to make this interesting.
The man who became the Buddha lived and died 2500 years ago. Since there was only one Buddha, it is entirely impossible for me to have ever hugged him. I also admit that I’ve never hugged the Buddha in a dream, so that pretty much takes care of Buddha-hugging in my case. I’m also under the impression that the Buddha did not make a practice of hugging his disciples, but who knows?*
I did have a chance recently to hug Saniel Bonder, the founder of Waking Down in Mutuality. Saniel makes absolutely no claim to being the next incarnation of the Buddha. He is not a Buddhist, nor is Waking Down a Buddhist teaching. Saniel does not refer to himself as a Guru. He calls himself an “adept,” someone who has achieved proficiency in a particular field or endeavor. I don’t want to say anything more about what Saniel is or isn’t. He speaks for himself eloquently, powerfully, and courageously in his books and in person.
I attended my first seminar with Saniel this past weekend. The first thing that struck me was the intimate setting. About twenty people sat in the cozy living room of a two-story house in the suburbs of Atlanta. I sat only a few feet away from Saniel and his wife, Linda Groves Bonder, a Senior Teacher in the Waking Down in Mutuality organization.
I mention the setting and my proximity to Saniel and Linda, the seminar leaders, because it all contrasted sharply to the decades I spent sitting in large auditoriums filled with hundreds or thousands of people, listening to a Guru on the stage. For many years, I felt these experiences were impersonal, but I could not find a suitable alternative.
It appears I have found that alternative. My Waking Down experience has been warm and highly personal, from the first moment I walked into a WDM meet up group in Miami, to the Human Sunseminar I attended in Atlanta.
In his book, Healing the Spirit/Matter Split, Saniel refers to the Waking Down work as “aspirant-centered.” I came to the Atlanta seminar to put Saniel’s words to the test. I have to say that Saniel, Linda, and the three attending WDM mentors passed. They answered questions and commented on everyone’s sharing with compassion, love, deep insight, and a profound commitment.
I came to the seminar thirsty. My head buzzed with questions about the teaching. I left filled with precious feelings of relief, love, peace and joy. I made some new friends. The only question that remained in my head for the moment was, “Why did it take me so long to find this?”
*I do not intend, in any way, to disrespect or denigrate the Buddha, Buddhism, Buddhists, or Buddhist teachings. I’m just having a little fun here.
I have always liked the saying, “When the student is ready, the teacher appears.”
In my life, this phenomenon is occurring for the second time, and not a moment too soon. For the past few months, I’ve been investigating, in my own words, a new way of going. I won’t divulge the name of this “new way” because I’m still in the investigative stage. I can report, however, this new way has filled me with hope and a renewed sense of adventure.
This feeling is not merely the initial burst of inspiration that comes at the beginning of a new project or program of study. It seems to come from a much deeper place, as confirmed by my research.
For a while there, the only objects I could see on the horizon were old age and sickness. This bleak view originated from nagging feelings of emptiness and lack of purpose. I had lost what the robots in the movie “The Transformers” refer to as their “Prime Directive.”
For many years, I have been on a path that I assumed would eventually lead to “Self-Realization.” It became increasingly clear to me that the path I was on was never going to get me where I wanted to go. I had lost touch with my Prime Directive. I felt alone, abandoned, and a failure. During this time, I experimented with a number of groups and teachers. There are hundreds of new age spiritual groups here in South Florida. Most of them seemed ridiculous to me. A few resonated with me. I made the effort to try the ones that spoke to my heart.
Self-Realization is a somewhat bulky term that many people might think of as an impossible goal set by foolish, pompous, self-deluded people who refuse to face life. Without doubt, the path to this goal is fraught with danger and pitfalls. The good news is that, according to what I’ve been reading, there is a distinct shift underway in the “achievability” of this goal. The goal is no longer reserved for saints, mystics, and yogis who go to extreme lengths to “awaken.” Today, the goal is available to ordinary people, like me, who lead ordinary, worldly lives.
What is truly remarkable is that dozens of people walking this “new way of going” have already awakened. I have met one such person. I recently read a book written by another person who is now a senior teacher of this way. I found her book both interesting and convincing.
“Self-Realization” or “Awakening,” if you are not familiar with the process, involves the discovery of the divine within, or infinite consciousness. Words cannot adequately describe the awakening experience. One way to approximate it is the uncovering of the essential YOU, not temporarily, but permanently, or at least as long as YOU are in the body. This new teaching I am investigating does not require the practitioner to deny his or her human nature or personality traits. It is a path of self-acceptance. Ultimately, this method facilitates a harmonious coexistence and integration with the individual ego identity.
Certainly, no worthwhile goal is easy to achieve. This way requires work, sincerity and persistence, like anything else. The payoff, however, is a deep sense of happiness, peace, love, and well-being. I’m feeling the first faint rays of this inner sun already.
I’ll be going to Atlanta at the beginning of February for a two-day intensive. I guess you could call it the acid test. Hopefully, I’ll have positive news to bring back.
My father once said to me, “Son, don’t kid yourself. You’re going the way of all flesh.” Well Dad, my body may be going that way, but not me. I will not go quietly into that dark night.
Think about what it takes to become an NFL draft pick. A young man must be a standout player in high school to make the team at a college or university with a nationally recognized football program. The same young man must play at a high level at his college or university, establish a reputation as a man of character, and avoid a career-ending injury. Talent, discipline, perseverance, hard work and luck are just a few of the necessary ingredients for success.
After college, the young man goes through the rigors of training for the scouting combine and an extensive vetting process by NFL teams. The next excruciating step is the NFL draft, where the dreams and expectations of deserving, hardworking young men are regularly shredded like paper documents by the blades of NFL football reality.
Finally, consider that only first and second round draft picks receive guaranteed contracts and a spot on the fifty-three man NFL team roster. The other draftees, taken in the third through seventh rounds, must compete with established players possessing competitive instincts and talent honed to such a high level that they are nothing less than freaks of nature.
All of the foregoing begs the question that has nagged me since the Ritchie Incognito and Jonathan Martin story broke in the news: Why must men who have endured so much be subjected to rookie hazing? What do rookie NFL players, who have overcome staggering odds and every kind of adversity, have left to prove in terms of their talent and manhood?
The answer is nothing.
Why does rookie hazing exist? It seems to me, in this enlightened age, there is no place for this practice. To call rookie hazing a rite of passage is an unfortunate misnomer. Rookie NFL players pass through a demanding gauntlet so severe that only a tiny percentage of their peers pass the test.
Rookie hazing exists for the purpose of entertaining veteran players, pure and simple. It is a perk for older players who have survived, for however short or long, in the NFL. The problem with this is that it comes at the expense of young men who have already paid a very high price to ascend to the perilous and exalted status of NFL team player. It is grossly unfair to demean these men with the immature and sometimes cruel practices that come under the heading of rookie hazing.
NFL players justify the practice as “good fun” and even “therapy” that helps to defuse tension in training camp. I’m sure the players doing the hazing are having fun, but what about the rookies? They might be smiling, but it’s only because they have to. And, there is the ever lurking danger that this good fun and therapy will cross the line into harmful and damaging behavior.
Does hazing help the rookies and older players bond? I doubt it. I can’t see how hazing can effectively build team chemistry. It can certainly build counter-productive resentment in the rookie players.
I am reminded of the Miami Heat basketball team, where veteran players regularly mentor and encourage younger players to build their skills, work habits, and character. This is a product of team culture. It is something we should see much more of in the NFL.
I say rookie hazing should be banned by the NFL, or anywhere it exists. In professional sports, the penalties should be fines and suspensions.
David Gittlin has written three feature length screenplays, produced two short films, and published three novels. Before quitting his day job, he spent more than thirty years as a marketing director building expertise in advertising, copy writing, corporate communications, collateral sales materials, website content/design and online marketing.
Here’s a mind-blowing thought: We are born into this life with a predisposition towards happiness or unhappiness.
Call it a happiness quotient. It can also be described as a mindset, a unique calibration on the happiness scale embedded in the foundation of a human personality. This mindset is usually affected positively or negatively in early development by parenting, external circumstances, and life experiences.
Recently, I’ve discovered, or perhaps admitted to myself, that my internal atomic clock is set in an uncomfortable sector of the happiness scale. Let’s call it a bad neighborhood and be done with it. I don’t want to dwell on where I’m at or how I got there. Suffice it to say I won’t be spending precious time or disposable income on past-life regression therapy. The past, as a wise man said, is dead. I’m going to re-set my internal clock and, like George Jefferson, “move on up” to a better neighborhood.
I have a reasonably good plan that I’ve been working on consciously and unconsciously for the move. This past weekend, the elements of the plan came together as if by magic, and not a moment too soon.
What I’ll be doing is sort of like breaking down a plaster statue and recasting it into a far more pleasing figure. I intend to transform my inner weather from dark and cloudy into radiant sunshine. It’s entirely possible with the right elements in place. Goodbye self-limiting thoughts and beliefs. Hello person I always wanted to be.
I feel strongly that anything can be accomplished with a combination of will power, exposure to uplifting and self-empowering thoughts, and a loving source of spiritual energy.
For me, the essential element required to ascend on the happiness scale is spiritual energy. I believe the right energy at the right time facilitated by the right teacher(s) unlocks human potential. I have found I can attract all of this “right stuff” by knowing what I want, asking for it, and keeping an open mind as to the package it arrives in.
Every so often, it’s not such a bad idea to give up.
The word I really want to use is surrender, but I’m not really sure what that word means in the truest sense. I’m going to barge right ahead and use it anyway.
Once every ten years or so, I get to the point where I just want to surrender. I feel like I have done everything that can be done to accomplish my goals, and nothing seems to be happening. The feeling usually lasts for anywhere between three minutes and three days.
The funny thing is I find that I actually get somewhere when I reach this point. In one sense, it’s a scary place, a place of desperation, a feeling of being at the end of my rope. But I’ve found it can be an auspicious place. I wrote this yesterday on the subject (in less than three minutes).
I want to go higher, but don’t know how. It seems like I’ve tried everything, only to fall, crashing back to earth, unkindly.
I think, however, I’ve been this way before. When it seems like I have looked in every crevice and corner, turned over every stone, in search of the faintest glimmer of light—the light is usually not very far away.
There comes a time when Grace is met by human effort. I know that Grace will have to come sooner, rather than later, because I have been relentless in my pursuit of peace, joy, and love. Life becomes much easier when you know what you want.
One of the good things about advancing age is that it makes it easier to focus on priorities. I mean real priorities—the meaningful stuff, because the clock is ticking, louder and louder. There simply isn’t time to screw around with trivialities and false values. I’m tired of the tricks my mind plays on me. I’m tired of chasing my tail. I’m tired of being lost in the fun house of illusion.
I want the real thing—the beauty within my heart—and I know that it can’t be far away. I’ve been everywhere, done everything, made a fool of myself, and accomplished a few things. You can’t elude me much longer, dear Friend.
Photo Credits: “Sunset Over Mexico” by Bettina Schwehn / uniqraphy , Illusion Photo by Mateusz Stachowski
All this talk about overpopulation is finally beginning to hit home. Lately, it seems like almost everywhere I go, hordes of people come crawling out of the woodwork.
It’s really becoming annoying. Take, for example, a trip to the mall. You have to use a slide rule to calculate the ideal time to go, to avoid peak hour pedestrian traffic trampling you underfoot.
At the rate the world population is growing, many of us will have to consider living on another planet in some distant galaxy. It won’t be long before scientists discover a suitable planet to colonize and they build a faster-than-light-speed spacecraft to take us there. I’m going to make sure my retirement account is healthy enough to buy a one-way ticket for me and my family to make the journey.
Starting over, however, is not going to be easy. There won’t be any NFL or NBA games to watch, golf to play, books to read, or computer games to play—save the ones we take with us. My wife and daughter will miss Lifetime, Housewives, nail salons, and shopping malls, to mention only a few life staples, before civilization reasserts itself.
How did we get ourselves into this situation? According to an actuarial study commissioned by the US Social Security Service, life expectancy has increased by 28 years for men and 26 years for women from 1900 to 2001. According to the same study, this is due to several factors:
• Access to primary medical care for the general population
• Improved healthcare provided to mothers and babies
I’d like to add one more item to this list: Thanks to medical science, people are living longer. In my humble opinion, some people are living longer than they should. Please allow me to explain.
As I write this, I’m sitting in a cancer center waiting for a vitamin B-12 shot and thanking God I don’t have cancer. I see people shuffle in, many in their eighties and nineties, supported by walkers and canes, wearing bandages, heads bent, half asleep. You have to feel sorry for these people while praying you don’t wind up like them.
Certainly, cancer has many causes, but one of them is simply the aging process. We reach a point where our immune system grows too feeble to protect us. At this point, the party is over. We become like AIDS patients before the curative cocktail, with nothing to look forward to but one disease after another.
Yet people hang on, thanks to the wonders of medical science, hoping life will one day be worth living again. Maybe that day will come when full-body transplants become available. If this doesn’t happen in the next ten or twenty years, I hope I will have the wisdom to know when it’s time to gracefully exit stage right (or left.) To put it another way, to have the courtesy to make room for someone else and stop contributing to escalating healthcare costs.
In the meantime, I’ll go on meditating, exercising and pursuing the interests that make me feel happy-from-the-heart. And for the sake of EVERYONE’S quality of life, can we PLEASE be a little more conscious by making fewer babies?
Last year, TPRF partnered with The Adventure Project to help transform fifty farmers into profitable entrepreneurs in Kenya. We are proud to report that those farmers have moved from poverty to the middle class, and are sending 75 of their children to school for the first time from the money they earn selling produce. Here is a story written by guest blogger Becky Straw, Co-Founder of The Adventure Project, demonstrating the impact this gift is making to feed the hungry in Kenya.
I wish I could take you here. I wish I could take you by the hand and sit you next to me on Hannah’s couch to experience her story in person.
I sat and appreciated the modest house, just one small living room, flanked by two simple quarters on either side. A single light bulb hung from the tin roof, and dozens of baby chicks chirped relentlessly outside. Inside, I admired the walls, every inch covered with images. Soccer posters, old calendars, and embroidered wall hangings. Looking closer I saw that they were bible verses, stitched in between happy flowers: “To whom much is given, much is expected.”
Upon our arrival, Hannah shrieked playfully, like so many women would, “You have arrived early, don’t film me yet – I haven’t done my hair!” We laughed and nodded in understanding as she ducked into the next room.
While I waited as she primped, I asked her son, Steve, how he’s doing in school. He modestly mumbled, “good,” like a typical teenage boy, even walking with the gait of a sudden growth spurt. I pushed harder until he finally puts aside his 7th grade indifference and confessed to us his dream. “When I grow up I want to work in hospitality management.”
Hannah With Son Steve
“Why?” we ask.
His neighbor is a hotel manager, and he has a good house, he admitted. There’s also a chance that the President might come into his hotel, and that would be very exciting. It’s a modest dream, but it’s achievable. It’s possible because he has excellent grades and because of his family. Because of his mother.
Outside, Hannah hands me a large package, wrapped in yellowed plastic tarp and tied up with string, like a present. I balance it awkwardly. It takes me a minute to realize, “Oh, this is your irrigation pump.”
Kuyu, the marketing manager for Kickstart, looks at me and smiles, speaking softly, “It’s funny that she wraps it like this. It’s chip-resistant paint. It’s not going to rust or be damaged.” Hannah has had her pump for two years. It still looks brand new.
We tread carefully down a slope to her small garden, walking through trees until we reach a clearing where the sky opens up before us. Fruits and vegetables of every variety lay in neat little rows. Huge fuchsia flowers bloom wildly along her fence. It’s an unexpected Eden.
Carefully, she unwraps her pump and goes to work. Hannah’s farming business has tripled since she purchased her irrigation pump, a fact she is keenly aware of.
Her story is not unique. The benefits of one pump are astronomical. A pump can increase harvests by 3-4 times per year and can irrigate up to 2 acres of land per day. One pump has the ability to move a farmer and their family from poverty into the middle class in just one harvest.
The irony of Africa is that 75% of all subsistence farmers’ children go hungry because they cannot grow enough to even feed their own families. With an irrigation pump, farmers suddenly have so much food that they can sell their surplus in local markets. They earn enough to send an average of 1.5 of their children to school for the first time.
As hard as I try, I can’t think of any single item in America to compare the pump to. What’s the one physical item we have in the U.S. that can transform a poor family struggling to feed themselves into nearly instant middle-class entrepreneurs?
Hannah and Steve Gardening
After Hannah finished watering her garden, she grabbed her old bucket, filled it with water from her small well, and did something I didn’t expect. She began painstakingly washing every inch of her pump free of mud and dirt. Thoughtfully. Methodically. As if she was caring for a precious child.
After twenty minutes she carefully took the pump, laid it on the plastic, tied it up with string, and rolled the hose into a neat coil. I asked if she followed this routine every day.
“No,” Hannah replied. “Plants only need to be watered every other day.” In her own way, she answered my question. I took my notebook out of my backpack and wrote one word in the margin. Value.
Hannah and her husband bought this pump themselves. The Adventure Project is helping to subsidize the costs of the Kickstart program, so that the pump can be sold at an affordable price. No determined farmer is too destitute to pay, and Kickstart has even developed an extended payment program for those truly in need.
With the income generated from selling her crops, Hannah has invested in chickens and now sells eggs along with her produce. She can also afford her son’s school fees, and he will never miss school again because they can’t afford to buy him shoes and socks.
No longer toiling all day under the hot sun, carrying a bucket, plopping water and drenching seedlings, Hannah now has time for her favorite activity, she tells us joyfully – teaching Sunday School at her church.
I cannot think of one investment more precious. More valuable.
This is the Kenya I know and love. The story I want you to be part of. There is no longing. No begging. No swollen bellies or hungry eyes. If there are tears, they are mine. And maybe yours. Welling with happiness. For me, I know I’ve found my calling. The opportunity to play a small role in giving something more valuable than gold; a job.
Friends, we have set an ambitious goal: we want to help 323 other families in Kenya this year. Every $400 will get one pump to a farmer in need. If successful, our funds will help 323 farmers grow enough crops to become profitable – feeding 25,000 neighbors and sending 500 of their kids to school for the very first time. Imagine giving someone like Hannah the opportunity of a lifetime.
“The Adventure Project is incredibly honored and grateful for all TPRF has done to support food, water and peace around the globe. Your support for our Hunger Campaign has directly benefited thousands of people, and your $10,000 gift created jobs for 25 farmers last year. We cannot thank you enough for all that you done and continue to do to make the world a better place. Thank you.” – Becky Straw, Co-Founder of The Adventure Project.
Open your mental windows. Let your attitude bathe in the sunshine of optimism. Don’t worry about the possibility of sunburn.
That’s a pretty corny metaphor. Just imagine, however, what would happen if every chronic pessimist on the planet took this advice.
The cost of healthcare would plummet. There would be fewer traffic accidents. The unemployment rate would nose dive. The average human life span would increase by five or ten years. These are just a few of the likely outcomes of a few billion upgraded attitudes.
My optimistic attitude is based on the belief that at the very center of the universe in which we live there dwells a loving kindness that cares about our happiness and well-being.
When I choose to believe and to feel this way, life becomes easier.
Through the eyes of optimism, I see the world as a place full of endless possibilities to express myself positively.
There is a voice in my head that tries to convince me otherwise. I suspect I am not the only person who hears this derisive, discouraging voice. The only difference between most of us in this regard, it seems to me, is how we deal with this voice.
I used to believe the discouraging voice in my head was a friendly voice. I believed it was there to warn me not to try things I couldn’t or shouldn’t do. It has taken a lot of growing through painful experience to learn the critical voice was not my friend most of the time.
On the surface, it would seem an easy task to learn the difference between healthy self-restraint and the paralyzing fear engendered by an over-abundance of self-criticism. Perhaps the messages a person hears as a child from parents and teachers makes a difference in the way he or she responds to their inner critic. A strong self-image provides a safe haven from the twin sirens of doubt and fear.
I have found it helps to express your fears to a friend or to a mental health professional to get an objective view of your thoughts as they relate to accomplishing goals. Most fears, when expressed out in the open, prove to be phantoms made of irrational thinking.
The dream in your heart needs to be nurtured with positive, reinforcing thoughts in order for it to manifest into a concrete reality. It takes a persistent, consistent effort to escape the prison of the jailing voice of discouragement.
Being optimistic is an act of loving yourself and your possibilities. It is an act of flying above the clouds of doubt.
Personal fulfillment and the joy of helping others flow from the fountainhead of optimism.
An attitude of optimism leads to an active life of freedom.
Opportunities for growth and prosperity surround us constantly. Smile. Open your heart and embrace these gifts as they come your way. The loving force at the center of life beckons you to become your highest, happiest, and best self.
Heart Banter by David Gittlin 