Spiritual Living

Why you cannot be happy

You have been misled in many areas and not that you have been aggressively taught certain things that do not support who you are and what you want although in fact that is been true.

You have been shown a lot of things in life that that do not lead to your happiness, do not lead to your ability to be happy and I will give you a couple examples.

Things that you have been shown or told that guarantee future pain or discomfort or indigestion. One perfect example, do not waste food, cleanup what is on your plate be paid for that, do not let it go to waste. So one has to eat and then by doing that “one takes advantage” of the few cents or dollars that were spent on getting the food into your system but if you are overeating, the hidden costs of that are huge.

Ill health, indigestion, high cholesterol, high blood pressure, bloated- ness, overweight and overweight alone given today’s crazy, screwy, nutso World, just being overweight is a huge psychological pain for so many people.

People do not know how to act with you because they’ve been taught that there is a thing such as overweight; which is another thing that you have been taught, that you have been misled is that there has been an “ideal weight” or if you want to be rich and famous or you want to be sexy or whatever, you have to be thin and yet in certain cultures in the world being thin is where people are starving, which quite frankly is most of the world, being thin is not a good thing.

So on Yogananda’s Autobiography of a Yogi, he talks about how he goes to see his sister and she asked him for a boon for a favor and what she wants is to gain weight and so he blesses her with an extra 50 pounds.

So she is a larger woman because in that country of India where poverty is rampant having extra physical presence shows that you are very affluent, its high status.

So do not waste food that is misleading.

MacDonald’s food, now here is another good one and they may have some things that are healthy but most of what you see in the grocery store, canned food and processed foods has all of the nutrients taken out of it and research is starting to show that.

Which means that if you are eating it, in some cases you may as well be eating sawdust, for all the good that it does to you and this is something that research will bear out over time.

You should be eating organic food, you should be eating healthy food, you should be eating foods that when you eat it, you feel bliss. It should taste great, it should be delicious, there are all kinds of things about that and Ayerveda talks about this but any health care system would talk about this but the disease care system would not.

Health care in our country means fix it after it is broken that and this is not that we do not get sick but that you are expected to get sick but now we have pharmaceuticals and we have hospitals and we have whatever, so that you can go ahead and eat crap, you can eat food that has been altered, genetically modified, which there is no research on to show you that it is safe at all and yet it is in 70% of the food in the U.S. that you can buy in the grocery right now.

Only organic stuff is completely safe from that and you can eat food that has sodium added to it and been depleted of its resources. You can eat food that has had pesticides and all kinds of poisons put on it. pesticides means poison and one of the things you should have learnt, is do not eat poison, do not drink and yet it is something that you have as part of your diet but we have health care which says that when these parts of your body break down, the body has basically has replaced parts like a car, we just take the carburetor out, we put a new one in but that is misleading.

It is not true and it is not true that doctors and pharmaceuticals have all the answers and it is also not true that doctors and pharmaceuticals and we will talk about pharmaceutical companies in a minute, it is not necessarily true that they have health as the goal for what they want to give you.

Because they would rather sell you a subscription to their magazine, than one issue. Makes sense, it is a business paradigm that makes sense. So they would rather control your symptoms for a long period of time, than to actually heal you.

So what is health care mean, it means paining the symptoms, not giving you about health. Real health care would be giving somebody the few hundred-dollar treadmill rather than waiting until they have a heart attack and paying $50,000 to have the surgery.

So one of the other- so then this is one of the things that have been misled is the whole concern about health. This is a crazy, screwy, nutso World. So, yeah, you have been misled, of course.

It is not spiritual living in Heaven, where everything is right. That is not the name of this book, "crazy, screwy, nutso world" is and that means these crazy things happen and where not to take them too seriously.

It is just the way of the world right now and it will pass. So, so what they are doing this today. So then tomorrow they will do something else. A hun- dred years ago they did it one way, 300 years ago, 300,000 years ago they did it a different way. Next week they are going to do it differently.

So these things are changing all the time do not get bent on a shape, do not take them too seriously. move in the direction that you feel guided to move and honor your own integrity and the rest of it you know, the reason for the title it is a crazy, screwy, nutso World, is so you get- your tongue is in your cheek. You get it-we do not need to take this too, too seriously.

It is not an omnipresent mean and horrible World, it is just crazy and screwy and a little nutso, you know.

[My dad used to use nutso as an expression]

Now another thing that you have been misled about, is that spirituality is auras, it is psychics, its rituals and while some of this may lead in a direction of spirituality, we have already covered that spirituality is wholeness, it is living in that state of grace and anything less than that, is less than full spirituality.

here is another good one that you’d been misled, is that you were born into sin and that suffering is good for you and that it prepares you and that you get your word- rewards in the after- life but if that were true, you would’ve been smart enough not to come back here and you have come back, whether you remember it or not.

So, suffering is not good for you, unless you really like suffering. In which case, as my dad used to say, “If somebody tells you that they like suffer- ing. Offer to pound a nail into their hand and see if they take you up on it.” He said, “Nobody likes suffering. Nobody likes suffering.”

Some people like the drama because they like the attention that they get but they are not putting their attention on their suffering when they are telling you their sad story tale. they are putting their attention on what you are giving them, you are feeding them, your nourishing them but that is how they are being nourished,

So, one of the other things that we have been misled, that is, if someone is bad, they must be punished.

I mean this is our court system. I mean you did something bad, you must be punished. We cannot let you off the hook. You see in the movies all the time but the truth is if you punish somebody and then ...

[We will talk about this more later

... That wheel of Karma gets churned and that is not good for you and the truth is that punishing teaches someone fear but it does not teach one not to make mistakes and not making mistakes is what we want and being nourished in love will encourage someone to overcome their mistakes. And if you do not believe this, go out and yell at somebody who does something wrong and see how they respond, which is shrinking back and closing up and then go out and take somebody else was has done the same thing wrong and praise them and tell them that they are better than that and you have much more- you have a lot of confidence in them and you are sure that they won’t do that again and be very loving and supportive and watch what they do to rise to the occasion to get praise from you again.

Now this may not work for somebody who is under the influence of any combination of pharmaceuticals or nonprescription drugs because what normally applies, may not apply in this state any more than if you chop somebody’s penis off, they are not necessarily going to respond in the normal way otherwise and these chemicals are whipping through their system and causing all kinds of havoc.

They create- the reason that people take drugs, is because drugs stress out of their systems. They cause an imbalance in the system and all of the experiences that they claim to be pleasurable are actually your human sys- tems, which are this miracle of engineering and designed by the Creator and the impulses of laws of nature.

All of the experiences that happen when one is under the influence of some psychedelic or narcotic, is the assist in trying to get that imbalance out of itself. The system just does not want that and it does what it needs to, to throw off that problem.

So- and so under that influence, somebody may not respond to love, the way that they might otherwise and this is the reason.

Now, another thing that we have learned that you have been misled, is, if something goes wrong, what you do is that you have high drama. If you hit yourself with a hammer, you swear. If you get in an auto accident, you yell at the other driver. You have- if you find out that you are sick, you whine and cry. You get upset, high drama is the appropriate response when something goes wrong in your life.

Why?

I mean, you do not have to play that game. You can just, “OH” and then move on.

“I wish that had not happened. Oh.”

Get that Karma out of the way. There are a number of responses other than high drama that are totally appropriate including thank you ...

[Which we will talk about later]
... Because whatever your experience is ... [We will talk about it later okay]

If- now another thing is, in Politics and this is true in our personal life, here is another misled belief, is that we do not have Leaders anymore run- ning all world, we have Politicians.

A Leader will do what is intrinsically right for all.

A Politician will do what is popular for the majority or even worse, what is popular for the people who is putting money in their pocket. they are more concerned with what is more popular than what is ethical and that is not the best way to run a Country because it says you are always moving ahead at the slowest possible place.

Which means a lot of people are chomping at the bit to do something fabu- lous and not able to because they are being held back by everyone and the truth is we want a society where everybody is exactly where they should be and good is being given to all but then we won’t have a crazy screw nutso World anymore and then we would have to change the title of the book and the seminar, so where, that will happen, when it happens.

So, here is a good one. money justifies war that- and is the case in the World right now, we are spending billions of dollars on war, for no other reason than to generate money because there is nothing going on over, there that needs to be fought over. There is nothing and in fact war as a way of dissolving the tension and stress in an area does not work.

In the history of the World, war has never proven to solve the problems.

The average length of time that Treaties have lasted since recorded history is nine years. Nine years and then there is another skirmish or something.

So there is other technologies. there is the 10,000 group technology that you can find out about that TM.org, which is these group programs of large group of people practicing the Transcendental Meditation™ and TM-Siddhi® Program together and there has been 50 documented studies that show that war just go down and accidents decrease and crime decreases and other things happen that are very positive and for a fraction of the cost of one soldier, you could have a group that large enough for any Country in the World to not be having war and why wouldn’t you try that?

Why would you not try all possibilities?

I mean, we are spending billions when you think it would be worth a couple million to see if this work, so that we could save the billions at a time when our Country could be on the verge of bankruptcy. I think it is worth thinking but you know it is a crazy screw nutso World. So, we will see what happens.

here is another one that we have learned that you have been misled about and that is- and this one nobody ever taught you at school but you’d seen it in fairy tales and movies and this the happily ever after myth.

The happily ever after myth says that, “ ... and then they got married and lived happily ever after.”

And then they win the lottery and lived happily ever after and then they found the gold mine or they made it to the new Country or they made it to Paradise or whatever it is that there is one event that beyond that, all things are perfect, all things are good. They is no problems that exist beyond this moment. The movies end with the wedding. The guy gets the girl, the girl gets the guy. It ends with the wedding as if nothing happens after that but that is not the case.

the case is- the only case where happily ever after exist, is this permanent state of grace, this permanent state of spiritual living in a crazy screw nutso World, in Heaven on Earth, in whatever it is, that is the only happily ever after, that exists.

Otherwise any single event is just another event, that has its influence and then that- the influence may continue, for instance, getting married. After that, you find that you are married and it does change the way that you look at certain things and the way that you experience things but again you fall asleep, again you dream, again you are not thinking all of the time I’m married, I’m married, I’m married, I’m married because you know, you go to work the next day or you have kids and the kids are screaming and so there is nothing permanent that can give you happily ever, even though there may be more happiness in that state of life than another but grace is what you really want.

Here is another myth. The great one is your only valuable in society if you have a job and you are being productive. Well, that better not be true in an economy like, that we have now with the jobless rate as high as it is. That making and spending money is what makes you a valuable asset in God’s creation and if that were true , money would’ve come along a lot earlier in creation than it did but money it was not invested- invented until our- until recorded history.

We can trace back to Mesopotamia where money was developed. Before that, they did not use it. So if they did not use it, are you saying that all of those people before then were a waste of creation? They had their lives, they fulfill, they did things.

And here is another one Vincent Van Gogh died in poverty, absolutely died in poverty. in fact, many people feel it is- that is what killed him was that he did not have any money and he used all his money on his art supplies and did not eat well and did not take care of himself and died because of it and then his art work is now being sold for millions of dollars, millions of dollars.

So was his-and if we go by the belief that you are only valuable in society if you are productive, then we would have to say that during his life he did not really add to society. It only happened afterwards, so he has a value now but he did not have a value in his life then? We never know what someone is going to do ... [That means a little more]

The truth is that we are valuable just because we are having an experience. We were created by God and not the economy and being created by God, what God wanted to find out it was- what God wants, is to experience all of creation and to experience all possibilities.

This is what is going on with creation. Is more and more possibilities are being experienced by people, animals, creatures, Worlds, Planets, Space Ships whatever. More and more experiences are happening and these ex- periences are valuable in that it shows God, it shows the unified field as it were, what- it is possible, what it is capable of.

We said that all possibilities exist in this infinite- in this infinity and because all possibilities exist, then what more can we do, as if a running theme in creation. So we can have wars, we can have peace, we can have Space Ships, we can have people who eat dirt.

It is just another possibility and having the experience you know, it is said that God has- is, “has much concern with the falling sparrow as he is with you know the events of Kingdoms” and it is true.

Simply existing and having an experience, whatever of that experience is, is what gives you value. Intrinsically your existence alone gives you value. If you are depressed and you are not enjoying being depressed, we are sorry that is your experience but that is showing one end of the spec- trum of unpleasantness and by having that experience, we as if stretch the boundaries of the nervous system, so that it is capable of having extreme bliss or love or fulfillment in the opposite direction, equal to or greater than what we have experienced.

Any experience is valuable, just how you interpreted it, whether you inter- preted as value or not, gives it worth or non-worth for you.

So we are productive simply by existing and having an experience.

Here is another reason- here is another myth- misbelief- here is another misled point and that is that sex is a major reason for doing something and it is a major reason for having children but what we find is that in the United States particularly, it is used for marketing, for doing everything from buying cars, to eating certain foods, to drink in certain drinks, which may or may not be healthy. There is no conscience in the selling of sex.

It is just because we have this need in the human system to procreate, that we are now being told that everything that we buy or do can- is going to help us procreate more and that is not true and is not responsible and it has no idea of the consequences of teaching people this.

So we have people who are beyond the point where this is a concern in their life and they are now ready to move on to other areas of their life which could be equally satisfying and in some cases more fulfilling.

at a time when thinking grew rich was written the average age of million- aires in the country was 54 and that was because they had moved beyond being totally engrossed in sex and now found that they could allow their attention to go somewhere else.

These days people may become millionaires at different ages but the point is that there is this development of life where at some- at age 5 sex is not a big concern, at age 15 or 17 it might be. At age 70 it really should not be, I mean it might be something that is fun but it should not be a major moti- vating thing.

We want to keep in perspective that there are different aspects of life ... [ Which we will be talking about later]

... and they all have their purpose and they all have their time, just like the famous bird song ,”Turn, turn, turn” written by Pete Seeger. “To every- thing there is a time.”

So sex- there is a time for sex but there is a time that it is not and then there is total lack of concern about the far-reaching effects of selling everything using sex, is a shame but it is a crazy, screwy,, nutso World, so what you are going to do?

What we really want is this idea of wholeness, this idea of living grace. I mean how fabulous would that be if that was why you did things and if what they were telling you was true, that you could get more grace, more support of nature, more attunement to having things work out for you, if you were to do this action or use this product and that is what we want, not something that we are just going to throw in the trash and a year later or that is going to break but we want things to be brought into our lives that add to our lives and add to our quality of life, not only on the surface but on a deeper level of life.

Here is a fabulous point that you have learned but were never taught. On the cover of Highlight Magazine, for as long as I have been aware of it, which is a long time (they don't do it anymore), they have a picture and they have a caption for this picture and it is a very creative picture, which shows people walking upside down or birds flying upside down or people fishing in a stove or all kinds of very creative things and the text- the caption goes “what is wrong with this picture” and very innocently, we have learnt to view the World from the minute we wake up, to the time that we go to sleep, for most of us, there are a few people who escape this and who are- who are naturally happy and my friend Marcie Shimoff’s book, Happy for No Reason, goes into that. Wonderful book, wonderful person but for most of us we have learned that what is wrong with this picture, is how we look at it.

In fact the news media itself, what is determined to be news, how they decide whether it is news are not, is whether it is wrong. Does this fit into the picture of wrong? Or is this something that is right with this picture? And because it is something that is wrong with this picture, we need to tell everybody about it.

But if we wake up in the morning and the first thing that we do is, we take an inventory; how do I feel today? We do not want- because of this habit of what is wrong with this picture, what we do we look for what is wrong with us.

We do not get up first thing in the morning and say what is right with this picture, “Boy what is good today.” in fact, we look the at the exact op- posite, “oh, today is the final exam. Today, the report is due. Today, I am out of gas. Today, my rent is due. Today, this bill is due. Today, I’m go- ing to the dentist, “oh my.” we wake up in the morning and 90% of our body may feel fabulous and we may be clear and we may be good but we twisted her ankle and our ankle swollen and we get up and we say, “OK, my ankle is sore” and that defines us for the day. not what is happy, not what is right with the picture but what is wrong with this picture and one of the things that we are going to recommend, that you do right now, is change that.

We are going to recommend that you now start cultivating the habit of “what is right with this picture.”

Think about how your life would be different if we learned two things.

One is, instead of what is wrong with this picture, what is right with this picture and the second one, also from Highlight Magazine, in many educational things is- programs in schooling, they will show you two pictures, most of which are exactly the same, of which they may be, “find 13 things that are different between these pictures.”

But what if- and so we go through life looking for the differences. I am black, he is white, I am Ital- Latin American, I am Latino, I am a Chinese, I am in this Country, I am an American, I’m in this High School, I am this, I am that and you are not, you are separate.

This idea of looking forward differences, separate us from the World around us but think for a moment what your life would be like and what word would be like if instead of learning to see the World from what is wrong with this picture, we learn to see the word from what is right with this picture.

Instead of the news presenting to us every day, we recommend time and time again to many of our clients, do not pay attention to the news. Do not turn it on, do not listen to it. Close your- you have a blind eye when you walk by the newspapers stands. Do not notice what is going on in that arena because they are presenting the negative.

So, if we looked at the world from what is right with this picture. if the news media presented what is right with this picture, every moment and at the same time, instead of looking for the differences, we were all brought up to look for the similarities between us and those around us and the world around us, what would be the excuse for war? What would be the excuse for genocide? What would be the excuse for so many things? What a vastly different and encouraging and amazing World it would be? but then in that World I couldn’t write a book called spiritual living in a crazy, screwy, nutso World and sell it.

So there is something good about this world as well and that is one of the things that is good to know, is what is good?

So when we wake up in the morning, “I’m glad I’m alive, today is going to be amazing. What is right with this picture.”

When we see people on the subway, when we see things on TV, when we hear about what happens in other Countries or the people in those Coun- tries, what is the same? What is similar? What are the similarities between my life and this? and start finding this unifying principle because again we understand from what physics is telling us, from what these different old ancient texts are telling us and from the experience of many, many Great Leaders throughout time, most of the Spiritual Leaders through- out the World have had these experiences, whereby they understand that consciousness, that this unified field underlying everything, is indeed who they are but more than that, it is indeed the basis of everyone and every- thing else, which means that I am you. I am you and therefore, I should treat you as I wish to be treated.

So we want you to train yourself to finding what is right with this picture, what is right with the event, what is right with this situation and we are go- ing to give you an exercise right now which is, we want you to ...

[Do I need to actually need to actually dictate this and have him transcribe it. Okay. So here we are going to put in- Okay, so this exercise]

... Name as many things as you are aware of, right now, in this room and outside and we want you to be thinking, what is right with this picture? What is right with this event? What is right with this situation?

We want you to name as many things that- as you are aware of right now in this room, outside this room, that you know.

What is your Family doing and members of your Family? What is your friends doing?
Who is doing what, right now?
What do you smell?

What do you feel?

Your clothes, the chair, are you hot? Are you cold?

What do you see?

What can you hear?

What can you taste?

What can you remember?

Close your eyes.

What is going on inside, physically? Your hands, your arms, your heart, your breathing.

What is going on with your feet?
What is going on with the organs, the muscles?
Are you crampy?
Are you horny?
What is going on mentally?
What are you thinking about?
Are you agitated?
Are you settled?
What is going on in the mind? Are you playing a movie? Are you thinking about what you had to do yesterday?

Are you evaluating whether what you are reading or not it is true and valuable to you?
Are you passing judgment?
What is going on in the level of the ego and the intellect? What are your dreams, plans?

What are you thinking?

What is going on in the World?

What is going on in Italy? In Haiti? in New York?

Politically what is happening in the world? Locally? Nationally? Interna- tionally?

What is going on socially in the World?

What movements are going on?

Who is social- who is getting along with who?

How many people are falling in love right now?

How many people are being born right now?

How many people are getting laid right now?

Praying? Helping somebody?

Healing somebody?

Healing themselves?

How many are harmonizing?

What is going on in the heavens?

In the sky? With the Sun? With the Moon? With Pluto? Even though it is no longer a Planet

What is going on in the Galaxies?
What is going on in the distant Galaxies?

Now with all of this happening right now and all of the things you can be aware of right now. Cannot you find something that makes you happy? Can’t you culture your awareness to be continually finding something that makes you happy?

It is said that “there is more joy in Heaven and Earth than you could ever take time to appreciate .”

So why would you take the time to find something and put your attention on something that makes you unhappy, unless it is just an old habit?

So you can now start cultivating the habit of when you are- and just culture that. When you are experiencing whatever you are experiencing, if you are aware that it is not bringing you joy, change your attention. shift what you are putting your attention on.

We have just given you- truthfully, virtually unlimited, almost infinite amount of things that you could think of and allow your attention to be on, at any given moment, so just find one that brings you joy. Just move that direction every time and yes it might be a little bit difficult at first but by God, it is worth it.

You know here is something to put on your refrigerator. “My goal in life is to experience as much joy and bliss and love as I can possibly have, as I can possibly experience between now and the time I die.”

What a fabulous goal that is? What a worthwhile goal?

You want a life goal? There it is. Give yourself the experience, give your- self the ability to have that.

Do not put down that I want $100 million or I want to win the lottery or all that because even if you do, that is only transitory.

[We are going to be talking about that in a few moments.]

So start culturing this.

Set this for your goal in life, to be having this and then having it in going life. Read that morning and evening and during the course of the day. Just start shifting your attention, always to that which brings you joy, always that-

So if your Boss is yelling at you, there is still some joy in that moment, somewhere. There is something that is right about it, OK. Your Boss is giving you attention. You know, It is the same thing, it is only- I do not care what you say about me, as long as you spell my name right.

There is some advantage that can go from that.

We are not getting you to be irresponsible, we are telling yourself to say, “thank you” for- we are telling yourself- we are telling you to move in the direction that brings you happiness, in every moment.

Now whatever happens to you, a really perfect response, instead of high drama, is, “thank you.”

We will not judge it, it could be some Karma coming back, it could be a blessing. Whatever it is that is coming to you, just say, “thank you,” for.

Find something good about it.

Say, “thank you,” find something good. “Thank you,” something good.

Here is a quote from Maharishi, “the habit of quietly absorbing the shocks, will be a great help to stabilize your awareness which is grace.”

[we are talking about grace]

The technique is just feel not disturbed. Just feel not disturbed, it is a choice and you have the ability to choose to not to feel disturbed.

The disturbing influence could be the blessing of Mother Nature to devel- op the habit to make the best of every situation.

What a great habit?

With this supreme wisdom of life, any situation can be used to our advan- tage and regard it as a blessing of Mother Nature.

Now, that is something worth cultivating.