WHAT MAKES FOR REAL? WHO DECIDES?

WHAT MAKES FOR REAL?

WHO DECIDES?

For his insights and inspiration I acknowledge with gratitude Dr. Deepak Chopra – a quiet giant of the consciousness growth movement.

The most common element in every possible experience is our awareness of it. If we are aware of something, it is ergo happening. If something is not happening in our awareness, then it is not our experience; for us it is not happening. Now it may be that someone tells me about something that happened in his/her experience. That's fine. But it was not my experience. At best, for me, it is only a belief in what someone else recalls from their experience, filtered and screened as it has been since by their prejudices. And nothing could be further from reality than a belief in an indirect experience.

For anything that happens directly in your awareness, belief is not required. It's happening, you are conscious of it happening, you are experiencing it first-hand. It's real.

But how does consciousness of a real, first-hand experience happen? Despite centuries of searching and inspection, that “how” has kept itself a tantalising secret, currently traveling under the name of “the hard problem.” Philosopher David Chalmers, who coined the term, says, “There is nothing that we know more intimately than conscious experience, but there is nothing that is harder to explain.” 

Now before I walk you into this maze I need to explain two things clearly to you. The first is that I don't have an answer; we are going into this unknown together, and without the benefit of Innocence, because we now have the baggage of all our preconceptions, beliefs and prejudices that may get in the way of clear-seeing. The second point I want to make is that I maintain and use a very clear distinction between the terms “awareness” and “consciousness”: pure, undivided “awareness” is that state which has always existed, without beginning or end, and therefore no middle point either. Awareness is indefinable and un-measurable. On the other hand, Consciousness in my lexicon is, thanks to Dr. Harry Palmer, “Awareness” with limitations inherent in the sentient being that is “aware-ing” at the time. Harry talks of “human limitations”, but I have more than a sneaking suspicion that humans are not the only beings in creation that have a limited and limiting self awareness.

One morning during soaring lessons a curious young eaglet asked its mother, “Where does the sky come from?” Interesting question, and one way outside the elder eagle's knowing. It's a bit like a fish asking “Where does water come from?” or a human wondering “Where does conscious awareness come from?” Does it indeed “come from” anywhere, or has it always been just “here”? Quantum physics has already proved that nothing shows up as real until a sentient awareness notices it.

Does the Mind - yours and mine - produce consciousness and awareness? Or does conscious awareness produce the Mind, and the trappings that go with it, including the brain and the orchestra it conducts? This is a chicken-or-egg conundrum to top them all. Or maybe not; it may be that both possibilities co-exist: brain and mind as they are forming, even pre-natally, create an awareness that later develops into several forms of consciousness -AND - all of creation, including minds, brains and intelligence systems in all their forms, arises within a pre-existing Awareness.

My money as usual is on the “and/and” possibility. Yes, I know it's illogical and impossible to reason. But maybe I'm drawn to it precisely because it doesn't make any sense. When I take a long, broad, reflective view of my corner of the cosmos, things that don't make sense actually fit fluidly and work better than those that conform to supposed “laws”. The world and people around me have this perplexing habit of not comfortably accommodating laws that make sense, except sometimes. The riddle of Awareness is as paradoxical, irrational and deeply mysterious as we are.

Dr. Deepak Chopra reminds us that the mystery is especially frustrating because we all depend upon at least a basic level of consciousness for everything. It's obvious that if we were suddenly unconscious, the world would literally disappear in a puff of “Uh”, then nothing, just like it does when you're “knocked out”. This obvious fact implies a few possibilities that are not so obvious: 1) Maybe Awareness existed before the universe, and morphed into Consciousness ( Awareness with limitations) as the universe showed up within it; 2) Perhaps consciousness and the world appeared at the same time; 3) Perchance the holy trinity – Awareness, Consciousness and the Universe co-exist in no-time.

A cosmos devoid of consciousness isn’t conceivable. That doesn't mean it's not possible, but since we are creatures of awareness, then a world without it is not somewhere we need worry about this time around. If the world were to suddenly lose its awareness we, as creatures of awareness, would be gone with it.

As we grow out of childhood and gradually abandon the pure conscious awareness we came with, you and I both know the feeling that we're ceasing to exist to ourselves. You know that dread empty feeling; so do I.

But while we do exist, we exist in our own awareness, but the reason for the all-pervading awareness that we live in, and that lives in and through us, remains completely hidden from sight. I am aware that there is “something” there that is simply aware of what I am “aware-ing”. But when I roll my eyes back and try to catch a view of that awareness, there's nothing there. I can't see it, but I know that it IS. I liken the feeling to being a camera. I know there's a “cameraman” here, but I can't catch sight of him/her.

Let's come at this from yet another direction. Think of sunlight. Let's assume that “our” sun can’t shine unless stars exist. Our sun is just one of them. We tell each other that we know quite a bit now about how stars form, what they are made of, and how light and heat are produced in the incredibly bright-hot cauldron at the core of a star. So the secret of the awareness of sunlight, whether it's ours, or a plant's, probably doesn't lie with the sun. Let's follow the sunlight trail.

As beams of it travel the 93 million miles to Earth, there's no evidence that the light radiation gets any sort of awareness infusion before it penetrates the atmosphere and bounces somewhere on the planet. In this case, the only “somewhere” that we’re interested in is what bounces into our eye. Photons, the packets of energy that carry light, stimulate the retina at the back of the eye, starting a chain of electrical and chemical events that leads to the part of the brain that we've labelled as the visual cortex.

The difference between being blind and being able to see lies in the mechanics of how the eyeball picks up the photons and the brain processes the blips triggered by them — that much is clear. But then the trail goes cold. The step in the process that matters the most, converting electric blips into vision, is totally mysterious. We can convert electronic blips into a picture – the screen you're reading this on does that well – but how you get to “see” this picture, as the King sang, “Is a Puzzlement”! No matter what you see in the world—an apple, a cloud, a mountain, or a tree—we know that sunlight bouncing off the object makes it visible. But how we visualise it -- no one knows.

The secret of sight is inextricably convolved in the phenomenon of Consciousness itself. Without being conscious of light, photons are invisible to us. To a blind person, photons are invisible. Yet it is mistaken to say that, to a sighted person, light becomes bright in the brain through some physical process, because the brain has no brightness, either. Until something opens up your skull, your brain remains as dark as outer space. And because there is no light in the brain, there are no pictures or images, either. When you imagine the face of a loved one, nowhere in the brain does that face exist like a photograph, or an etching, or anything else for that matter. You and I can both see, even in our “mind's eye”, but we have no idea how we do it. For most of us, seeing came as part of the “givens” we were born with. And it's worth noting here that our lack of understanding of the process is no barrier to seeing and using what we “see” for whatever purpose we conjure. And the same applies to every one of our other senses. We don't know how these things happen, but not-knowing has never stopped us from reaping the benefits.

At present no one can explain how invisible photons being converted to chemical reactions and faint electrical impulses in the eyeballs, optic nerves and brain create the three-dimensional reality we all take for granted. Brain scans pick up electrical activity, which is why an MRI contains patches of brightness and colour. So  when we see, hear, feel or smell something, whether actual or imagined, MRI's confirm that something  is going on in the brain. But the actual nature of what's happening is as elusive as the memory of the scent of a long-lost loved one.

Sir John Eccles, a famous British neurologist and Nobel laureate, declared, “I want you to realise that there exists no colour in the natural world, and no sound – nothing of this kind; no textures, no patterns, no beauty, no scent.” What Eccles means is that all the qualities of Nature, from the luxurious scent of a rose to the sting of a wasp and the taste of honey, is produced by human consciousness. Nothing can be left out. The most distant star, billions of light years away, has no reality without our consciousness of it, because everything that makes a star real—its heat, light, and mass, its position in space and the velocity that carries it away at enormous speed—requires an observer with a consciousness system for it to exist in any subjective reality. Without the presence of an Awareness, nothing happens. This is at the nub of the philosophical thought experiment “If a tree falls in the forest, and no-one is around to witness it, does it make a sound?” If no one is around to experience heat, light, mass, and so on, nothing could be real, as we know reality to be. (At this moment, may I remind you that an estimated 6 billion neutrinos pass undetected through our bodies, but since we have no direct experience of this phenomenon, it doesn’t have the same “realness” as a burning match. Neutrinos exist through inference using mechanical means of detection.)

By the same token, there are a squillion things going on around me as I walk down the street to the shops, but even in my most alert and alive state, I pick up on only an infinitesimal percentage of all that's available. Even the lowliest bitzer of a dog gets more from his sensory apparatus than I do on my best days! I am aware of that.

Because we are aware – conscious participants in the process of living -- we get to be the co-creators of all reality, and the sole creators of our own limited and limiting “seeing” of reality. And yet we have no idea how we do it—the process is effortless. So effortless that most humans take it for granted and allow it to erode from lack of exercise.

Because we are vital participants in creating reality, it follows that the more sensitive and aware we school ourselves to become, the more powerfully we create our world. When we see awarefully, light gains in brightness and clarity. When we listen attentively, air vibrations turn into audible sound. When we smell consciously, chemicals turn into odours, scents and stenches. And the more consciously aware we become, the more sensitive we become to nuances and subtleties (ask a perfume tester or a wine taster). Life in the areas we pay attention to reveals more of itself to us and becomes fuller and richer.

This implies that separating and setting “consciousness” and “awareness” apart from experience as a problem to be worked on, the so-called “hard problem”, will inevitably turn out to be counter-productive. This isn't a job for forensics – the subject has to be alive. Once you begin to dissect a flower, you kill it, and destroy the beauty and the scent you wanted to explore. Even the most intellectual fish can’t set the ocean apart to study as an interesting topic, because a fish's total life is totally involved in water. Therefore, if a fish/scientist asked, “What makes water wet?” the question would be pointless. The answer would be “'Wet' is simply how water is.”

Can we say the same of the cosmos? I reckon we can’t set consciousness apart as a “problem to be solved” because we are part of the “problem” we're trying to investigate. That would be like a heart surgeon trying to do a quadruple bypass on himself. Cosmic Consciousness is innate, like the wetness of water. You can't get water without “wet”; you can't get anything without awareness. Consciousness is a universal, intrinsic precursor to reality. And the quality of the consciousness you bring to your here and now determines the quality of the experience you're having. Perhaps that explains, in part, why low-level consciousness will not reward you with high-level experiences. It's certainly why my message is always the same – “Wake up!”

Having lived so much of my early life at low levels of conscious awareness, and spent the last 3 decades raising them, I'm convinced that consciousness is the same as existence. This profound knowing isn’t new. In ancient India the Vedic sages declared  “Aham Brahmasmi” , which can be translated as “I am the universe” or “I am everything.” They arrived at this knowledge by diving deep into their own awareness, where some fundamental discoveries about the unity of all life were made.

Contrary to the dictates of old-school science, there is more than one reality, existing “in parallel” as it were with this one. I've seen flashes of it. But given that my relatively clunky human perception apparatus usually allows me to experience only one level of reality at a time, and I have to go predominantly with this one that I was born into, at least for a little while longer, I'm happy to stand in this possibility -- If “I am the universe” is true, a complete description of reality cannot take place without “my” consciousness as a primary component of it. This is where I stand at the moment, and what's showing up in this wonder-filled space beats the hell out of what showed up in my life before the alarm clock woke me up.

There is enough evidence out there now to indicate that science must at least take seriously the hypothesis that this is a participatory universe depending for its very existence on sentient beings, including humans, noticing that it exists. But they don't -- not yet, anyway. And I think one of the reasons we remain shuttered out of our own creations is that 99% of current scientific thinking is still welded to the allure of separating ourselves into subjects and objects, into "me" and "not-me". The habit is dying very slowly, and is keeping us a bunch of retards. As a result of this pandemic presumption of separation, we treat our environment as a something to be exploited at our pleasure, and we treat the universe as an object “out there”. The resulting ground-base presumption that human beings came to inhabit Earth billions of years after the Big Bang seems self-evident, as do all beliefs. “Of course there was a cosmos before there was planet Earth, and Earth existed before the emergence of life. It's self-evident”. Yes, as long as your definition of “intelligence-capable life” is restricted to a limited range of forms that exist on this planet. It was also self evident once upon a time that the Earth was flat – until we shifted our point of view. When we shift our perspective, nothing changes in things as they are – AND - yet everything changes. Ideas and concepts that were once “self evident” start to sprout evidences of “except sometimes”. Sooner or later (usually much later) we reach the stage where it's embarrassing and quaintly laughable that we once based so much of our "reality" on such a flaky perception as "separation".

But this hidebound assumption that “of course there was something before” is now invalidated by the inconvenient discovery that every component of the universe –time, space, matter, and energy – is knowable by humans only through a human consciousness system that is not just “connected” but is actually as much a “a part” of cosmic consciousness as one drop of water in the ocean is to the ocean. What our tiny mind, brain and nerves can't handle, is rejected by our ego so that “it doesn't exist” as real. We have to filter out just about 100% of What-Is to avoid exploding from overload. But to lose awareness that most of creation flies right on past us, unnoticed, to the keeper, and little what we do know and experience is only a miniscule part of the whole, is to fool ourselves that "I am IT" We're disastrously wrong about that, but we persist in kowtowing to our self-imposed limitations and “being right” about our beliefs. 

How else do you explain the fact that people, ourselves included, sometimes don't see what is right in front of their noses? American Indian medicine men, it is rumoured, didn't see Christopher Columbus' three ships arrive because there was nothing resembling “ship” in their accumulated awareness. Perhaps it took one of their kids whose alertness was less stultified (as is often the case with children) to screw her eyes to a squint and ask “Daddy, what are those things out there on the water?” One of the frustrations of living in this century is having to deal with people who go into overload at the growing awareness around them, bring down the shutters, and consequently just don't “get it”. We have a Prime Minister like that – in fact we've had a string of them in the last decade or so, elected by people who've retired to a reality shaped by deliberate ignorance.

The “real” reality, the source from which everything in creation emerges, is without dimensions. It has no time or space. Its constituents precede matter and energy as they exist all around us. It isn’t possible to observe this hidden reality, and yet it is there, and modern physicists theorise about it all the time, for the simple reason that time, space, matter, and energy, they argue, must come from somewhere. The word “somewhere” implies a place in time, and Place can’t literally exist before space emerged. Therefore, the origin of the cosmos must be, not a time, not a place, but a state of aware being.

This state of timeless, placeless being-ness can’t be thought about or spoken of, because thinking and language depend on a mind and its P/A (the ego) and its control system (the brain and central nervous system), all of which which were created later in the context of time, space, matter, and energy.

I find it helpful to call Awareness a transcendent state, and insofar as it has any properties whatever, only two are plausible: The first is Existence. It’s hard to believe that our origin does not exist. The second quality of Awareness is Consciousness. Some scientists find it quite easy to believe that the quantum vacuum, the multiverse, God, or whatever name you give to the transcendent state, isn’t conscious. But to believe this is simply jumping to conclusions for which there's no evidence. What would be the point of God creating everything, but not being able to be conscious of its handiwork! I contend that Awareness is exactly what this transcendent state is. Pure, unadulterated Awareness -- nothing else is needed. If Awareness is, everything else arises within it as an expression of Awareness – the Big Bang, the cosmos, the dragonfly perching on my window sill in the sunlight – all are Awareness Expressing itself in one form or another. The expressions and the forms may come and go, but the Awareness that is being expressed in an infinite number of forms remains eternal. Without Awareness -- nothing. Without Awareness as both subject and object, it does not exist.

Negatively speaking, we have no proof that consciousness isn’t universal, a state permeating all of creation. On the other hand, there are many suggestions that consciousness could be inherent in the cosmos, and that the cosmos itself might even be self aware. The first is positive, in the form of our own consciousness, which exists, but for which no one can find an original cause or set of causes. (If there is anything that is not Awareness, then awareness does not exist.) The second clue as to consciousness being inherent in all creation is negative: it's impossible to explain how physical atoms and molecules somehow learned to think, reason, and become aware without there being some model, some inspiration to draw from. At this moment there’s a growing body of cosmologists developing theories of a completely new view of “universe”, one that is living, conscious, and evolving. Such a universe fits no prior standard model. It’s not some extension of the cosmos of quantum physics, nor is it remotely like the Creation described as the work of an almighty God in the Book of Genesis. 

This perception of a cosmos that is made up of nothing but awareness is mind-boggling. Good. Let your mind be boggled and pay it no-mind. Minds are only good for "understanding", which is just the activity of sorting things into existing pigeonholes. Mind is the wrong tool for contemplating awareness. Trying to use your mind to comprehend pure awareness would be a bit like trying to navigate and drive blindfolded along a busy city expressway from inside the glovebox with only an unconnected toy steering wheel to hang onto.

One thing that the mystics have been saying for centuries and that scientists are now beginning to grapple with is the emerging evidence that we are party to a conscious universe that responds subtly and infinitely to how we think and feel. This particular truth licks all the candy of the complaints of victims and the promises of saviours who say “You're hopeless; stand back and I'll save you from this”.

From where I stand, this universal consciousness thing is as ruthless as, say, the Law of Gravity. It doesn't give a hoot whether you believe it or not: it just IS. If you know about gravity, you can use it to enjoy a rollercoaster ride. If you refuse to accept it; you might just die if you step out of the rollercoaster while it's at the top of the tower. And “Nobody told me” is no defence should you feel like suing the inventor and operator of the fun park. It's your mission here to find out the rules and how it works. And if you choose not to, you might just have to keep getting knocked around and repeating the year until you “get it”.

Similarly with the reality of universal consciousness. Whether we are aware of it or not, the universe gains its shape, colour, sound, and texture from us. If my “world” is dysfunctional, then it's up to me to do something about it. Therefore, I feel one good name for what I am is The Conscious Universe Showing up as “Me”. Its existence isn’t a pet theory. It always has been this way; we're just beginning belatedly to wake up to ourselves. The Conscious Universe, as long as it exists, is the real universe, and the only one we presently can be sure that we have. I'm certain there are others, too, but my stance is “Let's take better care of ourselves in this one first, before we head off in our ignorance to discover and wreak the same damage on another one.”

The solution to “the hard problem” is to realise that the problem was an arbitrary creation, and like the mind that created it, it doesn't exist. The idea seemed logical at the time but, like everything else when our perspective shifts, it becomes null and void.

How do we do that? Well, you must find your own way. But transformation started for me the day I stood in the question “What is the problem with this world?” After three decades, an answer is still dawning on me. It sounds something like this –

“There's no problem with anything unless I think about it. As soon as I stop thinking, just observe, and get back into balance, there is no problem. I was mistaken about that.”

COMMON SENSE

Is there is such a thing as common sense?

My parents ap-parently thought so; they chose to remind me often that I was severely deficient in it.

It seems to me that “common sense” – something that I was allegedly “born with” and had since discarded -- is what parents evoke to secure compliance with their dictates on everything from going to the toilet before going out, to dissuading us from jumping off the roof holding an open umbrella.

But “common sense” can be a dangerous concept when applied to more complex matters, as the journalist and writer Chris Wallace noted in a recent article.......

“Common sense is such a lazy, bogus concept,” she wrote, referring to current politics. “When someone dishes common sense at you (“everyone knows”) it typically camouflages an emotionally charged, unexamined, partisan position on something important that the common sense propagator wants to dismiss as beyond debate…”

Interestingly, politician Cory Bernardi’s blog is named “Common Sense Lives Here”. And he means it – he really assumes that evrything he believes is common sense. Perhaps that's because he has attracted unto himself a bunch of people who will, for whatever dodgy personal reasons, give him agreement. Their views do not make them wrong, but their identification with their views to the exclusion of any other possibilities does make them narrow-minded.

Neither common sense, nor wishful assuming, nor faith, nor redneck political dogma is a reliable guide to rational decision-making. For that, you need evidence, wide-angle awareness, disciplined intention to get at a core truth, analytical intelligence, moral values and an awareness of their hierarchy in your personal ethic, and openly heartful enthusiasm. None of these requisites could be seriously considered to be “common”. On the contrary, I'd describe them as being almost rare.

Politicians seem to be the most prone to glibly strewing phrases like “common sense” and “everyone knows” and “it's obvious” to refer to the feedback they get from people who have a vested interest in agreeing with them. The implication is that, “if you don't agree with what I think is common sense, there is something seriously wrong with you and you are beneath the right of audience”.

From my observations, it seems that those who are loudest and most pedantic about “common sense” are those who are the least sure that it actually exists. Pontifical proponents like Malcolm Turnbull, Scott Morrison, Kelly O'Dwyer, Eric Abetz, George Brandis, Corey Bernardi, Julia Gillard, and Kevin Rudd all betray an underlying ground being of desperation and doubt, in direct proportion to the volume and pitch of their blustering. In their insistence upon playing the Right/Wrong game for keeps, they display their set-jaw, closed, steel-trap states of mind. They will be right, at all costs. They'd even rather be right than effective. They'd rather be right than happy. And they'll take you down with them if they can.

And I could be wrong about that so please don't believe me. Look for yourself. Make up your own mind – after you've examined the evidence from more than one side.

Common-Sense refugees may end up like Tony Abbott trying to hand out “Vote for me” cards to shoppers who ignore him. He'll still go home to Margie (if she's still listening to him) comforting himself with the mantra “But I'm right”.

It might not make sense, but that is Common Sense. Sadly, far too common.

CLEANOUT TIME ON CAPITAL HILL

CLEANOUT TIME ON CAPITAL HILL

DOUBLE DISSDOLUTION = OPPORTUNITY

When politicians, by their actions and inactions, spurn the aspirations of their young people and make a vague promise that the goodies they mete out to others will 'trickle down” to them, they are effectively slamming the door in the face of us all.

Even in jest, the Prime Minister of this country telling kids who want a leg up to “get a rich parent” betrays the response of a man with about as much compassion for his countrymen as Marie Antoinette had for her husband's. He just doesn't get it, and what young people who want to get a leg up are getting is something that is trickling down the leg from above, and it is, frankly, rather disgusting.

Politicians should not be surprised when those who are disaffected push back in irrational ways and in unrelated areas that scream of unexpressed frustration, anger and despair.

It is long past time we stopped chanting about “pride in our youth” and started respecting and engaging them directly as people to be proud of. Stop trotting out a few of them in dayglo vests to genuflect in photo opportunities, and pose in selfies that they'll forget wihin 24 hours. Instead, put someone invested with some clout and a required performance target at an executive planning table and start involving them in shopfront enterprises that empower them to DIY.

I've been part of and, later, worked with young people for most of my working and playing life. And lately I watch in some awe at their participation in programmes like “Q & A” I find young people, in general, to be faster and more agile than us in acquiring and processing information, knowledge and wisdom, not the least I suppose because they have grown up with cultural changes, information, tools. techniques and technologies that we simply didn't have access to “in our day”. I would think that a smart politician, if indeed one exists, would really want to entrust them with driving our country to new areas and levels of growth and development.

The United Arab Emirates has appointed a cabinet minister of their age and empowered a special council of youth (not “for”) youth. Courageous? Maybe even dangerous, but not nearly as dangerous as leaving the puppets of establishment power groups to run the show unfettered any longer.

Yet the media are still fascinated with their Two-Party-Preferred graphs marking the slowgress of two bloated, tired, anachronistic parties giving an exhibition match of Hopp-Bumpo around the middle ground, playing at skin-deep cosmetic touches while maintaining a status quo and ignoring less conservative and less anglo-judeo-christian members of society. Look at how recent changes to the Senate voting system were rushed in by the “parties” to cut down on the variety of unaligned opinion and make it easier to get their laws rubber-stamped with a minimum of fuss. Party hacks = Good; Crossbench = Bad. The charade is disenfranchising and marginalising agents of change, sources of other perspectives and renewal and the possibility of evolution. We're likely now to get even more and more of the same old same-old. It's clearly not working. Our most strident “representatives” are so obviously out of touch it would be funny if it was a scene out of “Utopia” – but it isn't. This is what passes for representative government in these “exciting times”. How anyone could stand there and utter such inane nonsense without bursting into laughter betrays the entrenchment of a political class that rivals Robert Mugabe and his cronies for out-of-touchness.

It's my experience that most of my friends and acquaintances, like me, are pedalling like hell, uphill and against a headwind while an elite (including our politicians) are getting an easy ride in the back seat to a swish retirement in climes that you and I can only dream about.

Australian politicians of the Coalition, Labor and the Greens are unabashedly creating and leveraging separation and divisiveness to control everything for their own ends. In a way, they can't be entirely to blame for that because the system our anglo forefathers adopted to govern this country was copied from a historically embedded adversarial system of working out “what's best”. Well, it doesn't work. We're alone on an island here – an island that's not even ours by birthright anyway. It's “Lord of the Flies” being played for real, all so that individual and sectional outbursts of frustration and rage can be used to say “See? We told you those bastards would do this! You need us to save you from “them” and their evil.” What really pisses me off is that we now have a large enough population of morons who believe it, and drip-fed layabouts who just don't want to be bothered.

And if you think this all happened by accident, you need a bloody good wake-up!

We have to cleanse the stables of these political hacks. Fortunately the job has been made easier – in a master-stroke of stupidity, Turnbull has made it easier by giving everyone, including himself, the sack. It's a game of bluff – Turnbull style.

Let's call his bluff.

Let's put out for representatives and senators with a proven record in the wider world outside of politics in studying, practicing and teaching tolerance and co-operation. Then let's give these people the responsibility for instilling tolerance into committed parents, thus creating in the home a culture of inclusiveness. Empower them to create rewards for successful parents and incentives for those who don't lift their game.

Getting back to the UAE – they have created a Minister of State for Tolerance. This person has the job of installing and administering a formalised legal framework that supports the tolerance that social groups already display. They understand that the best way to influence neighbours and newcomers is to have conscious and deliberate policies and initiatives already in place and working.

Tolerance has got to go a damn sight deeper than a focus-grouped slogan. Tolerant is something to be, not to parade. If tolerance has to be talked about, it's not there – not really. It's a way of being that each and every single one of us has to find a way of re-creating within – tolerance of what-is, tolerance of our various personal selves, tolerance of our internal contradictions, and tolerance – dare I say it – of our similarities, one to another.

Personal Tolerance cannot be legislated for and left to somehow happen by osmosis. Tolerance is created with deliberate intention – “I will be and practice Tolerance in all things until it is the ground being from which I come – so be it!”

Social Tolerance has to arise from a groundswell of desire for personal tolerance, and must be woven by leadership into the fabric of everyone's daily doings. There must be an open goal to develop and support each other in tolerance to safeguard our future and maintain the goodies we already have. Such an approach is already proven to be effective – the old, punitive jackboots-and-secrecy methods never did work for more than a few years before everything fell apart. Only the dinosaurs still believe that “one day this might work”. The take-home we have now from the “Stop the boats” approach is that we're now up a dead-end creek, condemned by the rest of the world and, with international law and at-home conscience closing in, looking for a way out that will let us save face. There is no face-saving to be had. We have been mis-led. Time to swallow righteous pride, 'fess up to our fuckup, change our minds, and apply ourselves to haling the deep wounds we have inflicted on people who deserved better – much better.

I don't see any chance now of a bright future for any of us, singly or together, without a total makeover – an intellectual, psycho-logical, spiritual and emotional reconstruction that floats in a context of openness, oneness and diversity, and an easy willingness to allow and even welcome each other's viewpoints. That isn't going to start in any caucus room or political party branch meeting.

It has already started in a communal dissatisfaction and even disgust with where the political system has now delivered us. I detect, along with disillusionment, a discernible appetite for intellectual, emotional, cultural and spiritual curiosity for “what do they know that I don't'” and “isn't there a better possibility than this”?

It's true. There has got to be something better than what we've got now.

And we've been presented with a golden opportunity to change our ways, and make amends for the damage we've done. With every lesson we learn comes a shift in perspective and perception that changes our future and, eventually, our past.

We have to start imagining and visualising what we'd like life to be like in a post-fossil fuel, post-mineral resources, environmentally aware and sensitive world. We have to do it, and do it now, because our current political leaders have disappointingly demonstrated in their so-called “plans” that they're just not up to the task. The best pictures they offer are a series of blue-sky graphs and pie charts.

The New World will need more than a Power-Point presentation. It needs a vivid and coherent story that will sweep up the less imaginative of us and join the dots so that each of us knows what it might look like, our place in it, and what we are expected to do from here on to play our part in bringing it about.

Change happens by our hands only. We don't need super-strong external powers like the Americans, the Chinese, the Japanese or the Koreans (except for K-Pop). What we need is the power we have from within to overcome the ravages of past separation, division, position and opposition, and the consequent suspicion, aversion, disgust, hatred and intolerance that we already know only too well.

I equally firmly believe that the kind of social change I'm talking about will lead to significant reductions in domestic violence, petty crimes, hooliganism, high-speed vehicle chases, car-torchings, one-punch attacks, drug addiction and youth suicides.

Maybe I'm off in la-la land, but a new direction can hardly do much more harm than the trajectory of violence and crime that we're on at the moment. I see nightly eruptions of deep unhappiness catalogued on the morning news bulletins as symptoms of a young population that is confused, frustrated and very pissed off at being left to fend for themselves on the scrapheap of materialism and self-interest that doesn't care about them one whit. Not really. Not to the extent of redressing these failures and placing an irrevocably higher priority over expediency.

Focusing on happiness and co-operation, instead of divisiveness, is both feasible and fully justified. Happiness can be measured and it can be developed and its achievement linked to material objectives. Studies have shown that happy people produce more, live longer, and drive better economic development in their communities and countries. And maybe a reduction in crimes of rage – who knows?

 The happiness of individuals, families, employers and employees, their gratitude for their upbringing, their satisfaction with their present lives and optimism for the future, are crucial to work which must cut across every sector of government. Up to this point, it just isn't happening, and the only party that may have the remotest idea of what I'm talking about right now is the Greens, but they have a long way to go still. Change always demands a leader's will and persistence to make it happen. That is why there must be a minister, fully backed by his or her leader, to guide and follow up with all government institutions (as well as provide leadership to the private sector).

 This is no time for hollow “if-I'm-elected” campaign promises. Under a new regime, candidates wishing to stand for office must be required to demonstrate a prior, effective capacity for practicing what they espouse, consistently over a period of at least 5 years in the private sector; if they're from the union or public sector – 10 years. I want to create a society where our people’s happiness is paramount, by sustaining an environment in which they can take personal responsibility for their level of contentment and truly flourish. And we can hope, too, that our formula benefits others in the region.

The formula is straightforward: national development based on core values, led by youth and focused on a future in which everyone achieves happiness.

Simple. But not easy. Commitment is called for to something larger than personal ambition.

I EXPECT......

I EXPECT......

~FeNelon, Francois on Spirit and Spirituality wrote recently – “ All earthly delights are sweeter in expectation than in enjoyment; but all spiritual pleasures more in fruition than in expectation. ”

Like many things that we once relied upon early in life to move us along, expectations turn out in time to be counter-productive. Surprising, isn't it? Any expectation is, by definition, something looked forward to. It is a prospect of future good or profit. The problem is its focus on some looked-for satisfaction in an imagined future.

The future is an ill-defined place in an unreal realm called “time”, a place where there is no real possibility. The power to create lies only in the present, here and now. By seeking to create something in the future, you automatically separate your self from its creator – you – who actually exists only in the present. Sure, the process of creation begins when we imagine how we would like something to turn out a bit down the track. But that image-inating has to be here and now if it is to have any effect. And the next steps also have to be taken here and taken now. If you allow yourself to drift out of the present, you've entered the dodgy playgrounds of Wishing and Hoping.

When you hold something in Expectation it infers a degree of probability, a probability you can get pretty upset about if it doesn't work out the way you think it should. Hidden inside Expectation are elements of hope (including doubt and parent thoughts and blind assumptions of “missing” and “lack”). If you then add to the mix fears of what you want not-happening, you are virtually guaranteeing eventual disappointment. The overriding Rule of Reality here is “You're going to wherever you're coming from”. If you come from a ground being of loss, lack, hope and disappointment, no amount of pumping yourself up and Expectorating will get you to abundance, gratitude and fulfilment.

There's a sense in which expectations are illusions – with an emotional wallop. I'm sure you remember the 1967 hymn to disillusionment, “Is that all there is?” It suggests that expectations impose an artificial horizon on what once promised to be an endless ocean of possibility. With great sadness it laments the fact that, in our reaching for nirvana, we don't realise until too late that the journey is more nourishing than the destination. Heaven is nice, but it's a let-down.

We've both heard stories and lived through our own experiences of Opportunity showing up in life, disguised as something quite different to what we expected. My first step past this ingrained habit was to begin the practice of deliberately and specifically putting out for what I want ... “or something better”, then watching with an open mind what turns up next, and dealing with that in trust that Life knows me a whole lot better than I do, and “what I want” is on its way – in one guise or another.

Stripped of specific expectation, spiritual pleasures are available throughout the journey, when in expanding awareness we perceive, delight and celebrate in day-by-day signs of progress from limitation to freedom, from darkness to light.

THE GLASS IS HALF FULL

Do you want things to be different?

What do you think might happen if you choose to let go of baggage you've been carrying around all your life. You know the kind of baggage I mean – the thoughts and emotions that, no matter which countries you migrate to, which careers you change, which relationships you walk away from, which situations you walk into thinking “this time it's different” – the emotional, intellectual and social baggage that keeps turning up on your doorstep just when things start to get a bit difficult.

Exercising choice in the way you see things makes a difference – in fact it makes all the difference in the world.

It was not long – not very long at all –before it became apparent that I was not going to be the textbook “eldest son” my parents envisaged. I had a rebellious streak that quickly turned sneaky when thwarted. Despite being wonky-legged and not at all athletic, I had two near-death experiences before the age of thirteen. I grew up chanting “I am not worthy”, “There's something wrong with me” and “I'll never amount to anything” mantras to myself, loudly reinforced by my loving parents who sought to thereby motivate me to be different and better than I appeared to be. I'm sure it wasn't deliberate, but I was squirted into school with a snobbish attitude of being morally and mentally superior to the other kids, a drastic distortion that was guaranteed to make me easy fodder for every school bully. Other than a biting wit and an air of martyred superiority, I had no defences. I just wanted to have friends and be friends, but had no idea of how to go about that. I had my Peter Pan-ish dreams of an enchanted existence violently quashed, giving credence to my negatively programmed belief system.

It wasn't my parents' fault. Their childhoods had not equipped them for social success. Parents cannot pass on to their children what they don't have. No-one can. So I was never taught the simple truth that we become what we dwell on. A strictly religious upbringing gave me an awareness of a spiritual dimension to human life, but I had no chance to contemplate or understand our birthright of god-ness – that would have been a sin of pride. It never occurred to me until I was introduced to the idea in my late thirties that we attract what we are, what we think, and what we feel day after day. Given my circumstances, it was easy to fall into a victim consciousness from time to time, wallowing internaslly in a perpetual state of powerlessness trying to win something and be somebody. One thing simply led to another. I struggled, and with every struggle, more struggle seemed to find me.

Finally, my wife left me after 18 years of marriage, and my whole world exploded and fell apart, with no handholds anywhere. I fell into an abyss so dark and deep I never really found the bottom.

Forced to do some work on myself by a horrible business failure, I had already done some personal growth work – enough to realise that “better” was possible, but that mind-gym worked – except sometimes, then no longer worked – except sometimes. No, mind control was not “the answer”. There had to be more to life than what I'd come to so far.

I am not sure exactly when I actually “woke up.” Although there were, and still are, significant “A-hah!” moments, it was more of a gradual staging for me than a sudden awakening. It was more like coming out of a deep coma than just waking up in the mornings. I slowly learned to assimilate each new “got-it” as it came along, and to take each of my life circumstances step by step and play them — like a hand of cards – differently.

This wasn't like change, though. Surely, the old programming and habits were still there, but this was like setting them off to one side and re-building from the foundations up, discovering new programmes and habits along the way, and finding a new use for the old stuff. This was not change; this was Evolution, starting again from amoeba......but this time doing it with eyes wide open in conscious awareness and with an acute knowing of what no longer works.

Above all, I learned Awareness techniques to increase the amount of time I spend in the Here and Now.
We experience reality when we live it uncritically in the now. When we're off in the dead past or the imagined future, usually with voice-over commentary, direct experience is no longer available. Our “now” becomes bloated with Thinking About – thinking about remembers think-abouts (past), or imagined think-abouts (future). We are now at least at least 4 stages removed from anything real, which continues to flow by unabated and totally unexperienced while we are otherwise distracted.

We summon into our existence exactly what we are thinking and feeling and believing in the moment. And what we are thinking and feeling about in the moment are repetitive streams of faulty perceptions, beliefs, concepts, judgements and opinions from a past that we got wrong then anyway. That's why life keeps on repeating itself, and why we keep on doing similar things, hoping for a different result. The cast list may change, but the plots and dramas remain pretty much the same. In the meantime, life as it really is just passes us by – unnoticed.

Contemplate this: What am I calling into my life right now? What outdated, corrupted, virus-ridden conscious and subconscious programs am I running on right now? What mental and emotional baggage am I clinging to? Is my life half-empty, or half-full? More importantly, what is even “in the glass” and how long have I been holding on to it? 

Six or seven years ago I had major surgery and woke up on complete life support. Everything from the past was gone, the future hadn't occurred to me yet, and in the here & now I had to construct something from scratch. Since that moment, my experience has been a direct one of noticing once-upon-a-time faculties returning and some new ones showing up in the empty space created by the total erasure. I'm blessed to feel that my glass is definitely “filling up”.

I know that a “half-full” consciousness is possible, and I know how that perception has transformed the way I see and deal with the world. I also know that you don't have to have quintuple-bypass surgery to get to this realisation. There are much easier, less expensive, less dangerous and gentler ways to be “born again”.

Simply choose to let go of empty habits like “the way I've always done it” and “this is just how I am”. Let them go. Create space. Do not be afraid of having Nothing to replace the old. Trust that your life has always known where it wanted to go, and has been waiting patiently (mostly), for you to wake up to yourself. Let a very different kind of Certainty, a Certainty of Not-Knowing be your new status quo. In a new atmosphere of Possibility, trust that doors and windows will open unto you, inviting you to play and explore in a land of “I always wanted to....”

THE 12 LAWS OF KARMA

1. The Law of Cause and Effect

Whatever you sow, you will reap.

What you put out, you get back (If you spit in the wind, it lands in your face)

We get what we want by becoming it. If you want happiness, peace, love and friendship, BE happy, peace-full, loving and friendly.

Learn when to be Cause, and when to surrender to being an Effect.

2. The Law of Creating
   We create whatever thoughts, feelings and attitudes that we focus our attention upon.
   We and the Universe are one, both inside and out. Everything is connected to everything else. Isolation is a conclusion arising from a very limited view of things.
   It's all done with mirrors – projections and reflections. Our inner state shows up in whatever surrounds us.
   Find out what you are, become it, and surround yourself with whatever you want in your life. Invite playmates into your space.

3. The Law of Humility
   What you resist will keep showing up until you get it.When we surrender unconditionally to what-is, we transform what was and empower what will be.Never quit; be quick to surrender – ie. Engage creatively with what-is, just as it is.
   
   
   .4. The Law of Growing
   We are always growing; the only question is “Into what?”
   Wherever you go, you have to take “You” with you.
   If you want to grow in spirit, you must transform: change is not enough.
   Growth is a DIY job. 
   The people, places or things around you are not going to change just to make you happy – they're not supposed to.
   The only given in life is “I am”, and everything we add after that is all that we have control over.
   When we change what's inside, what's outside changes, too. If there's no change outside, you're kidding yourself about the inside.
   
   
   .5. The Law of Responsibility
   We are the sole author of what we are and become.
   Whenever there is something “off” in my life, there is something “off” in me.
   Unless we take responsibility for what is in our life, we assume the posture of victim, which is a bit odd for a God.
   It is a universal truth that we mirror what surrounds us, and what surrounds us mirrors what's within us. It's handy - it enables us to do status reviews.
   Own what you see, for what you see is you.
   If you can see a need, you're elected.
   
   
   .6. The Law of Connection
   Everything in the Universe is integral. Do the inconsequential stuff with the same attention and reverence as you give to the big stuff. Get that you might not know the difference.
   Show me someone who can't be bothered with details and I'll show you someone who can't be trusted with the big picture.
   Let each step take you to the next step, and so on.
   If no-one starts, it won't get done.
   Start from where you are, not from where you'd like to think you are, or from where you think you ought to be.
   Neither the first nor the last nor any other step is anymore important or significant than any other.
   The secret of your success today is more than just what you had for breakfast this morning.
   
   
   .7. The Law of Focus
   The human mind can only entertain one idea, direct one act at a time. It can flit very quickly, but still only land on one place at a time. So there's a lot going on that it can NOT know about.
   It follows that when we direct our attention to spiritual considerations, it is impossible to harbour low-frequency thoughts and feelings like greed, anger and jealousy.
   
   
   .8. The Law of Sharing
   Your true self shows up when you are self-less.
   Whatever you know to be true, and even what you only think/believe to be true, you will be tested on it, sooner or later. Get ready to put it into practice, and live by the consequences.
   Eliminate from your be-ing every taint of poverty consciousness and thoughts of Scarcity and Lack. They are not borne out by the evidence. The Universe is abundant.
   \
   .9. The Law of Change
   The first Cosmic Paradox that we all encounter is that the only constant is change – AND – nothing changes, until transformation happens. Then everything is different.
   Before transformation, history is just like a cracked record–cracked record–cracked record....
   History will keep repeating itself until you “get it” ie. Learn the lessons you need to enable you to change your trajectory.
   
   
   .10. The Law of Now/Here
   There is no time other than Here/Now.
   Your only power is in this moment.
   There is no past, nor any future, unless you think about it.
   While you're thinking about anything, you're out of the Here/Now because Mind cannot be present. Which leaves you quite powerless. Only pure awareness can be “in the moment”.
   The seeing is the movement.
   Old thought patterns, old behaviour habits, old dreams fill the bucket. If you want some new ones, you're going to have to tip some old ones out.
   
   
   .11. The Law of Patience and Reward
   Whatever you plant in spring; you harvest in autumn – not before. And there might be some cultivating to do in between.
   The wise sower knows the harvest will come in its own time
   
   
   .12. The Law of Significance and Impact
   You get back whatever you have put in – with interest.
   The consequences of your input may not come back from where you put in, but come back they will; the Universe sees to that. It has something to do with another Law – the Law of Balance.
   The true value of anything in your life is directly proportional to the quality of the energy, motivation and intent that you put into it.
   Every personal contribution you make is also contributed to The Whole. Nothing is wasted – not really; it only feels like it sometimes. Be patient. Remember, your harvest may not come from where you planted. Be more concerned about the quality of what you're planting than about when you're going to get something in return.
   Lacklustre or corrosive contributions have little impact on The Whole, nor do they diminish it.
   Loving, selfless contributions enlighten and inspire The Whole. To the best of your ability, leave every place you go a little nicer than you found it. Do that, and you will be welcome when you return.

Whether you know it or not, you make a difference in your simply be-ing. The only question is – “What kind of difference?” and that is entirely up to you

GETTING A BAD BREAK? UNLOCK YOUR BRAKES

Imagine what it would be like to live in a world where you are more concerned about what you have to offer than what you have to hide.” ~Unknown

This is a very powerful quote. It asks us to imagine a world very different from the one many of us live in. The current state of the world is characterised by stinking thinking and risk minimisation strategies that aggressively protect, defend, and resist established positions and habits.

So what's The Secret to this “would rather” world? Pretty much the polar opposite of what we're looking to get by with now – create new personal habits that Accept, Allow, Understand, Engage and Master. Yes, personal habits. Social and Cultural changes only happen as a result of enough individuals changing their thinking from restrictive to expansive, from reactive to proactive. When enough individuals are changing, the social scales tip. No “people's revolution” or bloodshed in the streets required!

Why is this secret of allowing, surrendering and engaging creatively so important? Well, only if we want to unlock the self-applied brakes that prevent us from living the life we were born to live, to spread our wings and soar.

We have to factor in the reality that not only is our world changing and, at times transforming but also that it is doing it so rapidly. Our sense of safety has long been impacted by the major life transitions we all experience: loss of job security, financial challenges, illnesses, loss of a loved one, aging, threats of unforeseen violence etc. And although there have always been dangers and threats, real and imagined, to parts of life that we want to protect, those threats have now been heightened, multiplied and intensified with the advent of the information age and the shenanigans of those who use its instant forms of digital communication to coerce or manipulate us into some form of compliance, sometimes questionably for our own good, but mostly for their own blatant ends.

In the face of this, it is no wonder we find ourselves a little breathless, anxious, bewildered and sometimes resistant to change. Encouraged by those who want to sell us everything from funeral insurance to a new model of mobile 'phone, we are actively encouraged to feel uneasy without the latest vacuum cleaner, a certificate for life after death, or a swag of political promises.

And at the very same time we want to get un-stuck, live free-choice lives of quality substance and dignity, accomplish our dreams, find a sense of deep connection, celebrate our talents, share our achievements and pass on our gifts and wisdom to others. To enable ourselves to receive what we want, we would be wise to take The Secret to heart.

The simple, natural acts, repeated until they become habits of Accepting, Allowing, Understanding, and Engaging allow you to change where you may feel stuck. The consequent feelings of lack and loss, separation and loneliness, bitterness and frustration will begin to dissolve. Where there is a perceived threat, there can be space to notice a sense of openness and curiosity not seen since early childhood. Empathy and accord gently replace antagonism and divisiveness. Where there is distrust, there can be greater receptivity, balance and the ability to stay in the present more often.

This new approach will give you a new sense of freedom, new levels of energy and passion and a greater awareness of the bearing that your beliefs, prejudices, opinions and values play in determining the quantity and quality of your life, and how to free yourself from those tyrannies.

In the end, it all comes down to a matter of choice. Each of us can choose to be reactive and at the mercy of a world that appears to threaten something we've decided we cannot live without. Or we can choose to be open to life and its remarkable possibilities. We can be defensive and protective, or we can live with a new spring in our step and spirit, eyes that truly see, ears that really hear, a mind that can return to its proper function of reasoning and communicating, and a heart that can feel the wonder and celebrate the magnificent mystery that is life.

If I have learned anything over the course of my 70+ years as a shy, wide-eyed curious explorer, it’s that one of the ultimate cosmic jokes is that nothing changes, AND that change is one of life’s true constants. And transitions like changing jobs, moving homes, losing loved ones, and getting divorced can by trying, not to mention scary. Even when change is welcomed or even allowed without resistance, it’s usually not without fear and at least a little dose of growing pains.

The truth is, we have allowed ourselves to be moulded un-naturally into creatures of habit, who feel safer with routine. But the flipside of the coin is that routine is not what we were engineered for, and without challenge, the spirit and quality of our lives quickly leaches away. Audacity in the face of qualm can be more powerful if you embrace it. Change is an emotional process that requires us to set out into uncharted waters, and to not only test the waters, but to also test ourselves. Change can be a wonderful gift! But only if you say so. Which means that, first of all, you're going to have to radically change your mind, and your mind will fight you tooth and nail. I know, I've been there.

It is my experience, not only in living my own life but also in quietly observing the lives of others, life never misses an opportunity to offer us new chances and fresh starts. We are dared to keep our balance even when we feel like we are on the shakiest ground. That reconnecting with ourselves to become more enlightened and empowered is not only possible but probable.

It's easy to be open to possibilities in areas and contexts that are not close to anything you identify with. But are you open to any possibility (not just maybe within a certain range), or are there areas where you close up, tense up and rely on negativity? If so, what are they? I'm not telling you that you have to change: I'm just suggesting that you simply become self-aware. For example, I am extremely comfortable around gay males, and have even been know to do convincing male/male “love scenes”. But the minute I sense a male coming onto me, I tense up and look for the nearest range of hills.

There are times when I find myself tightening up when something is being threatened. “OK, more exploration required right here”. Here is an area where I'm protectively living my life defensively, and not living with my eyes, ears, heart and minds fully open. As soon as I find what it is, it’s amazing what just a slight shift in perspective can do…it can, and usually does make all the difference in the world.

With these simple yet powerful little nuggets of wisdom, 2016 might just turn out to be the year you stop feeling stuck and truly start celebrating your life! 

A QUESTION TO START TODAY.....

A QUESTION TO START TODAY.....

In every age there has been a dominant worldview that people tended to conform to. In an age of faith, everyone asked “How can I best serve God?” This was their daily concern. In the Industrial Age the question shifted to economics and the overarching question was “How can I improve me and my family's lot in life?” In an age dominated by science the question shifted again—most people live every day in the questions “How do I keep up with progress?” and a significant few add “How do I add to it?”

I see these world “ages” mirrored somewhat in the phases of our personal lives as we journey from birth to death. Think of it as a re-statement of William Shakespeare's "Seven Ages of Man".

As times and circumstances change, so does our priority version of what is important, and usually we think, or at least hope, that what we have now is a better vision than the one which preceded this.

Yet when I step back, as I often do, to see the bigger picture, it seems that each age had one thing in common, and it wasn't God, economics, or progress. It was the fundamental idea that life has a better-than-even chance of being well lived only if you have a Vision. If you know what things, qualities and conditions are important to you, in what order they rank, and under what circumstances you will change that order of priorities, you're less likely to get belted around by forces you don't understand. You'll see choices and decisions in clearer air and find them easier to make and commit to. Without a vision, purpose and meaning get stymied. 

Whatever your sense of purpose may be at any given time, it turns out that the one question you could ask every day is this: How can I best further or fulfill my vision today? Whether they put it exactly in these words, this is the personal secret behind the greatest success stories. Those stories didn't just “happen”. Every story begins when someone dedicates his or her attention, time and energy to a plan, a project, or a set of values that is larger than any one individual.

What makes for a worthy life? Well, how long have you got? Maybe I can boil it down to this – a worthy vision, I think, needs to fulfill certain criteria.

1. Your vision should be suited to who you really are. It's not effective, I've found, to borrow from someone else's inspiration. Equally doomed is a vision tailored to show off an image you'd like to project to other people. Nor does an enterprise chosen out of obligation ever work out well for anybody. Your parents may desperately have wanted you to follow the family business or go to medical school, perhaps even because they weren't able to. My parents wanted me to be a schoolteacher – because they hadn't had that opportunity. Those are laudable motives, but it's a high- risk venture to adopt a vision that isn't really your own, or that isn't suited to your strengths. I had to break from my parents, strike out on my own, and find my own sense of self and a vision to express that. I'm still working on it.

2. Your vision should be valuable no matter how much money you expect to make out of it. In other words, it should speak to some value that is high on your list of long-time priorities. Of course, you can always make it your vision to get rich, but there are two problems with that. First, the day you arrive at a financial goal, it will tend to feel empty. Second, a life totally devoted to money invites greed and competition to fuel an insatiable desire. 

3. You should compare the possibilities that seem most appealing, which means doing research and dipping your toe into more than one pool. Philosophy, religion, science, art, music, business, and scholarship are rich with potential, and you owe it to yourself at least to sample what they are like before you make an all-in commitment to one thing. What I did was to prioritise the possibilities, then follow one path until it was exhausted, the move on to the next, and so on to the next, and the next.... don't get me wrong, I'm not recommending this as a good idea for you; it's just the way I chose to proceed on through. I did find, though, that one path led fairly naturally to the next, and so on. Looking back along my timeline, I see changes of direction - some of them quite dramatic, like my switch from a career as a musician and organist to that of  television producer. But there is Continuity there, too -- the skills of performance I learned a a musician taught me skills I'd need as a producer, which in turn taught me things I came to need as an actor and director. Continuity and Change chan go hand in hand -- if you let them.

4. Your vision should be ambitious. The old saying still holds true that a man's reach (or a woman's reach) should exceed his grasp. Settling for "anything -- whatever"  is not visionary, by any stretch of imagination. Pick something that will feel like a challenge every day for as long as you can see into the future. 

5. Finally, don't lose sight of two words that often escape notice when someone has burning ambition and drive: “happiness” and “love”. The more that pursuing the object of your ambition can increase these two qualities, in your life and the lives of others, the more worthwhile your life will feel as it unfolds. They will teach you how to balance Commitment and Surrender so that you achieve Mastery. A hugely successful life devoid of happiness and love is what Scrooges are made of.