Edward’s Diary Entry 148: Mind Circuitry

Where are the “on/off” switches? We are walking along the street. There is a rhythm to this, so the mind is given another rhythm to accompany it. On the in-breath there is a question, on the out-breath there is another question, and so it proceeds, somewhat in the background, somewhat to the fore. The thinking process dips into memory and brings up a recent subject. It plays with the idea and creates its own fantasy world in which the subject is dealt with – but that’s only imagination and quite useless. Memory churns up some more images and sensations from the past – also quite impractical and serving no purpose. A renewed inspiration places more awareness on the breathing process and the questions…

We observe the surroundings. The surroundings don’t help much – in fact, they distract, as thoughts arise and fuel more thoughts. These are comparative thoughts, and somewhat useful in that they question why we only see the outside or the physical and how can we see from the inside, or something similar, or recognise our shared essential humanity, and the like, but too much of this takes awareness away from breathing, and so we are back in that.

The on/off switch for identification with our own processes – thinking, feeling and holding opinions of our self – is pretty well established. The underlying will or deciding capacity is there for this, because identification or attachment is the most superficial activity of the mind: accretions from society, parents, peers… In other words, we are not totally immersed in our own psychological or mental processes that we can’t see the tricks played by the mind in this respect. The typical tricks include problems with self-esteem, self-worth, self-importance, fragile egos looking for attention, like the dog on a leash softly whining this morning at me, and asking for a little petting – hesitant at first, and then liking it more and more. Thoughts like “how could this have happened to me!” “how dare they talk about me that way!” “they are always putting me down, laughing at me, criticising me – I’ll show ‘em, they’re the stupid ones, that’s what they are!” And so on. This no longer happens to Edward Wells, as he stands a little above this, with a modicum of tranquillity in this respect.

But where is the on/off switch for memory? Sometimes the “on” switch works quite well. When talking about the past, Edward sometimes has surprising capacities for recall: the name of the eye doctor at 11 years of age; the name or lyrics of the song that coincides with someone’s sudden thought; answers to questions from the elderly who can no longer remember things that happened 45 years ago or more… but at other times, other people show more prowess in this field, don’t they, my love? The “off” switch for occasional reminiscences seems simply to be disregarding images popping into the field of awareness by using awareness or placing attention on other processes of a more vital kind, like moving legs, breathing in and out, or looking up at the sky from a city street to appreciate a cloud formation, which not many people seem interested in doing. These picturings and fictitious role-plays simply fade away with renewed attention, or a simple thought like “back to the present, my boy!” But still, the memory process lurks in the background ready to jump up and call for attention at any moment, particularly if there is a candescent life situation that is currently of interest. There is no sure-fire way to either switch it on or switch it off. Awareness of immediate physical processes like breathing seems to be the only way. Maybe that's because breath goes beyond mere oxygenation to connect us with the entire world...

Now what about the on/off switch for emotions? A-ha! This is pretty easy for Edward. Because there is a pervading emotional background anyway which needs no special disturbing – it is calm, peaceful enjoyment, sometimes increasing to delight and joy, sometimes just remaining in a sort of dwell phase of mild pleasantness. This is due to a thinking process that is also quite orderly, for without a well-established thinking capacity, emotions can sway completely out of control at any moment depending on circumstances. And the student of the mind does not want this. We are looking for what is behind the body and behind the mind – inside the psyche so to speak, pushing it, fuelling it, making it tick. What is it that makes the mind tick? Where does this “I”-thought come from? How is it powered? Whence does it come? There is this seat of decision making and will somewhere there in the background, and it has nothing to do with what is being thought, felt, dredged up from memory or used as a source of attachment or identification or imbued with a sensation of egoistic self-worth. It is something else, not this. So, as thoughts basically revolve around a clear idea of what is higher nature and what is lower nature, what is virtuous or not, what is sattvic and what is rajic, what is karma and what is akarma and vikarma, good action or bad, what leads to increased awareness or what doesn’t, the thinking process is not such a problem anymore. When it is seen that thinking wants to travel its own way – the way of the world, physicality and feelings – the superficial thinking mind can be given an exercise to do, simply repeating its mantra-questions or being forced to turn its thoughts inward to seek the source of the process itself. And all other “automatic concerns”, let’s call them, fade away. Give a dog a bone and it’ll chew – that’s the truism and it works for vagrant minds. Viz Thoreau, who said, “Do what you love. Know your own bone; gnaw at it, bury it, unearth it, and gnaw it still.”

The higher faculty of thinking is purposeful thinking – thinking about real things, ourselves, the world and its people and their problems – and striving to come to a logical solution for these things. Useless thinking, and wasteful expenditure of air, is called “gossiping”, of which there is much. Purposeful, dedicated thinking about one’s self, one’s life, about meaning, and even one’s purpose in life, is what I call higher thinking. And this is something I mostly do on my own, for lack of appropriate company, unfortunately! Or indulge in on this blog for my own benefit and possibly that of others….

In any case, the process continues and Edward offers himself as a true and faithful guinea pig of the mind. And, one day, we will see what comes of all this… hopefully.

"We Sit and Wait"

Presenting Edward Well’s voice… in a first audio, called "We Sit and Wait".

Edward’s Diary Entry 147: Perspectives

Out of the lighted cave of human habitation, we plunge into darkness in the cool night. Fireflies are flying around. There is no moon yet. All is dark. 

At first it seems these fireflies are random little lanterns in the dark. Then one observes a rhythm to it, and some can be followed with the eye, pulsating like heartbeats as they fly towards their secret trysts. What they probably can’t see is the pulsating light of a distant thunderstorm, occasionally illuminating the sky. It’s a question of sense organs, and perspective. Fireflies may be too small to see lightning. 

We humans are like this, too, when we try to understand the universe by thinking. The perspective is wrong. And it remains unfathomable.

Edward’s Diary Entry 146: Logotherapy for Lambs? – The Will to Live

In the wild, he would be dead. But as a domesticated animal receiving care from humans, one runt lamb in a set of twins, being rejected by his mother, showed his will to live... Viktor Frankl would have been proud of him. 

This happens sometimes when the ewe “knows” something is wrong with her lamb. It's an uncanny ability shown my mothers who are either "bad mothers", and therefore destined for the market, or "good mothers" who realise something is definitely wrong with her child. She accepts the healthy one, lets him suck, and pushes the frail one away quite cruelly (to our eyes), lifting her leg and walking away to prevent him suckling. And then another ewe did the same with an even runtier ram lamb that we though wouldn’t even survive the first night.

But both survived. The first one, whom we can call “Willy” (no picture), showed such a determination to get on his tiny feet and suck, willy-nilly, that we humans held the mother for a few days so he could grab onto her teat while his brother was nursing. He was so insistent that within two days, he had learned how to run in from behind while his brother was feeding and steal his mother’s milk. His will to live was so strong – despite being a little runt – that he found out how to survive, and his mother eventually calmed down and let him do his own thing. It was quite a lesson in sheer grit and determination.

The second one (shown above) never even tried his crazy mother’s milk. Big sister got it all, and although the mother cried and cried for her boy lamb, when he was presented to her, she kept on rejecting him. He had to be kept away from her, as he was so puny she might have hurt or killed him. Such is the law of the wild. But this boy soon became a bottle baby. As soon as he was shown the bottle and teat, he grabbed onto it for dear life and started sucking – which was a surprise, because some babies don’t get around to sucking a rubber teat for a day or two! So here was another case of determination to live despite being born with legs too spindly and frail to hold himself up at first. And the story ends for this baby quite happily, as he was donated to a family that wanted a pet lamb and were willing to bottle feed him. 

So with that, all the lamb issues were solved and the farm settled down to the normal routine of mothers grazing, lambs suckling and then playing in the sunshine, jumping over tree roots, and skipping down the slopes in herds of little white and brown balls of fluff.

If the human will to Awareness were as strong as these lambs’ will to live, we would be basking in enhanced consciousness by now.

Edward’s Diary Entry 145: On ICU’s

Life is suffering. Do we find peace in death? While waiting to find out, we avoid pain and seek pleasure, and hope to stay ahead of the game.

A visit to any Intensive Care Unit (ICU) is an intense learning experience, or an occasion to test out what we already know theoretically. Those who have no choice, and are sent to an ICU for disease, sickness or accident, often seem to cry and whine, shout and complain, even when sedated. Those who choose an elective surgery but nevertheless wind up here due to complications are also saddened, and if there is pain, they also remonstrate, complain and cry. Pain deadens the brain and makes life quite unbearable.

But an ICU unit in America is the absolute height of modern science and technology. There is nothing missing, nothing unavailable – all the devices, all the contraptions, all the equipment imaginable. The sheer array of sockets, outlets, plugs, pipes, tubes, cords, supplies and paraphernalia is mind-boggling. And yet… the temporary inhabitants of this place see it as so… normal. They just take it for granted. It’s almost like a right they can demand, with or without money, Medicare, Obama or Trump-care…

In 2015, there were some 316 million overnight stays in US hospitals, equivalent to almost one for every US citizen, just to get an idea of the sheer volume of attendance at these cathedrals of medical science. The installations are optimum, the care is continuous and always available, the staff are well-trained and professional. Yet one hears complaints from the “worshippers”.

If an ICU patient in America could imagine the situation of the population in Africa (1.2 billion), Asia (4.4 billion), and South America (422 million), where there may not be even one doctor per 1000 people, they might feel a little better, or tone down their criticisms. But it’s so hard when the body fails, isn’t it? Who cares about others when our innards are in turmoil, our pain-scale is nearing “worst possible pain ever”, or we plunge into the depths of depression and feel like dying… And our lives are quickly losing the little meaning they once had.

This is like being clapped into jail. To avoid that, you don’t wash your hands in muddy waters. Once you’ve done something wrong, you’re jailbait. Similarly, if you play the medical game and enter the realms of modern-day medical science as practised in the US and other “developed” countries where living standards are high (as they say), you’re pharma-bait. Once you’re in, you have to go through the whole process: blood transfusions according to protocol, pain killers, heart medication, vitamin complexes, more drugs and supplements, the whole works. It’s a fight for survival, with the rules now laid down by the great universities of medical wisdom, down the command chain from physician to nurse’s aide, not by the body’s own intelligence – that’s been mistreated too much in the past and now the price must be paid. But the outcome is often good, in a way. We are alive. Living, yes, but dependent on drugs, supplements, vitamins, just about anything that is being pushed by industry. We will have artificial joints, pacemakers, various other bionic appurtenances, and live on pain-killers and tranquilizers, and we will think we can be happy… Until the final pain comes, and others can see it’s really the end. Often there is little human dignity in this, no real solace, no courage, and very little awareness left… The final black-out for a pale grey life lived in the depths of low-consciousness.

One has to think and wonder: will I also have to go through this when my time comes? Or is there a better way to live and die?

Edward’s Diary Entry 144: Onion Layers… and “I”

You don’t have to be afraid, nothing bad’s gonna happen. When you start sitting down quietly and dissecting the “I”, the “Self” or simply the “mind”, it’s like an onion... except for the tears. (If there are tears, they may be of joy.) The more you peel it off, the smaller it gets… and it keeps going back and back, or in and in. When we get to the heart of things, that’s when we have a real “heart-to-heart” with ourselves, and discover what the “I” really is, if it is anything at all!

You see, depending on your basic makeup, whether you live more in thought, or feeling, or body, your outer covering is just a skin – a thought, a feeling or a bodily sensation. In the photo, you can see this top left, and of course, these onions fresh from the market have been dug up, washed, almost polished ready for sale. An onion still in the ground, or fresh out of it, would be covered in dirt, mud or slime, depending on the soil and the weather at the time it was plucked out.

So your outer layer is the first skin of the onion, which some cooks even discard as being too hard and green! They want the tenderer parts of the onion… Which of course are nicer. If you think you’re just your passing thought, your fixated thought or “opinion” of yourself, or what others say they think of you, you’re wrong. There are more layers to you than that.

If you think you’re your feeling, another layer inside, you’re also not right. And if you think you’re just your body – brainbox, stomach, genitals or spleen – you still have lots of layers of the onion to peel back, and see that you’re still “oniony” inside too, not just on the few outer layers.

Top right you can see the onion cut in two, faintly showing the number of layers, at least pertaining to this onion. Maybe there are more or less “you’s” inside you!

Bottom left you can discern the layers better, because the fingers have separated them in a process of going further in, like our Awareness does when it starts to observe the supposed “I” and we become quiet and simply look inside, searching for the heart.

Bottom right you can now see the tiny little heart separated from the outer layers to get a better look at it. And it’s tricky, because it keeps getting smaller and smaller, and yet this is the nuclear section, the tiny part that was once a seed when it was first planted in the soil…

So no, there is no reason to be afraid of peeling back the onion of the mind, or the supposed personality, in search of the tender heart. There are layers upon layers, each of its own size and shape… And when the onion – let’s say unused by the cook – is overripe and begins to fade, shrivel and decay… this starts with the outer skins and works its way inward… until finally the heart is affected by the natural decaying process, or rot, or putrefaction, and it all falls back into the soil to be recycled.

Will that happen to us, too? Or must we look inward and search for the heart while it is still tender and capable of growing?

Edward’s Diary Entry 143: On “Disindocrination”

To "indoctrinate" is to teach a person (implant an idea) to accept (believe) an idea that corresponds to some kind of concept or belief about the world. As such, this is what always happens to us in family, school and society, because we are led to believe in (positive acceptance) or reject (negative acceptance) a series of codes previously perceived and believed by others, along with their underlying assumptions. These may have a greater or lesser or a nil correspondence to Reality, because they are just thoughts and beliefs lodged in the mindstuff, which we identify with and remember from our memory sack, and which are elicited every time we react to a stimulus.

Take a Christian who thinks of his particular “god” when the word “God” is mentioned; whereas a Jew, a Muslim or a Buddhist will need another kind of word for supposedly the same concept, or not? Or countless other labels used by people to classify others and themselves, and usually clashing with the actual definition of the label.

So when we meet and sit down with any new person, this is what happens: one indoctrinated mind with its underlying assumptions tries to contact another indoctrinated mind with its assumptions, and there is either agreement, leading to liking, or disagreement, which ends up in dislike or rejection. And that’s about as far as it goes if there’s nothing else to work on. Or perhaps the bodies connect, but the minds don’t. Or the feelings connect, but the thinking process doesn’t, etc. etc.

This is why we all need a new kind of modern education for the 21st century, called Disindoctrination. First, since we can’t avoid it, we let everyone go to school and learn all those words, theories and assumptions about man and society and the world, hoping for the best. We have already done that ourselves. In the final analysis, it is a test to see how far we are involved in our own egos, and accept them, or whether we have some kind of sense of something more, something higher. Then, at some point when we are ready for it – due to longing, suffering, pain, rejection or whatever – we can make a brand-new start to life, by taking a crash course in Disindoctrination.

Now, disindoctrination is not re-indoctrination with a different set of beliefs. Disindoctrination has to come from an inner understanding of our limitations, using common sense, and questioning everything from the beginning. What can I really be sure of? Something I’ve read in a book or magazine, seen on TV, or seen for myself, with my own eyes? Have I seen that correctly? What is seeing? What is perceiving? How do I see the world? Where is that world for me? Out there – as I’ve been told? Or can we reason it out with a few basic pieces of information and come to another conclusion?

1st lesson in Disindoctrination: Sense Perceptions. 

The senses can only tell us what we are capable of perceiving – never the whole story. We are very small in this world (fact: trying walking around it and see); our capabilities are very limited, and mostly we are trained to judge things from the human or societal standpoint. Modern science has described what ancient wisdom knew from experience. The eyes, as one of the five sense, see energy forms that we interpret in our minds as “a thing” or “a person”. Reason should tell us that through this channel we see only partially: what is in front of us, or the front part of the object in question, but not what’s behind it or inside it, or around it, or within it. The stupid science-class question of a tree falling in the woods with no one around to hear it – is there sound or not? – assumes that only humans hear. But we hear only what is audible to us. A grove of trees may very well note the falling of an ancient tree hit by lightning and falling, but they will note it in their own way, which of course is not in ours. As with sight and hearing, so with touch and tasting and smelling. These are human inputs only, in a world that has myriads of possibilities above and beyond the human.

2nd lesson in Disindoctrination: Wash Away Beliefs. 

Anything you know from your own experience, analyse it and accept for the time being. Anything you do not know in your own experience, wash this all away and see what’s left. That means: concepts and ideas you have not confirmed in your own experience (1); beliefs and suppositions your have about anything and everything (2); assumptions, opinions, ideologies, religious concepts, scientific concepts (3) you have not personally verified. Examples: 

(1)  Theories about the mind; theories about personalities; theories about the world; theories about the universe; about animal behaviour; about human behaviour; about space, time, life, evolution, consciousness, materiality, spirituality, about chakras, meditation – what it is and what it is not; about sexuality; about any other theory…

(2)  Belief in this god or that god; belief in scriptures and bibles and holy books; belief in good and bad; belief in war or peace; belief in eating this or that because someone says so; any kind of belief, because belief is a substitute for true knowledge or truth. No belief means saying “I don’t know” and being unafraid to say it.

(3)  Assumptions about the past of mankind, evolution, development, ancient civilisations, and about the future of mankind; opinions on doing or not doing something for reasons unknown; ideologies about heaven and hell, earth and paradise, truth and untruth, good and evil, etc.; religious concepts that so-and-so said something or did something as an Act of God; scientific concepts concerning the material world, based on thinking and observing, but which you cannot prove to yourself.

3rd lesson in Disindoctrination: New Mind Patterns. 

The so-called “mind” and all of its functions has to be totally revamped. You have already partially cleaned the stables in lesson 2, washing away beliefs. Now to re-establish a certain amount of order, you re-define your mind by observing it, watching it, simply witnessing what happens. This can be done by sitting and using Awareness to look at the way the mind operates. You can take – as a guide, not as a belief system – the yogic terms for mind as: 

(1)  Citta or awareness – that which is most “you” looking at and observing the physical and mental processes. 

(2)  Manas or memories – all those words and images and picturings that you can remember or bring to mind at any given time. Part of this may also be: the ability to reconstruct or re-create new combinations of memory, called Imagination. You may think it’s fun, even “creative”, and it is, but does it really correspond to any Reality at all? 

(3)  Ahankara or identification – when you give your sense of “I” or “me” to any thought, feeling, sensation, idea, ideology, concept, argument, belief or set of beliefs, theory, assumption. When “you” give your affirmation to any of these, you are identifying with it, placing your energy into it, fuelling it with your mind. 

(4)  Intellect or discerning faculty – the part of the mind that says “yes or no”, “is or not is”, “true or not true”, corresponding to reality or not corresponding, etc.

By practising this, your sense of “I” can be re-arranged so as not to be flooded by thoughts and feelings that really don’t have to be “you”. As for any fear that the “I” may be “injured”, read tomorrow’s entry called “Onion Layers”.

Edward’s Diary Entry 142: Travels with Dellie

I hope any readers out there will excuse me. I haven’t written since May 4th. Steinbeck-like, I have travelled, not with a poodle like Charley, but to and from a border collie called Dellie, from Spain to New York, New Jersey and Pennsylvania and back.

There are times when normal life and its habits have to change. When things external must be taken care of. When people need things and they must be done. I have been in Manhattan, in Brooklyn Heights, at a chic hotel where everything is recycled, reused and reclaimed; on streets named after fruits; on highways and Interstates, in rain and shine; on a sheep farm at lambing time; in supermarkets, pharmacies, bars, restaurants and banks; and at nursing homes and hospitals and ICU’s…

So how can a dog become inspiration? Border collies are born and bred for intense activity. They watch sheep and want to herd them. A defective lamb rejected by its mother would normally die in the field (and even some perfectly OK lambs are sometimes found dead after a few days). But there was one runt in a set of twins who learned the trick of coming in from behind every time his brother was suckling so as to avoid rejection by its mother. He showed intelligence and a will to live, and so far, he has survived. Another skinny lamb could hardly stand after being born, and was thought to be unable to last the first night. But when he was given a milk replacement bottle, he latched onto it for dear life and showed an incredible will to live. A few days later, he was adopted by a family who wanted a pet.

The day when the family was to come, Dellie “watched” his little lamb all morning and part of the afternoon. He lay on the ground and wouldn’t take his eyes off his lambie. He sat at the cardboard box and occasionally peeked over the top to make sure his lamb was there. The dog’s intensity was amazing. It’s called one-pointed concentration, total focus, intensity squared. A cat may watch a mousehole for a time, but then wanders off. Not Dellie. He lived and panted for that lamb, and that lamb only, for five hours non-stop.

If we humans could show that level of intensity in our applying our Awareness to our lives, we would surely overcome the vagaries of the mind, become contented, find joy and perhaps even enlightenment. We hear of remaining in Awareness, dis-identifying with the thinking mind, cultivating the Observer, or being in Presence, and yet the “how” to do this is lacking, the “energy” to do this cannot be found, the “dogged intensity of a dog” is not there for us. And so we chop and change and spread our attention out over so many different things that there is very little left for our Self-Awareness. 

Long live Dellie and his intensity. We can learn from him.

Edward’s Diary Entry 141: Awareness and Pain Control?

I had a bad shoulder. My self-diagnosis was: Nerve pain from cervical 6-7 over right back shoulder down arm almost to elbow… (this was confirmed on a visit to the doctor). I had this for over a week, after sleeping in a strange bed and pinching my right arm, and continuing morning yoga anyway to see if it would go away. It would come and go – mostly coming! – and for several days, I only found occasional relief in certain positions, which were hard to find. A hot water bottle first time helped, thereafter it didn’t. An electric heat pad didn’t work. An ice pack helped at first, and likewise failed at the next attempt. Nothing seemed to work. Lying with bare torso on a cool stoneware floor helped one night, in several postures and even applying pressure to the arm. At least it provided enough relief to go back to sleep again.

However, this was over a long weekend. Upon resuming normal morning and evening crosslegged practises and exercises, I unexpectedly found some relief.

At first, sitting crosslegged with palms held upward on thigh was as painful for the right arm as it could get, on a pain level of 0-10, about 4 (up that day from 2-3 at other times). I started the exercise, using earphones and a recording: one thought on inhalation, a second thought on exhalation. The first minute and a half was even more painful, as the head is supposed to be tilted slightly upward with eyes closed so that the focus is between the eyebrows. That was difficult at first, so the tilt for today was at a lower angle. After the first few minutes, with Awareness firmly and solely on the sound, the thought, the focus and the in-breath, slight hold and out-breath, the “pain” had disappeared…The “sensation” of the place in the mind (let’s say the head) is higher than the pain location, above the normal thought process, seemingly superior to the sensation of Identity and Memory, and so it stands alone in quietness and gave me a total absence of any “pain”. This Awareness may be minutely aware of some discomfort in the rest of the body (legs or ankles), or some ease in the rest of the body (left arm OK). It may be aware of sounds outside in the pauses between sounds. But with proper focus and the single thoughts, one at a time, there was no more sensation of pain, not even discomfort. You can call it good relaxation if you want. The last few minutes of the exercise switches from single thought to “dwell phase” with the sound of a flute first, and then a chant in Hindi, whose translation I am vaguely familiar with. Here, the discomfort and pain began to return, and at the end, after finishing, I had to raise my right arm above the head to relieve the returning pain, having found that position rather comfortable beforehand.

And so I repeated the session straight away. This time, exactly the same thing happened. There was pain to begin with, and after the first minute, “pain” had gone. It came back only vaguely after the whole 17 minutes.

And so I said, “third time pays for all” and repeated the session for the third time. The pain went away till almost the end. I raised my right arm anyway and then placed it sling-like in front of me. I had proven it to myself. The “pain” sensation can be conquered by stepping outside the normal “thinking mind” and using simple intensified Awareness to remain in a calm, concentrated place that is not down in the basement of Memory of pain, or Identification with pain and discomfort, but higher and brighter than this, where Consciousness begins to rise above the mundane and the tumult of the world.

That’s where we ought to be. Everything is nicer and calmer there, as I have proven to myself in this experiment. Of course, those two single thoughts were important as well: on the in-breath, “I am not the body”, and on the outbreath, “I am not even the mind”. No wonder it worked. We are more than body and mind. This exercise, already mentioned twice on this blog, in Clingers and Tweaking, has been on my agenda since January 9th, 2017. And I do not fail to find it ever more challenging and beneficial as I continue its practise. You can go deeper and deeper every day.

Choices 2 - Little Things

Choices. Little things we can do to become more conscious of our choices.

Early morning, upon awakening:

• We have the choice to be happy to be alive or bothered by some kind of stupid thought. Choose happiness. We’re lucky we’re alive. Breathe fresh air and be thankful for it. Be mindful of the water you use to shower, flush the toilet, wash your face, brush your teeth. Not everyone in the world has access to fresh water like we do in “civilised” modern society.

• See what toiletries you are using. You have bought them for some reason, but whenever you buy, you are making a choice  – Where do they come from? How are they made? Who makes them? What ingredients do they contain? Are you supporting a clean industry? Is it sustainable? Are the workers happy? Every single product you see has hundreds of stories to tell you. Are you aware of the power this gives you?

• See what you drink in the morning? Water? Coffee, tea? Juice? How good are they, really? How are they packaged? What happens to the packaging? Where do they come from? Who made them? More stories, more power to you – more responsibility on your shoulders…
• What transport do you use? How much fuel are you using? Where was your bicycle made? Your car? The train or bus you take? What sights do you see on your way to work? Do you litter, or do you pick up after yourself?

During the morning:

• What work do you do? How do you do it? How do you greet people? How do you relate to your co-workers, if any? What do you talk about? Silly things and gossip? Or deeper things? Is this possible? How to prod people into awakening and enhancing their Consciousness for a better world? Or is someone else going to do it? Who?
• Obviously your smart phone is with you all the time. What do you feed on? Gossip, fake news? “Amens” and prayers? Quotes of the day? Friends and acquaintances? Are you really communicating, or just touching the surface? Everything has its pros and cons… Are you mindful of your choices in communication?
• Do you eat anything? What? Same as above: where does it come from? Is it health-giving? Do you really need it? Have you done any charity for others yet, before you feed yourself? Were the eggs laid by happy hens, or unhappy featherless prisoners in cages? Everything is a choice, but if you are unconscious of the consequences of your choices and actions, does that exempt you from mistreating animals, plants, other humans? Do you care about your choices and actions?
• How many banknotes and coins go to others during the morning? What are you supporting with your purchasing power? You may only vote in elections once every four years, but every cent or Eurocent you spend is a vote for something – what is it?

Lunchtime:

• Same as above: What do you feed on? Where does your food come from? Who grew it? Who processed it? What did they put in it? How did they package it? Are their workers happy? Are they paid properly? Do they have health insurance, social security, or are they in some kind of sweatshop halfway across the globe?
• Same goes for window shopping or buying something in an off-moment. What are you supporting with your purchase? If it’s plastic, it’s made from petroleum? How much oil is left? How much gas is left? Can we continue to use natural resources without concern? Do you care?
• Have you looked up at the sky yet, all morning? The sun should be overhead now. Why not look up and inspect the cloud formations? What if you have a heart attack right now? Are you stuck in your petty thoughts and worries? Or are you alive and enjoying it? It is a marvel of Nature, that you should be alive today, don’t you know that? Can you feel it?

Afternoon:

• What, still worrying about work? Counteract this by contemplating all those who are jobless, unemployed or working as slaves. You can work joyfully. If you don’t like your job, either like it or get out. You only live once.
• There are no “people problems”. Only “issues” to be handled with other people. Don’t use emotions where they are useless. What? Can’t help it? Who told you bad feelings and noxious thoughts are part of life? They’re not. Whoever it was, you tell yourself something positive. It’s your choice always. If you don’t know how, find out!

Evening:

• Haven’t you realised that your “man-made society” is just a sham? A fiction? You may talk about the environment, but have you touched the earth, put your hands in the soil today? Do you know where meat comes from? Fish, vegetables, dairy products? Do you know how the plants and animals live? Who cares for them and how?
• Have you touched real water during the day? Or do you just buy soft drinks? Who makes them? With what? What effect do they have on the body and mind? Do you think soft drinks and other modern-day inventions were around when man became modern man, some 45,000 years ago? Was anything really wrong with drinking fresh water from a stream? We’ve been doing it for thousands of years before the ex-morphine-addict John Pemberton, the inventor of Coca-Cola, came along…
• Have you noticed how you breathe all day? Do you realise you do breathe? And that if anyone takes your breath away, somehow, you wouldn’t survive for even 3 minutes? Isn’t it worth paying attention to something that is so vital to life? Or do you only really notice breathing when you smoke? Mmmm….
• Contemplate the invisible things that make you what you are: without gravity, you would float off into space; without space, you wouldn’t have any shape or form; without form, no name; and without name and form, total nothingness… and without any nothing, there couldn’t be a something. If that’s too difficult to grasp, just get entertained – but by whom? And with what? Even a good book is nice in the evening, but does it really make you a better person? More choices, at every step…

Nighttime:

• Have you reviewed your day? Have you been alive, happy, joyful? If not, what’s the point of living? Just to pay sales tax when shopping? Are you alone? Good. Have you made yourself happy? Are you accompanied? Good. Have you made others happy? Still more choices…
• Are you ready to rest, after using up all that solar power all day on making yourself and others happy and peaceful, not sad and angered? The Sun gives us everything – your thoughts are only possible because the world is the way it is and we have a Sun and a picturesque Earth full of marvels to live on. Don’t let any thought concern you that much that you forget your innate joy. 

Have a good night. Be at peace with yourself and the world. And tomorrow maybe there will be no more war.