NEXT FREE TELECONFERENCE

THE ONE SIMPLE PRACTICE, THE ONE SEMINAR,
AND THE FIVE BOOKS THAT CHANGED MY LIFE
(Part One)

Thursday, June 26, 2008

Dear Friends,

This came out a bit long for a single teleconference: We might have to take it in two parts — we’ll see. Here's Part One:

I was a total poverty case from my late teens to mid-thirties. I struggled financially and emotionally. I was on an emotional roller coaster that I seemed to have no control over, overwhelmed at times with anxiety, fear, and depression.

Then a few — just a few — things happened that changed everything. I spent five months at a Zen center, I took a workshop that taught me the "core belief process", and I read five books.

Meditation helped me heal physically, mentally, and emotionally.

The level of my anxiety dropped; my depression vanished. I finally got it through my thick skull that all my emotional problems were things that came and went, drifting through my mind; I learned to watch them come and then let them go.

I learned that, in this moment, I have no problems whatsoever. Our problems are a figment of our imagination.

Who would have thought that our thinking is the problem? Our minds would never have thought that. Our minds don’t want to go there — who wants to admit that he or she is the cause of the problem? I learned to let my thoughts go and enjoy the moment in what felt like a brand new way, but is really something we all knew as children; it’s familiar old territory: enjoying whatever life is handing us at the moment.

I took a workshop in my late twenties, and took one little exercise from it that changed my life as well. It was taught by Ken Keyes Jr., and he had developed what he called "the core belief process". All it involves is asking ourselves eight questions, and if we answer them honestly, we become far more aware of the deep beliefs we have, most of them unconscious.

Once we see what these beliefs are, they can be changed. There are many different ways to do it, including therapy, prayer, meditation, talking things through with a friend, and a zillion other things. The best tools I have found over the years are prayer and affirmation, something that directly contradicts and counteracts the limiting beliefs I have. I have no doubt this little process and affirmations have changed my life dramatically.

Once we become aware of the deep beliefs we have unconsciously accepted as being true, we can consciously change those beliefs that are preventing us from being successful and fulfilled in our lives.

I read five books along the way, too, that had a powerful impact on me; powerful enough to change a lazy, misdirected, unguided, neurotic space case into what I am today: a dreamer who has turned my dreams into reality.

You’ve probably never heard of the first book; I’ll go through them in the order I discovered them:

The Art of True Healing by Israel Regardie.

I discovered this in a mysterious little bookshop in Madison, Wisconsin, when I was 21. It’s a short book; it’s Western magic in a nutshell. Central to the book is an exercise called The Middle Pillar. Regardie goes into it in great depth, using sound and color. I’ve simplified it over the years so that all it involves is relaxation and thought.

I’m sure the main reason I've continued to do this exercise for many years is because you do it flat on your back, and it's perfectly fine to fall asleep while you do it — that's my kind of exercise! Meditation for the truly lazy.

Lay on your back, relax every muscle, from head to toe. Feel the energy in your body. I often go through the seven chakras, or energy centers, one by one, usually from top to bottom, and simply feel the energy there.

That energy in your body is life itself, and it heals and nurtures and strengthens every cell in your body. You can feel it throughout your body, and “run energy” through your whole body, top to bottom, bottom to top. You can focus that energy anywhere in your body, and heal that area.

Once you tune into that energy within, there are many remarkable things you can do with it. You can heal others as well as yourself, either sitting with them or even from a distance. You can visualize your dreams; clearly imagine what you want to attract into your life. You can vastly improve your life, and help others to improve their lives.

Thoreau said, "Of course you need to build your castles in the air. That's where they should be. Then you put the foundations under them." By doing the Middle Pillar exercise, we create our castles in the air — and then very often some remarkable things start to happen that help us build them on solid earth as well.

As You Think by James Allen.

This book took me from poverty to abundance. For about twenty years, I said it was the best book I’ve ever read (now it's number two; The Power of Now is number one). I put several phrases from the book, including the two poems that are in it, in big letters on my wall. These phrases, repeated hundreds of times, became imprinted in my mind, and to this day they spring to mind on occasion. They are powerful, life changing phrases:

You will become as great as your dominant aspiration. If you cherish a vision, a lofty ideal in your heart, you will realize it.

James Allen writes with a power and authority that affects some deep place within, and those two sentences of his have been life changing.

That and the two poems: The book opens with a short poem. There’s a tradition in some Buddhist books where the wisdom of the book is contained in the title. If you understand the title, you don’t need to read the book. Then there is a short opening poem; if you understand the poem, you don’t need to read the book either, for it contains the wisdom of the book. Here’s the opening poem in As You Think:

Mind is the master power that molds and makes, And we are mind, and evermore we take The tool of thought, and shaping what we will, Bring forth a thousand joys, a thousand ills. We think in secret, and it comes to pass — The world is but our looking glass.

Get it? Now you don’t need to read the book. For many years, that poem was the most meaningful passage in the book for me. Then I discovered the second poem, and it has stayed with me as well. Read it whenever you're feeling frustrated, or depressed, or anxious, or angry. Read it anytime at all:

You will be what you will to be; Let failure find its false content In that poor word "environment", But spirit scorns it, and is free. It masters time, it conquers space, It cows that boastful trickster Chance, And bids the tyrant Circumstance Uncrown, and take a servant's place. The human Will, that force unseen, The offspring of a deathless soul, Can hew its way to any goal Though walls of granite intervene. Be not impatient in delay, But wait as one who understands, When spirit rises and commands, The gods are ready to obey.

"Content", in the second line, of course means "contentment". And he uses "environment" in line three, and later "circumstance", very broadly; he means everything in our world, inner and outer, that we can possibly use as an excuse, as a reason we can't "hew our way to any goal".

Be not impatient in delay, he tells us, but wait and understand: When our spirit rises and dares to dream, and dares even to command ourselves to take the steps we can take toward that dream, then the whole universe rushes in to support us in realizing our dreams.

That's enough for now. In Part Two we'll see the rest of the books that have changed my life:

The Power of Partnership by Riane Eisler The Millionaire Course by Marc Allen The Power of Now by Eckhart Tolle

That's what we'll discuss in our next teleconference. It is free to all of you, and you're invited to ask questions.

Date:

Thursday, June 26

Time:

6:00 - 7:15 pm PST (9:00 pm Eastern time)

Number:

1-712-421-8828

(Standard phone charges may apply)

Conference Passcode:

1234

Best wishes for realizing your dreams!