Spontaneous Resonance

Spontaneous Resonance - James O'dea

A friend recently described her spontaneous reaction to a police officer beating a black youth. The cracking sound of a blow to the youth instantaneously ignited a mighty “No!” as she surged toward the officer whose baton remained frozen in the air. She was like a moral whirlwind entering the story as she put herself between the officer and the youth.

This kind of spontaneous reaction can unleash powerful energy that generally remains latent and untapped—like suddenly having the strength to lift up a car to rescue a parent or child. In a November 2010 article Psychology Today refers to this phenomenon as the convening of “stealth superpowers.” There are indeed superpowers available to us when we tap into the oceanic depth of our relatedness to others and to deep empathic connection with the most vulnerable.

We engage reservoirs of insight and skillfulness in the universe when we spontaneously tap into its deepest moral principles. Heroic acts of extraordinary courage, conscience and selfless sacrifice often exhibit a remarkable degree of spontaneity. And even the Muse itself has this quality: “Poetry is the spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings.” (William Wordsworth)

According to Lao Tsu spontaneity is the essence of Reality itself and we should always get out of the way and “Let reality be reality.” Deepak Chopra puts it simply, “Ultimately, spiritual reality unfolds when you’re spontaneous.” This, in fact, is the Great Way, the flow of the Tao itself mirrored in its energetic aspect as the subatomic flow of the universe. As our great wisdom teachers have pointed out it is the stuff going on in our heads that blocks the flow of spontaneity.

To serve the spontaneity of Life itself and becoming one with it points to the subtle difference between spontaneous reactions and spontaneous resonance. Resonance is about oneness. Just as in the example of stringed instruments -- when a string is plucked on one the same string on a nearby instrument will vibrate. Yes only the same string vibrates -- as if it recognizes its own frequency. Spirituality is about being able to become one with the full orchestral range of vibrations that life offers and recognize it all as the life-giving music of creation.

In science there is the idea that spontaneity is said to occur when there is no external force catalyzing an event. Composting, for example, is an example of a spontaneous process. Under the right conditions Nature will do what is needed.

This notion of spontaneously arising resonance without any forcing is, for Meher Baba, the key to understanding the nature of love and how it spreads: “Love has to spring spontaneously from within; it is in no way amenable to force. Love and coercion can never go together.” Only love can awaken love. With this understanding we can see how a self-awakening love born in freedom might eventually ignite the collective soul of humanity.

About the Author: James O’Dea is author of The Conscious Activist—where activism meets mysticism.

Honouring The Gill Inside You

Honouring the Gill Inside You - Mark Nepo

A simple fish nosing its way along the bottom is in itself a profound teacher, and like the deepest teachers, it doesn't even know it is teaching. Yet in its tiny, efficient gill lives the mystery of how to live as a spirit on Earth.

As we all know, by swimming, the smallest fish takes in water, and its gill turns that water into the air by which it lives. Though there are biological details that explain the mechanics of this, it is, in essence, a mystery.

The question is, what in us is our gill? Our heart, our mind, our spirit, a mix of all three? Whatever it is, like the smallest fish, we must turn water into air in order to live, which for us means turning our experience into something that can sustain us. It means turning pain into wonder, heartache into joy.

Nothing else matters, and just like fish we must keep swimming to stay alive. We must keep swimming through the days. We cannot stop the flow of experience or the need to take it in. Rather, all our efforts must go into learning the secret of the gill, the secret of transforming what we go through into air.

So, what is your gill? For me, it is my heart, and love becomes the unseeable trail I leave behind. But whatever it might be for you, it is more important to swim through the days and honor the gill inside you than to figure out how it all works.

Mark Nepo, Simple as a Fish, The Book of Awakening

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Radical Amazement

Radical Amazement - Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel

The surest way to suppress our ability to understand the meaning of God and the importance of worship is to take things for granted. Indifference to the sublime wonder of living is the root of sin. Wonder or radical amazement is the chief characteristic of the religious man's attitude toward history and nature. One attitude is alien to his spirit: taking things for granted, regarding events as a natural course of things. To find an approximate cause of a phenomenon is no answer to his ultimate wonder.

He knows that there are laws that regulate the course of natural processes; he is aware of the regularity and pattern of things. However, such knowledge fails to mitigate his sense of perpetual surprise at the fact that there are facts at all.

As civilization advances, the sense of wonder declines. Such decline is an alarming symptom of our state of mind. Mankind will not perish for want of information; but only for want of appreciation. The beginning of our happiness lies in the understanding that life without wonder is not worth living. What we lack is not a will to believe but a will to wonder.

Awareness of the divine begins with wonder. It is the result of what man does with his higher incomprehension. The greatest hindrance to such awareness is our adjustment to conventional notions, to mental cliches. Wonder or radical amazement, the state of maladjustment to words and notions, is therefore a prerequisite for an authentic awareness of that which is.

Radical amazement has a wider scope than any other act of man. While any act of perception or cognition has as its object a selected segment of reality, radical amazement refers to all of reality; not only to what we see, but also to the very act of seeing as well as to our own selves, to the selves that see and are amazed at their ability to see.

The grandeur or mystery of being is not a particular puzzle to the mind, as, for example, the cause of volcanic eruptions. We do not have to go to the end of reasoning to encounter it. Grandeur or mystery is something with which we are confronted everywhere and at all times.

Even the very act of thinking baffles our thinking, just as every intelligible fact is, by virtue of its being a fact, drunk with baffling aloofness. Does not mystery reign within reasoning, within perception, within explanation? What formula could explain and solve the enigma of the very fact of thinking?

About the Author: Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel was a Polish-born American rabbi and one of the leading Jewish theologians and Jewish philosophers of the 20th century. Heschel, a professor of Jewish mysticism at the Jewish Theological Seminary of America, authored a number of widely read books on Jewish philosophy and was active in the American Civil Rights movement. 

Tell me and I forget. Teach me and I remember. Involve me and I learn. --Benjamin Franklin

A Classroom With Love At The Center

--by Peggy Sia, Feb 27, 2015

The world may sound slightly dismal from certain vantage points. In the United States, a large amount of money is devoted to incarceration compared to education. California spends $47,421 per inmate, as opposed to $11,420 per student. The latest report from Alliance for Excellent Education states, “The nation could save as much as $18.5 billion in annual crime costs if the high school male graduation rate increased by only 5 percentage points.” But I would like to invite you to our little world in a suburban city within the Los Angeles County. We are like a community within a community. This is our public school adventure….

Wisdom from 10-Year-Olds

I am someone who comes to life by the wisdom of others. It is not uncommon for the learning community to be showered with quotes or stories that I have come upon in this journey of life. In fact, we are now beginning a reciprocal sharing of powerful and soulful words with each other.

One morning, as we were discussing the meaning of resilience, a student recalled something his coach said to the team during a practice. “The things one chooses to do that others will not do today, will enable one to do the things that others cannot do tomorrow.”

Such powerful words coming from that of a 10 year old. This is why despite rising before the sun in a dark and sleepy house, I am able to step out and drive the one hour long commute to school daily. They, the student scholars, are my fountain of youth!

One of my greatest loves is to display my students’ personalities in every corner, every nook and cranny for all guests to see. Value is placed on every aspect, and every fiber of our being. Below are my “Big 3” practices in classroom management—techniques and experiences that inspire me to bring out deeper values amidst math equations and reading comprehension.

Teach the Whole Brain

The current framework for the 21st century learner requires not only skills in the academic area, but also emphasizes the positive development of the social emotional component of an individual. In my opinion, this is the hallmark for all students as they are given the chance to act in a socially responsible and ethical way. But, of course, that has always been our learning community.

Learning can be tough! However, learning can also slowly pull the tendrils of curiosity and creativity right out of one’s soul. On the other hand, in some cases it can all be lost with just one swift punch in one’s very being. For these reasons, our school utilizes Chris Biffle’s Whole Brain Teaching Techniques. This form of classroom management is centralized around engagement, learning through gestures, chants, etc. Stephanie van Horn of 3rd Grade Thoughts outlines the main points of Whole Brain Teaching in a quick and convenient way for anyone to implement the strategies right away.

The key to Whole Brain Teaching is to tap into as many parts of the brain as possible while learning. It is definitely lively, loud, and fun! Learning about the parts of the brain helps students understand how they learn, and why they may feel a certain way. Students feel empowered when they are able to make these connections. More importantly, it helps to create and build positive feelings with each other.

Simultaneously, our community embraces the important seven precepts known as the 7 Habits of Happy Kids, created by Sean Covey. I bring in a lot of research and current news that justify why and how we can pursue happiness. In addition, we evaluate and analyze different models of happiness and compassion.

Last year, we read the article, “I am Malala”. This courageous and inspiring story of a young girl not much older than my own students brought out profound discussions of personal responsibility, purpose, and action. It also opened their eyes of what students in America may take for granted in education for all. Most importantly, Malala’s story created conversations and even debates that became meaningful. The 7 Habits provide a springboard for discussion as well as opportunities to reflect on particular habits that may just be developing. Last year, students wrote quick notes to detail briefly an action that was connected to a focused habit. This year, we are incorporating the habits within the very essence of our dialogue and activities.

Take “Brain Breaks”

During a difficult lesson or challenging time period, I use a signal to refocus our hard working brains. Class-Yes and the scoreboard are effective in helping my student scholars refocus. They keep the lesson moving in an engaging and positive manner. The students’ objective for the scoreboard would be working towards anything the students are interested in. For example, extra minutes of recess, no homework pass, brain breaks, etc. In particular, the students are excited when they are able to take a brain break after filling up with a wealth of facts and numbers.

Overall, brain breaks provide a break in the teaching moment so that students can unwind through movement, music, play, and/or imagination. It is designed to be quick, but is beneficial in that student scholars are ready to tackle the rest of a challenging lesson with positive energy.

In fact, are you feeling it at this very moment?

It seems that I have unleashed a tide of words and thoughts, and still more are barreling their way out possibly inundating you, the reader! Before that happens—let us have a brain break:

Would you rather be 3 feet tall or 8 feet tall?

Would you rather be born with an elephant trunk or a giraffe’s neck?

Would you rather be able to hear any conversation or take back anything you say?

Would you rather be forgotten or hatefully remembered?

If you were in our learning community, you would have walked to the side of the room that you identified with in each question and supported your choice with some reasons to the nearest partner. In this particular instance, it is another way for me to provide academic scholarly discussions in a non- restrictive and engaging manner. Some “Would You Rathers” are rather silly, while others are quite serious and thought provoking.

Encourage Cooperative Learning

Finally, in my trifecta of classroom management, our school also incorporated

Dr. Spencer Kagan’s Cooperative Learning Structures. It provides yet another tool in my toolbox to keeps students engaged and learning. An instance of this is Kagan’s accountable talk through activities such as “Sage and Scribe” or “All Write Robin.” All of these structures provide a reminder (and at times a coaxing) to students that every perspective and opinion is valued and that sharing our ideas enriches learning. This is what Kagan also refers to as “accountable talk,” as all students must actively listen in order to be able to provide input orally or in written form throughout a lesson or activity.

In addition to group activities, the kids and I have discovered that our community circle time encourages everyone to be open and honest. So many rewards can be harvested from this moment of freely sharing whatever thoughts we have in our mind. The words they choose to share become another glimpse for me to peek inside their souls and get to know them just a bit more. The community circle promotes trust, but also teaches them of their potential to be compassionate and empathetic towards others as they express their happiness, dreams, pain, and or sorrow.

During moments that are more tender, being mindful of our own emotions as well as others, help us to figure out the best solutions in various situations. The student scholars are aware of the part of the brain that controls rational thinking (problem solving) as well as the part that is controlled by emotions. Therefore, when we speak with each other we think of speaking and acting in ways that de-escalate potentially volatile situations.

By incorporating these “Big 3” practices in classroom management, I feel that I am “power teaching” more often than not. In all honesty, I am not going to have a successful lesson every time, but I am confident that my students know that I care for them every moment. Using the “Big 3” empowers me to feel assured that while we are exploring and chiseling at standards and academics, I am also relating to my students with kindness, care, and compassion.

Together, this is what I feel is the power teaching that I summon and use throughout the day. This is the journey I am taking with my students, and I am not alone. They are with me, and teach me every day on how I can become a better person by reminding me that no matter how small my action, they receive it with great love.

I am a true believer that if we are going to lift humanity from the darkness that encircles our world, then I must start with the education of our children.

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Published here with permission from the author. Peggy Sia teaches at Palm Elementary school in Los Angeles County. Her interests include character education, environmental education, social justice and empowerment, and nonviolent social change. Peggy is a recipient of 2009 Ahimsa Center fellowship and participated in the Residential Summer Institute for K-12 Educators on Journeys of Nonviolence: Gandhi and King.   

Be The Change: Take time to show your colleagues you care. Greet them with a morning smile, listen deeply in a meeting, or simply ask how they are and mean it.

Sourced From www.dailygood.org

Suffering Leads To Grace

Suffering Leads To Grace - Ram Dass

For most people, when you say that suffering is Grace it seems off the wall to them. And we’ve got to deal now with our own suffering and other people’s suffering. That is a distinction that is very real, because we may see our suffering as Grace but it’s quite a different thing to look at somebody else’s suffering and say it’s Grace.

Grace is something that an individual can see about their own suffering and then use it to their advantage. It is not something that can be a rationalization for allowing another human being to suffer. You have to listen to the level at which another person is suffering. When somebody is hungry, you give them food. As my Guru used to say, God comes to the hungry person in the form of food. You give them food and then when they’ve had their belly filled then they may be interested in questions about God. To give somebody a dharma lecture when they are hungry is just inappropriate methodology in terms of ending suffering.

So, the hard answer for seeing suffering as Grace, and this is a stinker really, is that you have to have consumed suffering into yourself. There is a tendency in us to find suffering aversive, and so we want to distance ourselves from it. Like if you have a toothache, it becomes that toothache. It’s not us any more. It’s that tooth. And so if there are suffering people, you want to look at them on television or meet them but then keep a distance from them. Because you are afraid you will drown in it. You are afraid you will drown in a pain that will be unbearable. And the fact of the matter is you have to. You finally have to. Because if you close your heart down to anything in the universe, it’s got you. You are then at the mercy of suffering.

To have finally dealt with suffering is to consume it into yourself. Which means you have to, with eyes open, be able to keep your heart open in hell. You have to look at what is, and say Yea, Right. And what it involves is bearing the unbearable. And in a way, who you *think* you are can’t do it. Who you *really* are, can do it. So that who you think you are has to die in the process.

Like, right now, I am counseling a couple who went to a movie and when they came home their house had burned down and their three children had burned to death. Three, five and seven. And she is Mexican Catholic and he is a Caucasian Protestant. And they are responding entirely differently to it. She is going in to deep spiritual experiences and talking with the children and he is full of denial and anger and feelings of inadequacy. In a way, that situation is so unbearable and you wouldn’t ever lay that on another human being but there it is. What may happen is she may come out of this a much deeper, spiritual and a more profound, more evolved person. And he, because the way he dealt with it was through denial, may end up contracted and tight because he couldn’t embrace the suffering. He couldn’t go towards it. He pushed it away in order to preserve his sanity.

There is a process of suffering that requires you to die into it or to give up your image of yourself. When you say, "I can’t bear it", who is that? In India, they talk about their saints as being the living dead, because they have died to who they thought they were. And they talk about the saints for whom all people are their children, so that everybody that is dying is their child dying. In that way, suffering leads to Grace.

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Anybody who succeeds is helping people. The secret to success is find a need and fill it; find a hurt and heal it; find a problem and solve it. --Robert H. Schuller

The Life You Could Save

--by Kentaro Toyama, Jul 28, 2015

When I was fifteen years old, I won the egg-drop contest at my high school, the American School in Japan. The goal was to design the smallest, lightest contraption that would protect an egg in a fall from the school’s water tower. My device nested the egg in a cardboard tube attached to a tissue-paper parachute. It would, I hoped, be my first taste of geek stardom.

My physics teacher, Mr. O’Leary, offered a hearty congratulations, and my classmates teased me out of envy. What I remember most, though, was that my victory went unmentioned in the next morning’s public announcements. Our principal regularly played up sports team triumphs and drama club events, so why didn’t a feat of engineering merit acknowledgment? It stung.

That night I thought about why I cared, and the sting gave way to curiosity. I had enjoyed designing the parachute and testing it off my eighth-floor balcony. My egg survived, and I could take pride in that. My self-image as a science whiz was preserved. So what did it matter if others knew? It seemed silly and vain to want more recognition.

I still think of that day as the dawn of my adulthood because I realized then that I was driven by powerful subconscious aspirations: I sought certain kinds of achievement, and I wanted accolades. And while I knew at some level that it was better not to care about public esteem, the aspiration ran deep – I couldn’t reason myself out of it.

The philosopher Peter Singer opens his book The Life You Can Save with one of his favorite thought experiments. Imagine you’re on your way to work when you spot a young child drowning in a pond, but no one is around to save her except for you. Rescuing the child would require you to wade into the water, ruining your new shoes and making you late for work. What do you do? Of course, you would save the child. Weighed against her life, time and cost are nothing.

Singer then asks us to consider a real situation. Every day, thousands of children around the world die of various causes. Many of the deaths could be easily prevented for the price of new shoes. Measles, for example, kills about three hundred people per day, most under the age of five, yet the American Red Cross says that every dollar you donate is enough to vaccinate one child. Most of us could easily afford a dollar a day by cutting back on coffee or choosing a cheaper mobile plan. Some of us could absorb the cost with no change in lifestyle. So why aren’t we saving these dying children?

By juxtaposing the two situations, Singer argues that it’s indefensible that we allow such tragedies. His point is compelling. Innovations for Poverty Action, a nonprofit that Singer endorses, recently received a donation accompanied by a note revealing the inner tension. It read, “Damn you, Peter Singer!” But for every such donor, there are hundreds, if not thousands, who follow the thought experiment and never write a check. When I read about Singer’s drowning girl, my first thought was that I already made annual donations to several causes.Though I agreed with his reasoning, and though I could surely afford to give more, I didn’t reach for my wallet. Why was that?

A slightly different hypothetical gets us closer to the truth: Imagine that you saved one child from drowning a couple of days ago. You promptly bought a new pair of shoes to replace your waterlogged loafers. Then, yesterday, you saw two children in the pond. You saved them both. More shoes. This morning, by some freakish coincidence, there were three drowning children. You saved all of them, too. But that’s a lot of shoes to ruin in a week, and you’ve been late for work three days in a row. You’re worried about tomorrow and the day after. What if, every day, more children needed saving? You doubt you can keep it up.

This is much more like the situation we actually face. Singer cites 27,000 children dying of preventable illness every day, or about 10 million a year. Most of us will happily save one child for a few bucks, but few of us will save all the children we possibly can on an ongoing basis. That would mean a commitment of time and money we’re not ready to make. I’m quite happy to give up 0.1 percent of my annual income, or 1 percent, or 10 percent, or maybe even 20 percent. But 50 percent, 75 percent, or 90 percent?

In other words, the abstract good conflicts with my selfish desires. I give less than I could, consume more than I need, and spend time on activities such as writing this book – which, as much as I hope it serves a positive purpose, is also a bid for self-serving esteem. Even if I put aside guilt, shame, and every other self-admonition, the stark fact is that I’m no saint. I’m unable to be as kind as I know I should be. And that’s the crux. Knowing isn’t enough – I also have to become someone who can better execute what he knows.

Technocrats extol technology and knowledge and intelligence, but positive social change requires a lot more. Millions of people in the world today live satisfying lives envied by the rest. That means that we already have the knowledge we need for well-being. As foreign-aid critic William Easterly wrote, the technocratic illusion is to think that we suffer from a “shortage of expertise.” What we have instead is either a shortage of caring or a shortage of capable follow-through. The question that Singer’s drowning child poses is less about whether to save a child, or even what technology would save the most children. Rather, it’s about how we become the kind of people who can, and will, save more children.

I don’t have easy answers to how we become those people, other than to speculate that it comes through following our deepest aspirations. Despite decades of trying, I’m not sure I’ve grown that much beyond my high-school self. But, one thing I do know is that we have to try. Here in the twenty-first century, we have plenty of amazing technologies. What we need more of are the right kinds of heart, mind, and will.

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This post is excerpted from Geek Heresy: Rescuing Social Change from the Cult of Technology, released May 26, 2015, by PublicAffairs and is reprinted here with permission. Kentaro Toyama is working on a book tentatively titled 'A Different Kind of Growth: Wisdom in Global Development.' For more information, visit kentarotoyama.org or follow him on Twitter. 

Be The Change: Take a step today to increase the spirit of service in your life.

Sourced From www.dailygood.org

Being Friends

Being Friends - Osho

If you know the art of being friendly, you can share with as many people as possible, with as many animals as possible, with as many trees as possible, says Osho

Gautama Buddha emphasises friendship very much. To translate his word for friendship — Maitri — is a little difficult because it has the quality of friendliness more than friendship. Friendship becomes a relationship, fixed; friendliness is more flowing, more fluid. Friendship is a relationship, friendliness is a state of your being. You are simply friendly; to whom, that is not the point. If you are standing by the side of a tree you are friendly to the tree, or if you are sitting on the rock, you are friendly to the rock. To human beings, to animals, to birds, you are simply friendly. It is not something static; it is a flow, changing moment to moment.

The Buddha says: To have friends in need is sweet.

Friendliness is one of the most significant qualities for the seeker to develop; In the Buddha’s vision, it is higher than so-called love. Your so-called love is tethered to your biology; friendliness is freedom from biology. The ordinary so-called love is the same in human beings as it is in animals, as it is in the trees.

Friendship is a higher phenomenon. It is pure love; it has nothing to do with your biology. Ordinary love — can be explained through biology, but friendship cannot be explained. It is a mystery. Friendship is like fragrance; it helps you to transcend your animality.

The Buddha praises friendship, friendliness, very highly. He has even chosen that when he comes back again, his name will be Maitreya — the friend. He must have loved the word very much. I don’t think he will come again or anybody ever comes again. God never makes the same mistake again, remember! Once is more than enough, twice will be too much. But he must have loved the word so much that he says, “Next time, if I am at all going to come, my name is going to be Maitreya, the friend.” The word contains his whole philosophy.

He says: ‘To have friends... is sweet.’ Why is it sweet? Because with friends, your relationship is not physiological, it is not even psychological; it is a spiritual communion. With friends you can sit in silence. When you are with your lover, you can’t sit in silence; silence looks awkward. The woman will think, ‘Why are you silent? Are you angry or something?’ And if she is silent, you will think something is wrong — she is sulking. Silence becomes heavy, a burden; it has to be removed. So people go on talking, whether it is needed or not.

You can share your happiness only with friends. Sharing is possible only when two hearts are open to each other; only in deep trust can you be open to the other. In fear you are closed, in doubt you are closed. You are on guard. You are afraid the other may be some danger to you, the other may do some harm. You are not vulnerable when you are in fear. Only with friends you can be vulnerable, open, available. Then sharing is possible. And sharing is one of the greatest spiritual qualities.

The miracle is that the more you share your bliss, the more you have it. The more you share, the more it comes to you. The more you share, the more you become aware of an inexhaustible source within yourself.

Happiness is great in itself, but to share it makes it immensely rich. If you are miserly about your happiness, you will kill it. To hoard your happiness is to destroy it; to spread it far and wide is to help it grow. If you know the art of being friendly, you can share with as many people as possible, with as many animals as possible, with as many trees as possible. You can go on sharing every moment of your life because you are always with someone. You can share it with the sun, with the moon, with the stars.

Distances don’t matter. You can share your bliss with a friend who is far away. In that moment of sharing, space disappears, time disappears. There is no time gap, no space gap. You are suddenly together. You can even share with friends who are no longer alive. In deep communion, they become available to you, non-physically.

Excerpted from Dhammapada: The Way of the Buddha, Courtesy Osho International Foundation, www.osho.com

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Man's Most Important Mistake

Man's Most Important Mistake - G. I. Gurdjieff

One of man's most important mistakes, one which must be remembered, is his illusion in regard to his I.

Man such as we know him, the ‘man-machine,’ the man who cannot ‘do,’ and with whom and through whom everything ‘happens,’ cannot have a permanent and single I. His I changes as quickly as his thoughts, feelings and moods, and he makes a profound mistake in considering himself always one and the same person; in reality he is always a different person, not the one he was a moment ago.

Man has no permanent and unchangeable I. Every thought, every mood, every desire, every sensation, says ‘I.’ And in each case it seems to be taken for granted that this I belongs to the Whole, to the whole man, and that a thought, a desire, or an aversion is expressed by this Whole. In actual fact there is no foundation whatsoever for this assumption. Man’s every thought and desire appears and lives quite separately and independently of the Whole. And the Whole never expresses itself, for the simple reason that it exists, as such, only physically as a thing, and in the abstract as a concept.

Man has no individual I. But there are, instead, hundreds and thousands of separate small I’s, very often entirely unknown to one another, never coming into contact, or, on the contrary, hostile to each other, mutually exclusive and incompatible. Each minute, each moment, man is saying or thinking, ‘I.’ And each time his I is different. Just now it was a thought, now it is a desire, now a sensation, now another thought, and so on, endlessly. Man is a plurality. Man’s name is legion.

Try to understand that what you usually call "I" is not I; there are many “I’s” and each “I” has a different wish. Try to verify this. You wish to change, but which part of you has this wish? Many parts of you want many things, but only one part is real. It will be very useful for you to try to be sincere with yourself. Sincerity is the key which will open the door through which you will see your separate parts, and you will see something quite new. You must go on trying to be sincere. Each day you put on a mask, and you must take it off little by little.

About the Author: Georges Ivanovich Gurdjieff ​was an influential spiritual eacher of the early to mid-20th century. 

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Can You Teach People To Have Empathy?

Can you teach people to have empathy? - Roman Krznaric

Empathy is a quality that is integral to most people's lives - and yet the modern world makes it easy to lose sight of the feelings of others. But almost everyone can learn to develop this crucial personality trait, says Roman Krznaric.

Open Harper Lee's classic novel To Kill A Mockingbird and one line will jump out at you: "You never really understand another person until you consider things from his point of view - until you climb inside of his skin and walk around in it."

Human beings are naturally primed to embrace this message. According to the latest neuroscience research, 98% of people (the exceptions include those with psychopathic tendencies) have the ability to empathise wired into their brains - an in-built capacity for stepping into the shoes of others and understanding their feelings and perspectives.

The problem is that most don't tap into their full empathic potential in everyday life.

You can easily find yourself passing by a mother struggling with a pram on some steps as you rush to a work meeting, or read about a tragic earthquake in a distant country then let it slip your mind as you click a link to check the latest football results.

The empathy gap can appear in personal relationships too - like when I find myself shouting in frustration at my six-year-old twins, or fail to realise that my partner is doing more than her fair share of the housework.

So is there anything you can do to boost your empathy levels? The good news is that almost everyone can learn to be more empathic, just like we can learn to ride a bike or drive a car.

A good warm up is to do a quick assessment of your empathic abilities. Neuropsychologist Simon Baron-Cohen has devised a test called Reading the Mind in the Eyes in which you are shown 36 pairs of eyes and have to choose one of four words that best describes what each person is feeling or thinking - for instance, jealous, arrogant, panicked or hateful.

The average score of around 26 suggests that the majority of people are surprisingly good - though far from perfect - at visually reading others' emotions.

Going a step further, there are three simple but powerful strategies for unleashing the empathic potential that is latent in our neural circuitry.

Make a habit of "radical listening"

"What is essential,' wrote Marshall Rosenberg, psychologist and founder of Non-Violent Communication, "is our ability to be present to what's really going on within - to the unique feelings and needs a person is experiencing at that very moment."

Listening out for people's feelings and needs - whether it is a friend who has just been diagnosed with breast cancer or a spouse who is upset at you for working late yet again - gives them a sense of being understood.

Let people have their say, hold back from interrupting and even reflect back what they've told you so they knew you were really listening. There's a term for doing this - "radical listening".

Radical listening can have an extraordinary impact on resolving conflict situations. Rosenberg points out that in employer-employee disputes, if both sides literally repeat what the other side just said before speaking themselves, conflict resolution is reached 50% faster.

Look for the human behind everything

A second step is to deepen empathic concern for others by developing an awareness of all those individuals hidden behind the surface of our daily lives, on whom we may depend in some way. A Buddhist-inspired approach to this is to spend a whole day becoming mindful of every person connected to your routine actions.

So when you have your morning coffee, think about the people who picked the coffee beans. As you button your shirt, consider the labour behind the label by asking yourself: "Who sewed on these buttons? Where in the world are they? What are their lives like?"

Then continue throughout the day, bringing this curiosity to who is driving the train, vacuuming the office floor or stacking the supermarket shelves. It is precisely such mindful awareness that can spark empathic action on the behalf of others, whether it's buying Fairtrade coffee or becoming friends with the office cleaner.

Bertolt Brecht wrote a wonderful poem about this called A Worker Reads History, which begins: "Who built the seven gates of Thebes? / The books are filled with the names of kings / Was it the kings who hauled the craggy blocks of stone?"

Become curious about strangers

I used to regularly walk past a homeless man around the corner from where I live in Oxford and take virtually no notice of him. One day I stopped to speak to him.

It turned out his name was Alan Human and he had a degree in Philosophy, Politics and Economics from the University of Oxford. We subsequently developed a friendship based on our mutual interest in Aristotle's ethics and pepperoni pizza.

This encounter taught me that having conversations with strangers opens up our empathic minds. We can not only meet fascinating people but also challenge the assumptions and prejudices that we have about others based on their appearance, accents or backgrounds.

It's about recovering the curiosity everyone had as children, but which society is so good at beating out of us. Get beyond superficial talk but beware interrogating people. Respect the advice of oral historian Studs Terkel - who always spoke to people on the bus on his daily commute: "Don't be an examiner, be the interested inquirer."

These are the kinds of conversations you will find happening at the world's first Empathy Museum, which is launching in the UK in late 2015 and will then be travelling to Australia and other countries.

Amongst the unusual exhibitions will be a human library, where instead of borrowing a book you borrow a person for conversation - maybe a Sikh teenager, an unhappy investment banker or a gay father. In other words, the kind of people you may not get to meet in everyday life.

Empathy is the cornerstone of healthy human relationships.

As the psychologist and inventor of emotional intelligence Daniel Goleman puts it, without empathy a person is "emotionally tone deaf".

It's clear that with a little effort nearly everyone can put more of their empathic potential to use. So try slipping on your empathy shoes and make an adventure of looking at the world through the eyes of others

Roman Krznaric is the author of Empathy: Why It Matters, and How to Get It - on which this article is based - and is founder of the Empathy Museum and Empathy Library.

The Pleasure of Serving

The Pleasure of Serving - Gabriela Mistral

All of nature is a yearning for service:

The cloud serves, and the wind, and the furrow.

Where there is a tree to plant, you be the one.

Where there is a mistake to undo, let it be you.

You be the one to remove the rock from the field,

The hate from human hearts,
And the difficulties from the problem.

There is joy in being wise and just,

But above all there is the beautiful,
The immense happiness of serving.

How sad the world would be if all was already done.

If there was no rosebush to plant,
No enterprise to undertake.

Do not limit yourself to easy tasks.

It's so beautiful to do what others dodge.

But don't fall prey to the error that only

Great tasks done can be counted as accomplishments.
There are small acts of service that are good ones:
Decoratively setting a table,
Putting some books in order,
Combing a little girl's hair.
That one over there is the one that criticizes,
This other one is the one that destroys.
You be the one that serves.

Serving is not a labor just for inferior beings.

God, who gives fruit and light, serves.
His name could be rendered thus: He Who Serves.

And he has his eyes on our hands,

And he asks us at the close of day:
"Did you render service today? To whom?
To a tree, to your friend, to your mother?"

About the Author: Gabriela Mistral received the 1945 Nobel Prize for Literature. This poem is from the collection Tala recited on the occasion of the 100th anniversary of José Martí’s birth, in January 1953. 

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The Cross Road Of Should And Must

There are two paths in life: should and must. We arrive at this crossroads over and over again. And every day, we get to choose. - Elle Luna

The Crossroads of Should and Must: An Intelligent Illustrated Field Guide to Finding Your Bliss

--by Maria Popova, syndicated from brainpickings.org, Jul 01, 2015

“Should is how other people want us to live our lives… Choosing Must is the greatest thing we can do with our lives.”

“Does what goes on inside show on the outside?,” young Vincent van Gogh despaired in a moving letter to his brother while floundering to find his purpose. “Someone has a great fire in his soul and nobody ever comes to warm themselves at it, and passers-by see nothing but a little smoke at the top of the chimney.” A century later, Joseph Campbell stoked that hearth of the soul with his foundational treatise on finding your bliss. And yet every day, countless hearths and hearts grow ashen in cubicles around the world as we succumb to the all too human tendency toward choosing what we should be doing in order to make a living over what we must do in order to feel alive.

How to turn that invisible inner fire into fuel for soul-warming bliss is what artist and designer Elle Luna explores in her essay-turned-book The Crossroads of Should and Must: Find and Follow Your Passion (public library) — an intelligent and rousing illustrated manifesto that picks up where Campbell left off, in the spirit of Parker Palmer’s emboldening guide to letting your life speakand Debbie Millman’s visual-essay-turned-commencement-address on courage and the creative life.

Distinguishing between a job (“something typically done from 9 to 5 for pay”), a career (“a system of advancements and promotions over time where rewards are used to optimize behavior”), and a calling (“something that we feel compelled to do regardless of fame or fortune”), Luna recounts the pivotal moment in her own life when she was suddenly unable to discern which of these she had. As an early employee at a promising startup, she was working tirelessly on a product she deeply believed in, and yet felt disorientingly unfulfilled. She found herself before a revelatory crossroads: the crossroads between Should and Must.

Luna writes:

Should is how other people want us to live our lives. It’s all of the expectations that others layer upon us.

Sometimes, Shoulds are small, seemingly innocuous, and easily accommodated. “You should listen to that song,” for example. At other times, Shoulds are highly influential systems of thought that pressure and, at their most destructive, coerce us to live our lives differently.

Echoing Eleanor Roosevelt’s famous admonition — “When you adopt the standards and the values of someone else … you surrender your own integrity,” the longest-serving First Lady wrote in contemplating conformity and the secret of happiness, “[and] become, to the extent of your surrender, less of a human being.” — Luna adds:

When we choose Should, we’re choosing to live our life for someone or something other than ourselves. The journey to Should can be smooth, the rewards can seem clear, and the options are often plentiful.

She offers a counterpoint:

Must is different. Must is who we are, what we believe, and what we do when we are alone with our truest, most authentic self. It’s that which calls to us most deeply. It’s our convictions, our passions, our deepest held urges and desires — unavoidable, undeniable, and inexplicable. Unlike Should, Must doesn’t accept compromises.

Must is when we stop conforming to other people’s ideals and start connecting to our own — and this allows us to cultivate our full potential as individuals. To choose Must is to say yes to hard work and constant effort, to say yes to a journey without a road map or guarantees, and in so doing, to say yes to what Joseph Campbell called “the experience of being alive, so that our life experiences on the purely physical plane will have resonance within our innermost being and reality, so that we actually feel the rapture of being alive.”

Choosing Must is the greatest thing we can do with our lives.

And yet as simple as Luna’s elegant prose makes it sound, anyone who has lived through this crossroads — she has; I have — will attest that it is anything but easy; the road is strewn with difficult choices. Luna considers the osmotic relationship between Should and Must, even as we turn away from one and toward the other:

If you want to know Must, get to know Should. This is hard work. Really hard work. We unconsciously imprison ourselves to avoid our most primal fears. We choose Should because choosing Must is terrifying, incomprehensible. Our prison is constructed from a lifetime of Shoulds, the world of choices we’ve unwittingly agreed to, the walls that alienate us from our truest, most authentic selves. Should is the doorkeeper to Must. And just as you create your prison, you can set yourself free.

One of the most common ways in which we imprison ourselves is by comparing ourselves to others and, upon finding our situation inferior, placing blame — on circumstances that we feel are unfair, on the people we believe are responsible for those circumstances, or on some abstract element of fate we think is at play. The self-defeating catch is that we often end up judging our circumstancesagainst others’ outcomes, forgetting that hard work and hard choices are the transmuting agent between circumstance and outcome.

Joseph Brodsky captured this with piercing precision in the greatest commencement address of all time, cautioning: “A pointed finger is a victim’s logo… No matter how abominable your condition may be, try not to blame anything or anybody: history, the state, superiors, race, parents, the phase of the moon, childhood, toilet training, etc. The menu is vast and tedious, and this vastness and tedium alone should be offensive enough to set one’s intelligence against choosing from it. The moment that you place blame somewhere, you undermine your resolve to change anything.”

Luna touches on this perilous tendency as she considers the origin of Should:

How often do we place blame on the person, job, or situation when the real problem, the real pain, is within us? And we leave and walk away, angry, frustrated, and sad, unconsciously carrying the same Shoulds into a new context — the next relationship, the next job, the next friendship — hoping for different results.

How to get to know Should in the most intimate way possible, so that we can begin to swivel toward different results by moving toward Must, is what Luna examines in the remainder of The Crossroads of Should and Must. In this wonderful Design Matters conversation with one of her creative heroes and influences,Debbie Millman, Luna discusses how the book came to be, the unusual journey that precipitated it, and why her original essay resonated — beyond her wildest expectations — with so many people across so many walks of life:

Must is fantastic, and Must is just on the other side of Should. Should is this world of expectations — it’s like a camouflaged force. That’s one of the tricky things about Should — it can kind of creep in there when you’re not looking. It’s easier — it’s this invisible force moving against us [and] it often comes very early on in life. It can come from the time into which we’re born, the society or the community into which we’re born, the body into which we’re born… It can be a lot of different things that happen early in life [which] really take on that trajectory … and have us often running a different race than the one we were intended to run.

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This article originally appeared in Brain Pickings and is republished with permission. The author, Maria Popova, is a cultural curator and curious mind at large, who also writes for Wired UK, The Atlantic and Design Observer, and is the founder and editor in chief of Brain Pickings.  

 

Be The Change: What deep calling have you been avoiding in your life? How can you honor that calling, in at least a small way?