Following the Way of Growth

Billy Is Gone, Rest In Peace

2010-07-17T08:06:00.000-05:00

This is Billy's brother so do not think he has found a way to communicate from the after life.

The family, through me, is trying to tie up the loose ends and put a closing chapter to his life, which ended all too soon with the tragedy of his death on July 8th, 2010.

Thank you for being a friend to my brother.

May he finally have the peace that eluded him in life.

Under Construction - Second Draft

2010-06-12T23:00:00.000-05:00

I’m in the process of updating this blog a second time. The first draft was choppy & a little impersonal. In the second draft, I plan on correcting that by increasing the flow of the writing along with a more personable feel. The best place to see what’s revised is the outline section. I will put notes there on what is new & revised.

Enjoy,
Billy

Introduction

2010-06-12T22:50:00.005-05:00

Before we get started, this blog is kept in book format instead of the traditional blog format. If you’re interested in the latest insights or video links, the best place to look is my twitter account.

Following the Way of Growth, FWG, is a spiritual path that has been boiled down to common sense, not nonsense. The spiritual gobbledygook in most religions is something to be worked through, not clung to. Here is a good quote from Isolde Hurz, "We call ‘mystical’ a connection that we feel without understanding it." In short, the end goal of any spiritual path is common sense results. Don’t get me wrong. There is much wonder & amazement on a real spiritual path, but at the end of the day the principles people follow should be simple, practical, easy to understand & produce real results. Look at FWG as your base camp for exploring your world with growth being your anchoring wisdom while the nine principles are your primary actions for optimal growth.

FWG is a systematic approach to achieving your full potential. FWG isn’t a belief system nor is it a philosophical one. It’s just everyday common sense principles applied to your everyday life in such a way to help you achieve optimal results. FWG works simply by changing your bad habits into good habits. With each small change you move one step closer to optimal living. The process of changing your habits begins by observing them & their consequences. Once you start understanding your habits, then you can start changing them accordingly to improve your life. It’s really no more difficult than restraining yourself from indulging in pleasure & being self-centered.

A mind dulled by pleasure & filled with ego (sense of self) isn’t a good judge of what is going on. So at the beginning, you might have to learn from people whose minds are clearer & less cluttered than your own, but only until you can do it for yourself. The principles that follow will help you achieve optimal living with the least amount of effort.

I’m not trying to tell you what is right or wrong. I’m revealing the consequences of your actions so you can improve your life. I’m also giving you the tools to develop your own mind so you can see the consequences for yourself. I’m not looking for followers. I’m looking to share what I’ve learned so that you might benefit from it too. I don’t claim to be perfect or holy. I claim to know what is optimal, how to get there & that I’m striving for it. Likewise, I’m not promising you an afterlife or any other such nonsense. I’m claiming that if you apply these principles to your life, you’ll have a better life right here & now.

A good scientist doesn’t believe anything just because another person says it. A good scientist repeats the experiment to determine the accuracy of the claim. Likewise, I don’t want you to believe me. I want you to actually live it to determine if I’m right or wrong.

In short, FWG is the end of nonsense & the beginning of common sense.

Follow the Way of Growth & know for yourself,
Billy

P.S. - If you find any spelling or grammar errors, please let me know. Thanks! You can leave comments anonymously without an account.

If you don't like reading on a screen, you can download a PDF of this blog, print it out & read it at your leisure. It won't be exactly the same as this blog, but it will be close enough.

You can watch my It All Boils Down to Growth video at YouTube.

The Outline

2010-06-12T22:40:00.012-05:00

Introduction – (Revised - 6/12/2010)

Principle 1 - Apply Yourself – (Revised - 6/18/2010)

Principle 2 - Baby Steps – (Revised - 6/18/2010)

Principle 3 - Discipline – (Revised - 6/18/2010)

Principle 4 - Attention – (Revised - 6/30/2010)

Principle 5 - Question Everything – (Revised - 6/30/2010)

Principle 6 - Know Your Teacher: Reality

Principle 7 - Know Your Enemies: Ego & Pleasure

Principle 8 - Seek Harmony & Peace

Principle 9 - Simplicity

Summary

Applications

Resources – (New - 6/12/2010)

Thought out this blog I will bring up other principles within other principles. Instead of saying something like this, "in Principle 4 - Attention," I will say, "in Attention (4)." In short, (x) will stand for Principle x.

Apply Yourself

2010-06-12T22:30:00.004-05:00

Let’s ask the deeper question first, “What is applying yourself about at its deepest level?” You might start off by saying something like this, “It’s about putting your nose to the grindstone.” Well, that would be fine & dandy, but go a little deeper. Keep going deeper until you reach the deepest meaning which is growth. There is no other reason to apply yourself than to grow in some way. In fact, growth is the deepest meaning of all the principles. I understood the deeper meaning first, then I backed into the principles which were leading me to growth.

Now that we know why we are applying ourselves which is sort of obvious but needs to be said for clarity, the next question might be, “Why is apply yourself first?” It’s first because without the willingness to change, there is no growth. The remaining principles are useless without it; therefore, it’s first. The unwillingness to apply yourself is like a boat with its engine turned off; it’s being blown around by the wind & tugged by the water until someone gets busy, starts the engine & takes control. Applying yourself is like a starter on a car, it just gets the main engine running. Your willingness to change allows the essence of life to start working its amazing growth through you. Just watch a plant grow, there is nothing within a plant that keeps it from realizing amazing growth. However, humans are another story. Humans have created an environment where they can grow minimally. You might ask, “Why is that?” Because, we don’t know how to handle success very well. FWG is about learning how to handle success effectively.

FWG is about real work which leads to real growth; not hype, promises or beliefs. It’s about actions. As you look at the nine principles, you’ll see that they all require actions. Some of the actions will be physical while others will be mental or spiritual, but in some way they all require you to apply yourself wisely to change. Reading about FWG is a good place to start, but be careful not to cling too long to reading, because it quickly turns into intellectualism which leads you away from results. The hardest part of any spiritual path is doing the work. That is why so many people would rather talk & read about it, than do it.

At the beginning, you aren’t going to know much & may feel overwhelmed on where to start & what to do. Don’t worry about it. Just apply whatever makes sense to you. It all becomes clearer with time. It’s just like any other new skill you’ve learned before. You start off mostly ignorant, but as you practice, it all becomes clearer. Don’t be intimidated just because these are spiritual skills. In some small way or another, you’re already doing most of them. You may not be skillful at them, but you are doing them.

As you read through these nine principles, take notice of how you & others have succeeded or failed in life based on them. As you really start seeing the consequences of actions, you’ll be more willing to apply these principles to your everyday life. To maximize your efforts, you need to apply all the principles together as best you can, because no principle works independently of the others. The principles are so interwoven that if you neglect one, it will significantly weaken the others.

Many worry about making mistakes or looking foolish. Don’t! You’re going to make mistakes & look foolish at times; it’s a given. It shouldn’t be something that you beat yourself up about, but something that you learn from. In fact, if you aren’t making mistakes or looking foolish occasionally, you really aren’t even trying. Don’t be worried about that stuff, be worried about not growing. If you want to beat yourself up for something, then beat yourself up for making the same mistake over & over again without making progress on it. Every mistake is an opportunity to grow & learn from. Use it! In fact, everything in life is an opportunity to grow & learn from; and, looking foolish just means you’re learning something new.

All your actions have short & long term consequences to them which puts you on a path regardless if you know it or not. In short, no work equals no results.

You can watch my Apply Yourself video at YouTube.

Baby Steps

2010-06-12T22:20:00.007-05:00

In the first principle we talked about the willingness to improve your life. Now that you’re willing to make changes, the next question is “How to maximize your growth?” The answer is simple, baby steps. Without understanding baby steps, you’re in for a long hard road of trying too hard, achieving little and making yourself & everybody around you miserable. Isn’t it beautiful that long term success isn’t rooted in money, fame or anything like that? It only requires a constant gentle application of yourself. The path to greatness is so simple & easy that most people miss it.

I’ve said baby steps is the optimal way to achieve long term results, but I haven’t backed it up with solid reasoning. So let’s reason through this together so you can see what I see. First, let’s eliminate the two extremes. There are only two ways in life that we fail: the first is by doing too much which leads to the second failure of doing nothing. I think that is easy enough to understand. I also think most of us have experienced this pattern in our life at one time or another. We find a new joy, get overly enthusiastic about it, pour all our energy into it & burned out. Maybe a year later we pick it up again just to give it up again. All these starts & stops could have been avoided with a little discipline (3) & understanding of baby steps.

Okay, we’ve eliminated the two extremes by reasoning & convinced ourselves it was right with personal experience, but what does science have to say about it. Here is an experiment I remember hearing about in college. The experiment was done on a group of college students to determine the long term consequences of personal choices. The experiment was set up with a line being drawn with thirteen buckets being placed on the opposite side of the line as the students. The first bucket was placed one foot from the line with each successive bucket being placed one foot farther away from the line than the previous bucket. Each student was given a ball & rewarded with a dollar for the bucket they successfully threw their ball into. Then, many years later the group was evaluated to see what they had accomplished in life given the corresponding bucket they had thrown at.

Here is what they found. The students who had thrown at buckets 1 - 4 hadn’t accomplished much, because they never tried anything challenging. The students who had thrown at buckets 9 - 13 likewise hadn’t accomplished much either, because they tried things that were too difficult, and eventually gave up. The most successful group of students was the ones who had thrown at buckets 5 - 8. These students tried things that were challenging, but not too challenging. Notice, it didn’t really matter if they had actually gotten their ball in the bucket or not, but the intention was the long term determiner of their success.

Okay, so we have eliminated the two extremes by reasoning, backed it up with personal experience & a science experiment. Now, let’s see what Mother Nature has to offer us regarding long term success. When I search the whole world over in my mind, I can’t think of anything that has achieved greater long term success than a tree. It grows unnoticed on a daily basis. However, over many years it does achieve the greatest success. Before we take notice of how a tree produces such results, let’s first look at something that doesn’t achieve long term success, a flower. A flower grows quickly & beautifully, but it falls quickly too just to do it again next year. This is what I call the Flower Principle – quick flashy results that don’t last. A good example would be New Year’s resolutions. People give it their all for a week or two & maybe even a month, then they give it up to do it all over again next year. Notice, an individual flower never really builds upon its prior successes in a way that is useful to us.

Now, let’s take a look at how a tree achieves long term success. A tree starts out small & unassuming just like a flower. In the short run, it looks like a failure compared to the flower. It typically doesn’t grow as fast & definitely doesn’t look as beautiful, but then year two comes along. The tree starts showing its greatness by patiently building upon its prior successes without destroy any of them. Year after year the tree grows bigger & bigger while the flower never gets above a foot or so. Likewise, if you apply baby steps to your life, others will surpass you in the short run, but in the long run you will surpass them.

Okay, so the tree is an amazing model for understanding long term success. Who knew the answer to long term success wasn’t on a bookshelf, but in your own backyard? The tree has much more wisdom to offer, but we will settle for that right now. Now that we have our understanding of baby steps, let’s step back & ponder for a moment how you & everything around you came into existence through billions of years of baby steps.

.....

Isn’t it beautiful how everything starts fitting together when you know the real truth? Logic, personal experience, science & natural principles working together to help you understand the world you live in & at the same time setting you up for long term success. Isn’t it beautiful when your spiritual path doesn’t limit your ability to think, question or learn; but encourages it? How many times have we seen religious people fighting the obvious facts? It’s ridiculous! A real spiritual path is an endless process of learning & growing. It’s never a closed-minded endeavor.

In short, baby steps is the best way to achieve long term success.

You can watch my video Baby Steps at YouTube.

Discipline

2010-06-12T22:10:00.003-05:00

The deepest meaning of discipline is growth. However, let’s be a little more shallow so we can be more practical. We have all heard & used the word discipline before; it’s nothing new. We all apply discipline to our lives on a daily basis in one form or another. Those who don’t apply discipline to their lives lose their freedom until they are in jail or dead which brings up a saying of mine, “You’ll have as much freedom as you can control yourself.” I first learned this by watching dogs, but quickly realized it applied to humans as well.

Let’s take a deeper look at what discipline truly is so we can use it more effectively to improve our lives. Many times in life we use words without really considering their deeper meaning. It’s like passing a flower every day without stopping to examine it. So let’s stop for a moment & take a deeper look at that the word, DISCIPLINE.

The first thing we need to understand about discipline is that it only comes into play when there is a choice to be made. Since life is a series of choices, then discipline is almost always active which means there are endless opportunities to improve ourselves. Each choice we make has an associated consequence with it, good or bad. Over time our conscious choices become automatic, habits. Once our choices become habits, they carry a lot of influence over our lives & are, as we all know, hard to break which can be a good or a bad thing depending on what habits we’ve developed. So it’s important to make the best choices we can all the time, because they will turn into habits which reveals the power of baby steps. Remember the classic saying, “You reap what you sow.”

The second thing we need to understand about discipline is why we apply it to our lives. We apply discipline to our lives because we believe the long term benefits of one choice outweighs the long term benefits of another. However, when most people talk about discipline, they aren’t talking about just making a choice without a feeling of sacrifice associated with it. They are talking about a decision that requires sacrificing some pleasure or self-elation in the short run to gain more of it in the future. If the feelings of sacrifice weren’t involved, then the choice would be a no brainier, but feelings are there; so it’s a challenge.

Also, notice that most people get it wrong on why they are disciplining themselves. They think it’s about getting more pleasures & self-elation in the future, delayed gratification. Delayed gratification is missing the point. It’s not about delaying gratification. It’s about gathering more essence. You may think, “Essence, what is that?” In short, essence is what everything is made of. When you meet someone with more essence, you know it & that is exactly what we are trying to gain. In summary to this point, discipline is making a choice to go against pleasure & ego to obtain more essence which requires dealing with emotions, feelings & impulses.

The third thing we need to understand about discipline is what we will be facing in the process of giving up pleasures & self-elation which are their opposites: misery & depression. Those feelings of misery & depression are only temporary until we reach harmony. At harmony, the decisions we make will no longer carry the weight of sacrifice with them. Therefore, they will not feel like discipline anymore.

In summary, discipline is about making better long term choices which requires us giving up some pleasure or self-elation which requires us dealing with the core emotions of misery & depression. With each step back to harmony, more essence is gained which includes greater harmony until our ultimate destination is achieved, peace.

Attention

2010-06-12T22:00:00.003-05:00

Attention in its purest form is the ability to hold the spirit steady so that you can perceive what’s going on to grow with it. We have all seen people with little attention spans. Their spirits thrash their minds around which can be highly annoying to a steady minded person. At times you might be that mindless person. I know there are times when that person is me. There are two enemies to a steady mind which are pleasure & ego (7). Pleasure elates the spirit in some way which breaks the attention of the mind. Typically, that is why we give into pleasure in the first place; we are tired of dealing with ourselves & want an escape. Ego also elates the spirit in some way breaking the steadiness of the mind which I will talk more about in Know Your Enemies: Ego & Pleasure (7). Therefore, the more pleasures you can give up & the more ego you can conquer, the more stability you’ll have.

Let’s get a little more practical. Attention is the ability to hold the spirit steady to accomplish something. We see this with athletes holding their spirits steady to win events. We also see this with scholars who hold their spirits steady to accomplish some achievement. In short, attention is needed to accomplish anything. We already have a certain amount of attention which we can build upon by using the other eight principles. Apply Yourself (1) is the willingness to change so your attention can grow. Baby Steps (2) is the understanding that small gains in attention are the optimal way to grow your attention. By paying a little more (say 5%) attention to everything that you do on a daily basis, you can grow your attention in significant ways over time. Once your attention is greater, you’ll be able to see reality & yourself better to let go of those egotistical irritations & pleasurable indulgences. Discipline (3) is about making good choices when it comes to building your attention such as taking small steps to overcome ego & pleasure. Seek Harmony & Peace (8) is the avoidance of the two extremes which are mindlessness & forceful attention. If you avoid these two extremes, your attention will grow.

Looking at attention from a different angle, attention is holding the spirit steady so you can see reality clearly for the simple task of following it. Sounds simple enough, right? However, we are easily distracted by the pursuit of pleasures & egotistical thoughts which quickly erodes are attention. Even those of us who have a great ability to stay focused don’t simply because we don’t want to – my will (ego) – which is a violation of Apply Yourself. Are you starting to see how weak each principle is without the other principles supporting it? Remember, all the principles are there to support each other. Nothing has been added that isn’t necessary. Therefore, don’t neglect any of them. A chain is no stronger than its weakest link & it’s the same with your life too. Neglect nothing!

You can also develop your powers of concentration by meditating & the like. I prefer sitting in a recliner with minimal movement while keeping aware of everything with occasionally going deeper into the spirit. I don’t try to control where the spirit goes. I just go where it leads me. If you practice this, slowly you’ll start carrying this state of mind along with you in everything you do but first you need to be able to manage it in a low stress environment.

In short, you’re developing your ability to pay attention so you can follow reality better which increases your grow.

Question Everything

2010-06-12T21:50:00.002-05:00

A question is a moment of openness that allows for growth. Look at how science has evolved over the past two thousand years. It asks a question followed by an experiment which leads to more questions & more experiments. This process of questioning & experimenting allows for growing & self-correction. This process repeated over thousands of years is extremely powerful which once again illustrates the power of baby steps.

Let’s look at why philosophy isn’t that powerful. Philosophy ask questions, but doesn’t do the experiments to determine if it’s right. Without the self-correction mechanism of reality, philosophy quickly gets off course & stays there. Likewise, don’t sit around thinking all day long without seeing if what you’re thinking matches up with reality. Reality is a great check to your thoughts. The whole point of questions is getting in greater harmony with reality. Reality is where your power & your growth happens. Here is a quote by Cadman, "A little experience often upsets a lot of theory." So question things, bounce your ideas off of reality & pay attention to see if you’re right.

Are you starting to see how it all works? (In this paragraph, I will put the principle that applies to the current thought after it.) You question things (5), then you bounce those ideas off of reality (6) & pay attention (4) to see if what you’re thinking matches up with reality (6). In the process of doing all that, you don’t get lost in the details (9) & you discipline (3) yourself not to violate baby steps (2) & the whole time you were trying (1) to grow. Then, you evaluate (5) your perception (4) of reality (6), you make sure ego & pleasure (7) aren’t skewing your understanding. Once you feel like you have it right, you watch reality (6) to see (4) if what your thinking is in harmony (8) with reality (6). If you’re right (4), you move onto the next thing to discover (1). If you’re wrong which requires honesty (7), you evaluate (4&5) what happened contrary to what you though should happen & learn from it. Repeat process until death. I think that makes it clearer how the path unfolds using the principles.

Questions are like fertilizer for the mind & spirit. When you welcome questions, you’re welcoming in life. When you shut off questions, you’re shutting off life. This is why the church is losing so much life, because they can’t question their cherished beliefs. In short, religions are dying today because they claim to have all the answers when they don’t which is arrogance which is a closed state of mind that stands in the way of growth which stems directly from ego.

You have to ask questions to grow. However, you don’t need an immediate answer. It’s joyful to have a mystery to solve. There are two ways we fail with questions: to not ask them which leads to stagnation or to force answers which leads to agitation. When the answer comes, you need to be open to it. Here is a humorous saying of mine, “The truth is just waiting for you to get over yourself.” Many times the answer isn’t what we want it to be so we either reject it or manipulate it to fit our cherished beliefs. You need to be honest with yourself. However, not all answers are correct. Each answer should be verified against reality & produce results before being relied upon. Be open minded but not gullible.

Since we’re our own worst enemy, the most important thing to question is ourselves (ego). We carry around all kinds of false beliefs that just aren’t so which cause us untold trouble. As a result, our perception of life is skewed. You see this in science too when an experimenter comes into an experiment with preconceived notions that influence the outcome of the experiment which makes it hard or impossible for others to verify their claims. Obviously, you see this in religion! To grow optimally you have to question the very foundation of your beliefs. Nothing is off limits to being questioned. The truth is strengthened by questions & lies are weakened by them.

If science didn’t ask questions, there wouldn’t be any science. Likewise, if you aren’t asking questions, you aren’t growing. Asking questions allows you to grow. Asking the right questions allows you to grow optimally. You’ll never know anything with complete certainty. However, as you follow the way of growth, your certainty will grow. I usually work diligently until 90% certainty is achieved. Then, I let the remaining percentages come as they will. We all know things. When following the way of growth, you should start from a place of knowing, allow it to grow slowly from there & never stray far from it. Question everything along the way but never anything too difficult – remember baby steps.

Questioning, learning & understanding are all different verbs to describe growing. We question things to learn something about the thing in question so that we might have a moment of brilliant understanding. Again, what are we learning & trying to understand? Reality. Think about it, what is anybody trying to teach us? Something about reality. If not, they are teaching us lies which we should avoid them. In any case, they are still teaching us something about reality to avoid people who are clueless. One of the most important kinds of learning & understanding is the learning & understanding of our own issues so that we can overcome them which makes it easier to deal with reality.

In short, question everything, let the answer come to you & be honest with yourself. Following the way of growth is about learning that frees your mind.

Know Your Teacher: Reality

2009-09-04T11:50:00.006-05:00

First, I put my faith into science, but it failed to produce the results I sought. Then, I put my faith into religion, but it too failed to produce the results I sought. Now, I’ve put my faith into learning reality through my own senses & thinking for myself. Finally, I’m getting the results I sought from the beginning.

You live in reality. So learning reality is the only thing that is going to improve your life. The best place to learn reality is directly from the source. The best way to learn reality is to start from where you are & to proceed slowly (baby steps).

The first method I discovered for learning reality was:

Thinking Long Term
If it works, do it.
If it doesn’t work, don’t do it.
Pay attention so you can learn the difference.

Notice the power of this method lies in its humility. It doesn’t presume you already know. So your mind is open to accepting what is. For more methods, see Methods & Techniques at The Path.

You need to be cautious with book knowledge. Too many times book knowledge gets you ahead of yourself (baby steps violation) which makes it harder to grow. Plus, it can be used as a crutch for not thinking, not to mention all the miss information. A lot of information sounds good to our egotistical mind but isn’t true. Also, there is so much information available that it’s easy to be blinded by the details. I’m not saying don’t read. I’m saying use the information wisely so you can grow. Any other purpose is an egotistical journey.

In short if you haven’t seen it for yourself, you haven’t seen it. The goal of learning isn’t to gain knowledge but to improve your life.

You can watch Know Your Teacher: Reality at YouTube.

Know Your Enemies: Ego & Pleasure

2009-09-04T11:40:00.000-05:00

Ego & pleasure are your only two enemies. Again, it’s easy to be self centered & to indulge in pleasure. However, there is nothing more necessary to face. You’ll face ego & pleasure using the skills you’ve developed in the other sections. It won’t be easy getting back in harmony with the essence of life. You’ve spent your whole life indulging in pleasure & being self centered. Don’t fool yourself! Ego & pleasure’s hold over you is far greater than you imagine.

The analogy I like to use is that giving into pleasure & ego is the sled ride down the hill. The way back to harmony is the snowy climb up the hill.

It may be hard to believe that your problems can be boiled down to two things. However, it’s true. If you follow any problem back to its roots, you’ll find some combination of ego & pleasure there.

Ego & pleasure are problems because they take your focus off the way & puts it on yourself & pleasure. Ego fills your mind with yourself. Pleasure dulls the mind. Both limit the ability of the mind so it’s hard to see the way. Once the cycle of ego & pleasure starts, they reinforce each other until they bring you down. We typically are unwilling to face ego & pleasure until we’ve reached rock bottom. However, at this point your mind is so dull & filled with yourself that you realistically don’t have what it takes to save yourself. This is obviously a problem better off dealt with as soon as possible.

In short you have to face ego & pleasure to follow the way.

Seek Harmony & Peace

2009-09-04T11:30:00.000-05:00

The ultimate goal is to achieve harmony with the essence of life. The more harmony you achieve the more peaceful you’ll become.

Harmony is about learning to be gentler in everything you do. The best place to practice gentleness is in your everyday actions. The best place to start is with the thing you do the most.

You achieve harmony by following natural principles. Watch nature to understand how it works, then emulate it in your life. Likewise, you achieve harmony by reconnecting with nature. Too many times we close ourselves off from nature & then wonder why we are miserable. Nature is your friend & a source of great vitality. Learn to appreciate its beauty & power. More importantly learn to harmonious with it. Look at how beautiful & powerful wild animals are. That is the power you’re meant to have but you keep running from it.

To achieve harmony you’ll need to avoid all paradigms: good/evil, republican/democrat, us/them, etc. All paradigms are a division of the world by your egotistical mind. When you fall into a paradigm, you lose the ability to act according to circumstances & harmony is lost.

If you find yourself lost in an emotion, use the opposite emotion to bring yourself back to harmony. For example: if you’re angry, you can use love to bring yourself back. Once a day, I have a set of positive words that I say to steer my mind in a positive direction. But once you’re back to harmony let go of whatever got you there. Don’t be attached to any emotion.

Society teaches us that happiness is the goal of life. However, happiness is nothing but a flitting emotion. We falsely believe happiness is the goal of life because when we’re happy we temporarily forget about our pains & egotistical issues. Happiness isn’t a permanent solution to our issues. Facing our egotistical pleasure seeking ways is the lasting solution. Instead of focusing on happiness, focus on being less miserable.

In short seek harmony to find peace.

Simplicity

2009-09-04T11:20:00.000-05:00

Your ultimate goal is peace. Simplifying your life will help you achieve it. We are greedy creatures that think “More is more.” However, the truth is “Harmony is more” which leads me to say “Less is more but not none.”

The best place to start simplifying your life is with your material possessions. Start with giving away possessions that mean little or nothing to you. As you do this, notice the positive impact it has on your life. As you feel your burden lightening, you’ll be more willing to give away possessions that are more meaningful to you. Notice that once you shift your mind to giving away possessions, the mind set of wanting more automatically slows down.

Once you’ve started getting a handle on simplifying your material world, it’s time to start on the mental world. We hold all kinds of knowledge in our mind that really serves no purpose. All these details blind the mind to what is truly important.

Once you’ve progressed beyond mental possessions, it’ll be time to start letting go of spiritual possessions. We hold a lot of beliefs & convictions in our spirit which just aren’t true. These beliefs & convictions continually hinder us from growing & finding peace.

In short simplify your life to find peace.

Summary

2009-09-04T11:10:00.000-05:00

In summary it all boils down to actions which implies changing yourself. This leads me to say “The world is perfect; it’s you that needs to change.” The topics I’ve described above are the core actions you’ll have to take to live in harmony with reality.

Applications

2009-09-04T11:00:00.014-05:00

I've started a series called FWG Applications. Below are the episodes I've done so far:

1) How to Pick a Mate

2) MMA Training

3) Building the Relationship

4) Physical Exercise

5) Overcoming Depression

6) Conquering Social Anxiety

If you have something you would like to see the principles applied to, you can request it. I can't guarantee I will do it, but I will seriously consider it.

Enjoy folks!

Resources

2009-09-04T10:50:00.009-05:00

I've uploaded some PDF files to Google Docs that you might find useful.

The first document is the FWG Brochure that I hand out when an FWG moment comes up. I usually carry one on me & if a moment comes up where someone seems to need it, then I give them one. Otherwise, I leave people alone. The brochure is folded twice; it might take a couple of tries before you get it right. I print this brochure on a 65 LB paper with a light natural wood color, but do whatever makes sense for your particular situation.

The second document is the FWG Bulletin Board Leaflet which I hang up in coffee shops & bulletin boards in general. It has rip tabs at the bottom with the link to this blog on it which you'll have to cut. I print this leaflet on a white 110 LB paper. Again, do whatever makes sense for your particular situation.

I've uploaded a new FWG Bulletin Board Leaflet which shows the essence of spirituality: Higher Power, Growth, 9 Principles & Think for Yourself. It is a PowerPoint file or if you prefer, here is the PDF version. I think it's more eye catching, then the first one. It gives people the high level overview without having them read too much. I print this leaflet on a white 110 LB paper.

The third document is the FWG Blog – this blog. I've tried printing this blog in the past for myself & things get left off & I'm sure someone else has had this same problem; so I'm putting a printable copy out there. Plus, you might not like reading online like me or you just might want to print a copy for someone else who doesn't have internet access. It won't be exactly like the blog, but it will be close.