I am reading Byron Katie’s book “Loving What Is” and it’s sooooo good!!!! I am LOVING it. I spent all day yesterday with a notebook and pen seeing what is still buried down deep. I love it. I had some incredible revelations yesterday.
I’m so surprised because I’ve heard about “The Work” before for several years and all I could think was “YAWN, tell me something I don’t know”
LOL. What a jaded bitch I am!! Can you believe it?? I never even looked at the book, and yet, here I was formulating a whole judgment on it without even looking at one page.
So anyways, I was in the library yesterday, and there it was on the shelf and I thought “Oh, God, that old boring book” (can you believe it?) and for some reason, it was like a force in me, grabbed the book and I heard: LISA LYNN, SIGN IT OUT.
HAHA. I always have a little laugh when Jesus calls me Lisa Lynn, that’s when I know I’m at my worst and most spoiled behavior.
So I took it out, and well, SURPRISE, SURPRISE: I love it.
THIS BOOK IS THE BEST.
Byron Katie (everyone calls her Katie) doesn’t mess around. She is my kind of teacher. She tells it like it is. She’s like a surgeon and goes right in and gets out the tumor of diseased thinking fast, fast, fast.
You’ll want to work with this book with a pen and paper, and just do what she says. You’ll be completely amazed as poison comes up (that honestly, I didn’t even know was still there – but wow – it was buried) and is released.
There are free downloadable printable worksheets at her website (but really, you’ll want to buy the book also because it’s so good!!): http://thework.com/thework.php
I was laughing all day like a little kid, delighted and exited. I love when a new idea comes into my mind.
The biggest revelation in this book is that there are only 3 kinds of business:
1. My business
2. Your business
3. God’s business
The only thing I need to be concerned about is MY business. Everything else is a distraction. Whenever I’m trying to do the work on YOUR desk that means I’m NOT doing the work on MY desk.
Whatever is going on in someone else’s life is their business – that’s not my business – so I don’t have to get involved, not even a teeny little bit. When I’m in YOUR business that means I’m not taking care of MY business and that’s when trouble starts. I don’t have to help anyone fix their problems (because that’s not my business) and I don’t have to worry or be upset because I only have to be concerned with my own backyard.
The HUGEST AH-HA moment came when I realized that issues/thoughts concerning my body, my life, money, my needs are all God’s business. My body and it’s health is God’s business. That’s not my business. I don’t even have to think about my body, my life, or money or my needs for 5 seconds because that would be to mess around in God’s business – which means that I’m not taking care of my business.
My business is to be happy and to be in acts of forgiveness and to remember God. That’s my part. How simple! My part is to be happy.
MY JOB IS TO KEEP MY FOCUS ON GOD.
That’s it! That’s my whole 100% responsibility – to clean up my own stuff, to remember Who I am, to accept everything exactly as it is (LOVING WHAT IS!) and that’s it.
When I’m focusing on you and your problems (or me and my problems): I’m in your business and God’s business … and I have NO business being there! When I’m trying to do your work or God’s work, it means I’m not doing my work.
Amazing!!!!! Fun stuff.
My body is God’s business!! I don’t have to worry about it. My life is God’s business!! What need have I to plan or organize if that’s God’s job?? My problems are God’s business! I don’t even have to think about them. They are in good hands. My business is to love, love, love and spend each day just remembering how perfectly protected and safe I am – and just doing the little that is asked of me – which is simply to show up, be still, listen, have a willingness to let Him work though me to extend the light of God, and that’s it!!
My brother’s problems are not my business so I can let that go.
My problems (if could find some) are not my business so I don’t have to worry about that either.
My business is to be happy!!!
To be a joyous little child of God – on earth as it is in Heaven.
That’s my whole job. Are we lucky, or what??
God took the hard stuff and gave us the easy part.
We just have to be happy and He’ll do everything else.
by Christine Kane
Years ago, I was in a car with a music promoter. He had picked me up at the airport and was driving me to my hotel before my performance. On the way, we talked guitars. We got onto the subject of Olson Guitars, arguably the best guitar in the whole world. At one point, the promoter said, “Yea, well, in my entire life I’ll never own an Olson guitar.”
There was a time when I’d let a remark like this slide on by, even adding my own “me either” to the mix.
Now, I can’t.
So, I turned to the promoter and said, “You are NOT allowed to say that!”
This is because I know the power of language. When you understand that words become things, you just can’t let language slide.
Now, I have a rule I live by:
Friends don’t let friends speak crappily.
Listen up!
Your language is a powerful tool! Words create reality. Even if my promoter friend doesn’t know how on earth he’d ever get his guitar, it doesn’t mean he should cut off the possibility with his own words.
If you’re wondering how to begin watching your words, here are 7 rules for getting what you want!
1 – Eliminate “never” and “always.”
Never and always are words of hysteria. “I always mess everything up!” “I’ll never figure this out!” “I’ll never get an Olson Guitar.”
First off, it’s not true. If you always messed everything up, you wouldn’t have made it out of the womb.
And second off, extreme words are designed to hook you. It’s just your emotions taking a joyride. You’re more powerful than that.
2 – Use AND instead of BUT.
“But” dismisses the statement before it. “And” includes it. For instance, “That’s a good article, but it needs some editing” isn’t nearly as encouraging as “That’s a good article, AND it needs some editing.”
“I love you, but…” is another great example of the dismissive power of “but.”
3 – Avoid “Should.”
Should is a heinous word for many reasons.
“Should” is victim-speak. It disempowers its object. It negates desires, thereby making it harder to make choices. It adds a nebulous energy to the decision-making process.
Use empowered language instead: “I could…” “I would…” “I am choosing to,” “I would like to,” “I don’t want to,” or “You might consider…”
4 – Stop calling yourself depressed.
Also stop allowing anyone to tell you that you are depressed. When you call yourself “depressed” or “obsessive compulsive” or “ADHD” or whatever – you’re claiming this thing. You’re calling it forth with the most powerful two words in our language: “I am.” Stop claiming anything you don’t want to be!
5 – Delete the word “hate” from your vocabulary.
“Hate” has lots of energy. When you use it, you send lots of energy out into the very thing you “hate.” Even if it’s negative energy, it’s still a powerful force, adding its charge to that thing. You’re also depleting this energy from your own spirit as you say it.
6 – Be “great.” Or “wonderful.”
A disease of the creative temperament is a belief that we must be authentic at all costs. So we can’t answer a simple “How are you?” without delving into an in-depth scan of our emotional temperature.
Try this instead: When people ask you how you’re doing, just say, “I’m great!”
I used to think if I said this, then I better have a darn good reason for saying it, like I just won the lottery or something. I thought it would make me look suspicious, and people would start to wonder if something was wrong with me. But then I did it.
And you know what? Most people don’t care why you’re great. You’re saying it for YOU.
7 – Pay attention to the music of your speech.
You know how some people? They talk in question marks? And you have no idea why? But it makes you think you shouldn’t really rely on them? And it makes you not want to hire them?
The music of your language says a lot about you. If you let your sentences droop like Eeyore, (“Thanks for noticing me.”) or if you do the uncertain question mark language, take note of what attitudes are causing this. These patterns are created for a reason. Even if it feels like faking it at first, generate confidence as you speak.
Christine Kane is the Mentor to Women Who are Changing the World. She helps women uplevel their lives, their businesses and their success. Her weekly LiveCreative eZine goes out to over 12,000 subscribers. If you are ready to take your life and your world to the next level, you can sign up for a F.R.E.E. subscription at http://christinekane.com.
WANT TO SEE HUNDREDS MORE ARTICLES LIKE THIS ONE?
See Christine’s blog at ChristineKane.com/blog.
I read a lot, every single day. I absolutely love books. I love reading. I am re-reading one of my favorite little books – Follow your heart by Susanna Tamaro – which I must have given away to a friend because it wasn’t on my bookshelf. I give away my books a lot. So I ordered it from Amazon last week, and it arrived today and I’m all excited. Years ago, probably around 1994, I bought 20 hardcover copies of this book (God Bless The Strand in New York City!!) and I gave it to friends for Christmas and birthdays. It’s that kind of book.
As always, if you’re going to buy it, I suggest the hardcover version. Hardcover is the best. And – fun Friday! – Amazon sells new and used hardcover copies starting at 1¢ plus shipping. So there you go! Click the cover to go to Amazon.com and order:
Follow your heart
by Susanna Tamaro, 1994
“Take care of yourself. As you grow up you’ll often get the urge to change things, to right wrongs, but every time you do remember that the first revolution, the first and the most important, has to take place within yourself. Fighting for an idea without having an idea of yourself is one of the most dangerous things you can do.
Every time you feel lost, confused, think about trees, remember how they grow. Remember that a tree with lots of branches and few roots will get toppled by the first strong wind, while the sap hardly moves in a tree with many roots and few branches. Roots and branches must grow in equal measure, you have to stand both inside things and above them, because only then will you be able to offer shade and shelter, only then will you be able to cover yourself with leaves and fruit at the proper season.
And later on, when so many roads open up before you, you don’t know which to take, don’t pick one at random; sit down and wait. Breathe deeply, trustingly, the way you breathed on the day you came into the world, don’t let anything distract you, wait and wait some more. Stay still, be quiet, and listen to your heart. Then, when it speak, get up and go where it takes you.”
- Susanna Tamaro, Follow your heart, 1994
Abraham-Hicks say that 17 seconds is what you need of pure thought with no distraction or resistance to create something.
Have you ever tried 17 seconds? It doesn’t sound like much, BUT TRY IT.
17 seconds.
Try for 17 seconds to hold one pure thought with no interrupting thoughts.
You’ll be amazed by how much the mind tries to contradict itself, and if you can get 17 seconds of pure thought, you’ll see the fabric of your life change before your very eyes.
Have you ever read an entire Course in Miracles workbook lesson and been 100% focused on it (and nothing else)?
My mind is constantly wandering and distracted, and it’s a fun practice to watch my mind to see how much I can train it to think like God.
To stay totally focused on the one thought that is presented to me each day in the workbook lesson and to allow that to be my complete dedication for a few minutes of every hour.
It does take discipline and practice and effort, but it’s completely worth it because when you get to 17 seconds, you’ll start to be happy.
You’ll start to feel lighter and brighter.
And when you start to feel lighter and brighter, it means you’re rising up out of the density of the world into joy, vibrating faster, and there in that beautiful place of power where there is no resistance or opposition: miracles occur.
Do try this at home. 
?”Just to get your attention we want to give you some physical comparison; 17 seconds of pure thought is equivalent to 2000 hours of action. If you are working a regular 40 hour a week job, that is about what you work in a year. 17 seconds equals 2000 action hours.” – Abraham-Hicks
If this sounds interesting to you, it is discussed in more detail in the book “The Amazing power of Deliberate Intent” by Abraham-Hicks
This book – God Calling – is the best.
My friend Max gave this to me as a gift years ago, because he’s awesome.
God Calling, By “Two Listeners” and A.J. Russell
THE LAW OF SUPPLY
The first law of giving is of the spirit world. Give to all you meet, or whose lives touch yours, of your prayers, your time, yourselves, your love, your thought. You must practice THIS giving first.
Then give of the world’s good and money, as you have them given to you. To give money and material things, without having first made the habit daily, hourly, ever increasingly, of giving on the higher plane, is wrong.
Give, give, give all your best to all who need it. Be great givers – great givers. Give as I have said My Father in Heaven gives. He who makes the sun to shine on the evil and on the good, and sendeth rain on the just and the unjust. Remember, as I have told you before, give according to need, never according to desert. In giving, with the thought of supplying a real need you most closely resemble that Father in Heaven, the Great Giver.
As you receive, you must supply the needs of those i bring to you. Not questioning, not limiting. Their nearness to you, their relationship, must never count. Only their need is to guide guide you. Pray to become great givers.
from God Calling, A.J. Russell
Here is this week’s recording of The Max and Lisa show which I thought was amazing.
http://www.blogtalkradio.com/maxandlisa/2010/08/18/the-max-and-lisa-showa-course-in-miracles-rad
Our friend Adrian Gale showed up and he talked about how if you’re waiting to have an experience of God, or joy, or love or peace … how to have it … today. And how to keep having it.
And it’s so simple you won’t believe it. You can stop waiting for a miracle because what you want is here now, just waiting for you to claim it.
If you want only love, you’ll see only love because you’ll GIVE only love.
It’s that simple. The “secret” is contained in that sentence in capital letters, in red.
It’s no secret. It’s simple.
If you’re tired of waiting for something to change in your life, cick here to listen to find out what you can do:
http://www.blogtalkradio.com/maxandlisa/2010/08/18/the-max-and-lisa-showa-course-in-miracles-radio
Salvation is simple.
For anyone who uses Facebook or Twitter, it must be apparent to you by now that you CHOOSE what image of yourself you want put out there. Out of all the 100 random ideas you could express, YOU decide which ones you want to put out there to show the world WHO YOU ARE.
Even if you are not using facebook or Twitter, at some point it becomes apparent to you that while you are having a conversation with someone, 10 ideas might flash in your mind, and you choose which one you want to express.
And once you’ve taken it to this level, then take it to another level, that when you are by yourself, you still have the power to focus on whatever the heck you want to focus on.
It’s a beautiful thing.
You can focus on your problems and all the limitation and frustration you OR you can turn in a new direction and start focusing on God, joy, creativity.
A Course in Miracles says you’re always demonstrating which thought system you have chosen to side with – God or the ego, love or fear. YOU CHOOSE.
Isn’t that amazing?
YOU CHOOSE.
You can choose to attack or you can choose to love.
You can choose to keep looking at the past and all your stories about all the things people and circumstances have harmed you
OR …. you can turn your focus to things you like to do, things you love, things to feel grateful for, things to appreciation.
YOU CHOOSE.
That’s the real miracle – the power to choose once again.
In every situation, you can choose to see things differently because THERE IS ALWAYS another way of looking, ALWAYS.
You can look for the goodness in a situation/person (see with the eyes of Christ) and you can keep having a grievance. The choice is yours.
WHAT ARE YOU FOCUSING ON?
When I first started blogging back in November 2004, my first few months of writing sounded like an angst-ridden teenager’s private diary. I whined a lot. I complained a lot. I wrote all about all my problems in great detail, and about all the horrible things that other people were doing to me. BOO HOO ME. I wrote about how I wished life was different and how I wished I was different.
I didn’t think anyone was reading my blog. I hadn’t told anyone about my new website, and it was more like a place for me to rant, complain and feel sorry for myself.
But then about a month or two later, I started receiving letters from people who were reading my blog. Shock me to the floor. Then I figured out how to view the Statistics page, which alerted me that approximately 100 people a day were visiting my site.
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
A dramatic change happened in that moment. Suddenly I had readers. Suddenly I had a responsibility. I took an honest look at what I was teaching and writing. I wasn’t teaching A Course in Miracles, that’s for sure. I was teaching was confusion, pain, suffering, loneliness, and poverty.
I also noticed that during the day I had moments of joy and peace, but I never really felt compelled to write too much about that. Back then, I was addicted to my story of pain.
The shift occurred for me in a big big way when I realized that I was having MANY thoughts and experiencing a WHOLE RANGE OF EMOTIONS and that if I wanted to, I could choose happiness.
I REALIZED THAT I COULD CHOOSE TO FOCUS IN A NEW DIRECTION (away from my problems) … IF … I … FELT …. LIKE … IT.
That was a turning point.
If I felt like it, I could be happy.
If I felt like it, I could think about God instead of my problems.
If I felt like it, I could be creative instead of whining.
If I felt like, I could do something differently.
If I felt like it, I could rise above the battleground, let the past go, and live in joy and focus only on truth.
IF I FELT LIKE IT
LASER-BEAM-FOCUS.
FOCUSING ON GOD.
FOCUSING ON LOVE.
FOCUSING ON FORGIVENESS.
And that’s why you can be happy, no matter what.
Because the power of decision is your own.
What a gift.
You don’t have to be miserable
You don’t have to be sick.
You don’t have to be depressed.
You don’t have to be tired.
You don’t have to be angry.
Because going on at the same time is a thought of joy, and if you focus on that, you’ll be happy.
Simple.
If this doesn’t sound so simple to you, there’s still ONE MORE DAY TO SIGN UP for the 6-week coaching program to work with me privately and you’ll get all the help you need.
To sign up, click this link:
Stop Waiting, Be Happy – 6-week coaching Program
I just received my first letter a few hours from a new participant and it’s very exciting because the new group doesn’t officially start until this Monday, 4 days from now – and all she did so far was say YES!, fill out the questionnaire and I sent her back two email messages, and she’s already feeling a shift occur.
“Hi Lisa! What a big, awesome, crazy day! I’m feeling shifts already, since the moment I decided I was truly ready for change. I’m still a little scared, but I’m willing! I’m sooooo excited that you are here to guide me! I’m seriously overwhelmed with gratitude!”
I just love it. THANK YOU! Day 1 hasn’t even started and already a change is occurring. That’s the miracle – transformation doesn’t take any time. Thank you Jesus.
by Danielle LaPorte
White Hot Truth: Because self-realization rocks
In one form or another, I’ve been asked this question a few hundred times:
What’s the secret to success?
Variations:
What’s the single most important thing you’ve learned on your journey?
What’s your key piece of advice for meaningful livelihood?
What’s the greatest cause of failure? How do we overcome fear?
What’s your pearl of wisdom for getting unstuck?
Here it is. You heard it here first, lovahs.
The secret to success:
No need to read any further really.
If we all just did what we said we’re going to do, we’d experience an evolutionary leap in consciousness more brilliant than solar power and the invention of the wheel. But in case we slip, here’s a bit of bolstering…
Do what you say you’re going to do.
NO: rounding up what you say, no blowing it off, assuming that they’ll forget what you said, hoping that they didn’t really hear you, or believing that it’s kosher to let it slide. Letting it slide is a slippery slope that leads to sleepless nights and eroded integrity which all adds up to a whole lot of yuck.
Aim for impeccable. There’s a great scene in Jerry McGuire, where one of the Zig Ziglar-like “mentor guys” in a polyester suit says in his heavy southern accent, “If I don’t return yer call in 24 hours, well, you can rest assured that I am dead.” I want that guy on my team.
Mean it. You can ask my home girl, Steph, to go mountain climbing, hook you up with the Mayor, and meet you back for a cold beer all in the same day, and what you’ll hear is, “DONE!” She says “DONE!” a lot. At first I didn’t know if it was like, a tic, or a truth. But guess what, she gets a lot done — everything that she says she will.
“Call you tomorrow” … “I’ll send you the link” … “I’ll do my best.” If you don’t mean it with heart and precision, then just don’t say it. Pause. Say thank you. Express an intention. Say nothing. Habitual convo-filler is bad for the environment. I can’t scientifically prove it, but empty promises suck wind.
Of course you can’t always do what you said you would. Minds change and some prerogatives need their exercise. Batteries die, tragedies happen, the best intentions can get rained out. When you can’t or choose not to honour your word, then say so.
Tell the truth, tell it fast, deliver it with sincerity and care.
Words are arrows.
Aim.
You can’t always hit the impeccability bull’s eye, but even if you’re off a smidge, your words will land on integrity.
I got the best phone message this morning from my friend Max at 8:36am. This one’s a keeper.
He said:
“Natoli. Today’s the day. Do something remarkable. I love you.”
- from Gary Haugen
“Jesus did not come to make us safe. Jesus came to make us brave. If my life of following Jesus doesn’t feel dangerous, then maybe I’ve got to check to see if it’s Jesus I’m following. I have been praying to be liberated from safe bets. We want to avoid having been “on the trip” but having “missed the adventure.” Our Heavenly Father offers us a simple proposition: Follow me beyond what you can control, and you will experience me, and my power, and my wisdom, and my love. Jesus beckons us to return to the vulnerability of a child. Does this mean I must abandon what I do well? No. He simply wants us to take those strengths on a more demanding climb.”
To read more, click here:
I’m reading the most beautiful book right now called Brida, by Paulo Coelho.
“Before our first lesson, I want to remind you of one thing,” he said. “When you find your path, you must not be afraid. You need to have sufficient courage to make mistakes. Disappointment, defeat, and despair are the tools God uses to show us the way.”
“Strange tools,” said Brida. “They often dissuade people from carrying on.”
The Magus knew the reason for these tools, he had already experienced both in body and soul.
“Teach me the Tradition of the Sun,” she insisted.
The Magus asked Brida to lean back against the rock and relax.
“There’s no need to close your eyes. Look at the world around you and try to see and understand as much as you can. The Tradition of the Sun is constantly revealing eternal knowledge to each individual.”
Brida is about Soul mates, magic, the bridge between the visible and the invisible, the journey to know yourself, and God.
“I learned about the Dark Night,” she said to the now silent forest. “I learned that the search for God is a Dark Night, that Faith is a Dark Night. And that’s hardly a surprise really, because for us each day is a dark night. None of us knows what might happen even the next minute, and yet we still go forward. Because we trust. Because we have faith.
“Or who knows, perhaps because we just don’t see the mystery contained in the next second. Not that it mattered. What mattered was knowing that she had understood.
That every moment in life is an act of faith.
That you could choose to fill it with snakes and scorpions or with a strong protecting force.
That Faith cannot be explained. It was simply a Dark Night. And all she had to do was accept it or not.
It’s a beautiful book.
Since reading The Alchemist many years, I’ve read every book Paulo Coelho has ever written. The man is brilliant, remarkable, humble, insightful and a master at storytelling.
If you’ve never read his work, I highly recommend him. Pick a time when you are not going to be interrupted for hours (like taking a flight to Europe) because once you get started on one of his books, you will not want to put it down. Plus time flies and you will disappear into his stories, which is a great way to go if you’ve traveling on a crowded flight.
Here is a letter from Paulo Coelho about Brida:
Dear Reader,
In Brida, my third novel which I wrote just after The Alchemist, I tell the story of a young woman that dives into sorcery and experiences with different magical traditions. I explore many themes that are dear to me, such as The Great Mother, pagan religions and the perceptions of love.
When I wrote this book and published it in Brazil more than 18 years ago, themes such as the feminine face of God were still very foreign to most people. Nevertheless, I noticed, with the passing of time, a shift in perception – people being more open to the intuitive perception of the world and being less seduced by the fixed rules of society. As written on the book, “the noblest thing a human being can experience is acceptance of the mystery.”
I have the feeling that the world is accepting more and more the mystery and so, dear readers, I present you the story of this young woman today.
Paulo Coelho
Click the cover to Search Inside the book, read an excerpt, and buy a copy from Amazon:
By J.K. Rowling
J.K. Rowling, author of the best-selling Harry Potter book series, delivers her Commencement Address to Harvard graduates of 2008: “The Fringe Benefits of Failure, and the Importance of Imagination.”
Copyright of JK Rowling, June 2008
President Faust, members of the Harvard Corporation and the Board of Overseers, members of the faculty, proud parents, and, above all, graduates.
The first thing I would like to say is ‘thank you.’ Not only has Harvard given me an extraordinary honour, but the weeks of fear and nausea I’ve experienced at the thought of giving this commencement address have made me lose weight. A win-win situation! Now all I have to do is take deep breaths, squint at the red banners and fool myself into believing I am at the world’s best-educated Harry Potter convention.
Delivering a commencement address is a great responsibility; or so I thought until I cast my mind back to my own graduation. The commencement speaker that day was the distinguished British philosopher Baroness Mary Warnock. Reflecting on her speech has helped me enormously in writing this one, because it turns out that I can’t remember a single word she said. This liberating discovery enables me to proceed without any fear that I might inadvertently influence you to abandon promising careers in business, law or politics for the giddy delights of becoming a gay wizard.
You see? If all you remember in years to come is the ‘gay wizard’ joke, I’ve still come out ahead of Baroness Mary Warnock. Achievable goals: the first step towards personal improvement.
Actually, I have wracked my mind and heart for what I ought to say to you today. I have asked myself what I wish I had known at my own graduation, and what important lessons I have learned in the 21 years that has expired between that day and this.
I have come up with two answers. On this wonderful day when we are gathered together to celebrate your academic success, I have decided to talk to you about the benefits of failure. And as you stand on the threshold of what is sometimes called ‘real life’, I want to extol the crucial importance of imagination.
These might seem quixotic or paradoxical choices, but please bear with me.
Looking back at the 21-year-old that I was at graduation, is a slightly uncomfortable experience for the 42-year-old that she has become. Half my lifetime ago, I was striking an uneasy balance between the ambition I had for myself, and what those closest to me expected of me.
I was convinced that the only thing I wanted to do, ever, was to write novels. However, my parents, both of whom came from impoverished backgrounds and neither of whom had been to college, took the view that my overactive imagination was an amusing personal quirk that could never pay a mortgage, or secure a pension.
They had hoped that I would take a vocational degree; I wanted to study English Literature. A compromise was reached that in retrospect satisfied nobody, and I went up to study Modern Languages. Hardly had my parents’ car rounded the corner at the end of the road than I ditched German and scuttled off down the Classics corridor.
I cannot remember telling my parents that I was studying Classics; they might well have found out for the first time on graduation day. Of all subjects on this planet, I think they would have been hard put to name one less useful than Greek mythology when it came to securing the keys to an executive bathroom.
I would like to make it clear, in parenthesis, that I do not blame my parents for their point of view. There is an expiry date on blaming your parents for steering you in the wrong direction; the moment you are old enough to take the wheel, responsibility lies with you. What is more, I cannot criticise my parents for hoping that I would never experience poverty. They had been poor themselves, and I have since been poor, and I quite agree with them that it is not an ennobling experience. Poverty entails fear, and stress, and sometimes depression; it means a thousand petty humiliations and hardships. Climbing out of poverty by your own efforts, that is indeed something on which to pride yourself, but poverty itself is romanticised only by fools.
What I feared most for myself at your age was not poverty, but failure.
At your age, in spite of a distinct lack of motivation at university, where I had spent far too long in the coffee bar writing stories, and far too little time at lectures, I had a knack for passing examinations, and that, for years, had been the measure of success in my life and that of my peers.
I am not dull enough to suppose that because you are young, gifted and well-educated, you have never known hardship or heartbreak. Talent and intelligence never yet inoculated anyone against the caprice of the Fates, and I do not for a moment suppose that everyone here has enjoyed an existence of unruffled privilege and contentment.
However, the fact that you are graduating from Harvard suggests that you are not very well-acquainted with failure. You might be driven by a fear of failure quite as much as a desire for success. Indeed, your conception of failure might not be too far from the average person’s idea of success, so high have you already flown academically.
Ultimately, we all have to decide for ourselves what constitutes failure, but the world is quite eager to give you a set of criteria if you let it. So I think it fair to say that by any conventional measure, a mere seven years after my graduation day, I had failed on an epic scale. An exceptionally short-lived marriage had imploded, and I was jobless, a lone parent, and as poor as it is possible to be in modern Britain, without being homeless. The fears my parents had had for me, and that I had had for myself, had both come to pass, and by every usual standard, I was the biggest failure I knew.
Now, I am not going to stand here and tell you that failure is fun. That period of my life was a dark one, and I had no idea that there was going to be what the press has since represented as a kind of fairy tale resolution. I had no idea how far the tunnel extended, and for a long time, any light at the end of it was a hope rather than a reality.
So why do I talk about the benefits of failure? Simply because failure meant a stripping away of the inessential. I stopped pretending to myself that I was anything other than what I was, and began to direct all my energy into finishing the only work that mattered to me. Had I really succeeded at anything else, I might never have found the determination to succeed in the one arena I believed I truly belonged. I was set free, because my greatest fear had already been realised, and I was still alive, and I still had a daughter whom I adored, and I had an old typewriter and a big idea. And so rock bottom became the solid foundation on which I rebuilt my life.
You might never fail on the scale I did, but some failure in life is inevitable. It is impossible to live without failing at something, unless you live so cautiously that you might as well not have lived at all – in which case, you fail by default.
Failure gave me an inner security that I had never attained by passing examinations. Failure taught me things about myself that I could have learned no other way. I discovered that I had a strong will, and more discipline than I had suspected; I also found out that I had friends whose value was truly above rubies.
The knowledge that you have emerged wiser and stronger from setbacks means that you are, ever after, secure in your ability to survive. You will never truly know yourself, or the strength of your relationships, until both have been tested by adversity. Such knowledge is a true gift, for all that it is painfully won, and it has been worth more to me than any qualification I ever earned.
Given a time machine or a Time Turner, I would tell my 21-year-old self that personal happiness lies in knowing that life is not a check-list of acquisition or achievement. Your qualifications, your CV, are not your life, though you will meet many people of my age and older who confuse the two. Life is difficult, and complicated, and beyond anyone’s total control, and the humility to know that will enable you to survive its vicissitudes.
You might think that I chose my second theme, the importance of imagination, because of the part it played in rebuilding my life, but that is not wholly so. Though I will defend the value of bedtime stories to my last gasp, I have learned to value imagination in a much broader sense. Imagination is not only the uniquely human capacity to envision that which is not, and therefore the fount of all invention and innovation. In its arguably most transformative and revelatory capacity, it is the power that enables us to empathise with humans whose experiences we have never shared.
One of the greatest formative experiences of my life preceded Harry Potter, though it informed much of what I subsequently wrote in those books. This revelation came in the form of one of my earliest day jobs. Though I was sloping off to write stories during my lunch hours, I paid the rent in my early 20s by working in the research department at Amnesty International’s headquarters in London.
There in my little office I read hastily scribbled letters smuggled out of totalitarian regimes by men and women who were risking imprisonment to inform the outside world of what was happening to them. I saw photographs of those who had disappeared without trace, sent to Amnesty by their desperate families and friends. I read the testimony of torture victims and saw pictures of their injuries. I opened handwritten, eye-witness accounts of summary trials and executions, of kidnappings and rapes.
Many of my co-workers were ex-political prisoners, people who had been displaced from their homes, or fled into exile, because they had the temerity to think independently of their government. Visitors to our office included those who had come to give information, or to try and find out what had happened to those they had been forced to leave behind.
I shall never forget the African torture victim, a young man no older than I was at the time, who had become mentally ill after all he had endured in his homeland. He trembled uncontrollably as he spoke into a video camera about the brutality inflicted upon him. He was a foot taller than I was, and seemed as fragile as a child. I was given the job of escorting him to the Underground Station afterwards, and this man whose life had been shattered by cruelty took my hand with exquisite courtesy, and wished me future happiness.
And as long as I live I shall remember walking along an empty corridor and suddenly hearing, from behind a closed door, a scream of pain and horror such as I have never heard since. The door opened, and the researcher poked out her head and told me to run and make a hot drink for the young man sitting with her. She had just given him the news that in retaliation for his own outspokenness against his country’s regime, his mother had been seized and executed.
Every day of my working week in my early 20s I was reminded how incredibly fortunate I was, to live in a country with a democratically elected government, where legal representation and a public trial were the rights of everyone.
Every day, I saw more evidence about the evils humankind will inflict on their fellow humans, to gain or maintain power. I began to have nightmares, literal nightmares, about some of the things I saw, heard and read.
And yet I also learned more about human goodness at Amnesty International than I had ever known before.
Amnesty mobilises thousands of people who have never been tortured or imprisoned for their beliefs to act on behalf of those who have. The power of human empathy, leading to collective action, saves lives, and frees prisoners. Ordinary people, whose personal well-being and security are assured, join together in huge numbers to save people they do not know, and will never meet. My small participation in that process was one of the most humbling and inspiring experiences of my life.
Unlike any other creature on this planet, humans can learn and understand, without having experienced. They can think themselves into other people’s minds, imagine themselves into other people’s places.
Of course, this is a power, like my brand of fictional magic, that is morally neutral. One might use such an ability to manipulate, or control, just as much as to understand or sympathise.
And many prefer not to exercise their imaginations at all. They choose to remain comfortably within the bounds of their own experience, never troubling to wonder how it would feel to have been born other than they are. They can refuse to hear screams or to peer inside cages; they can close their minds and hearts to any suffering that does not touch them personally; they can refuse to know.
I might be tempted to envy people who can live that way, except that I do not think they have any fewer nightmares than I do. Choosing to live in narrow spaces can lead to a form of mental agoraphobia, and that brings its own terrors. I think the willfully unimaginative see more monsters. They are often more afraid.
What is more, those who choose not to empathise may enable real monsters. For without ever committing an act of outright evil ourselves, we collude with it, through our own apathy.
One of the many things I learned at the end of that Classics corridor down which I ventured at the age of 18, in search of something I could not then define, was this, written by the Greek author Plutarch: What we achieve inwardly will change outer reality.
That is an astonishing statement and yet proven a thousand times every day of our lives. It expresses, in part, our inescapable connection with the outside world, the fact that we touch other people’s lives simply by existing.
But how much more are you, Harvard graduates of 2008, likely to touch other people’s lives? Your intelligence, your capacity for hard work, the education you have earned and received, give you unique status, and unique responsibilities. Even your nationality sets you apart. The great majority of you belong to the world’s only remaining superpower. The way you vote, the way you live, the way you protest, the pressure you bring to bear on your government, has an impact way beyond your borders. That is your privilege, and your burden.
If you choose to use your status and influence to raise your voice on behalf of those who have no voice; if you choose to identify not only with the powerful, but with the powerless; if you retain the ability to imagine yourself into the lives of those who do not have your advantages, then it will not only be your proud families who celebrate your existence, but thousands and millions of people whose reality you have helped transform for the better. We do not need magic to change the world, we carry all the power we need inside ourselves already: we have the power to imagine better.
I am nearly finished. I have one last hope for you, which is something that I already had at 21. The friends with whom I sat on graduation day have been my friends for life. They are my children’s godparents, the people to whom I’ve been able to turn in times of trouble, friends who have been kind enough not to sue me when I’ve used their names for Death Eaters. At our graduation we were bound by enormous affection, by our shared experience of a time that could never come again, and, of course, by the knowledge that we held certain photographic evidence that would be exceptionally valuable if any of us ran for Prime Minister.
So today, I can wish you nothing better than similar friendships. And tomorrow, I hope that even if you remember not a single word of mine, you remember those of Seneca, another of those old Romans I met when I fled down the Classics corridor, in retreat from career ladders, in search of ancient wisdom:
As is a tale, so is life: not how long it is, but how good it is, is what matters.
I wish you all very good lives.
Thank you very much.
by J.K. Rowling
Another happy surprise for you!
This was brought to my attention today. You will love it. The complete Tao Te Ching.
I searched a few other translations and as far as I can tell, this one is definitely the best.
This was spoken by Lao-Tzu 500 years before Jesus … 2500 years ago.
http://www.taoism.net/ttc/complete.htm
It’s brilliant.
with Alan Cohen, from Enlightenment Magazine. Click to read:
http://home.wanadoo.nl/prembuddha/tolle.html
Great teaching from Juan Matus to Carlos Castaneda, as recorded in “Journey to Ixtan”:
“People hardly ever realize that we can cut anything from our lives, any time, just like that. For example, smoking and drinking are nothing. Nothing at all if we want to drop them. Only one thing is indispensable for anything we do; the spirit. One can’t do without the spirit.
I have no routines or personal history. One day I found out that they were no longer necessary for me and, like drinking, I dropped them. One must have the desire to drop them and then one must proceed harmoniously to chop them off, little by little. If you have no personal history, no explanations are needed; nobody is angry or disillusioned with your acts. And above all no one pins you down with their thoughts. It is best to erase all personal history because that makes us free from the encumbering thoughts of other people. I have, little by little, created a fog around me and my life. And now nobody knows for sure who I am or what I do. Not even I. How can I know who I am, when I am all this?
Little by little you must create a fog around yourself; you must erase everything around you until nothing can be taken for granted, until nothing is any longer for sure, or real. Your problem now is that you’re too real. Your endeavors are too real; your moods are too real. Don’t take things so for granted. You must begin to erase yourself.
You’ve said that you want to learn about plants. Let’s put it this way then. If you want to learn about plants, since there is really nothing to say about them, you must, among other things, erase your personal history.
Begin with simple things, such as not revealing what you really do. What’s wrong is that once people know you, you are an affair taken for granted and from that moment on you won’t be able to break the tie of their thoughts. I personally like the ultimate freedom of being unknown. No one knows me with steadfast certainty, the way people know you, for instance.
From now on you must simply show people whatever you care to show them, but without ever telling exactly how you’ve done it. You see, we only have two alternatives; we either take everything for sure and real, or we don’t. If we follow the first, we end up bored to death with ourselves and with the world. If we follow the second and erase personal history, we create a fog around us, a very exciting and mysterious state in which nobody knows where the rabbit will pop out, not even ourselves.
When nothing is for sure we remain alert, perennially on our toes. It is more exciting not to know which bush the rabbit is hiding behind than to behave as though we know everything.”
Greetings!
Thanks to David – Fisher of Men – Fishman, I am back on paltalk.com every Sunday afternoon at 2pm EST. I will be discussing a chapter a week from A
course in Miracles.
The room is ACIM Gather.
If you are not already signed up, you need to download the free paltalk software in order to listen, talk, and type in questions.
Tomorrow is Chapter 1.
So if you have been wanting to read the text, or to refresh and read it again, now is the time. I am available for questions, guidance, and inspiration.
It would be great if you decide to participate to read the Chapter before the talk on Sunday, and then we can all join and share.
So, tomorrow is Chapter 1.
I hope to see you there.
You can listen to last Sunday’s broadcast which is an introduction to the 31 weeks – here on this website Gorgeous for God. it’s a talk from the Teachers Manual. Just click the blue Talkshoe box in the right sidebar.
If you are unable to make it on Sunday afternoon – no worries! – I will load the mp3 audio here … so you can listen anytime.
