What you or I should be doing with our lives.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/mohsenmasoumi/

There are two things I keep coming back to - 1) Integrity, 2) Purpose.

Integrity means living with your mistakes and knowing that the Golden Rule is inescapably tied to everything we do.

Purpose is your passion - what you are here for in this life of yours.

And really, I haven't found any other items which destine what I say, do, and feel more than these.

Mostly, I've still been examining the 7 principles of Huna - and I continue to evolve in my thinking and my ideals as I work with these. And the work I have to do (and love to do) daily on this farm keeps me very real in all this.

Can't get "big-headed" when a tree fell on the fence, and it's too cold to plant the crops, and you are the proud proxy-father of a new, cute calf. Keeps you humble.

But that second principle of Huna explains that age-old Golden Rule. "There are no limits." In a non-NLP way, this could be better stated as: "Everything is connected." So what you do to someone else has your own hand tied to it - slapping someone else's face hurts your own. Giving open-handed is then the best policy, isn't it? Would you like to recieve a gift? Then give openly. If you like complements, then pass some around. Honesty used gets honest treatment in return.

- - - -

This recent work I've been doing in "stop telemarkters' Internet scams" hasn't really seen my positive side in all this. And, as both "The Secret" and Huna point out, when you push a negative, you get it's opposite. Opposing someone getting elected gets them elected. Supporting their opponent (positive) gets their opponent elected.

So in order to get "Thrive Learning Institute" shut down (or starting to honestly deliver what they promise), I'll need to start promoting what they don't deliver on. Means moving back to my earlier work.

But I'll leave the subject on a positive note - by telling people how they can get their prosperty back by reclaiming their privacy. (Stop telemarkters from calling you, in other words.)

Should be an interesting approach to life. Get these guys handled by working on my own prosperity - which actually means getting others to prosper. Great stuff.

Money - only a symbol

True. Charles Haanel said it in his Master Key System (first I read of it). Napoleon Hill covers this point, as well as Wallace Wattles in their best sellers. First Western writer to cover this was probably Thomas Troward, who had his sources in ancient Eastern and Judaic/Christian texts.

Even older is the ancient Polynesian Huna philosophy, which actually doesn't even mention this as a vital subject at all.

Money-as-symbol represents the value of the exchange. With poor exchange, the symbol evaporates. Thieves cannot hold onto and cannot spend what they obtained by deception or deceit.

Anyone who looks around them even briefly can see proof of this.

Too many people build up huge wealth only to die in bankruptcy. Others hold onto vast sums, but live their life a recluse because of their own fears - no amount of money could by them peace of mind.

Money represents the value of what you have given to others. It is only a fluid, not a static. And even ice can't he preserved forever. Wind and sun erode through time.

What, then, is the value of life? We all seek to improve, to evolve - which includes our family, our children, our relatives.

People who defraud, who scam, these people are reaping the whirlwind of the changes they created in the lives of others. Their own lives and the lives they touch are ravaged by forces they cannot control once unleashed. And whether they believe in it or not, the Golden Rule says all they create for others will be created for themselves. A Natural Law.

Peace of mind, true happiness - these things cannot be bought.

The wealth a person possesses is measured by his worth to others.

If you have people on your lines, connected to you, giving you advice - or setting your examples: wise them up. What is their actual value to you? What do they give you and what do they give others around you? How do they expect to be repaid?

Who do you owe? How can you repay those debts?

Are you being held ransom by the quality of life you lead? When can you jump off a spinning treadmill?

Do you seek to live with the Truth - or is everything a gray area of PR?

What you wind up with - not what money you are now getting - is determined by how you answer these questions above.

For your world is as you create it - you can only lie in the bed you've made for yourself.

- - - -

Here's to comfortable and pleasant dreams...

The universe is a team activity

(photo credit: http://www.flickr.com/photos/elsie/)

Yes, the Universe is a Team Activity -
but you knew this all along...

That old Benjamin Franklin phrase comes to mind, "We must all hang together or surely, we shall all hang separately."

And it's not just the "greenies" or "enviro's" that have a point here. I'm speaking far more pragmatically here.

There's a Universal connection in/with/around all of us. If you want to refer to it as God, that would be fine. This is one concept of the Western Christian view. However, Buddhists and Hindu and even older religions and philosophies essentialy hold the same view, just by different names.

And those who hold this thought and follow it (where do you think genius and inspiration come from?) have the world rise up to them and give them everything they want. True. Read the biographies of the outrageously successful - or books by people who have studied them (like Napoleon Hill's Think and Grow Rich or Law of Success). You'll find that there are just a handful of people who didn't have to study and learn esoteric concepts in order to succeed in anything they wanted. But they did follow a few basic principles regardless.

Dale Carnegie tapped into these same principles when he studied the average, ordinary person who came into his public speaking courses (Ripley's noted that he had critiqued over 150,000 speeches, which I think is also in the Guiness record book.) And his books became bestsellers when he wrote about the basic concepts he tapped into.

That Hill and Carnegie continue to be successes are due more to the caliber of their thinking than the quality of their writing or the foundations which took over their works after they passed.

They both did extensive studies of humankind in the raw. And found that there were simple underlying basics to any person's success.

Teamwork is one of these. We have it in all of us. And all the corporate magnates Hill studied, or the small business entrepreneurs who came to study with Carnegie - they all knew this to be a fact. When people cooperate, they get more done than the same amount of people can do individually.

This is due to an inherent common connection we all share - the Universe.

And while I can go further into tools and approaches and ways to improve your abilities in this area, I'll leave you with this simple beginning approach:

1. Pray or meditate or simply sit in relaxed silence at least once daily. (3 times is better.)
2. Just listen when you're in that mode - to your heartbeat, your breathing, the wind. Just listen. Banish all thoughts simply by letting these go - simply relax and let the world fall away. Listen.
3. Come out of that (after 15 minutes or an hour or however long you can keep it up) and revisit your own purpose - what is it that brings a smile to your face, quickens your step, really sponsors your action on a daily basis. Your purpose is what you would love to do if you didn't have to "work" for a living.
4. Get the concept of your own ideal scene and really visualize it - get the feelings of having that all around you. These will be calm, cheerful, expectant feelings - because you'll know that this is possible.
   
5. Release this to the Universe.
   
6. Right about then, or shortly after, you'll get an idea about what you can do to bring this into existence - a small step or a series of them. Write these down somewhere so you can keep track of what you need to do.
   
7. And then incorporate those inspired steps into your life somehow. Start acting on them.

When you do these steps daily (like I said 3 times a day is best for our Western world) - you'll start making the improvements in your life that align your own purpose with the Universe around you. You'll be "doing your own thing" and the Universe will be helping you accomplish it. Because we are all in this together and the more we work together, the more we can get done.

Yes, this means real world peace is just around the corner - and an end to any serious food, housing, clothing and security problems currently in this world.

All we each have to do is outlines above (and it will only take about 3 percent of this planet actively doing those 7 steps listed to make major changes).

So: Good Hunting!