I read about 50 books in 2008, most nonfiction as I have been very busy with real estate and Internet marketing consulting, Here are my top 4 recommendations.

My Stroke of Insight by Jill Bolte Taylor

This is the only book I have ever read that I feel everyone should read. Medical professionals can gain extraordianry insight into a patient’s experience. Chances are each of us will either have a stroke or know someone who does. This book  provides invaluable insight into what happens and how we can improve our chances of full recovery. Those with an interest in spiritual development or metaphysics will find her experiences enthralling.

The 4-Hour Work Week by Timothy Ferriss

This book opened my eyes to possibilities I had never thought of. If you are looking to change direction in your career or lifestyle, this book is a must read.

The Unfolding Now by A.H. Almaas

I’m a little biased, being in the Ridhwan School, but this book provides great practical insight into the barriers and challenges of developing the capacity to live in the Now.

Upgrade Your Life by Gina Trapani

Invaluable for anyone who owns a computer. Simple and valuable tips for improving your knowledge, functioning and capacity. Easy to read and understand. Get over technophobia and increase productivity.

From 2007

The New Rules of Marketing & PR by David Meerman Scott

I’ve given at least 6 copies of this book to friends and clients. If you have any interest in how to leverage the Internet to promote your business, career or product - this should be the first book on your list.

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The other day, as I was brushing my hair, I noticed my hair is getting darker. It appears the gray is receding and the brown returning. I thought - can that be? I’ve been keeping an eye on it ever since and I think it’s true - my hair is getting darker.

It’s funny because it seems this is more challenging to me than the larger forehead over the years, or the thinning spot at the back, or the gray itself. I’ve never been very concerned with my hair since I was twenty and it was down to my shoulders and bleached blonde by the Caribbean sun.

But here it is getting darker. I think it must be the result of one of the new supplements I’m taking or that little dab of Paul Mitchell’s Round Trip which I started using a few weeks ago to keep things a little bit under control.

As I explored my concerns about my hair’s returning youth, I discovered an interesting spin on vanity - kind of a vain negative vanity. I’m concerned that others will think I’m coloring my hair and thus vain. I’ve always wondered about men that color their hair or do those elaborate comb-overs. To me, those guys are waving a big flag of insecurity and most of them look a little funny if not ridiculous - in my humble vain opinion.

What a weird feeling to be concerned about people thinking I’m vain, when I’m not. But, then again, this experience seems to be revealing that I am.

What a way to start a new year - my vanity fair with hair!

I was watching Deepak Chopra on Bill O’Reilly and the notion of forgivness came up for me. We hear the phrase - I forgive you - all the time and yet, I notice in many of these situations, there appears to be residual angst in the consciousness of those forgiving.

Wikipedia - Forgiveness is typically defined as the process of ceasing to feel resentment, indignation or anger for a perceived offense, difference or mistake, and ceasing to demand punishment or restitution.

Hillary Rodham Clinton: In the Bible it says they asked Jesus how many times you should forgive, and he said 70 times 7. Well, I want you all to know that I’m keeping a chart.

Martin Luther King, jr.:  We must develop and maintain the capacity to forgive. He who is devoid of the power to forgive is devoid of the power to love. There is some good in the worst of us and some evil in the best of us. When we discover this, we are less prone to hate our enemies.

Forgiveness involves both the heart and the mind. In my experience, the heart opens so wide, it can hold the entire situation, all the pain, suffering and betrayal. In this extraordinary vastness a magical openness and acceptance and kindness arise that frees the heart of anguish.

The effect on the mind is like erasing a slate - beginner’s mind. The past is still the past - events happened. But the past no longer defines me or the other. Not only is the other truly forgiven, the other is free to emerge in a whole new light in my world.

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I rarely wish I could live my life over or go back in time. When these moments do occur, it mostly seems to involve a sense of - having my lived experience available earlier in life.

We seem to want our youth back for various reasons - health, well-being, beauty, innocence, wonderment, etc. There is another group of us that want to go back in time to play the stock market, buy real estate, have better and more sex, and a host of other things.

In general, the egoic mind will want to return to the past with the mind’s attained knowledge to continue our quest for pleasure and satisfaction. Wishing for a chance to bring our lived experience into the past is another manifestation of the ego’s love affair with control - trying to control and direct our experience.

Some may argue, that being able to relive our lives with our adult knowledge and lived experience is about living a better more authentic life - wanting to live a life with less pain and suffering for us and the people we crossed paths with. But really, it’s all about us and our fantasy of grandiosity.

If we really believed our current knowledge and experience would make a huge difference in our past and the course of our lives - we would be living that knowledge and lived wisdom right now, in present time. We’d be so busy freeing ourselves from the chains of the past in the fullness of the present, that our mind would not be wishing for anything other than right now.

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This is the time of year we often hear - ’tis the season to be jolly. I like to think of it as the season to be noble.

The etymology of noble:

c.1225, “illustrious, distinguished, worthy of honor or respect,” from O.Fr. noble, from L. nobilis “well-known, famous, renowned, of superior birth,” earlier gnobilis, lit. “knowable,” from gnoscere “to come to know,” from PIE base *gno- (see know). The prominent Roman families, which were “well known,” provided most of the Republic’s public officials. Meaning “distinguished by rank, title, or birth” is first recorded 1297. Sense of “having lofty character, having high moral qualities” is from 1601. The noble gases (1902) so called for their inactivity or interness; a use of the word that had been applied in M.E. to precious stones, metals, etc., of similar quality (c.1390), from the sense of “having admirable properties” (c.1305).

Nobility has gotten a bad rap over the centuries as less-than-noble humans inherited the banner of nobility through birthright. When I think of the nobility of the soul, the points I resonate with in the above are:

• worthy of honor
• knowable
• high moral qualities
• having admirable properties

Nobility, for me,  carries a high sense of value, a sense of being above pettiness and the mundane, a sense of regality (of the king) and a great sense of generosity.

Generosity is the quality that makes the season noble. The etymology of generous:

1588, from M.Fr. généreux (fem. généreuse), from L. generosus “of noble birth,” from genus (gen. generis) “race, stock” (see genus). Originally “of noble birth,” secondary senses of “unselfish” and “plentiful” were both present in Fr. and perhaps in Latin.

For me, generosity has a sense of openness in it that allows the richness and depth of personal value to flow into present experience. One of the sweet mysteries of the soul is its depth and breadth of treasure.

As I walk thorugh the mall, the bookstore, the restaurant or go through my ordinary day is this Holiday Season, I witness a lot of nobility & poverty. Regardless of our circumstances, we need not lack generosity or nobility.

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Give THE GIFT of Honest Feedback

We’re in the midst of the gift-giving season. As we wander the malls, the boutiques and the Internet looking for those perfect gifts, let’s not forget one of the gifts that serves the soul - honest feedback.

Superego, inner critic and self-esteem issues can inhibit us from providing valuable feedback to those we meet, greet and love. The same issues can prevent us from receiving feedback that would be invaluable for our process, growth and unfoldment.

THE GIFT often falls under the heading of - tough love. The invitation extended here is for us to be receptive to honest feedback. Embracing feedback from others is invaluable - EVEN IF IT IS TOTALLY OFF BASE.

Feedback that is insightful and on-target gives us an opportunity to see ourselves more clearly and take corrective action. Feedback that misses the mark often creates a reaction in us, which provides us insight into our deeper more subtle issues and structures that continue to distort our perception of ourselves and others.

Resistance to “negative” feedback can stop us from discovering some of the most valuable insight. Some of the most profound growth opportunities (gifts) often come in wrapped in plain or ugly gift wrap.

When someone asks if we are open to feedback - consider this response - Go ahead, give me THE GIFT.

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I’m in a restaurant and ask the wait-person for something. When it’s delivered, I say - thank you. The wait-person’s response - No Problem.

I’m in the coffee shop for my morning cup. When it arrives - same routine. Thank You. No Problem.

I’m in the electronics store. A sales associate helps me with some information - thank you - no problem.

What’s up this no-problem response?

What ever happened to - My Pleasure?

When I ask a waiter, a sales associate or a business owner for assistance, I don’t expect it to be a problem for them to provide the service which they are being paid to provide.

No problem is one of those habitual, unconscious responses that on the surface seems positive, but really carries a subtle negative association in the mind.

No problem??? Is it a problem serving me? Is it a problem getting me the information I need to purchase a new laptop?

On the other hand, when I ask for the Dijon mustard and the wait-person provides it with a - my pleasure - I feel like my experience is a personal concern of this person.  I feel welcomed, seen and considered.

No problem - can leave me wondering.

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I’ve been observing the phenomenon of doubt lately. The recent elections, the economic melt down, the housing market blues, and the increasing unemployment seem to be adding to the global doubt index.

I could be that behind every doubt is a cynic.

1. A person who believes that only selfishness motivates human actions and who disbelieves in or minimizes selfless acts or disinterested points of view.
2. One of a sect of Greek philosophers, 4th century b.c., who advocated the doctrines that virtue is the only good, that the essence of virtue is self-control, and that surrender to any external influence is beneath human dignity.

The Cynics were an influential group of philosophers from the ancient school of Cynicism. Their philosophy was that the purpose of life was to live a life of Virtue in agreement with Nature. This meant rejecting all conventional desires for wealth, power, health, and fame, and by living a life free from all possessions. As reasoning creatures, people could gain happiness by rigorous training and by living in a way which was natural for humans. They believed that the world belonged equally to everyone, and that suffering was caused by false judgments of what was valuable and by the worthless customs and conventions which surrounded society. - Wikipedia

Doubt seems habitual. Most habitual doubting is conditioned negation, a lazy ego’s way to successful pessimism. Suspicious minds, scarcity thinking, self-centeredness and survival seem to walk hand in had with doubt.

When in doubt, doubt yourself. What’s that doubt all about? What’s at the root of doubt?

Doubting wholeheartedly means questioning the very premise of doubt, not the content - what we doubt, but the activity - why we doubt. Wholehearted doubting is a trip into a real wormhole.

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Working with Dreams to Free the Soul

Dream Interpretation vs. Dream Work

Years ago, when I started this journey of exploration into “what is the nature of me,” I had a period of interest in dreams. Many teachers encourage us to explore our dreams. I had very little interest in dream interpretation, still do - though the occasional insight is of interest.

Lucid Dreaming

What I was mostly curious about in those days was lucid dreaming as I had heard that “waking up” in a dream could be used as a doorway into out-of-the-body travel. Over the years, I have become quite the lucid dreamer. Often when I sleep, I continue to be aware. I work with that awareness similar to the way I worked with lucid dreaming - waking up within the medium of experience.

Working with the Affective Content of Dreams

Over the last ten years my interest in dreams is more focused on the affective quality present in the dream. I have found this to be quite useful in helping me move through various levels of identity and object relations. If the self in a dream is an extension or construction of the waking me, then it seems fair to assume that I am somehow dragging my historic content into the dream in some fashion.

Last night was a good example of how i work with dreams these days.

Dreams of Humiliation

I was at an event with a large group Diamond Approach students. I recognized many of these people from my waking life. A new book was out, that contained a specific paragraph about me. In reading the paragraph, I experienced a very deep and searing sense of humiliation.

I went to a twenty-year friend of mine to ask why she had allowed this to be printed. She told me she had nothing to do with it. As I walked away, I fell to the floor, began sobbing and shaking uncontrollably.

At this point I awakened - 3:50am. The sense of humiliation was flooding my psyche and body. I explored it a bit and became aware of the judgmental part of the experience. The superego was having a field day kicking my butt.

I find shame and humiliation some of the most difficult work. The power of the inner critic attacks is severe. Becoming lost or trapped in the identity of the humiliated one seems easy when confronted with such powerful forces.

Inner Critic / Superego Judgments

We will never win a battle or an argument with the superego/inner critic. What’s needed is disengage from the attack so we can explore our experience. Having worked with the superego and identifications for over twenty years, I often work with the attack by just agreeing with superego and then go about looking into my experience.

The interesting thing about shame and humiliation is the raw, searing quality of exposure present. There is such a pure sense of being stripped naked and exposed to harsh elements. I worked with these elements for a couple of hours - in and out of sleep.

The Relative is a Bridge to the Real

In exploring the actual phenomenological experience of humiliation, I found the elements of exposure and nakedness were really openness, space and transparency. When the identity of the humiliated self or even a historical self is allowed be challenged, it will often dissolve. What is left is the experience of our experience.

The qualities of openness, space and transparency are aspects of our true nature.

Opening my eyes to the world at 7:10am - a glorious day was blooming!

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The challenge of writing this seems immense, beyond my ability to put it into a coherent stream of thought. I am motivated/inspired to write and wonder, why? What sparked this impulse?

It is autumn. Leaves are turning brilliant. Beauty is everywhere, always. Today, yellow, gold, red and orange blend with the shades of green she has worn for many months now. Is it the change of seasons that rekindles the journey into the heart of darkness?

Perhaps it is the fear, panic and depression that is gripping many. Unemployment, investment losses and economic woe beset us from all sides. Is the ubiquitous cynicism getting to me?

Maybe it’s the challenges of personal happiness and fulfillment I see many suffering for.

No matter, the dismal, dark shades of despondency and hopelessness are arising and my soul is afire, blazing with love and beauty.

How is this possible?

Whatever Happened to the Cynic?

Where did the cynic go? I’ve been cynical for as long as I can remember. I recall an exploration into my cynic. It was maybe 8 years ago. That rascal lived in a world view that had an atmosphere like 18th century London - skies dark, gray and sooty. A haggard and hackneyed self suffering the dismal and dreary.

Don’t get me wrong, this view was not conscious 24/7. But it was there, in the velvet underground of my unconscious sapping energy and blurring my vision. Without even knowing it, the quality of my life was being diminished.

Today, I notice the cynic is like leaded glass. I can see the light coming through and it is the light that I resonate with not the opacity.

That Pain is Our Best Friend

My best friend was beautiful. When we met, the connection was deep and immediate. The type of experience that gives the notion of reincarnation a strong foundation to stand on. The freedom in the friendship was beyond our combined imaginations. Acceptance and appreciation were in every interaction and the quiet delight in our friendship only grew though we lived thousands of miles apart.

Her experience with ovarian cancer, was challenging and life-enhancing. Though her body withered and suffered both she and her body became more and more radiant and translucent. When she died, all hell broke loose in me.

Oh, that pain. I believe it takes us all by surprise - our capacity to feel pain and loss. There were many, many moments of remembering and love and appreciation AND then the pain, a grief and grieving to a depth of self unknown to me. I came to understand that the depth of pain spoke to the depth of the love.

I became curious about that pain, about why it seemed to be easier to stay with the pain than the love. I came to see that my self, who I knew myself to be historically, could stay intact with the pain. I could suffer with the pain.I could lament, and mourn, feel loss and devastation - the ruin of my heart. But, the love, when freed from the constraints of a remembering mind was of a whole different dimension.

With the love, I glowed. And the glow became a radiance. And soon I was not there, there was only radiance and radiance is more of what I really am than this person writing these words, the mind that knows the words, or the body that can be seen and felt. Love will disappear us and though that sounds lovely, it is anything but to a self that wants to survive, choose and control.

The Curious Experience of Self-hate

Before discovering the cynic or the transformational power of pain, there was the death wish. Times were were not bad, there was no time. There was just the endless pit of shit that I seemed to have gotten myself into and the hopelessness of life ever being anything else but a pile of shit. Of course, this was because I was seeing and experiencing myself as a pile of shit.

Self-hatred is a very powerful force. Rarely do we allow ourselves to explore self-hatred and understandably so. Without proper support and guidance we might act out the self-hatred and damage or kill the object of that hatred - ourselves.

It was a curious experience for me to be shaving one morning and have a suicidal thought pass through my mind. I grew up in a family that had a lot of judgment around suicide. In fact, there was a lot of judgment around a lot of things and very little curiosity about anything real. We preferred the known to the not-known. It feels more secure to believe we know. Sadly, most of what is known and taught is limited, distorted and disorganized safely within the comfortable, familiar realm of ignorance.

That suicidal thought captured my imagination. I began to dwell on it. And soon, I discovered myself going into the heart of darkness - not a very safe place for someone in such a vulnerable state with a lot of self-hatred running amok.

I was having a very interesting experience. In a way, I was two people. One of me was a curious observer, a me that really wanted to know more about these powerful dark forces assailing the other me. The other me, was the part that identified with the self-hate messages. I really am a pile of shit. I’m bad. I’m evil. I fall far below worthless on the human scale of value.

Having been so defended against my feelings for so long, it’s not surprising that I soon found myself like Marlow winding down a river into the heart of terror. The stream of self-hatred seem to flow like a river following the force of gravity and the contours of the earth as it makes it way inexorably to the ocean which annihilates it through absorption.

That was where that part of me knew it was heading - gravity and contour - flowing to self-destruction. The part of me observing all of this understood how people can get lost in this river of self-hate and pulled/flow into annihilation.

What happens if I feel the self-hatred fully and don’t act out the self-destructiveness inherent in it? A person with some humility and common sense would have help and support for this process. I really am blessed to be able to report back to you.

We live in a world of incredible beauty and potential. Mostly when we experience joy, happiness, love, majesty, and the wonderful - we associate it with something external - some event, some happening, some action or choice. This is not what is really going on.

This is one of reality’s most open secrets. What is happening is much simpler, but even more mysterious. What is real exists to be known. Life reveals. It’s not our experience that matters, but the experience of our experience.

It’s Autumn

The crazies are threatening to do harm to Obama. The cynics are active. People are suffering. How do we explain all the love and beauty?

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