You, God, Chickens and Eggs

What came first, the chicken or the egg?, we ask, knowing we don’t know the answer and that we’ll never know the answer. We get a buzz from asking unanswerable questions, as the Zen Buddhists do about trees falling in forests and Schroeder does about cats in boxes.

It’s more fun asking unanswerable questions than asking answerable questions – especially if we don’t want to know the answers – which is why we persist with the unanswerable questions! It saves us having to face the truth and make changes.

One of our prevailing questions is why is the world so insane, unfair and/or illogical? There is, of course, no reason why presidents say they smoke but don’t inhale, why businesses send you invoices for the cost of preparing your invoices or why people go running when they could leave earlier and walk. None of it is logical or sane and there is no good reason for it except that’s what people do. Asking why people keep eating when they’re worried about their obesity, why politicians say trust me just after they’ve lied or why we expect doctors to make us healthy when they make more money keeping us sick are pointless questions and take us nowhere helpful. But we keep asking the unanswerable questions so we can avoid the answers that take us from where we are to where we want to be. We pretend to ourselves that we want better lives but we’re afraid of doing better lives.

We’re insane beings: we have bronchial problems so we keep smoking; we’re under stress so we keep working 14-hour days; we have relationship problems so we keep arguing that we’re right. We keep doing what we don’t want to do and being the people we don’t want to be and our courage fails us when it comes to the really useful questions and the life-changing answers they contain.

Our courage fails us and we choose not to look inside for the questions and answers for that is where they all are. Instead, we flail around blaming the weather, our parents and the local council when things go don’t go as we’d like. The answer is never out there. It’s always in here.

You see, God, you and I designed the universe together and the way we planned it was thus:

If we’re feeling something (anything, in fact) inside, the universe will bring in an event (or several events if we’re not listening) to prove that we’re right. The universe is kind like that!

So, if we’re feeling angry, we’ll soon be overcharged for medical treatment or driven into by a distracted driver … whatever it is that happens, it’s something which will accentuate the identical angry feelings we’re already feeling … and probably denying ourselves.

If we’re feeling depressed our partner will leave or we’ll find we’ve got cancer or some other depression-inducing event will occur to remind us of what’s already going on inside.

If we’re feeling lost we’ll lose our job or our faith in life and we’ll wonder what the heck we’re supposed to be doing on this planet, accentuating the lost feeling that’s already going on inside.

And now come the unanswerable questions. Why did they overcharge me? Why did (s)he leave me? Why did I get fired? The questions are all about them out there and never about me in here. Chasing the answers out there is a guarantee that we’ll just feel more of what we were feeling before and nothing else will change.

However, if we ask the answerable question – the only question to ask – we’ll be prompted to make a shift in perception and, hence, awareness … and to have a better life.

If something out there seems to make us angry, an effective question is, “Mmm, I’m feeling anger. Where inside is that coming from?” The answer may not arrive immediately – especially if we’re not sure we want to hear it – but, if we quietly persist with the question, it will bring along its simple answer when we’re truly ready. The answer we hear will not be about the overcharged medical account, the stupid council or the careless driver but something much closer to home – our own harsh self-judgement.

You see, anger comes from unmet expectations. Depression comes from unmet expectations. Lostness comes from unmet expectations … now, hang on, they all come from the same place? Well, yeah, they do. They come from our little selves setting ourselves up for failure. We’re so good at it, we ALWAYS fail! We’re brilliant at setting unreachable goals and not getting there.

By 40 I want to have a nice house, two cars, an annual overseas holiday and … oh, bother, here I am at 41 with no job and my money’s running out. So I feel angry or depressed or lost or injustice or unloved or some other self-flagellating, debasing and debilitating feelings.

We imagine we have no control so we numb ourselves to that by pretending we can control our future. We even hear people saying, “It’s supposed to be sunny on Tuesday,” or “It’s supposed to rain over the weekend.”! The news of the day, ladies and gentlemen, is that the weather isn’t supposed to do anything at all! It’s gonna’ do what it’s gonna’ do, no matter how many people tell it otherwise. And councils and governments and spouses and every other person, giraffe and grasshopper are gonna’ do what they’re gonna’ do, whether we want them to or not.

The strange truth is that we have far more control than we ever imagine. We can’t command the world to behave to our rules but we can change our feelings about who we are and how much peace we wish to bring in. We simply take an honest look at what’s going on inside, own it, acknowledge it, thank it for the opportunity for change and choose that it be dissolved in love or peace or joy or whatever you wish to experience. Yes, I know: it’s too simple, it’s too cheap and too obvious. There’s no 23 steps to enlightenment, years of excruciating counselling or arduous self-denial and abstinence.

There’s just: “Oh, is that what’s going on inside? Let me see. Is it anger? Is it feeling ignored? No, I’ve got it. It’s feeling useless. OK useless feeling, thank you for turning up and I know if I stay with you, feeling the full uncomfortable power of feeling useless, you’ll transmogrify into feeling productive.”

You sit with it feeling uncomfortable and you sit with it and you sit with it and, eventually, it becomes something else. And then, in the way that God, you and I designed the universe, something (maybe several things) will happen to prove you are truly productive or loved or worthwhile or whatever you wanted.

And so, in a very real sense, you have total control over your entire universe. When you realise that, through sweet and simple experience, you won’t care if eggs or chickens come first for, in your heart, you come first … and you jolly well deserve to!

Forgetting to Remember

In a Gloria Jeans café again and it reminds me of Mount Omaney and my first few weeks in this country – no job, no car, in a wildly dysfunctional house, sleeping on a couch and strangely at ease with the world … oh, OK, a bit concerned at not getting a job in the first five minutes of arriving in Australia but still at ease.

It seems so long ago but then so does yesterday …. teaching, savouring food from all over the world at the food festival, enjoying the artistic talents of my students, watching the rugby at Suncorp Stadium … and today’s another day, another lifetime, another world. In Gloria Jeans after a cruisy morning reading, emailing, facebooking, washing clothes and body, grocerying, haircutting, yogaing and, now, watching a mother and daughter, at the next table, communicating with each other in such a mature, connected way; I could feel the love and respect beaming off them.

Each space in time seems unconnected to each other space, as if I’m continually opening a door, walking through, shutting the door, opening a door, walking through, shutting the door, adfinitum. When in one room I have no view of any other; one room of life at a time.

Of course I can bring to mind anything and everything this body has ever experienced but that bring-to-mind feels like a conjuring trick, as if I’m bringing into existence something that was never there. I wave my wand and, poof!, a cloud of smoke and there’s an apparition before me – the surreal existence of a time capsule belonging to someone I know. There’s a vague familiarity but it’s not a natural or spontaneous familiarity. It senses itself, in this head, as a contrived familiarity, as if I have to confirm (or otherwise), “Yes, this is an experience this body has encountered, enjoyed, endured and/or entertained.”

Like an airport baggage-claim conveyor, I can witness experiences passing by and claim whichever ones I wish. They’re all experiences this body has been through (or will go through) but the connection isn’t there – I have to make it be there by conscious choice, each time. I have to assert to myself, ”Yes, this bag and its contents are probably mine so let’s see what’s in there” … or I could overlook several bags (probably mine) as they don’t look interesting enough and see they’re not really mine … didn’t really happen … didn’t even exist.

Today I might claim this small red bag and a larger green one. If tomorrow exists when there’s only a now moment, I choose different bags tomorrow; perhaps the blue backpack and the wooden box then.

Then I’ll drag them off the conveyor and, with mild anticipation, I open the containers and rummage round inside. They’re always packed so beautifully, so tidily, as if everything happened in linear sequence. However, my mind doesn’t do linear sequence. It ponders at the neatness a moment and then fumbles through the packages in a gentle, rambling way, looking at this aspect, that happening, this occurrence, that accident, this synchronicity, picking at what catches my mind’s eye and not seeing most of what’s there.

There was a time (oh, yes, there is yesterday and tomorrow in this One Now) I would make something of each memory. Not now. Something’s changed. Now, I just observe the life of a Philip Bradbury and smile the smile of an indulgent father. Aha, so that happened, did it? No anguish, no joy, no nostalgia. Just watching, observing and seeing it all as I might watch a surreal movie about someone I vaguely know and have little concern for.

Like the mother and child at the next table, I can choose to project a strong connection with the person in this skin-suit – with respect and love – or I can let the attachment go and observe with respect and love. Without the attachment, it seems to be easier to respect and love the one that’s me at the moment. Just sort of clearer, cleaner and more peaceful. Aaahh …

Let Peace Begin and Killing Forgot

Today is ANZAC¹ Day and I’m the only person I know who does not want to remember the killing we’ve done. The shops are shut, the schools are out, people have a day off work and our streets are filled with those who are paid to kill other people. To speak up against this celebration of mass murder is, apparently, unpatriotic and I suspect I’ll be soundly vilified by those who can see some “rightness” about killing our fellow humans. There’ll even be Christian services celebrating the killing, despite the peaceful message of Christ.

Why they wish to remember the hatred, anger, fear and vileness of a time when the world fought among itself I’ll never know.

As Churchill said, winning the war was difficult but winning the peace is the real challenge. He would not be impressed that, nearly a hundred years on from World War I, we have not won the peace. We haven’t even tried to win the peace. In fact, we’re doing everything to forget the peace.

Let us be honest here: killing is killing is killing. No matter how we dress it up – whether it’s sanctioned by the state (patriotism, legal punishment) or not (crime) – killing is killing is killing. Any nation which sanctions killing humans in any way (e.g. the electric chair) will incur killing in every way. It’s a simple, universal law – what we give out we get back.

Between 1952 and 1991, USA promoted, financed and participated in over 20 wars, killing over 8,000,000 people. As the most blood-thirsty nation in human history, we should not be surprised that the mayhem USA caused outside its borders is reflected in the mayhem within them. As we project out our wrath so it attacks us from within.

As with nations, so with people. We may be continually reminded (though not surprised) that the people who do the most attacking are the ones most attacked. Those filled with rage at the rest of the world always, always, always have that rage pour back relentlessly into their lives.

In the same way, those who chose to see the world through the gentle eyes of peace have peace in their lives. Whatever we project we experience within.

The Boston marathon bombing was a completely staged event, as we will find out very soon. For example, the chap who apparently had his legs blown off and saved by a quick-thinking cowboy was, in fact, an amputee before the event. And this is how the American authorities choose to control the people – not through love, respect and cooperation but through fear, blood-letting and lies. That’s the energy or message they put out and so we are continually disappointed (though not surprised) that the way the people react back is with violence. Nothing the authorities do to pretend to stop their citizens killing each other (and the authorities) will stop the violence while the authorities play the violent game.

The only game that stops violence is the game of peace, as Nelson Mandela and Mahatma Gandhi demonstrated.

We may wish to display our anger and outrage at some atrocity but, lest we forget, our anger and outrage always fuel the next atrocity. Similarly, peace and forgiveness always fuel the next bout of peace and forgiveness.

Killing is killing is killing. To condone it when you’re wearing a soldier’s uniform and forbid it when you’re wearing a gang patch is simply hypocrisy. And, hypocrisy or not, condoning any form of killing is to condone all killing – killing the body, the spirit or the freedom.

We craft our own shackles and we cannot expect that shackling our perceived enemies will loosen ours. We can only look to ourselves, to our own unmitigated anger, and ask that it be released … not released against others but released and dissolved into the sea of peace and forgiveness. Only then will we be released from this rising tide of killing.

So, lest we forget, peace and forgiveness do exist and if we could choose that poppies² represented peace and not killing, I’d plant Lake Eyre³ in poppies and know we are, at last, starting to win the peace.

1. Australia New Zealand Army Corp – the day of remembrance for the Australian and New Zealand soldiers who died in wars previous.
2. Poppies are the symbol of ANZAC Day.
3. Australia’s largest salt lake.

The Unasked Question and Does Size Really Matter?

The most confronting and divisive question for a man – the one that invites defence or attack but not connection – is: “Does my bum look big in these jeans?” I’d probably revert to truth (which sounds like attack) with, “Of course it does, dear. It looks big in everything you wear.”

This might cause a wee problem for all concerned but the BIG problem is not the question asked or any answer given. The BIG problem is the question that’s not asked.

The big problem is about assumptions and perceptions and these questions don’t get asked.

In this instance, there’s an assumption that a sumptuous bum is an ugly bum and a non-existent one is a hot one. I’m not sure if you’ve noticed but all the obese women in The Biggest Loser have spouses or partners. Skeletal women may feature in the fashion magazines but they’ve seldom been top priority for men.

I’m not sure if you’ve figured this out but people are supposed to have bums and people are attracted to people who look like people … rather than skeletal imitations of them. From the Venus de Milo statue to the Arab paintings of buxom women, skeletal women have never celebrated … that is, until the gay-dominated fashion world decreed that all models should look like delicious 12-year-old boys.

So, the problem would be solved if a man was asked, “Does my bum look attractive in these jeans?” And an honest reply would be, “Yes it looks big and very attractive, darling!” Connection is assured with the right question.

The wrong-question-problem pops up all over the place.

For example, politicians unthinkingly ask the same old question: “Do you want economic growth and prosperity?” The assumption is that prosperity follows from a growing economy, despite the evidence to the contrary. We’ve had growth and globalisation (the most obvious version of growth) for the past 50 years and never have poverty, stress and unhappiness been higher.

Since 1952, Americans have been asked, “Are you happy with your life?” The percentage of happy Americans peaked in 1956 and the happiness percentage has dropped every single year since then; this is the unhappiest America has ever been, despite the constant growth of its economy.

Since Monsanto’s assault on India’s agriculture with its toxic Green Revolution, over 100,000 Indian farmers have committed suicide. The economic growth for Monsanto has been spectacular but the prosperity for rural Indians is at an all time low.

The problem with this question, “Do you want economic growth and prosperity?” is that there are three false assumptions:

1. Economic growth for a few immense companies makes individuals immensely wealthy,
2. People actually want to have more money to spend on more things they don’t actually need, and
3. People would rather have money than happiness.

Economic growth can be likened to a toothpaste tube. As the economy grows, more is squeezed to the top, leaving the bottom of the tube empty.

Maybe, just maybe, the politicians should ask two questions that have never been asked before:

1. Do you want to be happier?
2. What makes you happier?

We might all be surprised when assumptions are opened up to truth. The truth may just be that both bums and the economy are just the right size right now – no change needed. Maybe, just maybe, size doesn’t really matter and what’s actually attractive is the content and happiness.

Just a thought …

On the Blank, White Page a Smile is Writ

Oh how I love a blank, white page; a void, a nothingness, on which to allow the magic of words to fall. There is nothing so glorious as the emptiness of potential, of the anticipation of the unexpected. And how much more refreshing is a question than an answer.

An answer is the end of all things, the place where creativity stops and there is no more. I am a carpenter … I am a doctor … I am an asthmatic … I am depressed … I am happy … what do you do with those answers? Oh that’s nice for you … Oh dear, you poor thing … and the end is in sight. There may be more words, an hour of conversation, but everyone knows exactly where it leads from an answer. Predictable and certain, like actors reading their scripts.

How different, then, when asked, “Who/what are you?” to have your answer a question. I am just pondering that myself … If answers were tears, I’d be happy … I am the question you’ve been waiting for … I am you in a holy encounter with myself.

Yes, I know, it’s not the expected thing to wave uncertainty and imponderables in the face of our fellow humans and, yes, most of them would turn away, suspecting us of stupidity, insolence or both.

However, not everyone basks in the security of tried and true and feels deep loneliness in the Vale of Intangibility. There are some other souls – small in number and big in heart – who sunbathe naked on the Mount of Mystery and float freely in the Sea of Synchronicity. They expose themselves to whatever comes their way, blissfully charmed to give up control and let what will be, be. Armed with nought but their anticipation of a New Secret to be revealed, they wake to each day as if it were a beautifully wrapped gift. They rise from sleep with a smile on their lips, a bounce in their step and the joy of opening yet another glorious mystery from the God of Adventures.

They work the same ordinary jobs, shop the same cloistered shopping centres, drive the same winding roads and walk the same grey streets we all do. Their outer skin is the same as yours and mine but their inner world is as different as chalk and peas.

They seem, somehow, to find out about fun stuff at work before we do, to accidentally receive free gifts we miss out on, to find a more memorable road to travel and a lighter path to tread. They seem to have a constant smile, have a greater interest in what you and I do and remember it all so much better than you and I do.

So many of us take out insurance, set burglar alarms and raise defences in our lives and minds to protect ourselves from evil … and yet it still happens to us.

However, the minds of these feckless and reckless ones are blank, white pages, ready to receive whatever comes to them. And, mysteriously, their defencelessness and their uncontrolling manner lets in the good stuff. Unable (or unwilling) to filter and arrange their lives, they keep the pages open with gleeful anticipation, allowing only the gleeful to fall on them.

The question without an answer allows only beautiful synchronicity to heed its call.

As I sat with my coffee and carrot cake in this shopping centre, full of humanity’s noise and drama, I held nothing but glee at seeing these blank, white pages. I had no control or intention and whatever words have fallen from my pen … well, they’ve done nothing but add gleefulness to my glee. Whoopee!

P.S. I packed my pen and paper away and, as I drank the last of my coffee, I saw not a blank, white coffee cup bottom but a huge painted smiley face chuckling back at me.

P.P.S. As I left the car park, anticipating the parking fee of $4.00, I discovered that the rain had meddled with the debit card machine and they let me out for free!

On the blank, white page a smile is writ … always!

Being Unfulfilled and Free

The word on the street is that fulfillment is the in thing. Whether it’s from friends, lovers, jobs, hobbies, travel or other experiences, it seems that every man and his consultant is looking for fulfillment, like all these empty barrels rolling around and, with a hollow echo, pleading to be filled. Then something comes along – a new romance, a new occupation, a new diet, a new therapy, a new philosophy – and it’s gobbled up with great fervour as some barrels are filled … for a time. No one seems to stay fulfilled for long, it seems.

I was well infected by this miasma of thought so, when I read about the Buddhist idea of all emotions and attachment being the cause of suffering, I was miffed. Who were they to be telling me that the joy and peace I’d always been searching for were the cause of all my pain? The Buddhists were snatching up my life purpose, my reason for being, and tossing it to the wind.

Then, in an unexpected moment, I was emptied and I saw that they meant. I felt what they meant.

After the end of a relationship we often want to go back and have a chat, a catch-up. I’m not sure why … old times sake, I guess, whatever that means.

We decided to have our catch-up at a café  – the kind of place where we’re had so many honest and uplifting discussions when we were together. As I parked my car and walked towards the café, I felt a strange mixture of foreboding and excitement as I anticipated another deep and meaningful discussion. Then, suddenly, nothing happened. For an hour we talked about all sorts of stuff – mainly the activities of family and friends – and, as I walked away, I realised it was one of the least deep and meaningful discussions we’d ever had. Kind of shallow and pointless, really.

I took my bewilderment to God (as you do!) and had the quaint realisation that the relationship was well and truly over. Maybe the friendshipwas too. Apart from the puzzling feeling of emptiness, there was nothing – no anger, no joy, no beautiful memories, no sad memories, no nothing. It was as if we had each emptied ourselves of each other and I felt strangely free.

Not all post-relationship meetings and feelings are like that. Not all friendships are like that. Through some we fill ourselves up and through others we empty ourselves.

I recently spent time with a friend whose wife of 30 years had died two weeks previously. It was the kind of marriage where the love and the bond had grown between them every single day they were together. Understandably, Simon (who I’ll call him here) was bereft at the loss of his lover, best friend and soul mate.

On one level, I was envious that he’d found such deep and fulfilling love with and through another. However, I was also relieved to be spared his unremitting pain.

We had both lost our loved ones and our losses meant quite different things for each of us – heavy anguish for Simon and sweet lightness for me.

As with people, so with places. Last Easter I went to New Zealand for eight days and, from the moment I landed in Wellington airport, the feeling of longing-relieved hit me like a force irrepressible. As I travelled the all-too-familiar roads over the Rimutaka hill, through the Wairarapa plains, over the Tararua ranges, through the Manawatu and Karangaheke gorges, my heart was full to bursting. The soaring nostalgia and sweetness of a return home kept tears at my eyes for days. The mountains, hills, plains, rivers, forests and beaches of the land of new zeal are etched in my bones and it seemed that every one of the thousand kilometres held a memory from time ago.

My tears flowed every night for the first few nights as I drifted off to sleep, wrapped in some memory or other. Then, somewhere along the trip, I found myself without tears and, I realised, without nostalgia. I’d cried and remembered myself empty and, for the rest of my travels there, I could enjoy the beauty without attachment or emotion. It soon became clear that New Zealand was not where I should be – as I’d previously thought – and it was not where I should not be. Locations mattered no more whereas, before, there was a constant questioning if I should be here, there or somewhere else. New Zealand is a beautiful country, Australia is a beautiful country and everywhere else I’ve been is beautiful. Without preferences or opinions, the beauty that is wherever I am is clearer, more pristine. It’s as if I wake up in the same bed to a new world each day – a new world that is both beautiful and equal to every other place to awaken in.

This does not, of course, mean that I’ll stop travelling. To date I’ve been through 26 different international airports and I know there will be many more to meet and greet. The difference from now on, I suspect, is not because another place looks better than the one I’m in. Actually, thinking about it right now, I don’t know why I’ll travel again though I know I will. Being new to all this emptiness, I suspect the reason for anything new will come not from the outer form but from the inner void.

Being empty, being unfulfilled, had given me a new freedom and, with that lightness of heart and foot, I am starting to get an inkling of what the Buddhists say about emotions and attachments being the cause of suffering.

Being a novice to this emptiness, I’m sure I’ll fall back into fulfillment, opinions and preferences from time to time but, having let go of the need to be full has certainly opened a spaciousness I’ve never experienced before.

Aah, how beautiful! Aah, how unfulfilling!

Fleeing the Cage

After birth and rebirth, there is only expansion …

You’ve been in your gilded cage for too long. You know, somehow, that there’s other birds quite happily chirping away in their pretty cages and a guilty voice keeps telling you that you should be happy too. But you’re not. Besides, the voice tells you, you get fed and watered and your cage is cleaned and you don’t have a care in the world – a five-star catered cage.

However, despite the comfort and regularity of life … perhaps because of it … you’re not happy. For so long you’ve dreamed of opening the door, flying free, adventuring, exploring and experiencing more. A growing part of you doesn’t want to be dependent on others who don’t always feed you on time, who think your water’s clean when it isn’t and who forget to clean your cage for days at a time. You want to take charge of your life, get out there, make a difference.

And then, oh my God! The door’s open! You can fly, you can explore … but, well, should you? You’ve dreamed about this and now it’s happened. The two urges – to go and to stay – are equal. Then, cautiously, you alight in the doorway, ruffle your feathers, stretch your wings and … aah, blow it! Just do it! You do. You fly. You’re free to go anywhere you want in that huge room. Yes, your wings work and you can go here and there and everywhere else and you wonder why you waited so long … but, squatting on a chair arm, that doubting voice cuts in: all your food’s in that cage – how will you feed yourself? Then the cat yawns beneath you and you realise you’re vulnerable to it and the bumbling humans who could crush your little body so easily. This place of freedom has suddenly become a place of fear and lack. You quickly fly back and perch on the open door. You’re about to hop inside to safety but your body won’t move. You just can’t go back, despite all the logic. Having tasted freedom, dangerous freedom, you just can’t go back.

You turn and look out the window and see other birds flying past and hopping around. Oh my gosh, there’s an even bigger world than this massive room! And they’re surviving, flying, singing, eating … “just how many worlds outside the worlds I can see are there?” you wonder.

The decision is made. You nod a fond farewell to your old, faithful home, look warily at the cat and know, somehow, that life – well, your life anyway – only goes one way and that’s the way of expansion. You can’t go back, no matter how poignant the memories of yesterday and yesteryear are.

You fly, knowing you don’t know what’s ahead but knowing, somehow, you have no choice and that you’ve already grown too big to fit back into that little cage.

From the new book, From Misery to Mastery.

A Wee Request of God

I recently moved house and found this among my writings/rantings …

My Darling Almighty God, I’m sitting here comfortably in the sunshine on our patio with a coffee and all I need to be peaceful … and I’m not. I have all the love, food, shelter, transport, abilities, dreams, achievements, friends, laughs, brains, good looks and opportunities and Son of God could ever ask for and I’m not happy. Why? I don’t need to tell you because you know all anyway, but I’m going to tell you anyway; probably for my benefit rather than yours.

It does feel a little trifling considering the wars, starvation, pollution, depression, rapes, muggings, murders, earthquakes, mudslides, volcanoes, meteorite near-misses and political correctness you’re probably grappling with on this beautifully fine Friday morning … and that’s only on planet Earth. I guess you get called to other planets, meteors and galaxies and, as I realise this, my wee problem has just got itself weeer.

However, despite the ginormity of your chosen tasks today (this morning) and the weeness of my problem, I know you’ll drop everything else and see to it, personally, that its sorted out immediately (in Earth-time, not Eternity-time) for I have the strangest notion – not based on any verifiable or objective measure but on a heck of a big hunch – that if my problem is sorted and I’m happy, my sortedness and happiness will spread through the world – nay, the galaxy – and help to bring sortedness and happiness to a HUGE number of sentient beings to whatever space I’m imagining I’m inhabiting at any given moment.
So, having cringed at your Almighty Feet in apoplectic apology for long enough, here goes my problem:

I was born (created?) with an inordinate number of talents, compared to the average humanoid. This, to the average humanoid, might not seem to be a problem … and it’s not, in itself.

To be totally clear about this, I’m not asking to have any talents erased from my data base of attributes. None at all!

The problem, as I’m creating it, is that I want to use all the talents, whose use brings me joy. Yet I just don’t seem to be using any of them and I’m feeling frustrated by my lack of continuing interest in anything and in my current state of inertia.

You see (however a darling Almighty God sees), I get really interested in one thing and I get all hot and heavy with it for a while and then the fever subsides and another project or idea takes my fancy, blows my remaining hair back and I’m all hot and heavy over that for a day, a week, a month – some short time – and then that fades too as yet another plan takes my eye and my heart.

I want to write successfully.
I want to teach successfully.
I want to travel extensively.
I want to use my extensive business skills successfully.
I want to write and perform music.
I want to make a positive difference.
I want to work with people, increasing the inspiration, happiness and sortedness on the planet.
I want to have fun and spread fun.
I want to have peace and spread peace.

Now, my little brain just cannot imagine how I can do all of those things at once or consecutively in any reasonable pattern. This just does not compute on my computer’s hardware ad I don’t know if the conundrum has actioned a short circuit or some nonsensical algorithm absurdity but all I know is that I don’t know … I don’t know what to do right now. I don’t know what to do (or aspire to) for the foreseeable future and I don’t know how or where to find a continuing passion/interest in any one particular thing.
And yet, somewhere in my heart, there lies (probably asleep or unconscious) a knowing that I can have all I want – to write, teach, travel, play, love, inspire, sort and uplift – and that it’s possible to do all of those things in some neatly logical blend of sequences … and that I’ll find that blend/sequence and my interest and success in it/them will grow.

So, oh Great and Patient Magnificence, what’s your answer?

Considering you’re put down your pen, laptop and mobile phone to listen, with personal intensity, to this sincere entreaty, I’d suggest that, in the name of efficiency, you may as well solve this wee dilemma while you’re on the case and listening. Then – since you know of my commitment to help you out any and all of the time – I can put my galactic muscle to the grindstone and help you with all those large catastrophes and injustices.

Thanks for listening and I appreciate your immediate and clear answer.
Your obedient servant.

Philip Bradbury.

Events and Stories

The events in our lives are not what shape our lives. These events simply happen to us – they do not make us what we are. Most of us think that what happened to us is what makes us the way we are today. Whether our parents were abusive or supportive, whether our teachers were empowering or nasty, whether our neighbourhood was poor or affluent, whether our skin was black or white, whether our bodies are male or female, whether our friends were law-abiding or criminals, whether our health was good or bad – all of these things factual things are seen as the life-shaping elements in us. You may have believed that it would be difficult to change yourself for those events and circumstances will not change – they were in the past and the colour of your skin, nature of your parents and every other thing you currently have cannot be changed. By believing these unchangeable and historical facts have made you as you are, you may well feel that you cannot be any other than that which you already are.

You can change who you are and that change will be much easier when you realise that the events in your life have nothing to do with your feelings, behaviour, status, assets and relationships. What has actually shaped your life are the stories you have created around the events in your life. Let me explain.

During the seven years I was at boarding school, I was brilliant at sport – I represented the school at more sports than anyone else and that record still stands, over thirty years later. I was very proud of my sporting achievements and I really wanted my father so see me and to know how good I was. However, during those seven years, I only remember him watching one rugby match. I always prayed that he would turn up for each tennis match, soccer game, gymnastics exhibition and every other sporting event and I was always disappointed when he didn’t appear. So, the event was that my father didn’t turn up.

From that event, I created a story that he wasn’t interested in my achievements and that he didn’t love me. I held to this story for another thirty years and fluctuated between trying to get him to acknowledge and admire my achievements and being very bitter that he never seemed to. Then, in the realisation that I had created a story around the events (or non-events), I was able to see that he really did love me and his way of loving was to work very hard to create the money to provide the things we needed.

The important thing here is that the story I had created (and not the event itself) was what had shaped my life and, in that realisation, I was able to change the story … I was actually able to change my past, which freed me to step beyond the limitations (my father’s lack of love) I had created about from past and to step forward into the void of my future, knowing that my father did indeed love me.

You may know children from the same family who have grown up with quite different attitudes and achievements. One of them may feel completely blessed with their wonderful parents, friends, teachers and others in their life, while the other sees the same people in their life as being abusive, obstructive and disempowering. They’ve lived near-identical events in their childhood but the stories they’ve created around those events have drawn them to very different destinies.

What happened to you was neither good nor bad. The ‘good’ or ‘bad’ was your interpretation, or perception, of what happened. So, the stories you tell of your life will not be the events themselves, but your perception of the events. However, like me, you can change the stories and recreate your past, opening yourself up to greater possibilities. And, as you separate your stories from your events, you can take away the judgements and analyses you’ve had of those things. Freeing yourself from judgements of others also frees you from the judgements you have of yourself. And, in that freedom, you can stand outside yourself, as the silent witness to your life, seeing every event as simply an event, unhindered by judgements, and as an opportunity for growth and greater self-awareness.

While in South Africa in 2002, one of the speakers at the international HIV/AIDS conference was Mnumbeko Mpongo, a 27 year-old black woman, from Cape Town, who had contracted HIV by being gang-raped three years previously. After being frightened, angry and disempowered, initially, she had chosen to change her attitude, with the help of Dianne Lang, an AIDS worker. When I met Mnumbeko, she had no ill feelings towards her attackers and, in fact, was thankful to them for she realised their gift was to take her life on a far more meaningful path, to finding the means to heal herself completely of HIV with natural remedies and life-style changes and to becoming a health worker for the Cape Town council. In her passionate and moving speech she said that she didn’t need our sympathy or our acceptance for she had come to respect and accept herself, no matter what the outside world threw at her.

So, let’s start unravelling the stories and getting clear about the events in your life.

This is an excerpt from The Lawless Way by Philip Bradbury.

Choosing Yes And Stepping Up

We choose by choosing and we choose by not choosing. Everything we do or don’t do is a decision and is weighed up at the end; not by some Akashic Records or a conversation with Peter at the Golden gates. No, it’s weighed up by none but ourselves at the end – do we feel a sense of contentment and completion at a life well lived or do we feel that cold bitterness at a life lived less well? No one will be our judge – not now and not at any other time. Neither God, Saint Peter, Buddha or anyone else outside our skins is there to judge. There’s only us, each masticating over the worthiness (or otherwise) of how we lived, what we’ve done and why.

Most people knocking on death’s door regret not what they did but what they didn’t do. Ask anyone in their wisdom years and they’ll tell you their main regret is the things they didn’t do and the things they didn’t say. Help them make two lists and the list of I wish I hadn’t done that will be much shorter than the list of I wish I had done that.

Ending our lives with memories, not dreams, is not what most people aspire to but it’s what brings the greatest sigh of satisfaction, of contentment, at the end … and at every other time up till that moment.

If we keep the end in mind – memories, not dreams – we will always find it easier to make effective decisions.

Consider this: Everything counts; nothing does not count.

While we’re sitting at the crossroads, wondering whether to make this decision or that, we’re actually making the decision to do nothing. We’re making the decision to hide from a life lived less well. We’re making a decision to end our lives with that sad, cold shard of bitterness in our throats.

Yes, of course we need to ponder things for a moment – a minute, a day, a month – before our vision clears. There are healthy, peaceful pauses and there are uncomfortable pauses induced by fear. We always know if a pause, a pondering, is right because a right pause has a feeling of peace along with it. A pause in denial of life has no peace at all.

However, the universe abhors a vacuum and loves decisiveness. It explodes with gratitude when we make a choice and implodes with negativity when we dither.

Last week  I finally broke through a momentary procrastination and the universe applauded in its beautifully unexpected way. I had been asked to write an anger management teaching module for the Billion Child Appeal* . I had largely finished the work but kept telling myself and others that I needed just a little more information; I just needed to do a little more reading and research. Then, in a moment of honesty, I admitted to a friend that my procrastination had nothing to do with information and everything to do with fear of judgement – as soon as I emailed them the document, I would expose myself to their scrutiny and to possible condemnation of my work. The next day I finished the module and emailed it off. Within ten minutes I received two unexpected and unrelated invitations: one was to write a chapter of a book being published in New Zealand and the other to speak at a conference in South Africa in September. Then, today (6th Jan 2013), I was asked to speak at a series of four seminars in New Zealand in February and March. That’s the kind of applause you hear from the universe when you acknowledge, accept and forgive your fears and then take action in the defencelessness of love. Of course I immediately said yes to the first two invitations – not knowing how I’d fulfil them – because I knew I’d love to do them. The third invitation I said an immediate No to on purely practical grounds – I was already fully committed for those two months.

If you’re ever stuck for a decision because you don’t know how to do what you want to do, choose Yes and let the universe work out the how.

Suzy, from Australia’s Sunshine Coast, was an experienced horse rider and, despite never having played polo, decided she really wanted to. There is no official polo club nearby so she put that desire out to the Universe and through many ‘coincidences’ got introduced to an informal country polo club nearby, but then found out that she had to have her own horse in order to play. She had no horse and felt she couldn’t afford one. She could have given up there and then. However, she didn’t give up. She found out when the next polo training was and turned up without a horse and, dressed in her riding clothes, expected the universe to provide the how. She got chatting with a man brushing his polo horse and, fired by her enthusiasm, he suggested she could ride the horse he was brushing while he rode one of the other horses. She got to play a game and met the owner of the property who offered her that she could rent a polo horse on a permanent basis. So now she has her own (rented) polo horse and plays polo every weekend.

They say that if you want to write a book, it won’t write itself while you’re wondering what to write. You actually have to turn up at the page – ready or not – and start writing. Once your pen hits the paper the words will arrive. However, they won’t arrive while you’re bemoaning that you don’t have time to write (but really want to), don’t know what to write about (but really want to) and don’t know how to go about writing (but really want to). Your really want to is a bare faced lie if you have one or more reasons (excuses?) for not finding a piece of paper, a pen and half an hour to write something. There is always, always, always time to do what you really want to do. And you never need to know the how – the how to do it is not your job; that’s the universe’s job and it always, always, always knows the how. It rarely tells you the how until you’ve turned up at the page or, as in Suzy’s case, turned up at the polo ground.

In 2012 Anna, helped to organise an A Course in Miracles conference in Birmingham, England. At one stage the conference was fully booked and no more tickets were available. Some people tried to book, found they couldn’t and gave up. Some people, however, didn’t give up. Some from Ireland and other far away places came by plane, train and car and turned up, expecting a seat at the fully-booked conference. And, strangely, the number of these people turning up in faith exactly matched the number of late cancellations. No one was left outside the doors.

With our computational brains it can be difficult to let go of the need to work the how but if we are to live well-lived lives, this is what we must do.

Science tells us that at least 99.9% of our world is space. Atoms, our bodies, our planet, the solar system; all are 99.9% space and 0.1% matter. When we answer a question we take ourselves to solidity, to matter, to a fixed and immovable position. Our brains are wired this way. We spend our lives trying to calculate, analyse and understand our world, giving solidity and certainty to its seeming confusion. In answering a question, any question, we attach ourselves to the 0.1% of what’s possible, locking ourselves out of the 99.9% of potential.

By asking questions, however, we take ourselves to the spaces between, the HUGE spaces between, wherein lie our greatest potential.

We pretend to ask questions but they usually have answers within them.

If we have, say, cancer, we might ask, “Which doctor should I go to?” That’s a tiny question, confining us to the answer of doctors.

We might open ourselves up a little and ask, “What would it take for my cancer to go?” That question is larger as it goes beyond specific cures. However, it is confined to a specific – our cancer.

We could open ourselves up even more and ask, “What would it take for me to live an abundant and healthy life?” That question goes beyond the cancer (and its cures) and is now about you in a bigger life.

We could open ourselves up even more by asking, “What would it take for me to provide the greatest good to the greatest number of people?” This has now gone beyond you and out to an unknown number of other people.

Asking the bigger and bigger questions takes greater and greater courage for it takes us further and further from certainty and comfort and further into the Mystery.

For example, doing the greatest good for the greatest number could mean dying from our cancer in a way that bestows the greatest example of grace and peace on this world. Or it may mean recovering from it in ways we can’t currently comprehend and then teaching our recovery methods to a large number of people. The bigger questions elicit the biggest responses from the Universe, from the Mystery. They take us to the greatest part of ourselves and into a future we haven’t lived before. Most people, however, wish only for a future that’s a rerun of their past and so won’t ask big questions. In fact, they’ll answer questions as, to them, a familiar unpleasantness is infinitely better than an unfamiliar amazing.

For example, I could answer a question by asking the Universe for a new, three-bedroom, two-garage, tile roofed, brick house with this and that and the next thing. I’ve seen tile roofs, brick houses, three-bedroom houses and double garages. Afraid of anything I haven’t already experienced. I’ll choose my next house from my past.

Then again, I might want a future that’s different from my past. This adds uncertainty and requires trust and courage and my question could be, “I want an accommodation (it might not be a house) that feels homely, safe, welcoming and that I’m proud of.” Moving away from the tangible specifics and opening to the emotions I want to feel around this accommodation gives greater openness for the Mystery to provide something beyond my currently limited imagination.

When we ask the big open questions we take ourselves more and more into the Mystery, more and more into the open ness of that which is beyond our certain, constricting world of matter.

Some give answers for they wish not go anywhere they’ve not gone before. More courageous people ask questions and listen to answers from the Mystery. And then they make decisions based on where their sense of peace comes from, knowing that they don’t know the how of their decision and knowing that they don’t need to know the how. What they do know … what you do know … is that, by turning up, the how will be given and your dreams will be turned into memories in a life well lived.

[I wrote this on Monday with no thought of cancer being in my life. On Tuesday my doctor sent me to a skin specialist who took a biopsy from my face. On Thursday the specialist told me I needed to be in hospital on Friday because I had a "very serious" cancer!]

* The Billion Child Appeal is a South African organisation that aspires to get a billion children out of poverty, via education.