What is your perspective? What type of lenses are you looking through? Do you generally see problems or possibilities?
With fluctuations in the economy, the backdrop of multiple wars and the tempestuous weather showing us evidence of global warming, change is clearly in the air. For many people the uncertainty of what will come can be quite stressful. However, as the Chinese saying goes: “Crisis is an incipient moment (when something begins or changes).” The outcome will depend on your perspective, which in turn will drive your choices.
As John Lobbock said: “What we see depends on what we look for.” In fact, this is true. Psychologists call it selective perception. Since there is so much stimuli coming at us we choose what we hear and see to suit our needs. Just as a photographer uses various lenses to show “reality” in different ways, we each have a set of filters — experience, culture, economic status, mental and physical health, etc. — through which we see the world. Therefore, if life constantly looks dismal to you, it could be your perspective.
Your viewpoint shapes your thoughts, decisions, actions — and ultimately, your feeling of success. For example, have you ever wondered why people in some of the poorest parts of the world seem happier than those in the wealthiest nations? It’s probably because they view life through the values-lenses of health and family versus wealth and fame. Of course, those choices are not mutually exclusive. However, if you lose the latter you can recover, if you lose the former you’re truly lost. Remember a time when your perspective changed dramatically, such as falling in love or a death in the family. In an instant, your orientation shifted. What you placed in focus was different. The world may have looked brighter, or dimmer. You may have been prompted to action. If you just welcomed the birth of your first child, for example, you may start thinking about the quality of the local school system or have the impetus to leave work earlier.
If you are experiencing a challenging time right now, think about how you can shift your perspective. If you’ve lost your job, maybe it’s an opportunity to go back to school or turn your hobby into a business. If you must reduce your spending, maybe it’s an opportunity to streamline your entire life and spend more time around the dinner table with your family. If you have received a diagnosis, perhaps it’s a reminder of the importance of healthy living. Taking an optimistic viewpoint of the chaos in our external world, maybe it’s time for all of us to go inside ourselves and reevaluate our core values. It may even usher us into a new spiritual paradigm where the currency is how many people we can inspire versus how many things we can acquire (see “The Power Living Manifesto”).
The Yoga Sutras teach us that the entire world is our own projection, and that things outside neither bind nor liberate us; only our attitudes toward them does that. For example, think about the belief that “life is hard.” If you operate from this assumption, everything you do will seem like a struggle. You look for challenges in every situation, potentially creating your own roadblocks. Instead, if you turn that around to “I am meant to succeed,” then you open your mind to new ideas. As my yoga lineage guru Sri Swami Satchidananda said, “There’s nothing wrong with the world. You can make it heaven or hell according to your approach.”
The ability to reframe a situation is an important skill that can transform your life and our world. Today, take time to clear your lenses so you can view life from a higher perspective.
Action steps:
Choose to take at least one action to make a difference in your life today. Here are some suggestions:
Be a neutral observer. When a situation occurs, don’t immediately judge it. Take a deep breath and take yourself out of it. Try to see it from multiple angles.
Take an optimist viewpoint. Look for the opportunity in a seemingly “bad” situation.
Deliberately test out a new perspective. Next time you are in a traffic jam, don’t fret about “wasted” time. Use it as a chance to meditate or do some isometric exercises.
Be grateful for what you have. Next time you think you have it bad, think about those who have it worse. Remember the Denis Waitely quote: “I had the blues because I had no shoes until upon the street, I met a man who had no feet.”
Offer your services to someone who could benefit from your talents. This may change their perspective as well as your own.
Keep a “belief journal.” Write down your core values and beliefs. Determine which ones serve you and which ones don’t. Constantly review it and make adjustments.
Affirmation:
The second principle of Power Living is “Tune Your Mind to the Positive,” and one technique we use with clients is affirmation. Here’s one to help shift your perspective:
Today, I have an optimistic view on life. I look for the opportunity in every situation. I accept new ideas and viewpoints. I know that all is working for my highest good. I understand that the outside world is based on my thoughts and mental attitude. If I control my mind and frame of reference, I have controlled everything… in my control. Today, I have an optimistic view on life.
Teresa Kay-Aba Kennedy – “Dr. Terri K.”
What do you get when you cross a Harvard MBA and a Doctor of Philosophy in World Religions with a Holistic Health Counselor?
Quite a bit of yin-yang! After almost dying from an ulcerated digestive system in her twenties, Teresa Kay-Aba Kennedy realized that her Type-A workaholic tendencies might be good for the bottom-line, but not for her spirit or health. The process of rebuilding herself – mind, body, and spirit – unveiled her calling. A few years later, when she decided to leave her lucrative media career to become a social entrepreneur and health advocate, most people thought she had lost her mind. Instead, she found her Self. Now, her mission is to help people from all walks of life, live better lives.
She is President of Power Living Enterprises, Inc., a business & lifestyle consulting company which helps individuals, businesses and communities make purposeful choices that create long-term sustainability. She is also the Founder of Ta Yoga, which operates one of the first yoga studios in Harlem, and Chair of the Board of Yoga Alliance – the internationally-recognized non-profit organization that sets standards for yoga teaching in the United States. A leading expert on Health and Productivity Management, she was named National Ambassador for the American Heart Association in 2008 representing them in the media with a focus on their “Search Your Heart” campaign.
“Power Living is being spiritually connected, mentally focused, physically energized, emotionally engaged, and environmentally supported. It is a way of being that allows life to flow. It is committing your energy to what you care about on a day-to-day basis.”
The practice is guided by Five Principles, each of which represents the five dimensions, which are all inter-related:
“There is no joy in smallness. joy is in the infinite, joy is in Brahm — Totality.”
Chandogya Upanishad, verse 7.23
True happiness lies in freedom, fullness, and all possibilities, the state of enlightenment, or Brahm—Totality. In this state of unbounded awareness one experiences and perceives infinity in everything. This song and slide show illustrate this reality of Totality, where infinity is found in every point, joy is in everything!
Poets have also perceived and proclaimed this truth:
“All finite things reveal infinitude…” Theodore Roethke
“To see a world in a grain of sand/ and a heaven in a wild flower/ Hold infinity in the palm of your hand/and eternity in an hour…” William Blake
How can everyone realize this truth for themselves? It is as simple as diving within to the infinity of your own inner consciousness, which is easily, effortlessly accessible through the practice of Transcendental Meditation
The Bodhicharyavatara was composed by the Indian scholar Shantideva, renowned in Tibet as one of the most reliable of teachers. Since it mainly focuses on the cultivation and enhancement of Bodhichitta, the work belongs to the Mahayana. At the same time, Shantideva’s philosophical stance as expounded particularly in the ninth chapter on wisdom, follows the Prasangika Madhyamika viewpoint of Chandrakirti.
The principal focus of Mahayana teachings is on cultivating a mind wishing to benefit other sentient beings. With an increase in our own sense of peace and happiness we will naturally be better able to contribute to the peace and happiness of others. Transforming the mind and cultivating a positive, altruistic and responsible attitude is beneficial right now. Whatever problems and difficulties we may have, we can thereby face them with courage, calmness and high spirits. Therefore, it is also the very root of happiness for many lives to come.
Based on my own little experience I can confidently say that the teachings and instructions of the Buddhadharma and particularly the Mahayana teachings continue to be relevant and useful today. If we sincerely put the gist of these teachings into practice, we need have no hesitation about their effectiveness. The benefits of developing qualities like love, compassion, generosity, and patience are not confined to the personal level alone; they extend to all sentient beings and even to the maintenance of harmony with the environment. It is not as if these teachings were useful at some time in the past but are no longer relevant in modern times. They remain pertinent today. This is why I encourage people to pay attention to such practices; it is not just so that the tradition may be preserved.
The Bodhicharyavatara has been widely acclaimed and respected for more than one thousand years. It is studied and praised by all four schools of Tibetan Buddhism. I myself received transmission and explanation of this important, holy text from the late Kunu Lama, Tenzin Gyaltsen, who received it from a disciple of the great Dzogchen master, Dza Patrul Rinpoche. It has proved very useful and beneficial to my mind.
I am delighted that the Padmakara Translation Group has prepared a fresh English translation of the Bodhicharyavatara. They have tried to combine an accuracy of meaning with an ease of expression, which can only serve the text’s purpose well. I congratulate them and offer my prayers that their efforts may contribute to greater peace and happiness among all sentient beings.
Treasured by Buddhists of all traditions, The Way of the Bodhisattva (Bodhicharyavatara) is a guide to cultivating the mind of enlightenment, and to generating the qualities of love, compassion, generosity, and patience. This text has been studied, practiced, and expounded upon in an unbroken tradition for centuries, first in India, and later in Tibet. Presented in the form of a personal meditation in verse, it outlines the path of the Bodhisattvas–those who renounce the peace of individual enlightenment and vow to work for the liberation of all beings, and to attain buddhahood for their sake.
This version, tranlated from the Tibetan, is a revision by the tranlators of the 1997 edition. Included are a foreword by His Holiness the Dalai Lama, a new translators’ preface, a thorough introduction, a note on the translation, and three appendices of commentary by the Nyingma master Kunzang Pelden.
Bodhisattvas renounce nirvana and vow to work for the welfare of all beings. This pivotal work outlines the path that bodhisattvas should follow as they seek to teach others the path to nirvana. It contains moral instruction and meditation exercises for bodhisattvas to practice as they engage in their work. One of the great classics of Mahayana Buddhism, this text is beloved by Buddhists of all traditions.
“Shantideva’s work is required reading for an understanding of Tibetan Buddhism, and the clarity and crispness of this new translation makes it an accessible way into this world.”–Publishers Weekly
Why did we separate from God, our true Self, in the first place?
You wanted to play. And in the process, you forgot. That caused separation. You couldn’t have played the way you are playing, did play and will be playing if you were united. You created separation because you wanted to play.
Why would we choose to play? To enjoy! The intrinsic qualification of playing is to enjoy, to feel good. There is nothing wrong with enjoyment as long as you don’t forget your true Self. But with limited ego created out of separation, you cannot enjoy much. That is exactly the point: you lost your joy and bliss and got to enjoyment. Joy is an abstract noun; enjoy is a verb. You had joy; now you want to en-joy. That creates separation.
God was Himself in joy and bliss and He said, “Let Me be many.” He multiplied within Himself. You cannot enjoy without creating duality. You were being; now you become. Be is an abstract noun; becoming is a predicate. That is what makes creation of objectivity and that is exactly the definition of separation, unless by that coming out from your Oneness, Truth and Light, you maintain your Consciousness throughout.
Let’s say there is an Enlightened being and an unconscious being and each is eating an apple. The unconscious one is enjoying the apple very much! The enlightened person may also feel good about it but is he enjoying the apple in the same way as the unconscious one? No. Why? This is the beauty of maintaining Oneness, where there is no separation. The conscious being is not getting excitement and enjoyment from the apple. He is already joyful within; he is just eating the apple. When you identify with the sensual world-the objective five senses-you lose the consciousness of the original Light or Spirit.
The Divine is everywhere, within and without, but you cannot realize this intellectually. Once you get back to your Self and see that everything is within you, including enjoyments, then the distinction of within and without will be lost. Krishna said very clearly to Arjuna, “All this is within me.” It is all One. All that you are trying to gratify yourself with is coming from you. You have lost your original blissfulness. Once you realize this, you will not be starving like a pauper for sense gratification. Your life and whole consciousness will change.
DISCOVERING THE JOY WITHIN US
�You attributed to one million things in the world the joy that is within you. The Enlightened one knows this. When He enjoys something, He knows enjoyment is within Himself, as God does. The difference is: you got separated because you created enjoyment as a separate identity. If you were conscious all the time, you would never have misery, pain or affliction. Krishna said to Arjuna in the Bhagavad Gita: �There is nothing in the three worlds that I cannot do or enjoy or achieve or possess. But still, while doing, I am not doing. While enjoying, I am not enjoying. It is my true Self only.� He doesn�t go outside Himself to identify with that. Everything is within Him. That is how He showed the Universal Form to Arjuna.
Once you get back to your Self and see that everything is within you, including enjoyments, then the distinction of within and without will be lost. You will not see the inside as Divine and outside as un-Divine. Krishna said very clearly to Arjuna, �All this is within me.� It is all One. All that you are trying to gratify yourself with is coming from you.� ~Swami Amar Jyoti
For many, times are hard. Wealth is something you might have known in the past. But there is less evidence of it now.
What about the innate wealth of an ordinary person? Not their possessions, lifestyle or money in the bank. The wealth of who they are, deep down. The wealth of their spirit. Your spirit, My spirit. The spirit that unites and makes up our common humanity. Our human community.
For those of us who feel unsure of our financial futures, how can we put money in its place and yet ensure a higher quality of life with greater health, well-being and happiness?
How? Wait, there is a little more yet before the how. Maybe for you, just getting through the week is challenging enough.
Have you grown accustomed to the idea that wealth is associated with money — alone? I have. I am in the process of changing my mind. The change is one that is happening from the inside out. Get wealthy first, and then go for for money second.
What on Earth do I mean by that? In so many ways, we are told that to be happy we need this that or the other “thing”. You know, a holiday in Bali, a sleek Porsche, Jimmy Choo handbag, the iPhone series 5 — maybe not yet available, but soon will be. All of these are wonderful in their way. Are they necessary for happiness? You can answer that.
I am all for a rich life, to enjoy the best that is on offer, materially and otherwise. The issue is that money and possessions can get “sticky.” That is to say we can become over-dependent upon them. Attached and fearing their loss, we become driven to protect and increase the supply, in case we lose the comfort and pleasure they give us. Very few of us in the so-called developed world suffer the deprivations of many in countries such as Kenya, where millions lack the most fundamental needs as we see them.
Fear of loss does not enrich well-being, peace of mind or prosperity. Prolonged fear depletes and, eventually, makes you sick.
The change of mind I refer to above is taking place from the inside out — from what I call the soul level, or inspiration. What if we were each born with all we ever needed to sustain and fulfill our lives? That within us we have extraordinary reserves of as yet untapped wealth in the forms of personal assets, talents, gifts, creativity — do you get the idea? These assets have of course to be played out in some way in the world to become useful, of value to others and fulfilled.
And when they are, life becomes very rich and rewarding, so much so that in their expression, you are fulfilled and have the experience of wealth. In this way, your wealthiness is very much in your own hands. What is more, the beauty of this is that in the fullness, you are not seeking “out there” for things to make you happy. You are happy. Period. And as your purchasing power grows, even by small amounts, so you may wish to participate in some of the wonderful things that money can buy.
A friend in her 70s, with a very limited budget discovered that she could go to her local flower market at the end of the sales day and pick up beautiful flowers at bargain prices to decorate her small apartment. Cut flowers speak to her of luxury. It is amazing how much you can get for a little when you put your mind to it. It pays us all to be savvy shoppers.
Of course you need money to cover life’s basic essentials. Maybe less than you think. It is amazing how you can develop a prosperous frame of mind, such that your euro, dollar, pound, yen goes further. It takes focus and discipline to buy simply what you need, no excess. It becomes a game. The game is fun.
5 Keys to Restoring Your Spirit of Wealth
1. Be a giver. Find something to give, if not money, your time, your love, your kindness, a smile. Giving affirms your natural wealth.
2. Be grateful. First thing in the morning and last thing at night, stop to count your blessings, some of those things you might take for granted — your friends, family, ability to talk and to listen, your education, nature around you. Write them down in a journal. Gratitude makes you feel full and raises your energy.
3. Be creative. Find new ways of managing the money you have, develop your sense of resourcefulness, use your imagination. Cultivate wealthy attitudes. Join with others to share innovations and ideas.
4. Look for joy. Find the fun in life around you, the smile on the face of a baby, the antics of animals, greet yourself with a smile in the mirror.
5. Simplify your life. Wealth could be less a matter of what you have, but what you are able to live without. Let go of the excess, give away, sell or throw out what no longer really serves or nourishes you.
If you are in a boring job that pays the rent, keep at it. But take some time to explore your dream of what your life can become. How would you really like to be living? What does wealth “mean” for you? What might a wealthy life mean for you?
Please join in the conversation. If there were a “wealth school” at which you could discover how to make the most of your life, and your money, what would you like to learn?
Anne Naylor has been a Consultant in personal motivation since 1982. Author
of three personal development books, Superlife, Superlove and SuperYou,
Anne gives Clear Results Consultations for individuals meeting life turning
points, or wishing to improve the quality of their lives. Gifted with a talent for
discerning the unique value in each of her clients, she communicates her trust
in the power of each person to lead a fulfilling and rewarding life, however
they define it.
Anne’s mission is: Building a better world on the solid foundation of
individual health, wealth and happiness and the appreciation of human value.
Through designing and presenting training programmes and seminars in self-
motivation, career development, personal success, leadership and team-
building, Anne has enabled a wide range of people to transform their personal
and professional lives.
Orchestrating Our Many Selves
Jean Houston on the Fallacy of
Self-Mastery
by Amy Edelstein
WIE: You write in your book A Passion for the Possible that “human beings are not constituted to be content with living as thwarted, inhibited versions of themselves. Throughout history and all over the world, people have felt a yearning to be more, a longing to push the membrane of the possible. They have entered monasteries and mystery schools, pursuing secular as well as esoteric studies. They have practiced yoga, martial arts, sports, dance, art. They have left home and family to adventure beyond the ordinary, embarking on visionary and spiritual quests.” Are you suggesting that what motivates an individual to pursue excellence in any of those disciplines, be it creative or athletic, is the same as what motivates an individual to pursue spiritual evolution or enlightenment?
JH: I think they come from different levels of the self. I talk about four levels in my work—the sensory, psychological, mythic and spiritual levels. So I would say that more likely what motivates people to pursue excellence is from the sensory and psychological levels, and what motivates them to pursue spiritual realization is more from the mythic and spiritual levels. But that impetus, the great sounding chord that says “it is time to be what you are” is there all the time. This is what I try to communicate in my workshops, seminars and books. The simplest book I ever wrote was A Passion for the Possible, in which I try to lead people into ways of enhancing each of the levels. And all of this works to some extent. But if you’re talking about enlightenment, I think it is a balance between all of the levels. At different times in life one level may be more emphasized than another, but above all it is the finding of the essential self that then becomes the orchestrator, the evocateur of these many levels of the self.
WIE: You speak about being “a conscious participant in an unfolding drama,” about the personal drama of life as an impersonal event and about our own struggles as equivalent to the challenges faced by heroes in the mythic stories. You also very passionately ask people to act with strength, courage and perseverance, and not to stop in the face of obstacles. In light of this, would you say that you are calling people to live from the realization of what you refer to as the “unitive level,” or could we say that you are also calling people to live a life of self—determination or, in other words, self-mastery?
JH: Again, I will not use the term “self-mastery”! I’m calling people to live out of the larger story, out of the capacity of their own destiny. The reason I use the great stories like the search for the Holy Grail and The Odyssey is that these myths help us tap into the extraordinary coding, which allows us to express the deepest truths about ourselves. We can find these deepest truths through realizing that we are part of a greater story. You see, we are storied beings; stories are just flowing through our bloodstream. We are a story at every second of our life, and the stages of our lives are great stories. What I try to do is help people to find these eternal stories that are there. These mythic tales of death and resurrection, rites of passage, quests and discoveries are organic constructs of the deep psyche. And they are there to show us that the story isn’t over. A few of us may get stuck, get depressed, get caught up in our own insularities, but when we find the motivating story, then the personal-particular becomes part of the personal-universal and we move on. The yellow brick road unfolds and the journey is before us.
WIE: Would you say that we need to live from these higher levels in order for evolution to take place?
JH: I would say that it’s as if we have a million potentials and we tootle and hoot on about twenty of them. Part of my work has been saying, “My God! Look what we’ve got! Look what’s there!” It’s not just in our body and mind, as Joseph Campbell thought, but in our very psyche. It’s not just cultural, it seems to be structural. It’s part of the resonance of the universal story that is activated in us, and when we tap into it, all kinds of potentials begin to unfold. If we are exploring our lives through the larger personae which we have within us, through the greater story, and if we are ultimately spiritually sourced in the ground of our being, we’re cooking on more elaborate burners, and the fire is under the crucible of spirit.
WIE: In your travels all around the world, having met thousands of very unusual individuals, who would you say would be the greatest example of self-mastery? Who would you say was the greatest example of enlightenment? And what was it about them that distinguished them from each other?
JH: I wouldn’t describe an example of self-mastery, but I would of enlightenment. The most evocative example for me was an old man who I used to take walks with. When I was fourteen years old my parents got divorced, and I was just grief-stricken about it. I took to running down Park Avenue, late for school—I would run from my grief. And one day I ran into an old man and knocked the wind out of him. I picked him up and he said to me in a French accent, “Are you planning to run like that for the rest of your life?”
I said, “Yes sir, looks that way.”
He said, “Well, bon voyage!”
I said, “Bon voyage.” And I ran to school. The following week I was walking my fox terrier, Champ, and I saw the old man coming out of a building. I lived at 86th just off of Park Avenue and the old man lived somewhere around 84th and Park.
He said to me, “Ah, my friend the runner, you have a fox terrier. Where are you going?”
“Well sir, I take Champ to Central Park after school. I just think about things.”
“I will go with you sometime, okay?”
I said, “Well, sure.”
“I will take my constitutional.”
Now he was something. He had no self-consciousness at all. He had leaky margins with the world. He had a long French name but he asked me to call him by the first part of it, which to my American ears sounded like “Mr. Tayer.” So I called him Mr. Tayer. We walked for about a year and a half, off and on, mostly Tuesdays and Thursdays. He would suddenly fall to the ground and look at a caterpillar: “Oh, Jean, look at the caterpillar! Ah, moving, changing, transforming, metamorphosing. Jean, feel yourself to be a caterpillar. Can you do that?”
“Very easily, Mr. Tayer.” I mean, here I was, a fourteen-year-old girl nearly six feet tall with red dots on my face—I felt like a caterpillar!
He said, “What are you when you finally become a papillon, a butterfly? What is the butterfly of Jean?”
“I don’t know, Mr. Tayer!”
“Yes, you know, you know. I know you know. Now, what are you transforming into?”
“Well, I think when I grow up I’ll fly all over the world, and maybe I’ll help people.” It turned out to be largely true.
WIE: It certainly did.
JH: “Ah! Bon, bon, bon.” And he’d say, “Oh, Jean, lean into the wind!” There are these strong winds off of Central Park. “Ah, Jean, smell the wind! Same wind once went through Jesus Christ.”
“Jesus Christ felt this?”
“Yes. Oh, Marie Antoinette, here she comes! Genghis Khan, not so good. Joan of Arc, Jean D’Arc! Be filled with Jean D’Arc! Be filled with the tides of history!” We had all these wonderful games about life: “Jean, look at the clouds, God’s calligraphy in the sky!”
He would suddenly stop and look at you, and he would giggle and you would giggle, and he’d giggle and you’d giggle, and then he would look at you laughing and laughing as if you were the cluttered house that hid the Holy One. I would go home and tell my mother, “Mother I met my old man again and when I’m with him I leave my littleness behind.”
Toward the end of our walk together one day, he stopped suddenly and he turned to me and said, “Jean, what to you is the most fascinating question?”
And I said, “It’s about history, Mr. Tayer, and destiny, too. How can we take the right path in history so that we even have a destiny? My friends at school all talk about the H-bomb, and I wonder if I’ll ever get to be twenty-one years old. Mr. Tayer, you always talk about the future of man as if we had a future; I want to know what we have to do to keep that future coming.”
He said, “We need to have more specialists in spirit who will lead people into self-discovery.”
“What do you mean, Mr. Tayer?”
He said—and this is exactly what he said; I was taking notes because I knew I was in the presence of greatness—”We are being called into metamorphosis, into a far higher order, and yet we often act only from a tiny portion of ourselves. It is necessary that we increase that portion. But do not think for one minute, Jean, that we are alone in making that possible. We are part of a cosmic evolutionary movement that inspires us to unite with God. This is the lightning flash for all our potentialities. This is the great originating cause of all our shifts and changes. Without it there is nothing but struggle and decline.”
And I said to him, “What do you call it? I’ve never heard of it. Can something as great as that even have a name?”
“You are right,” he said, “it is impossible to name.”
“Well, try to name it, Mr. Tayer. I’ve heard that once a thing is named, you can begin to work with it.”
He seemed amused and he said, “I’ll try.” And then he said, “It is the demand of the universe for the birth of the ultra-human. It is the rising of a new form of psychic energy in which the very depths of loving within you are combined with what is most essential in the flowing of the cosmic stream.”
I didn’t really understand what he was saying, but I nodded sagely, and I said I would ponder these things, and he said he would also. One day toward the end of our time together—this was actually the last day that I ever saw him—Mr. Tayer began talking to me about the lure of becoming, a phrase that then became a part of my language. And also about how we humans are part of an evolutionary process in which we are being drawn toward something—which he called the “Omega point”—full of evolution. He told me that he believed that physical and spiritual energy was always flowing out from the Omega point and empowering us as well as leading us forward through love and illumination. And it was then that I asked him my ultimate question, the one that I must say has continued to haunt me all the days of my life: “What do you believe it’s all about, Mr. Tayer?” His answer is enshrined in my heart. He started by saying, “Je crois”—I believe. “I believe that the universe is in evolution. I believe that the evolution is toward spirit. I believe that spirit fulfills itself in a personal God.”
“And what do you believe about yourself, Mr. Tayer?”
He said, “I believe that I am a pilgrim of the future.”
It was the Thursday before Easter Sunday, 1955. I had brought him the shell of a snail. “Ah! Escargot!” he said, and then he began to wax ecstatic for the better part of an hour about spirals and nature and art, snail shells and galaxies, the labyrinth on the floor of Chartres Cathedral—which later became a symbol of my work—and the Rose Window and the convolutions of the brain, the whirl of flowers and the circulation of the heart’s blood. It was all taken up in a great hymn to the spiraling evolution of spirit and matter, “It’s all a spiral of becoming, Jean!” Then he looked away, and he seemed to be seeing into the future and he said, “Jean, the people of your time, toward the end of this century, will be taking the tiller of the world. But they cannot go directly.” He used the French word, directement. “You have to go in spirals, touching upon every people, every culture, every kind of consciousness. It is then that the newest in the field of mind will awaken and we will rebuild the earth.” And then he said to me, “Jean, remain always true to yourself, but move ever upward toward greater consciousness and greater love.” Those were the words that he said to me. Then he said, “Au revoir, Jean.”
“Au revoir, Mr. Tayer! I’ll see you on Tuesday!”
And Tuesday came and I brought Champ, and Champ whimpered; he seemed to know something. And my old man never came. Thursday, Tuesday, Thursday. Eight weeks I waited and he never came again, because it turned out he had died on that Sunday in 1955.
Years later, somebody gave me a book without a cover called The Phenomenon of Man. And when I began to read it, I said, “My God! That’s my pal, that’s . . . oh my goodness. . . .” And I went to my friend and asked, “Have you got the cover to the book?” And she gave it to me and I flipped it over and, of course, there was my old man. No forgetting that face! Mr. Tayer had been Teilhard de Chardin.
WIE: That’s extraordinary!
JH: He was the most enlightened person I’ve ever met. He certainly has had a profound influence on my life, on my sense of history and of who and what we are. He was childlike, always in a state of wonder and astonishment. Always in a state of, as I said, leaky margins with reality. There wasn’t a question of self because he was so embodied in all things, in all existences. And he saw spiritual and physical energy as utterly necessary to each other. So that’s ultimately what I have to say about the whole thing and what I really believe.
WIE: I’d like to begin by asking how you would define “self-mastery.”
Jean Houston: I would never use the word “mastery”! I thought I’d tell you that right away. Maybe that’s a feminine point of view—I can talk about an orchestration and a balance of capacities, but I don’t think I’d ever use the word “mastery.” To me, it smacks of galloping chutzpah! I just don’t think self-mastery exists. How’s that for a beginning?
I think the nearest that we can come to talking about self-mastery is to talk about the nature of essence; and when we touch into essence, latent abilities and skills suddenly jump into life.
WIE: How would you define “enlightenment” then?
JH: I think enlightenment exceeds definition because it is so experiential; the mystics say it’s unexplainable. But if I can speak about it as a process, I can get closer. I’d say it’s an extraordinary effort of reweaving the self in body, mind and spirit that can be accomplished by a depth of loving, by a giving over of the local self to the godstuff. It is the honing of one’s inner and outer perceptions so one is able to see, hear, touch, taste, feel and intuit the immensity of what is really there. The veils of the self are lifted.
WIE: Exponents of self-mastery and enlightenment each tend to see their approach as leading to the realization of our full human potential. Yet closer examination reveals these two approaches to be radically different. The highly accomplished individuals who we have come to call the “Self Masters” express what could be described as an “I Can” spirit. They are individuals who have made enormous effort to break through seemingly unbreakable barriers, and who exude a powerful confidence that comes from their fundamental knowing that “I can do it!” Jack LaLanne would be a good example of someone who embodies this “I Can” spirit. On the other hand, enlightenment is described by the great traditions as a fundamental groundedness in what is referred to as “Being” itself, or “I Am.” Would you say that the “I Can” and the “I Am” are basically antithetical modes of transformation?
JH: Well, not from the perspective of God. You see, you can get extraordinary confidence from being “in the flow” in great sporting moments. For example, when I was fourteen or fifteen I was a very serious fencer. I really loved it and I was pretty good. Once, in New York, I was in a round-robin—where you keep competing until you lose—and what happened to me was fascinating. There were men and women, and we were fencing with foils. All the fencers were much older than I was, and they were some of the city’s best. Well, as I began to fence I suddenly found that I was in “the zone”! No longer just a pretty good fencer, I had tapped into the essence of fencing. I was the sport! Anticipating all moves, seeing all opportunities, I couldn’t tire. Endless waves of energy filled me. There was no possibility of beating me. One after another, twenty opponents came up and were defeated. And there I was, “Quarte, sixte, paré, et là! Strike to the heart!” On and on it went—my essence and the essence of the sport in a rapturous union of movement and spirit. That kind of gallant élan filled me. I was all the great fencers who ever were, Scaramouche, Cyrano de Bergerac. I felt as if their spirits were joining with mine for one last great bout, until after six hours of continuous fencing, the match was stopped and I was declared the winner. How did this happen?!
Several times in my life I’ve been in that state, and it’s not a state of “I Can,” I assure you. It is as if your essence joins the essence of the action itself—almost like you tune into the god or goddess of the action, the very archetype of it. It’s much more complex than saying “I Can” and “I Am.”
WIE: When speaking about cultivating our highest human potential, the approach of self-mastery advocates the use of discipline and effort to push ourselves through limitations, while the traditional teachings of enlightenment point to the realization of a condition of effortless “letting go” as the ground for deep and abiding change. What do you see as the fundamental basis for the realization of our full human potential?
JH: We’re so different from each other. We’re as different as snowflakes. I often say, “We’re not flaky, we’re snowflakes.” Some people are pushers and some people are relaxers-into. That’s why, when I teach, I always try to provide a variety of ways into the unfolding and enlisting of capacities. My workshops are filled with music and dance and jokes and enactments and “process” as well as cognitive exercises, because the point is to reach people through whatever form. That’s why there are so many different forms of yoga—karma yoga, bhakti yoga, hatha yoga, dhyana yoga, etc. You can’t just talk about one particular way.
WIE: I understand, but just to pursue this question a little further, individuals who seem to have achieved an unusual degree of self-mastery often claim that through the consistent development of greater and greater control over our bodies, thoughts and feelings, it is possible to discover a deep sense of fulfillment and a profound experience of inner freedom. Enlightenment teachings, on the other hand, generally state that it’s only through a complete giving up of control, a submission to “Thy will” rather than “my will,” that we can experience true spiritual freedom. What is your view of these two different approaches to inner freedom?
JH: I would never use the word “control” here. I just don’t think it can be achieved! I would say instead a kind of “genial orchestration.” And you’ve also got to realize that you’re talking about the difference between the muscular West and the more relaxed East. Our Calvinistic theology is: Try! Try! “I will labor in the vineyard of the Lord to know if I’m worthy or not,” or, “Am I among the 144,000 elect? I can only prove it by trying harder and harder.” It’s a cultural lensing. Look at the stories that make up our culture’s mythic structures: Horatio Alger. Sail over the sea! Cut down the forest! Build! Push! Those are the words of a frontier psychology. And a frontier psychology will manifest especially in religious or spiritual experience as: Keep pushing, keep trying. Whereas the other is surrender: Surrender into love, surrender into being. The great mystics say, “My God, my Love, Thou art all mine and I am all Thine!” They talk about the intensity of loving; theirs is a culture of love. You see, the union with the Beloved is a different perspective.
What happens in either case is an alchemy, no question. It is an alchemy in which the human being attempts to become what he or she truly is, and in which they perhaps experience and express the greater life for which we have all been coded. You see, I believe that we’ve all been deeply coded for a much larger life. And I believe that what we’re calling “enlightenment” is coded in us as part of our inheritance. For different people from different parts of the world, there are certain patterns of journeys and stages of unfolding—not unlike the unfolding of the coding of the DNA structures in the genes.
My problem with those who will themselves to a certain end is that they lose access to the coding, and then they only gain the culture’s notion of what is good and best and bright and beautiful. You just have to look at Vanity Fair or Vogue magazine to see what I’m talking about. I think our potential is much richer than that, and I think that the Easterners have a deeper and more subtle and perhaps even a truer grasp of it.
WIE: You said you would never use the term “self-mastery,” and that maybe that’s a feminine point of view. It might intrigue you to know that it was very difficult finding women to interview for this issue of WIE, apparently because women don’t tend to speak about their achievements in the same way that men do. For example, Susan Powter wouldn’t go near the term “self-mastery” either. In spite of the fact that she expresses many of the qualities of self-mastery in her own life, she felt strongly that “mastery” represents a patriarchal view, and she insisted that we speak about this subject only in terms of natural processes and other more “feminine” concepts. Why do you object to the term “mastery,” and why do you think women in general object to both the word and the concept?
JH: I think “mastery” offends the senses of anybody who has a real ecological sense of the world. Sir Frances Bacon talked about extending the empire of man over things, and we see where that has brought us—our so-called mastery has resulted in so much destruction. So I think that’s why. Mastery just reflects such a narrow bandwidth. It is like making a slave of the self and then mastering your inner slave. In this country with its horrendous history of slavery—with its “Ho Massah! Yessah Massah!”—the word has fearful connotations. In addition to that, there is the sense that you are mastering the self. Who is to say that the self doesn’t have its own agenda, which may be much larger than one’s own ego’s view of what that agenda should be?
WIE: In the course of our research for this issue, we looked at many individuals who expressed the unusual qualities of self-mastery: control, discipline, perseverance in the face of obstacles, going beyond limitations and deep confidence and positivity. We read about some extraordinary women, including Billie Jean King, Jackie Joyner-Kersee, Jan Reynolds, who skied Mt. Everest, and Ann Bancroft, the first woman to go to the North and South Poles. To our surprise, we found that even these outstanding individuals didn’t describe their accomplishments with the degree of confidence and pride they undeniably warranted. In fact, King and Bancroft, in spite of their achievements, slipped into depression, disillusionment and despair. They didn’t sustain the same positive outlook on life—
JH: The way the men did.
WIE: Yes! We were intrigued by this, and we spoke with Beverly Slade, a psychologist who has studied the way women relate to excellence. She had some very interesting things to say. One of her primary conclusions is that women don’t want to speak about their own abilities because it’s socially unacceptable for them to do so; and if they do, they risk losing their relationships—the friendship, support, protection, and affirmation of men and of women. It’s acceptable in our culture for women to stand out if they are nurturers, like Mother Teresa, but women risk censure if they speak with confidence about their attainments, about their cultivation of self-mastery. What do you think about her conclusions?
JH: I think that is partially true, but I think there is a deeper story to it. The deeper story is that women are devoted to process rather than product. I think the underlying reason is that women are devoted to making things grow—so you do something and then it’s time to move on and do the next thing.
WIE: What do you mean by being “devoted to process”?
JH: Well, to be devoted to process is to really look at each stage as it unfolds, to see how the things cohere, develop, grow. The way or the path is what is important—it is the ways and the means; it is not the end. If you’re watching little children grow, if you’re taking care of things in process, then that’s what’s important and you get on with it.
WIE: From all I’ve heard about your teaching work, you really give everything you possibly can to what you are doing—you go all out. It doesn’t seem to be just about process. It isn’t only that you enjoy the preparation for one of your talks, for example, but that you give everything to make it exceptional. This is one of the qualities that we’ve found in self-mastery—giving everything, going for broke.
JH: To me that is not a mastery of the self. That is merely an orchestration of many qualities that I have developed over many years. It is my self in its efflorescence, you see, the fullness of my being. A fuller use. I even hate the word “use”; I would say—”fuller unfolding” or “being in the service of something that it seems very important to do.”
WIE: What do you think it is in you that drives you to go all the way when other people would settle for giving less than everything?
JH: Well, it is not ambition. I’ll tell you what it is—it’s a sense of time, of history, and a sense of urgency; knowing that we could lose it all. These are the times and they’re so critical. I figure I have maybe thirty or thirty-five good years left of my life. And I would hope in that time to continue to be able to do something to be of service to the planet, to people.
WIE: What do you think about the message of individuals like Anthony Robbins, who teach that the force of transformative change is materialized through taking action, that we control our own destiny through the decisions that we make? Or Jack LaLanne, who says he doesn’t know anything about grace, and asserts that “God helps those who help themselves”? Or Dan Millman, former world-class gymnast and author of books about human transformation, who endorses as a way to live the popular slogan “Just do it!”?
JH: That’s a very Western point of view!
WIE: The enlightenment teachings, on the other hand, point to surrender as the way to transformation. Would you say that genuine evolution is achieved through our own efforts, as these extraordinary individuals suggest, or is it found through naturally surrendering to that process of “unfolding,” as you have described it?
JH: Well, my point of view is that it is both plus much, much more—it’s not one or the other. As I said earlier, people are very different in the ways that they approach this. To be able to give a cogent answer, not only would I have to study these people’s work, but I would also have to look at long-term results in people’s lives. And I mean long-term results, not just people saying “I had a wonderful time at the seminar,” because that’s easy to get. We live in a testimonial world. To me the proof of the pudding is: are they kinder? Like the Dalai Lama says, “My religion is kindness.” Also, what is the service to the world that people are giving? Are they trying to make a difference and make this a better world? I feel that it really comes down to that.
WIE: You write in your book A Passion for the Possible that “human beings are not constituted to be content with living as thwarted, inhibited versions of themselves. Throughout history and all over the world, people have felt a yearning to be more, a longing to push the membrane of the possible. They have entered monasteries and mystery schools, pursuing secular as well as esoteric studies. They have practiced yoga, martial arts, sports, dance, art. They have left home and family to adventure beyond the ordinary, embarking on visionary and spiritual quests.” Are you suggesting that what motivates an individual to pursue excellence in any of those disciplines, be it creative or athletic, is the same as what motivates an individual to pursue spiritual evolution or enlightenment?
JH: I think they come from different levels of the self. I talk about four levels in my work—the sensory, psychological, mythic and spiritual levels. So I would say that more likely what motivates people to pursue excellence is from the sensory and psychological levels, and what motivates them to pursue spiritual realization is more from the mythic and spiritual levels. But that impetus, the great sounding chord that says “it is time to be what you are” is there all the time. This is what I try to communicate in my workshops, seminars and books. The simplest book I ever wrote was A Passion for the Possible, in which I try to lead people into ways of enhancing each of the levels. And all of this works to some extent. But if you’re talking about enlightenment, I think it is a balance between all of the levels. At different times in life one level may be more emphasized than another, but above all it is the finding of the essential self that then becomes the orchestrator, the evocateur of these many levels of the self.
WIE: You speak about being “a conscious participant in an unfolding drama,” about the personal drama of life as an impersonal event and about our own struggles as equivalent to the challenges faced by heroes in the mythic stories. You also very passionately ask people to act with strength, courage and perseverance, and not to stop in the face of obstacles. In light of this, would you say that you are calling people to live from the realization of what you refer to as the “unitive level,” or could we say that you are also calling people to live a life of self—determination or, in other words, self-mastery?
JH: Again, I will not use the term “self-mastery”! I’m calling people to live out of the larger story, out of the capacity of their own destiny. The reason I use the great stories like the search for the Holy Grail and The Odyssey is that these myths help us tap into the extraordinary coding, which allows us to express the deepest truths about ourselves. We can find these deepest truths through realizing that we are part of a greater story. You see, we are storied beings; stories are just flowing through our bloodstream. We are a story at every second of our life, and the stages of our lives are great stories. What I try to do is help people to find these eternal stories that are there. These mythic tales of death and resurrection, rites of passage, quests and discoveries are organic constructs of the deep psyche. And they are there to show us that the story isn’t over. A few of us may get stuck, get depressed, get caught up in our own insularities, but when we find the motivating story, then the personal-particular becomes part of the personal-universal and we move on. The yellow brick road unfolds and the journey is before us.
WIE: Would you say that we need to live from these higher levels in order for evolution to take place?
JH: I would say that it’s as if we have a million potentials and we tootle and hoot on about twenty of them. Part of my work has been saying, “My God! Look what we’ve got! Look what’s there!” It’s not just in our body and mind, as Joseph Campbell thought, but in our very psyche. It’s not just cultural, it seems to be structural. It’s part of the resonance of the universal story that is activated in us, and when we tap into it, all kinds of potentials begin to unfold. If we are exploring our lives through the larger personae which we have within us, through the greater story, and if we are ultimately spiritually sourced in the ground of our being, we’re cooking on more elaborate burners, and the fire is under the crucible of spirit.
WIE: In your travels all around the world, having met thousands of very unusual individuals, who would you say would be the greatest example of self-mastery? Who would you say was the greatest example of enlightenment? And what was it about them that distinguished them from each other?
JH: I wouldn’t describe an example of self-mastery, but I would of enlightenment. The most evocative example for me was an old man who I used to take walks with. When I was fourteen years old my parents got divorced, and I was just grief-stricken about it. I took to running down Park Avenue, late for school—I would run from my grief. And one day I ran into an old man and knocked the wind out of him. I picked him up and he said to me in a French accent, “Are you planning to run like that for the rest of your life?”
I said, “Yes sir, looks that way.”
He said, “Well, bon voyage!”
I said, “Bon voyage.” And I ran to school. The following week I was walking my fox terrier, Champ, and I saw the old man coming out of a building. I lived at 86th just off of Park Avenue and the old man lived somewhere around 84th and Park.
He said to me, “Ah, my friend the runner, you have a fox terrier. Where are you going?”
“Well sir, I take Champ to Central Park after school. I just think about things.”
“I will go with you sometime, okay?”
I said, “Well, sure.”
“I will take my constitutional.”
Now he was something. He had no self-consciousness at all. He had leaky margins with the world. He had a long French name but he asked me to call him by the first part of it, which to my American ears sounded like “Mr. Tayer.” So I called him Mr. Tayer. We walked for about a year and a half, off and on, mostly Tuesdays and Thursdays. He would suddenly fall to the ground and look at a caterpillar: “Oh, Jean, look at the caterpillar! Ah, moving, changing, transforming, metamorphosing. Jean, feel yourself to be a caterpillar. Can you do that?”
“Very easily, Mr. Tayer.” I mean, here I was, a fourteen-year-old girl nearly six feet tall with red dots on my face—I felt like a caterpillar!
He said, “What are you when you finally become a papillon, a butterfly? What is the butterfly of Jean?”
“I don’t know, Mr. Tayer!”
“Yes, you know, you know. I know you know. Now, what are you transforming into?”
“Well, I think when I grow up I’ll fly all over the world, and maybe I’ll help people.” It turned out to be largely true.
WIE: It certainly did.
JH: “Ah! Bon, bon, bon.” And he’d say, “Oh, Jean, lean into the wind!” There are these strong winds off of Central Park. “Ah, Jean, smell the wind! Same wind once went through Jesus Christ.”
“Jesus Christ felt this?”
“Yes. Oh, Marie Antoinette, here she comes! Genghis Khan, not so good. Joan of Arc, Jean D’Arc! Be filled with Jean D’Arc! Be filled with the tides of history!” We had all these wonderful games about life: “Jean, look at the clouds, God’s calligraphy in the sky!”
He would suddenly stop and look at you, and he would giggle and you would giggle, and he’d giggle and you’d giggle, and then he would look at you laughing and laughing as if you were the cluttered house that hid the Holy One. I would go home and tell my mother, “Mother I met my old man again and when I’m with him I leave my littleness behind.”
Toward the end of our walk together one day, he stopped suddenly and he turned to me and said, “Jean, what to you is the most fascinating question?”
And I said, “It’s about history, Mr. Tayer, and destiny, too. How can we take the right path in history so that we even have a destiny? My friends at school all talk about the H-bomb, and I wonder if I’ll ever get to be twenty-one years old. Mr. Tayer, you always talk about the future of man as if we had a future; I want to know what we have to do to keep that future coming.”
He said, “We need to have more specialists in spirit who will lead people into self-discovery.”
“What do you mean, Mr. Tayer?”
He said—and this is exactly what he said; I was taking notes because I knew I was in the presence of greatness—”We are being called into metamorphosis, into a far higher order, and yet we often act only from a tiny portion of ourselves. It is necessary that we increase that portion. But do not think for one minute, Jean, that we are alone in making that possible. We are part of a cosmic evolutionary movement that inspires us to unite with God. This is the lightning flash for all our potentialities. This is the great originating cause of all our shifts and changes. Without it there is nothing but struggle and decline.”
And I said to him, “What do you call it? I’ve never heard of it. Can something as great as that even have a name?”
“You are right,” he said, “it is impossible to name.”
“Well, try to name it, Mr. Tayer. I’ve heard that once a thing is named, you can begin to work with it.”
He seemed amused and he said, “I’ll try.” And then he said, “It is the demand of the universe for the birth of the ultra-human. It is the rising of a new form of psychic energy in which the very depths of loving within you are combined with what is most essential in the flowing of the cosmic stream.”
I didn’t really understand what he was saying, but I nodded sagely, and I said I would ponder these things, and he said he would also. One day toward the end of our time together—this was actually the last day that I ever saw him—Mr. Tayer began talking to me about the lure of becoming, a phrase that then became a part of my language. And also about how we humans are part of an evolutionary process in which we are being drawn toward something—which he called the “Omega point”—full of evolution. He told me that he believed that physical and spiritual energy was always flowing out from the Omega point and empowering us as well as leading us forward through love and illumination. And it was then that I asked him my ultimate question, the one that I must say has continued to haunt me all the days of my life: “What do you believe it’s all about, Mr. Tayer?” His answer is enshrined in my heart. He started by saying, “Je crois”—I believe. “I believe that the universe is in evolution. I believe that the evolution is toward spirit. I believe that spirit fulfills itself in a personal God.”
“And what do you believe about yourself, Mr. Tayer?”
He said, “I believe that I am a pilgrim of the future.”
It was the Thursday before Easter Sunday, 1955. I had brought him the shell of a snail. “Ah! Escargot!” he said, and then he began to wax ecstatic for the better part of an hour about spirals and nature and art, snail shells and galaxies, the labyrinth on the floor of Chartres Cathedral—which later became a symbol of my work—and the Rose Window and the convolutions of the brain, the whirl of flowers and the circulation of the heart’s blood. It was all taken up in a great hymn to the spiraling evolution of spirit and matter, “It’s all a spiral of becoming, Jean!” Then he looked away, and he seemed to be seeing into the future and he said, “Jean, the people of your time, toward the end of this century, will be taking the tiller of the world. But they cannot go directly.” He used the French word, directement. “You have to go in spirals, touching upon every people, every culture, every kind of consciousness. It is then that the newest in the field of mind will awaken and we will rebuild the earth.” And then he said to me, “Jean, remain always true to yourself, but move ever upward toward greater consciousness and greater love.” Those were the words that he said to me. Then he said, “Au revoir, Jean.”
“Au revoir, Mr. Tayer! I’ll see you on Tuesday!”
And Tuesday came and I brought Champ, and Champ whimpered; he seemed to know something. And my old man never came. Thursday, Tuesday, Thursday. Eight weeks I waited and he never came again, because it turned out he had died on that Sunday in 1955.
Years later, somebody gave me a book without a cover called The Phenomenon of Man. And when I began to read it, I said, “My God! That’s my pal, that’s . . . oh my goodness. . . .” And I went to my friend and asked, “Have you got the cover to the book?” And she gave it to me and I flipped it over and, of course, there was my old man. No forgetting that face! Mr. Tayer had been Teilhard de Chardin.
WIE: That’s extraordinary!
JH: He was the most enlightened person I’ve ever met. He certainly has had a profound influence on my life, on my sense of history and of who and what we are. He was childlike, always in a state of wonder and astonishment. Always in a state of, as I said, leaky margins with reality. There wasn’t a question of self because he was so embodied in all things, in all existences. And he saw spiritual and physical energy as utterly necessary to each other. So that’s ultimately what I have to say about the whole thing and what I really believe.
Biography of Jean Houston
“In our time we have come to the stage where the real work of humanity begins. It is the time where we partner Creation in the creation of ourselves, in the restoration of the biosphere, the regenesis of society and in the assuming of a new type of culture; the culture of Kindness. Herein, we live daily life reconnected and recharged by the Source, so as to become liberated and engaged in the world and in our tasks.”
Dr. Jean Houston, scholar, philosopher and researcher in human capacities, is one of the foremost visionary thinkers and doers of our time, one of the principal founders of the Human Potential Movement. A powerful and dynamic speaker, she holds conferences and seminars with social leaders, educational institutions and business organizations worldwide.
Jean Houston has worked intensively in 40 cultures and 100 countries helping to enhance and deepen their own uniqueness while they become part of the global community. Her ability to inspire and invigorate people enables her to readily convey her vision – the finest possible achievement of the individual potential.
In 1965, along with her husband Dr. Robert Masters, Dr. Houston founded The Foundation for Mind Research. She is also the founder and principal teacher since 1982 of the Mystery School, a school of human development, a program of cross-cultural, mythic and spiritual studies, dedicated to teaching history, philosophy, the New Physics, psychology, anthropology, myth and the many dimensions of human potential. She also leads an intensive program in social artistry with leaders coming from all over the world to study with Dr. Houston and her distinguished associates.
She is a prolific writer and author of 26 books including A Passion for the Possible, Search for the Beloved, Life Force, The Possible Human, Public Like a Frog, A Mythic Life: Learning to Live Our Greater Story, and Manual of the Peacemaker.
As advisor to UNICEF in human and cultural development, she has worked to implement some of their extensive educational and health programs. Since 2003, she has been working with the United Nations Development Program, training leaders in developing countries throughout the world in the new field of social artistry. Dr. Houston has also served for two years in an advisory capacity to President and Mrs. Clinton as well as helping Mrs. Clinton write, It Takes A Village To Raise A Child. She has also worked with President and Mrs. Carter and counseled leaders in similar positions in many countries and cultures.
A past President of the Association of Humanistic Psychology , she has taught philosophy, psychology, and religion at Columbia University, Hunter College, the New School for Social Research and Marymount College, as well as summer sessions in human development at the University of California at Santa Cruz and the University of British Columbia.
In 1985, Dr. Houston was awarded the Distinguished Leadership Award from the Association of Teachers Educators. In 1993, she received the Gardner Murphy Humanitarian Award for her work in psychology and the INTA Humanitarian of the Year award. In 1994, she received the Lifetime Outstanding Creative Achievement Award from the Creative Education Foundation. The following year, she was given the Keeper of the Lore Award for her studies in myth and culture. In 1997 she was made a Fellow of the World Business Academy and in 1999 she received the Pathfinder award from the Association of Humanistic Psychology. In 2000 she was given the prestigious Millennium Award from Magical Blend Magazine.
Dr. Houston holds a B.A. from Barnard College, a Ph.D. in psychology from the Union Graduate School and a Ph.D in religion from the Graduate Theological Foundation. She has also been the recipient of honorary doctorates.
Hosted by Patrick Michaels, this excerpt from the PeaceMakers News Report, from Goodnewsbroadcast.com, features Jean Houston http://www.jeanhouston.org
Death is a subject obscured by fear and denial. When we do think of dying, we are more often concerned with how to avoid the pain and suffering that may accompany our death than we are with really confronting the meaning of death and how to approach it. Sushila Blackman places death–and life–in a truer perspective, by telling us of others who have left this world with dignity.
“Graceful Exits” offers valuable guidance in the form of 108 stories recounting the ways in which Hindu, Tibetan Buddhist, and Zen masters, both ancient and modern, have confronted their own deaths. By directly presenting the grace, clarity, and even humor with which great spiritual teachers have met the end of their days, Blackman provides inspiration and nourishment to anyone truly concerned with the fundamental issues of life and death.
From Library Journal:
Blackman narrates the death stories of over 100 Tibetan, Hindu, and Zen masters, ancient and modern. The striking element in these accounts is a sense of being fully prepared to meet death. Blackman grappled with lung cancer and came to peace with her own fears about death as she compiled this book, completed only a few months before she died. As Blackman notes, the Judaeo-Christian perspective of death is not represented here, but this fills a demand for inspirational books about death and Eastern spirituality. – Copyright 1997 Reed Business Information, Inc.
“Written in lucid prose, the book is a training manual for making graceful exits from this life.”—Publishers Weekly
“Not since the ground-breaking work of Kubler-Ross on death and dying has there been such a much needed compilation of inspirational stories and examples of how to prepare oneself for the inevitable.”—Midwestern Book Review
“This beautiful little book is a gem. It contributes to our understanding that we are truly timeless.”—Deepak Chopra, M.D.
“A magical little volume. It reveals with simplicity and lucidity how wise and compassionate living leads to a wise and compassionate death.”—Glenn H. Mullin, author of Death and Dying: The Tibetan Tradition
The pursuit of happiness is one of the unalienable rights enshrined in the U.S. Declaration of Independence. But is our relentless striving to feel good no matter what actually making us miserable? Would we be better to accept that life comes with good times and bad, and make peace with that?
This IQ2 debate, held in Sydney in March 2010, pits those who believe that happiness is a worthwhile goal that can be found in pleasures material and social, against those who hold that people should abandon unrealistic goals and seek quiet comfort within.
Petrea King is the Founding Director and CEO of the Quest for Life Foundation and practices as a counsellor, inspirational speaker and workshop leader in the field of holistic health. She is the author of several books including Quest for Life and Your Life Matters.
Premananda explains clearly and simply the teachings of the great indian saint Sri Ramana Maharshi. Especially the path of Self Inquiry, “Who Am I?”. Ramaha Maharshi suggested that Self Inquiry is the most direct way to self realisation.
“Ramana Maharshi suggested a path into your true center. He suggests you ask yourself, “Who is doing this?” The answer is, “Me”. When you then ask, “Who is me?”, it brings you back into the center. When you come to that center you find that you are joy, stillness and peace. Our True Nature is like the blue sky. It’s infinite, without boundaries, it never changes. This is you.
English with German translation
Transcendence and Transformation
“I have no interest in instilling any kind of desire, hope or ideas of transcendence. The striving for transcendence implies an escape from the current realm into some greater realm that actually, as is obvious to those who have been trapped in the transcendence trance, leads inevitably to bitterness and disappointment. Transcendence is a false hope, a bait-and-switch operation. Nothing comes of it.” — John Sherman — From a Meeting with John Sherman on November 10, 2008 pm.
“The Journey After Awakening” Adyashanti & Loch Kelly
Awakening to our true nature does not mark the end of the spiritual path—it’s just the beginning. In this intimate and compelling dialogue, Adyashanti and Loch Kelly explore the journey after awakening.
Adyashanti, author of Emptiness Dancing, The Impact of Awakening, and True Meditation, dares all seekers of peace and freedom to take the possibility of liberation seriously. His spontaneous and direct teachings have opened the door for many seekers to awaken to their true nature and live an awakened life.
http://www.adyashanti.org
Loch Kelly, founder of the natural Wakefulness Center in New York City, has practiced nondual psychotherapy and taught meditation for twenty years. Invited to teach the direct path by Adyashanti, Loch offers a unique experiential teaching to assist in the recognition, realization, and full embodiment of our true nature. http://www.lochkelly.org
In her latest work, How to Thrive in Changing Times: Simple Tools to Create True Health, Wealth, Peace and Joy for Yourself and the Earth, therapist and author, provides many valuable insights into unlocking our creativity to deal with our challenging and turbulent times. With her usual clarity and open heart, she offers a fresh perspective on transforming your own inner pollution for outer benefit.
Join us as we explore how Ingerman’s new book points us toward a new way of being in the world and offers the practices needed to support that change. This is book is a call to action! Ingerman believes that the work begins by learning how to shift our daily thoughts and words. She encourages people to think of themselves as members of a growing global community of conscious change agents, who together, can shift the challenges on the planet today. Working as a global community we can bring forth the invisible energies and manifest a world we truly wish to live in.
An excerpt from the new book
INTRODUCTION
How to Thrive in Changing Times is the new book by acclaimed author, teacher and shamanic researcher, Sandra Ingerman.
Subtitled Simple Tools to Create True Health, Wealth, Peace and Joy for Yourself and the Earth, Ingerman’s seventh book combines the ancient wisdom of shamanic ceremony with modern psychological practice.
A teacher of teachers, Ingerman provides readers with a series of exercises to recognize their own power to transform themselves and the world. Ingerman’s practices have the feel of being perfected in the many workshops she gives around the world. Her gift is in simplifying these techniques, making them practical, memorable and fun.
An excerpt below is entitled The Magic of Words. It discuses the power of words to manifest reality.
How to Thrive in Changing Times shows how individual and group practice can manifest global transformation. As such, it is a call to action for those who feel powerless to change their own situation or heal the Earth.
In spiritual traditions it is understood that there is a resonance in words that creates a physical manifestation in the world. In the Hebrew language, words are used to create. And there are many stories that share how words can be used to create or destroy.
In the Sanskrit language, it is seen that every vowel has a vibration that travels up into the universe and then manifests down on earth as a form.
In Ancient Egypt, many words were not spoken aloud, as it was understood that as soon as a word was said aloud, there would be a physical manifestation. Often metaphors were used instead of certain words.
Aramaic is a very ancient language. The Aramaic phrase abraq ad habra is a phrase we know in the West as abracadabra. The literal translation of abraq ad habra is “I will create as I speak.”
Along with challenging our toxic thoughts, it is essential that we become more aware of the words we use and the power they hold. I teach all my students who work directly with people in private practice — whether doing spiritual healing works, psychotherapy, or medicine — that words are seeds. Seeds have amazing creative potential. Think of what one seed can grow into. When we speak to other people, we plant seeds in them. We must become conscious of whether our words are planting seeds of love, hope, and inspiration or whether we are planting seeds of fear.
In looking at words in this way, we have the power to curse ourselves, someone else, and the planet. Or we have the power to use our words as a blessing. Saying and thinking, “There is no hope,” is a curse. Saying and thinking, “All things are possible. There is always room for healing,” is a blessing.
The Navajo people have a saying: May you walk in beauty. In saying this, they mean never say anything that will create fear or harm in another. Do not curse others with your words. Rather, bless them with words that create beauty in their lives.
Through social conditioning, reading books, and watching TV and movies, certain phrases are embedded in our subconscious and tend to surface — almost like a jingle we sing whenever we see a certain product. Let’s say a friend or family member shares with you that she is beginning a new creative venture. A common phrase that might pop up in your head is: no way will that work. You might not even have much information, but your subconscious has been so trained to believe that anything edgy has no chance to succeed that your thoughts instantly go to the negative. And in allowing statements that are defeatist in nature to come up, we rob the creative power of our friend or family member. Or if we repeat defeatist statements to ourselves whenever we venture into something new (“I’ll never pull this off” or “I’m an idiot for trying this”), then we take power from our creative potential.
But if we assert to our friend, “What an exciting project you are working on! I will affirm along with you that your new venture is a great success,” we add power to the other person’s dream.
If we as a global community affirm statements like, “Together we can change the world and create a positive world for all of life,” we exponentially feed the power of our creative ability.
About the Author
Sandra Ingerman, MA, is an author, teacher and shamanic researcher with a worldwide following. Sandra teaches workshops on shamanic journeying, healing, and reversing environmental pollution using spiritual methods. She has trained and founded an international alliance of Medicine for the Earth Teachers and shamanic teachers.
Sandra is recognized for bridging ancient cross-cultural healing methods into our modern culture addressing the needs of our times. She is a licensed Marriage and Family therapist and a professional Mental Health Counselor. She is also a board-certified expert on traumatic stress, and she is certified in acute traumatic stress management.
