Blog
(from Ra Uru Hu)
Today is my favorite day. I am wearing my hateful T-shirt. My goal is to try to give you an idea of what can be the best advantage in every type. Because every Type has its dilemma. It doesn’t matter what kind of Type it is. Why Manifestor is angry? We are angry because people don’t understand us. They feel very uncomfortable around us. There is nothing funnier to watch how people are trying to stand around Manifestors. It’s really cute. You can’t enter their aura. Especially all these Generators with their embracing aura around you – they are trying to take you into their aura. And it’s not like Manifestors wouldn’t want to do that, it’s just not the way it works for them. We have this conditioning process, and if you want to say something, and your aura says something, my Manfestor’s aura says – leave me alone, if I don’t want to say this, I don’t. I am even saying: come closer, and my aura says – get away from me. That’s why it’s not easy to be a Manifestor. It’s not easy to be a parent-Manifestor. I know this for a fact, it’s not easy. It’s not easy to push through one of these auras.
Look, Manifestors have this reputation throughout many centuries, and you’ve got to understand this. People always admired that Manifestors were building this whole civilization, and throughout the history it was considered that Generators were simply slaves of these bright Manifestors. I like those times when Generators were my slaves, and it was amazing! I used to tell them – you could do what I do – and they tried, and I was watching how they were trying to do it. And I didn’t need to do anything. They are brave people, they are working well. There is nothing better than a busy Generator which is easy to manipulate. But this happened 300 and more years ago.
Generators don’t pay a lot of attention at us, as if we are the problem. And it’s true. They are right- we are not like them. It’s not very easy – to think or say that Manifestors used to have this true glory. And you have to understand that each has a strategy and it comes from the body. Generator’s Strategy or Projector’s Strategy or Reflectors’s Strategy is truly rooted in their body. And don’t say it to anyone: Manifestor’s Strategy is made up. It’s true. If Manifestors won’t pretend that they have a strategy, they will have a difficult time with all people. Then they will be very lonely.
And when I say “lonely,” I truly mean loneliness, being lost in themselves. And being very angry at the whole world around them. Manifestors are not like any other Type around them. Nobody knows what a burden they carry. Compared to any other Strategy – to wait for invitation, to wait for response, to wait for the moon, - it seems that we Manifestors have it easy with our Strategy. But nobody likes it. Nobody. And as soon as you, a Manifestor, wake up with an amazing idea, you know how to turn the door knob, how to open the door, then you go outside, spend a great time, lose yourself somewhere inside yourself, leave, get lost, and your mother ultimately calls the police, and the child says – I was in the forest next to the house, looking at the trees, playing and dreaming about future, and all of a sudden there are people with big hats saying – we found him, we found him! My mother was very angry. She said – I will never let you go outside alone, you can’t go alone, I will not let you, ever!
I opened the door because I could open it. I went out into the world because I liked it. The Strategy is not real. It is not this natural place within me which wants to inform you. There is no place such as that. There is no natural place within me which wants to ask anyone’s permission. I’d rather die. Because there is no true mechanics for this. The only thing the Manifestor child can protect itself – he can pretend that he is not really terrible, he can pretend that he needs others. «I am sorry, I didn’t mean to, I won’t do this again, I am a little Manifestor, could you help me cross the street?» If you tell this to a Generator, he will say – oh, of course, I’ll be happy to help you, let me take you across the road, such a sweet Manifestor you are. – And he will take this Manifestor across the road. As if this is the only way how I can cross the street. All we face all the time is resistance. And it really makes us very angry.
This shouldn’t be some crazy anger, but this anger is always there inside, and it doesn’t go away. Who are you to stand in my way? Why are you standing in my way at all – you are an idiot, you don’t know what I know, get lost, go and wait. That’s the Manifestor’s image driving a truck and driving it over someone. If you are a Manifestor and see someone on the road, you can’t just drive over them because there are laws, because there is a certain conditioning why Manifestor can’t simply run over a person even if they want to do it really bad. Instead, he says “let’s inform,” and we signal, and if you pay attention, when Manifestor is hitting the signal, he doesn’t take his foot off the gas pedal, he just says “get lost from my way or I’ll run over you, and it’s your problem, not mine.” And this old lady is even thankful that we signaled and she could leave. This is a food for the highway. That’s why we are not liked. Because Manifestors are driving around and not signaling.
But this doesn’t match any idea about what this person should be like. I will never forget my first public speaking. It was in some town hall, and there were really spiritual and esoterical people there. I remember this evening so well because I kicked someone out from there. I was on the stage saying all my nonsense and someone asked me a question – and I said «dear guest, get out from here». When I told him to get lost, it became really quiet. And everyone started saying – yes, yes, get out. And you could see how others started joining and saying – yes, get out. When the lecture finished, people came up to me and said – it was terrible, you have to be nice, you have to be a “saint,” you shouldn’t throw people out.
We are Manifestors. And there is a part of us which doesn’t accept any morals, any laws. I am an Ego Manifestor and these are the most terrible people on the planet. And very dangerous. Ask all the women I’ve dumped. I am very angry. Ego Manifestor, you can imagine – all my work is based on the willpower. And if someone stands in my way…Nowadays I’m signaling, I am letting them know, saying, don’t do this, don’t stand in my way. And if they do, I say: well, that’s your problem now.
There are two sides in every Type. The Non Self of the Manifestor lives with its anger, and if it lives with this anger, it will never know love. It just will not. The hardest thing for a Manifestor in their life is love. They don’t have this natural way of connecting to other people, which means that psychologically love becomes something very difficult. It’s very difficult for them. There is no feeling there that they have to be connected with someone, that they have to be attached to someone. The aura doesn’t let this. And when I remember my childhood, relationship with my mom, and this was a mother with a child-Manifestor. I was a child, and I was the last child in the family. And I truly loved her. But she could never approach me. It was simply impossible. And when you think about psychology, think about how difficult it is, what it is like to carry something like this within. And the anger – it’s the chemistry. It is passed on from the past, and I have to live with it. What, you want me to become nice? Do I need your permission? These are like the first kings, how they felt when they had to give away their power imagine? They will be ruling, and I will be asking their permission? It’s very tough.
The other side of the Manifestor is their signature, something which is their purpose. We are here to find peace. That’s what we want more than anything else. Peace. We don’t want all this resistance. I am living in the bubble, and maybe I am coming out of it once a day for a short period of time. I live in this bubble in which I don’t need to deal with this natural resistance. I don’t care that people know, I am saying about what it feels like. When I enter some public café, how does my aura feel? There is nothing which welcomes you, nothing. You are not bringing it outside – whatever you are projecting as a Manifestor, whatever you are carrying as yourself. They don’t know what you like, they don’t know that you like them, they don’t know anything about that. Because they are not feeling it naturally.
Generators are about the expression “give their heart away to someone.” When a Generator enters my aura, they are ready to give me everything. It’s in their aura. It’s good that you are with me, that’s why let’s be together, bring out everything you have. Projectors are pretty much coming on to you with their focus. I can feel them from any angel. They are like true snipers – let me aim at you. And they are aiming in that one spot with their aura, and oh, god, the further away from me, the better. And when you are a Manifestor, you are entering into one of these buildings, and they are all looking at you, and this is crazy, it is crossing all the borders. When a Projector is behind you, you keep on looking behind your shoulders to where the Projector is. That’s why you leave, and they say – you know, he is not very friendly, it’s very difficult to approach them.
And it is so funny. That’s the aura. And this is the magic when you understand this. In order to understand people, you need to understand their aura. Because aura is something how we all are interrelating with one another. Manifestors don’t interact. When we do, it truly works. It’s easy for me here, I am far away from you, I am in my own space. I can interact on this level, I can do this old Manifestor’s trick which I will do anyway. To be a Manifestor, to be among people, the horror from what it is like for the Manifestor – people don’t understand this. This is a horrible life. It is truly horrible and while you are living and not understanding why this all happens this way in relationships you won’t be able to break free from conditioning.
I thought that something was wrong with me. I truly thought. It was clear to me that I am non-emotional, I am a Manifestor, and it seemed to me that I have problems connected with people with the fact of going into relationship with them. What was the problem exactly? I had no idea. I had no idea that all people wanted to get access to me, a lot of times I didn’t even notice that. Because you are enclosed in the aura of your own Type. And it’s very lonely there. Then there are all these mechanisms of our life, all these lovers, children and all that. I love my children very deeply, but they know what my aura is like. We don’t spend all the time in the aura contact because it’s impossible. I am living in the house full of Generators, and when I spend 10 minutes with them, I want to go to my room, and there is nothing personal in this. I just want to get out of this frequency. I am a pure non-sacral being. I don’t need all this. And this is not a mental thing, it’s not psychological. There is nothing personal. It’s physical.
And you see – until you start understanding this – majority of Manifestors, and it’s almost 10%, around half a billion people, - we have half a billion angry lonely people. It is not a very pleasant thing. It brings in chaos. And we are those people who want peace. It is our only goal in all that. Everything which is connected with this knowledge, it is connected with being able to get rid of the resistance, when you can operate correctly as your true Self. For a Manifestor it can be something you can rely on. The majority of Manifestors will never come to such meetings, courses, they don’t need it. And I’ve done thousands and thousands of Readings and very few of them were for Manifestors. Because they have already closed down, they are already angry at the world. And since there is no natural Strategy, there are emotional people which are riding their wave, there are Generators which are in their own discoveries, and they are answering for their life, there are Projectors from time to time which are also becoming aware of a mess in their life and try to sort it out. And this all is resonating very deeply for them. But not for a Manifestor.
If you want to teach your Manifestor child to be polite, you need to understand that it is not natural for them. It’s not what they like, not something they would want to learn. This is not that child which would want to play by the rules of this world. This is a training. For a Manifestor child – if they didn’t receive this training before they become grown ups, it will be too late when they are adults. I’ve met very few adult Manifestors which were very polite. What does it mean for an adult Manifestor to inform? It changed my life for real.
I don’t have any reason or base to say anything to anybody. I was crazy and I had this strange experience. I was completely lonely, and in a way I liked it. It was a special life. If honestly, I have no real reason or wish to change it. I didn’t want to tell this story of the Voice to anyone, but more than that I didn’t want to have years and years of resistance. What it was for me, for a Manifestor, all these 20 years – to contribute something new into this world and all the time deal with this resistance. And I kept on standing and informing, letting them know. It saved my life.
I have such a blessed life. It is so easy for me to be myself, to be this Manifestor. We are here to influence, so we are not that useless. I influenced many beings on this planet, and that’s the core. We have this influence, effect. When you are thinking of a Manifestor, think about what they watch, contemplate. But before you do this, try to understand how many people it will influence. And then you will be able to understand what it means to be a Manifestor. Because our influence is natural. This is our gift, it is a natural gift. The fact that we have this unusual aura different from the rest, helps us standing. They know us, they see us, and we truly influence them.
It doesn’t mean that Manifestors won’t come out, that they are completely uninterested in themselves. During these 20 years I am still learning about myself, studying myself because that’s the most interesting thing. I am a Manifestor, not a Generator. Generators are always in some temple of themselves. I am here not to get to know myself, I am not worried about that. Influence, effect – yes, that’s interesting, that’s what Manifestor is interested in – can I influence? What kind of influence? When I was giving a Reading to a Manifestor, all of them were telling me – I don’t need these Readings, I just came to you to find out the truth, I want the truth.
For example, there is an ideal of a pure Generator, and I can’t think of something more ideal, perfect, it simply perfect. All they need to do is resonate, respond, and this is a classical example of what gives us everything in this life. And look at us Manifestors, we are not like that. We are not lilacs in the field. We are warriors. That’s what we are. The fact that we are now in this hierarchy and we are forced to leave from the top, it doesn’t mean that we stopped being the way we were. I like to see myself metaphorically as this huge statue which is on the field where nobody is driving, it is just standing there. That’s the Manifestor. But you still can have a small show on this field. You can have this influence anyway, and you can still live your life. Now this world belongs to Generators and Projectors. I am OK, I don’t mind this. Keep going. We Manifestors retired, we don’t want to rule this world anymore, we want this world to stop pressuring us. We want them to leave us be so that we can enjoy our life. We pretend that we like them. That’s what I do.
I am really pretending that I love each of you. Or while having dinner with my Generator family I do that. And if there is anything I can do right now, I will do it. I am letting them know. And if you talk to people who knew me in the first half of my life, I have a Design of a person who disappeared. There was a guy who stood up one day, left and never came back. And now I am pretending. And they keep on saying – what a nice Manifestor, sweet Manifestor, not dangerous at all. We can trust this Manifestor because it tells us something about what it is planning to do. It’s wonderful. And if you are not doing it, you are simply standing up and leaving, everyone says: what happened, is something wrong? Are you angry? So many times people asked me if I was angry, when I was simply leaving the room. And I was just leaving the room. These are people of the aura which say “where did this aura go? We can’t hold on to it anymore.” And they don’t like it. That’s why you need to say “no, I am going to my room.” And then everything is OK. Now he is in his room. We know where he is, all is good, no worries. That’s what it means to be a Manifestor.
We are those who have to always do things. We are those who have to do it first. Everyone is looking at us and saying – I am waiting for my response. The other one is saying – no, I am waiting for my invitation. And the Reflector says – I am waiting for the moon. But someone has to fill this bucket with water! And I don’t want to do it myself. We have to do it! And then they start getting annoyed with me – what you mean they want us to do it. Then they are going against you. You want to go your way? Then we are going to create so much resistance for you so that you will go and get that water yourself.
I’ve spent years pumping others. Generators, Projectors, saying how wonderful you are that you are Generators, Projectors. And today is a day of Manifestors. And if you are not a Manifestor, I’m sorry, you are out of luck, then you need to see what it looks like. All we need is peace! Think about it, we are the only people on this planet who want peace. Generators want to be satisfied, satisfied in war. And whenever you satisfy them, these are the most wonderful creatures, until they are alright, they are operating correctly, they are satisfied. Projectors want their success. They can be successfully killing, lovingly, whatever it takes until they receive their success. And I don’t care if this is correct for them, it’s good, then it’s good, do it. Reflectors want their surprise only, to keep getting their surprises. And we Manifestors want peace. That’s us. We are those who created wars, and now we all wanted peace. I’m sorry, my mistake. When we were in charge of peace, war was great. Now when we are not in charge anymore, the war is not that great. Now there are these collective, tribal wars between Generators and Projectors, and they can kill one another. We Manifestors never did it. I’m kidding.
But we want peace. That’s my job. I am here to get peace, to bring us peace. Gods like this joke, and this is a joke. Of course, it’s not about bringing peace to other people, it’s about receiving this peace for ourselves.
As soon as I understood all this, as soon as I understood that I am here the only Authority which can work for me, as soon as I started living it in my life, only then I started understanding that the peace is possible. I have an open emotional system, open Root. Look at my Design. I have three open motors. I have a very powerful Non Self – to avoid confrontation, truth, never know when enough is enough, always be under pressure, do this all, and it won’t even matter. I haven’t come across anything apart from resistance. And it was scary because I was smarter than many, and I couldn’t understand why I had this disorder in life. There was only anger. And being a non-emotional, this anger was terrible, so terrible. And I can remember those moments when I completely lost it, no control whatsoever, it was not me.
This is a terrible tragedy in this life that people walk around and never say about themselves, they don’t know something about themselves or about their children. People don’t even know how they operate in their own body. Everything we’ve learned from our teachers and parents mostly was a lie. Majority was not even connected with what we are. I have a big sympathy for all those Generators who were brought up by Manifestors. All their life is frustration. It’s so painful. And it is connected with the Non-Self. Peace comes to Manifestors when you play games with other people, and all this time dealing with this resistance. Then it’s much easier to be social for us, and the key here is Authority.
We are all ruled by the mind. The smarter you are, the deeper is the problem. It is what our mind does to us. It is here not to decide for us, not to rule our life, control our movements in this life. The real changes for me happened not when I started playing the Manifestor game, but when I started informing. This is what gave me an opportunity for my relationships, my environment, what changed for me, and what really became meaningful in my Design. I am a Spleen Manifestor, and I know only in the moment, and I only can trust what I know in the moment, nothing else. It took me a long time to go away from the power of this mind, and start living my life. When I looked back, I realized that my mind was doing an incredible work for me.
And then this magic thing happened. Everything collapsed. The moment there was freedom to just sit, be in this experience, in the moment and realize how deep it was for me, that I didn’t need to think what to do, what to say “yes” and “no” to, I didn’t have to think over a strategy for this and that, I didn’t need to torture myself. The first time in my life I started looking into people’s eyes and see. It doesn’t matter what Type you are. It’s the same. It starts with understanding that if you don’t start making decisions from your true Self, then your life will never change, and you will feel this emptiness.
Peace is a reward. It is a silence, peace in your spirit. It means that you won’t feel that you need to demonstrate something. It is connected with learning how to see, and I am doing that. This is also connected with understanding as soon as you are correct for yourself, you know how to meet with all this. We Manifestors are here to influence others but with our Inner Authority. And it is very important to understand about the nature of the mind. It’s not like it is of no use, it is splendid, wonderful. My mind is very good for you. Your mind might be good for me. The dilemma is that the majority of minds are homogenized. They are filled with the same clichés. Everything we see in terms of people, and with what is open in them, it becomes what they are not, and controls the way they think and how they see.
A blind Manifestor is a suffering Manifestor. And Manifestors are suffering in silence. We are not crying in front of other people, we don’t do that. We don’t know how to do that. We are doing it in our own company. When a Generator is suffering, he can share. I know these moments when Generators are hurt, you can all perceive this from their aura, they can’t hide it. This is the power which connects everything on the planet. Manifestors have this all inside. We don’t have any opportunity to give it out. It’s just a feeling within, and it’s uncomfortable. We can’t just go outside and interact with it. It is not our way. I remember when I started giving public lectures, I was telling them in the beginning – “don’t trust me. We are here not for you to trust us”. You can’t trust a Manifestor. If you say that you trust the Manifestor, you are lying. Because all your mechanism inside, your whole aura says – “there is no trust.” And no matter what games you are playing with the other person, this distrust comes out onto the surface right away. “I knew that you are like that, I was just waiting for you to show me.”
People are always waiting from us that which they don’t like, that which they don’t love. As soon as a child Manifestor meets the other one, he says “aha, another one, we have to pay more attention to him, he’s gonna be the problem”. From the beginning! My mother knew this from the beginning, she should’ve killed me, ok, because it would be a problem. It is. There is no Manifestor child whose parent, whose mother didn’t say when he was born “holy shit, here we go.” And then they have this Generator child. And they go “oh, so cute,” and the Generator’s aura is vibrating around him, and the parents go “here is my child.” And they are looking sideways at the Manifestor child. And that’s how we live all our life. We are always a disappointment for others. It is one of those ironies and dilemmas of a Manifestor.
There is one movie which really impressed me because Charlie Chaplin said at the end: “what a story,” when a third character entered. You might not grasp what I am trying to say here but this is really a good joke. A Generator child is perfect, ideal. Because everyone demands from him to behave like a Manifestor, and it’s not the same. Parents got a child Generator, and they say, what a cute Manifestor. This child will hear “do this, do that, be like this, go there.” And the small Generator learns to manifest. Of course there will be frustration, but it works because parents created someone this person is not. But they started the conditioning process.
As soon as the Manifestor is born, parents say “we need to make new chains, tie him up.” The Child Manifestor with an open Self center. You see him, he has everything closed up to his Throat, and if they could pack him, hang him somewhere on the back yard so that he wouldn’t run away, that’s what they would do because this open Self center, you don’t know whether he will disappear when he goes for a walk. Nothing will stop him. Manifestor children are the only children which are always tied to a leash. You truly can see when parents are walking with this kids, how they are on this leash. We have several Manifestors in this room right now, you know this movie. And it is what people want to do with us, all the adults, lovers, friends. Can I put you on a leash? It has a very nice color. I will give you a long chain. And I will add few more chains, OK? And then everything will be fine. Then I can trust you. And you just want to tear that chain. Everyone who has Manifestors in their life, has others who want to put chains on them. And it’s not like it’s all conscious. It is just there in the aura, it’s there mechanically. It is the first response to the Manifestors’ aura.
I don’t like leashes. That’s why I’ve learned to play the Manifestor’s game. And it is really a pleasure. And this is what a Manifestor should understand. And you can play this game if you are operating correctly, if you have this awareness from all of this. This whole business with letting the other person know, to let him know – not because they have a right to know, no. I am not informing because they have a right to know. I am informing so that they get off my back. This is just politics, get it. I am giving what is needed so that you get out of my way. I am giving you what you need and you are keeping your collar, your leash somewhere in your storage. Yes, I will do it, I will be sweet, I will let you know everything. Just don’t think that you are taking this because you are supposed or that you deserved it, or you have to get it. It is not connected with the other person. And this is one of Manifestor’s dilemmas. And you can remind them every day that there are other people on this planet as well, and that they have to pay attention at least to those with whom you are related by blood. You are waking up in the morning and oh shit, there are other people, and they are not the same as us. And I have to play this game. But if you don’t play this game, there is no peace. And the peace is very nice.
It’s much easier to teach Manifestor children, that’s the hope for Manifestors in the future. So that they won’t go through this discomfort, and so that they could understand from the beginning these relations with other people. I didn’t think that people wanted to have anything to do with me, it’s not in my aura. I remember how I was going to school and how uncomfortable it was to be in this aura. And you can’t know this until you start living your truth. You don’t think that there are such people who are interested in you. As if someone even sees you and you want to make life for them easier. Manifestor has to bow his head in front of the majority always so that they can live in peace. For Manifestors it is quite a difficult task since they are not interested in themselves.
When I first came to this island (Ibiza), all my friends were these sanyasins, and they started attacking me, speaking about this and that – inner this, inner that. I sometimes don’t even know what is in front of my eyes, I don’t know what they are saying at all. I was this sort of man – when I had relationship with someone, I would come in and ask what did I do, what I knew, what I’ve seen. The first problem for a Manifestor is that we don’t want to know. Because we don’t want others to tell us. The most difficult for Manifestors is to say to the Manifestor that something is impossible. Because Manifestors don’t have this spot within themselves which wants for someone to come to them and say – do you have a problem? Do you want me to help you?” And Manifestor says – get lost. Because it is not natural for us.
We don’t want to be corrected, to be repaired, to be fixed, to be controlled. Someone tells you that they are going to make your life better – it’s just another leash for the Manifestor, one more mechanism of control. And Manifestors can’t take it. I like my joke about a Manifestor who has a heart attack on the street, he is lying there, and these big Generators with big auras are approaching him and asking “can I help you?” He says – no, go away, I’d rather die here alone, I don’t want you to help you. It’s too late!” We don’t want others to help us. I remember these people in my life who wanted to help. I have 5/1 Profile, I always suspected even God when he was kind to me. You want to help? What do you really want from me? This is Manifestor. We don’t want to be controlled.
That’s why it’s natural that Manifestors are deeper than others lost in their conditioning, being in the loneliness of their aura, want to ignore good advice which they receive because it is not for them. For me it was always a tragedy, I always called myself a Manifestor who is good for Generators, Projectors, Reflectors. And my family of Generators are like lost sheep. Every time when I meet one of them in the house, it’s cute, nice because if it is of your fractal line, if it is not your situation, then the opportunity won’t present itself, you won’t change your life, you won’t do anything and you’ll just live those old models that you inherited from your parents and society. You are trying to do in the best possible way something you’ve received from them, and you are suffering in silence. It hurts. And that’s why it is not natural for a Manifestor to say “help me.”
And until Manifestor has this spark, and he wants someone to help him, that will be something standing in his way preventing him from self-realization as a being. This is not a Generator which requires to understand itself or a Projector who is acquiring mastery. As a Manifestor you need to know the basic minimum: where is your Authority. Strategy we know, it’s fake. But the Authority is the mechanics, your True Authority.
Look at my Design. There is no strategy which is written in my Design. You will never find it in Manifestor’s design. There is no strategy because it’s a lie. All you can find is Authority. I always like to deal with women because there is more reward with them. As a man, the most difficult thing for me is to trust my intuition. Look at my Design, I have a very strong, fixed mind. At the same time, my authority is my intuition, my Spleen. Everything which is connected with my life is rooted in my intuition, just like it is for women. When I speak to you, I don’t know. I don’t know why I am saying “no.” This is something that comes out of me in the moment, this is something that my immune system says. “Don’t speak to these people because it will kill you.” In 10 minutes they can come up to me and ask “can I speak to you?” The same person with the same question. And I hear as my Spleen says “OK.” I don’t know what changed. If my mind is trying to understand this, then I have a problem.
People with Defined Spleen that say “I know, I knew it would happen,” but they are saying this when they are already in the hospital. They don’t say this before it happened whatever that is. That’s what Mind does to them. I had to learn that my mind doesn’t know anything. It didn’t know that I had to meet this car and that it would hit me. My mind was really confused about what I did, it still doesn’t trust my Spleen. In those moments when I spontaneously say “yes” or “no” to something, my mind immediately says “what are you doing, why did you just do this? Why?” The Spleen will never answer. You can’t have a conversation with your Spleen. Conversations are in the head, and the Spleen is a boom. It doesn’t matter what kind of Strategy I have, how I play these games, there is my Authority, that’s all. You have to understand one thing – on the surface there is only one value – to know how to make decisions as your True Self. It changes your life. It doesn’t matter what you do, where you are going, what is happening – you are making decisions from your True Self and it changes your life, changes you.
Majority of people change their lives through Strategies – Generators, Projectors, Reflectors, but Manifestors are changing their life only through Authority, only. Everything else is a game, only a game to survive so that we won’t be overthrown. I never understood this, and I made so many wrong decisions in my life, it’s unbelievable how I managed to survive. So many wrong decisions. Because I didn’t know how. And the smarter you become, the harder it is to make decisions because you are letting your mind make decisions. And mind is not worried whether it is right or wrong. That’s the thing – because your mind doesn’t care if this is a right or a wrong decision for you. It doesn’t care! Oh, it didn’t work? Ok, let’s try the other one. It doesn’t look at the mind and say – hm, this mind doesn’t really do it very well.
Nobody ever told us that there is a place within us which knows how to live this life without any problems. Nobody. And when I think about all these children.. Look at this knowledge that was given to me. I am working with adults, and it is the only thing I can do, but in reality I realized how beautiful it is for the children in the beginning. We are making our children homogenous. Those of you who are studying PHS (it’s a section in Human Design which answers for the proper nutrition according to our Design), know this. As soon as you give them the wrong food, you already homogenize them because we know that they are made for choosing a certain type of nutrition, what should be given to them in order for them to fulfill their unique potential. We are making our children homogenized, and this is a side effect of homogenization – the way we were fed, the way we were treated.
To make decisions correctly from our True Self means ignoring all these false authorities. To be a Manifestor is the only thing which save me because I have this place within me which shouldn’t bow to anyone – not to the outer world, not to the God, not to any concept, to nothing. It is something that saved me as a personality, as a human. I know how to operate on this plane, and this is what this life is connected to. There are 2 billion hungry people on this planet, we live in the world which is very cruel. There are many kinds of pain, ignorance, and it’s unbelievable what is happening, and this all is a collateral product of the mind, this madness. And you know when there is a possibility to be able to stand in all this madness which we call a “normal world” where Manifestors are wondering around lonely and angry…And it has always been like this. They don’t know how to behave. And you don’t know how to live on this plane. Because this is a world of decision making.
We all are moving in the space, constantly, this is a great mantra in this life. Everything which is connected with life is the direction. And everything which is connected to getting rid of this resistance is an ability to move along your own line, not anyone else’s, not through anyone else’s rules or authorities. So that you won’t have to blame anyone for following their direction and seeing later on that the direction was wrong.
The magic of this knowledge is that there is an Authority in everyone of us, inside every one of us. But you can’t get peace as a Manifestor any other way, there is no such thing. That’s where your peace starts, this is what needs to be understood, because we see these clichés, and we say about the point of peace, about all these people who are on this planet. And Manifestors out of them all can be the most motionless. They are still, deep, cold. And if you disturb them, it’s terriblе, it’s chaos. But if you let this get settled in, it’s something really deep. This is a Manifestor. It’s motionlessness which is in this closed aura, this peace inside, and not all of these confusions, waves, circles on the water, and that resistance which we face because we have no right to be in aloneness, and we are resisting it, getting offended.
People often say that we are keeping the memories about all sorts of fears which were millions of years ago. I know that each Manifestor carries within themselves the deepest fears and offenses about Manifestors which they keep within themselves for thousands of years. Read all of these sacred books, they were written by Manifestors – you have to, you have to, you will do it, and if you don’t, you’ll be punished. Manifestors always fall out of rules. That’s why it is so difficult for people to live with Manifestors because they don’t follow those rules. But they remember. That’s why other people don’t trust us, they don’t want to be in our aura, they are being suspicious of us. And that is the moment when we can play all these political games – I am this sweet person, let me inform you, let me share with you, let me tell you thank you for sharing with me…Until you are peaceful, I will be sharing with you whatever I can share. But don’t put a leash on me. We have to be free, it is a free horse in the field. And the beauty of this all – that’s what it means to be us.
I always thought about other Types like about aliens, not in the negative meaning, just about something which is completely different from me. They are not like me. Some of my best friends are Generators and Projectors, and Reflectors. And there is no prejudice here. But they are not like me because the way they communicate with one another, the way they live in this world, the way it works for them – this all is absolutely alien for me. Look at the Generator’s world. There are many Generators. You know that they all are stuck behind these huge doors in the big generator kabbalah. And I don’t understand it. I was always on the top of the pyramid, and I had no idea what was happening below. To be a Manifestor means not to be one of the crowd. It’s not like that. And there is nothing sadder than when Manifestor tries to be communicative. It can be even painful. They are not made for this. And sooner or later everyone will notice it and that’s when the real problems start.
If all the people on the planet will put together everything what they said behind Manifestor’s backs, then Manifestors will be on the top. There will be stories told about them even when they are long dead. «Your father was such a bastard…» And these stories will linger on forever. We are so happy that we are not responsible for anything now, and that they are not taking care of us. This is a typical dilemma which I faced in life – I couldn’t hear my Spleen, I was ignoring it, and my mind was directing me through my open centers, and I was receiving all the conditioning there is. That was me. Everything that was wrong in my life, it was something that wasn’t me. And it is really tough.
The glory for a Manifestor is in the moment when you realize that since you have your own authority, you shouldn’t deal with anyone anymore. And this is truly peace. I am playing these games when it is suitable, but I am letting my Spleen decide when to play, when to be nice, not often, I don’t play a nice Manifestor often, I don’t see the point. I don’t see the point because it is a huge theme for a Manifestor – you either accept me or leave. Accept me or leave. You either accept me for who I am, just like that, and then you can approach me as close as I will let you, and you will never be able to come to me closer than that, so if you can live with it, then it’s OK. If you can’t live with it, if you can’t accept it, then go somewhere else, don’t stand on my way, don’t stand on the way of life itself.
Life passes very quickly. If you can imagine…it passes by with such a huge speed. I still can’t believe that I will turn 59. It means there isn’t much time to enjoy smelling the roses. I needed half of the life to understand what is happening in this life. And it’s great. I love maya. I love this illusion. And the only movie that we have – it’s all these people in the world. It is easier to see the dysfunction, the way this all doesn’t work, I can say how many children are dying every hour, how many people can’t receive water, etc. but my life through my own authority is ideal. That’s what’s important.
Human Design is a very egotistical knowledge, you should understand it. It is for one person at a time, so that you can love yourself. The saddest thing that I know is people who hate themselves, who don’t have love for themselves. They don’t think that there is nothing more pathetic than psychology of these people. And I am not blaming them, it’s not their fault. Nobody taught them how to find it within themselves. You can’t love your Non-Self. I can’t love that person who is avoiding confrontation, the truth, who didn’t know when it is enough. I didn’t love this person, he was unpleasant for me, it was not a good being. It was not somebody worth loving. The other person was really nice. That’s what I wanted to become always. Such a gift. And then you see what you are because it’s interesting what this incarnation is all about. I never tell about this, I feel nauseous from this. As if people know when they speak about different incarnations what it means for them…
I didn’t know what it means to be a messenger until I became one. I didn’t have any idea about it. Until you become it. And then it captures you. That’s the beauty of your life. That’s what it means to be in your Incarnation Cross, to open that you are truly helpless, incompetent, and that your Cross and your aim will be satisfied no matter what. And you are just a witness. This is what the passenger is here for, that’s what he has to do, that’s what it is about. It’s not about using your mind for ruling your life, it is connected with enjoying your mind and its perspective, and share with this perspective with others.
We are social beings, social people. Look at the Throat center in the bodygraph, that’s what our gift, and think about what we are saying to each other, just listen to people. They never say the truth, they are practically don’t know how, it comes out of their Non-Self, it comes out of their conditioning. I remember that I never said truth. The only thing when you can get rid of the confrontation of the truth, when you have an open emotional system, it’s to lie, lie, and lie. And the better your memory is, the better you lie.
I never truly have real relationships with other people. It was never me. It was always conditioning controlling my mind and making decisions for me. Such a chaos. And it’s not only my chaos. As Manifestors, we influence, and we mix up lives of other people. Truly. You see, it is so simple. You always go back to your Strategy and Authority. You are going back to your own things which give you a chance to see this being, and not that conditioned being. We are living in this all the time, all the world is the homogenized Non Selves, the mind which is constantly making decisions through rules established by someone else, based on their conditionings. It is such a boring world when you are looking at it from this point of view, so restricted, there is so little variety there, and the world is densely homogenized. The mind doesn’t know how to live. It is just waiting to die on this planet, and that’s what I know about the life here – that the majority people are just waiting for death. And the majority is waiting for liberation when the life will come to an end. They are born, and they didn’t like all that time while they were here. And the majority of people truly are having a hard time on this planet.
This Human Design knowledge requires a lot of money, it’s not for everyone, and it will never be for everyone. It is for a certain percentage of people who can grasp it and begin playing the normal games trying to live the lives which is not them, where they are afraid of the government, doctors, lawyers, teachers, husbands, wives, where the authority of every second person is way more important than your own. It takes courage for this – to stand on your own feet. I see us as the aspect of the godliness, and if I operate correctly in my life, I see this divine shining – I don’t mean anything esoterical, it’s a mechanical truth. We all are filtering the field of consciousness, we all live in the neutrino ocean. Each of us is unique expression of this potential.
And as soon as you don’t live out your uniqueness, you are open to all those diseases, problems which the homogenized world has. And they are much bigger than anything you can imagine. The first 10 years when I was studying, I didn’t even teach Human Design, I didn’t speak about the Non Self because I was afraid that I wouldn’t be able to put it across to people. That’s how powerful the Non Self is. Look at your openness, at the whiteness of your Chart, and understand that this all is a receptor, the genetic receptor. And you think – I have to have this, this is what I need, this is what I am, this is what I have to become. As soon as you were born, you begin to become homogenized because people are feeding you in the wrong way, not what you need, and your neural activity closes down at the age of 3. And then you can’t already realize your cognitive potential.
Nobody ever treated me with respect throughout my life. it’s not like they didn’t love me, they just didn’t know better. I watched as they were destroying my life, I was just watching. It’s good that I am an Ego Manifestor, at least I could withstand it. Because it is so easy to destroy someone. It is so easy to place them in that world where they can live, and they will not find anything but the banal stupid rules. It is not a common knowledge. You won’t be giving it to the masses. You can’t. They are not ready for it. It’s not the way it has to be. We are approaching the end game. And in this end game there is a window of possibilities opening.
We are living in the great times, and it’s truly so, these are the times when people can really understand how to operate as their true Selves. Think about the whole humanity which never heard and knew about the way they operate in the world. This knowledge makes your life so much easier. And when I was given this knowledge at first, I thought, wow, how cool it is, it will be so easy, so simple. But this mind doesn’t let the simple exist. Smart people never like anything simple, they just find it too simple. I can’t say this to smart people, that’s how simple it is. And all what is required is to open the truth – that’s what the experiment makes you do. You can’t trust anything out of it, you can just discover it for yourself, and as soon as you enter this process, you open it very fast. And what a great difference it brings into your life. That’s what it takes.
And I am watching this movie for 20 years now, and it’s incredible for me to see how difficult it is to make people to accept the truth, the simple truth to make them try it themselves. It is so simple to check, and then you understand what I am saying, that this is not something universal, this is not a universal knowledge. No. I am here to teach everyone to be non-normal, out of ordinary. This is my job – to teach what it is like to be out of ordinary and love yourself for this. And how to find your beauty and your otherness. How wonderful it is to meet people which are not alike when you can truly express what there is. I’ve already seen it all and heard it all, I am not interested in anything there is, somebody is interpreting something for me, telling something over and over again, I don’t need to discuss the philosophy concepts which are simply garbage, and they’ve been discussed for centuries as if it is something unique. You have a unique perspective when you are not normal, when you are not bowing down to someone else’s authority, and not when your life is ruled by responsibilities which lock you and don’t give you a chance to see things the way they are, and they don’t give you an opportunity to be correct. Being correct is you are not dropping something which is operating correctly, and that’s the rule for everything. But you have to be correct. And this is again about the Strategy and Authority.
Every time when you meet a Manifestor, do everything to tell them that they can really be useful people. They can do their contribution, and it’s so difficult to get to them. The only way you can get something out of the Manifestor is if you truly love them. Then they can learn something about themselves. It’s enough to understand what it means – to be OK, to be a Manifestor. It’s OK to be a Manifestor. And as soon as Manifestor operates out of their Strategy, plays this game rooted in their Authority, they have peace. But moreover, you will see how incredible you are.
By the time we are 10, we are already full of problems. We think that other people are better than us. We think that they are thinking that we are not good enough. We would like to change a lot of things, if we could, and it is so sad. When I was giving these endless readings, it was so clear to me how people hate themselves, what nervous breakdowns they have as soon as I was pointing my finger at their Non-Self. They were saying “yes-yes-yes”, but I was saying – this is not you, that’s how you were living it, but it was not you». It’s the only freedom for us – to be ourselves. Whatever it means for me to be a Manifestor, with my configuration, or with other, the only thing which saved me – the thing that I am correct in my life. I don’t care what people think about me. I finally found my peace. And nobody can disturb it. And nobody can point a finger at my openness and disturb my peace, take it away from me. I’ve learned to see that I am OK, that there is nothing wrong with me. I am as good a lover as everyone else, and I can express my love just like others, the way that I am, even from behind the closed door. It is my variation of the theme. At the same time, if you don’t like this variation, I am OK. Find something you like. OK, that’s it for today.
Today is my favorite day. I am wearing my hateful T-shirt. My goal is to try to give you an idea of what can be the best advantage in every type. Because every Type has its dilemma. It doesn’t matter what kind of Type it is. Why Manifestor is angry? We are angry because people don’t understand us. They feel very uncomfortable around us. There is nothing funnier to watch how people are trying to stand around Manifestors. It’s really cute. You can’t enter their aura. Especially all these Generators with their embracing aura around you – they are trying to take you into their aura. And it’s not like Manifestors wouldn’t want to do that, it’s just not the way it works for them. We have this conditioning process, and if you want to say something, and your aura says something, my Manfestor’s aura says – leave me alone, if I don’t want to say this, I don’t. I am even saying: come closer, and my aura says – get away from me. That’s why it’s not easy to be a Manifestor. It’s not easy to be a parent-Manifestor. I know this for a fact, it’s not easy. It’s not easy to push through one of these auras.
Look, Manifestors have this reputation throughout many centuries, and you’ve got to understand this. People always admired that Manifestors were building this whole civilization, and throughout the history it was considered that Generators were simply slaves of these bright Manifestors. I like those times when Generators were my slaves, and it was amazing! I used to tell them – you could do what I do – and they tried, and I was watching how they were trying to do it. And I didn’t need to do anything. They are brave people, they are working well. There is nothing better than a busy Generator which is easy to manipulate. But this happened 300 and more years ago.
Generators don’t pay a lot of attention at us, as if we are the problem. And it’s true. They are right- we are not like them. It’s not very easy – to think or say that Manifestors used to have this true glory. And you have to understand that each has a strategy and it comes from the body. Generator’s Strategy or Projector’s Strategy or Reflectors’s Strategy is truly rooted in their body. And don’t say it to anyone: Manifestor’s Strategy is made up. It’s true. If Manifestors won’t pretend that they have a strategy, they will have a difficult time with all people. Then they will be very lonely.
And when I say “lonely,” I truly mean loneliness, being lost in themselves. And being very angry at the whole world around them. Manifestors are not like any other Type around them. Nobody knows what a burden they carry. Compared to any other Strategy – to wait for invitation, to wait for response, to wait for the moon, - it seems that we Manifestors have it easy with our Strategy. But nobody likes it. Nobody. And as soon as you, a Manifestor, wake up with an amazing idea, you know how to turn the door knob, how to open the door, then you go outside, spend a great time, lose yourself somewhere inside yourself, leave, get lost, and your mother ultimately calls the police, and the child says – I was in the forest next to the house, looking at the trees, playing and dreaming about future, and all of a sudden there are people with big hats saying – we found him, we found him! My mother was very angry. She said – I will never let you go outside alone, you can’t go alone, I will not let you, ever!
I opened the door because I could open it. I went out into the world because I liked it. The Strategy is not real. It is not this natural place within me which wants to inform you. There is no place such as that. There is no natural place within me which wants to ask anyone’s permission. I’d rather die. Because there is no true mechanics for this. The only thing the Manifestor child can protect itself – he can pretend that he is not really terrible, he can pretend that he needs others. «I am sorry, I didn’t mean to, I won’t do this again, I am a little Manifestor, could you help me cross the street?» If you tell this to a Generator, he will say – oh, of course, I’ll be happy to help you, let me take you across the road, such a sweet Manifestor you are. – And he will take this Manifestor across the road. As if this is the only way how I can cross the street. All we face all the time is resistance. And it really makes us very angry.
This shouldn’t be some crazy anger, but this anger is always there inside, and it doesn’t go away. Who are you to stand in my way? Why are you standing in my way at all – you are an idiot, you don’t know what I know, get lost, go and wait. That’s the Manifestor’s image driving a truck and driving it over someone. If you are a Manifestor and see someone on the road, you can’t just drive over them because there are laws, because there is a certain conditioning why Manifestor can’t simply run over a person even if they want to do it really bad. Instead, he says “let’s inform,” and we signal, and if you pay attention, when Manifestor is hitting the signal, he doesn’t take his foot off the gas pedal, he just says “get lost from my way or I’ll run over you, and it’s your problem, not mine.” And this old lady is even thankful that we signaled and she could leave. This is a food for the highway. That’s why we are not liked. Because Manifestors are driving around and not signaling.
But this doesn’t match any idea about what this person should be like. I will never forget my first public speaking. It was in some town hall, and there were really spiritual and esoterical people there. I remember this evening so well because I kicked someone out from there. I was on the stage saying all my nonsense and someone asked me a question – and I said «dear guest, get out from here». When I told him to get lost, it became really quiet. And everyone started saying – yes, yes, get out. And you could see how others started joining and saying – yes, get out. When the lecture finished, people came up to me and said – it was terrible, you have to be nice, you have to be a “saint,” you shouldn’t throw people out.
We are Manifestors. And there is a part of us which doesn’t accept any morals, any laws. I am an Ego Manifestor and these are the most terrible people on the planet. And very dangerous. Ask all the women I’ve dumped. I am very angry. Ego Manifestor, you can imagine – all my work is based on the willpower. And if someone stands in my way…Nowadays I’m signaling, I am letting them know, saying, don’t do this, don’t stand in my way. And if they do, I say: well, that’s your problem now.
There are two sides in every Type. The Non Self of the Manifestor lives with its anger, and if it lives with this anger, it will never know love. It just will not. The hardest thing for a Manifestor in their life is love. They don’t have this natural way of connecting to other people, which means that psychologically love becomes something very difficult. It’s very difficult for them. There is no feeling there that they have to be connected with someone, that they have to be attached to someone. The aura doesn’t let this. And when I remember my childhood, relationship with my mom, and this was a mother with a child-Manifestor. I was a child, and I was the last child in the family. And I truly loved her. But she could never approach me. It was simply impossible. And when you think about psychology, think about how difficult it is, what it is like to carry something like this within. And the anger – it’s the chemistry. It is passed on from the past, and I have to live with it. What, you want me to become nice? Do I need your permission? These are like the first kings, how they felt when they had to give away their power imagine? They will be ruling, and I will be asking their permission? It’s very tough.
The other side of the Manifestor is their signature, something which is their purpose. We are here to find peace. That’s what we want more than anything else. Peace. We don’t want all this resistance. I am living in the bubble, and maybe I am coming out of it once a day for a short period of time. I live in this bubble in which I don’t need to deal with this natural resistance. I don’t care that people know, I am saying about what it feels like. When I enter some public café, how does my aura feel? There is nothing which welcomes you, nothing. You are not bringing it outside – whatever you are projecting as a Manifestor, whatever you are carrying as yourself. They don’t know what you like, they don’t know that you like them, they don’t know anything about that. Because they are not feeling it naturally.
Generators are about the expression “give their heart away to someone.” When a Generator enters my aura, they are ready to give me everything. It’s in their aura. It’s good that you are with me, that’s why let’s be together, bring out everything you have. Projectors are pretty much coming on to you with their focus. I can feel them from any angel. They are like true snipers – let me aim at you. And they are aiming in that one spot with their aura, and oh, god, the further away from me, the better. And when you are a Manifestor, you are entering into one of these buildings, and they are all looking at you, and this is crazy, it is crossing all the borders. When a Projector is behind you, you keep on looking behind your shoulders to where the Projector is. That’s why you leave, and they say – you know, he is not very friendly, it’s very difficult to approach them.
And it is so funny. That’s the aura. And this is the magic when you understand this. In order to understand people, you need to understand their aura. Because aura is something how we all are interrelating with one another. Manifestors don’t interact. When we do, it truly works. It’s easy for me here, I am far away from you, I am in my own space. I can interact on this level, I can do this old Manifestor’s trick which I will do anyway. To be a Manifestor, to be among people, the horror from what it is like for the Manifestor – people don’t understand this. This is a horrible life. It is truly horrible and while you are living and not understanding why this all happens this way in relationships you won’t be able to break free from conditioning.
I thought that something was wrong with me. I truly thought. It was clear to me that I am non-emotional, I am a Manifestor, and it seemed to me that I have problems connected with people with the fact of going into relationship with them. What was the problem exactly? I had no idea. I had no idea that all people wanted to get access to me, a lot of times I didn’t even notice that. Because you are enclosed in the aura of your own Type. And it’s very lonely there. Then there are all these mechanisms of our life, all these lovers, children and all that. I love my children very deeply, but they know what my aura is like. We don’t spend all the time in the aura contact because it’s impossible. I am living in the house full of Generators, and when I spend 10 minutes with them, I want to go to my room, and there is nothing personal in this. I just want to get out of this frequency. I am a pure non-sacral being. I don’t need all this. And this is not a mental thing, it’s not psychological. There is nothing personal. It’s physical.
And you see – until you start understanding this – majority of Manifestors, and it’s almost 10%, around half a billion people, - we have half a billion angry lonely people. It is not a very pleasant thing. It brings in chaos. And we are those people who want peace. It is our only goal in all that. Everything which is connected with this knowledge, it is connected with being able to get rid of the resistance, when you can operate correctly as your true Self. For a Manifestor it can be something you can rely on. The majority of Manifestors will never come to such meetings, courses, they don’t need it. And I’ve done thousands and thousands of Readings and very few of them were for Manifestors. Because they have already closed down, they are already angry at the world. And since there is no natural Strategy, there are emotional people which are riding their wave, there are Generators which are in their own discoveries, and they are answering for their life, there are Projectors from time to time which are also becoming aware of a mess in their life and try to sort it out. And this all is resonating very deeply for them. But not for a Manifestor.
If you want to teach your Manifestor child to be polite, you need to understand that it is not natural for them. It’s not what they like, not something they would want to learn. This is not that child which would want to play by the rules of this world. This is a training. For a Manifestor child – if they didn’t receive this training before they become grown ups, it will be too late when they are adults. I’ve met very few adult Manifestors which were very polite. What does it mean for an adult Manifestor to inform? It changed my life for real.
I don’t have any reason or base to say anything to anybody. I was crazy and I had this strange experience. I was completely lonely, and in a way I liked it. It was a special life. If honestly, I have no real reason or wish to change it. I didn’t want to tell this story of the Voice to anyone, but more than that I didn’t want to have years and years of resistance. What it was for me, for a Manifestor, all these 20 years – to contribute something new into this world and all the time deal with this resistance. And I kept on standing and informing, letting them know. It saved my life.
I have such a blessed life. It is so easy for me to be myself, to be this Manifestor. We are here to influence, so we are not that useless. I influenced many beings on this planet, and that’s the core. We have this influence, effect. When you are thinking of a Manifestor, think about what they watch, contemplate. But before you do this, try to understand how many people it will influence. And then you will be able to understand what it means to be a Manifestor. Because our influence is natural. This is our gift, it is a natural gift. The fact that we have this unusual aura different from the rest, helps us standing. They know us, they see us, and we truly influence them.
It doesn’t mean that Manifestors won’t come out, that they are completely uninterested in themselves. During these 20 years I am still learning about myself, studying myself because that’s the most interesting thing. I am a Manifestor, not a Generator. Generators are always in some temple of themselves. I am here not to get to know myself, I am not worried about that. Influence, effect – yes, that’s interesting, that’s what Manifestor is interested in – can I influence? What kind of influence? When I was giving a Reading to a Manifestor, all of them were telling me – I don’t need these Readings, I just came to you to find out the truth, I want the truth.
For example, there is an ideal of a pure Generator, and I can’t think of something more ideal, perfect, it simply perfect. All they need to do is resonate, respond, and this is a classical example of what gives us everything in this life. And look at us Manifestors, we are not like that. We are not lilacs in the field. We are warriors. That’s what we are. The fact that we are now in this hierarchy and we are forced to leave from the top, it doesn’t mean that we stopped being the way we were. I like to see myself metaphorically as this huge statue which is on the field where nobody is driving, it is just standing there. That’s the Manifestor. But you still can have a small show on this field. You can have this influence anyway, and you can still live your life. Now this world belongs to Generators and Projectors. I am OK, I don’t mind this. Keep going. We Manifestors retired, we don’t want to rule this world anymore, we want this world to stop pressuring us. We want them to leave us be so that we can enjoy our life. We pretend that we like them. That’s what I do.
I am really pretending that I love each of you. Or while having dinner with my Generator family I do that. And if there is anything I can do right now, I will do it. I am letting them know. And if you talk to people who knew me in the first half of my life, I have a Design of a person who disappeared. There was a guy who stood up one day, left and never came back. And now I am pretending. And they keep on saying – what a nice Manifestor, sweet Manifestor, not dangerous at all. We can trust this Manifestor because it tells us something about what it is planning to do. It’s wonderful. And if you are not doing it, you are simply standing up and leaving, everyone says: what happened, is something wrong? Are you angry? So many times people asked me if I was angry, when I was simply leaving the room. And I was just leaving the room. These are people of the aura which say “where did this aura go? We can’t hold on to it anymore.” And they don’t like it. That’s why you need to say “no, I am going to my room.” And then everything is OK. Now he is in his room. We know where he is, all is good, no worries. That’s what it means to be a Manifestor.
We are those who have to always do things. We are those who have to do it first. Everyone is looking at us and saying – I am waiting for my response. The other one is saying – no, I am waiting for my invitation. And the Reflector says – I am waiting for the moon. But someone has to fill this bucket with water! And I don’t want to do it myself. We have to do it! And then they start getting annoyed with me – what you mean they want us to do it. Then they are going against you. You want to go your way? Then we are going to create so much resistance for you so that you will go and get that water yourself.
I’ve spent years pumping others. Generators, Projectors, saying how wonderful you are that you are Generators, Projectors. And today is a day of Manifestors. And if you are not a Manifestor, I’m sorry, you are out of luck, then you need to see what it looks like. All we need is peace! Think about it, we are the only people on this planet who want peace. Generators want to be satisfied, satisfied in war. And whenever you satisfy them, these are the most wonderful creatures, until they are alright, they are operating correctly, they are satisfied. Projectors want their success. They can be successfully killing, lovingly, whatever it takes until they receive their success. And I don’t care if this is correct for them, it’s good, then it’s good, do it. Reflectors want their surprise only, to keep getting their surprises. And we Manifestors want peace. That’s us. We are those who created wars, and now we all wanted peace. I’m sorry, my mistake. When we were in charge of peace, war was great. Now when we are not in charge anymore, the war is not that great. Now there are these collective, tribal wars between Generators and Projectors, and they can kill one another. We Manifestors never did it. I’m kidding.
But we want peace. That’s my job. I am here to get peace, to bring us peace. Gods like this joke, and this is a joke. Of course, it’s not about bringing peace to other people, it’s about receiving this peace for ourselves.
As soon as I understood all this, as soon as I understood that I am here the only Authority which can work for me, as soon as I started living it in my life, only then I started understanding that the peace is possible. I have an open emotional system, open Root. Look at my Design. I have three open motors. I have a very powerful Non Self – to avoid confrontation, truth, never know when enough is enough, always be under pressure, do this all, and it won’t even matter. I haven’t come across anything apart from resistance. And it was scary because I was smarter than many, and I couldn’t understand why I had this disorder in life. There was only anger. And being a non-emotional, this anger was terrible, so terrible. And I can remember those moments when I completely lost it, no control whatsoever, it was not me.
This is a terrible tragedy in this life that people walk around and never say about themselves, they don’t know something about themselves or about their children. People don’t even know how they operate in their own body. Everything we’ve learned from our teachers and parents mostly was a lie. Majority was not even connected with what we are. I have a big sympathy for all those Generators who were brought up by Manifestors. All their life is frustration. It’s so painful. And it is connected with the Non-Self. Peace comes to Manifestors when you play games with other people, and all this time dealing with this resistance. Then it’s much easier to be social for us, and the key here is Authority.
We are all ruled by the mind. The smarter you are, the deeper is the problem. It is what our mind does to us. It is here not to decide for us, not to rule our life, control our movements in this life. The real changes for me happened not when I started playing the Manifestor game, but when I started informing. This is what gave me an opportunity for my relationships, my environment, what changed for me, and what really became meaningful in my Design. I am a Spleen Manifestor, and I know only in the moment, and I only can trust what I know in the moment, nothing else. It took me a long time to go away from the power of this mind, and start living my life. When I looked back, I realized that my mind was doing an incredible work for me.
And then this magic thing happened. Everything collapsed. The moment there was freedom to just sit, be in this experience, in the moment and realize how deep it was for me, that I didn’t need to think what to do, what to say “yes” and “no” to, I didn’t have to think over a strategy for this and that, I didn’t need to torture myself. The first time in my life I started looking into people’s eyes and see. It doesn’t matter what Type you are. It’s the same. It starts with understanding that if you don’t start making decisions from your true Self, then your life will never change, and you will feel this emptiness.
Peace is a reward. It is a silence, peace in your spirit. It means that you won’t feel that you need to demonstrate something. It is connected with learning how to see, and I am doing that. This is also connected with understanding as soon as you are correct for yourself, you know how to meet with all this. We Manifestors are here to influence others but with our Inner Authority. And it is very important to understand about the nature of the mind. It’s not like it is of no use, it is splendid, wonderful. My mind is very good for you. Your mind might be good for me. The dilemma is that the majority of minds are homogenized. They are filled with the same clichés. Everything we see in terms of people, and with what is open in them, it becomes what they are not, and controls the way they think and how they see.
A blind Manifestor is a suffering Manifestor. And Manifestors are suffering in silence. We are not crying in front of other people, we don’t do that. We don’t know how to do that. We are doing it in our own company. When a Generator is suffering, he can share. I know these moments when Generators are hurt, you can all perceive this from their aura, they can’t hide it. This is the power which connects everything on the planet. Manifestors have this all inside. We don’t have any opportunity to give it out. It’s just a feeling within, and it’s uncomfortable. We can’t just go outside and interact with it. It is not our way. I remember when I started giving public lectures, I was telling them in the beginning – “don’t trust me. We are here not for you to trust us”. You can’t trust a Manifestor. If you say that you trust the Manifestor, you are lying. Because all your mechanism inside, your whole aura says – “there is no trust.” And no matter what games you are playing with the other person, this distrust comes out onto the surface right away. “I knew that you are like that, I was just waiting for you to show me.”
People are always waiting from us that which they don’t like, that which they don’t love. As soon as a child Manifestor meets the other one, he says “aha, another one, we have to pay more attention to him, he’s gonna be the problem”. From the beginning! My mother knew this from the beginning, she should’ve killed me, ok, because it would be a problem. It is. There is no Manifestor child whose parent, whose mother didn’t say when he was born “holy shit, here we go.” And then they have this Generator child. And they go “oh, so cute,” and the Generator’s aura is vibrating around him, and the parents go “here is my child.” And they are looking sideways at the Manifestor child. And that’s how we live all our life. We are always a disappointment for others. It is one of those ironies and dilemmas of a Manifestor.
There is one movie which really impressed me because Charlie Chaplin said at the end: “what a story,” when a third character entered. You might not grasp what I am trying to say here but this is really a good joke. A Generator child is perfect, ideal. Because everyone demands from him to behave like a Manifestor, and it’s not the same. Parents got a child Generator, and they say, what a cute Manifestor. This child will hear “do this, do that, be like this, go there.” And the small Generator learns to manifest. Of course there will be frustration, but it works because parents created someone this person is not. But they started the conditioning process.
As soon as the Manifestor is born, parents say “we need to make new chains, tie him up.” The Child Manifestor with an open Self center. You see him, he has everything closed up to his Throat, and if they could pack him, hang him somewhere on the back yard so that he wouldn’t run away, that’s what they would do because this open Self center, you don’t know whether he will disappear when he goes for a walk. Nothing will stop him. Manifestor children are the only children which are always tied to a leash. You truly can see when parents are walking with this kids, how they are on this leash. We have several Manifestors in this room right now, you know this movie. And it is what people want to do with us, all the adults, lovers, friends. Can I put you on a leash? It has a very nice color. I will give you a long chain. And I will add few more chains, OK? And then everything will be fine. Then I can trust you. And you just want to tear that chain. Everyone who has Manifestors in their life, has others who want to put chains on them. And it’s not like it’s all conscious. It is just there in the aura, it’s there mechanically. It is the first response to the Manifestors’ aura.
I don’t like leashes. That’s why I’ve learned to play the Manifestor’s game. And it is really a pleasure. And this is what a Manifestor should understand. And you can play this game if you are operating correctly, if you have this awareness from all of this. This whole business with letting the other person know, to let him know – not because they have a right to know, no. I am not informing because they have a right to know. I am informing so that they get off my back. This is just politics, get it. I am giving what is needed so that you get out of my way. I am giving you what you need and you are keeping your collar, your leash somewhere in your storage. Yes, I will do it, I will be sweet, I will let you know everything. Just don’t think that you are taking this because you are supposed or that you deserved it, or you have to get it. It is not connected with the other person. And this is one of Manifestor’s dilemmas. And you can remind them every day that there are other people on this planet as well, and that they have to pay attention at least to those with whom you are related by blood. You are waking up in the morning and oh shit, there are other people, and they are not the same as us. And I have to play this game. But if you don’t play this game, there is no peace. And the peace is very nice.
It’s much easier to teach Manifestor children, that’s the hope for Manifestors in the future. So that they won’t go through this discomfort, and so that they could understand from the beginning these relations with other people. I didn’t think that people wanted to have anything to do with me, it’s not in my aura. I remember how I was going to school and how uncomfortable it was to be in this aura. And you can’t know this until you start living your truth. You don’t think that there are such people who are interested in you. As if someone even sees you and you want to make life for them easier. Manifestor has to bow his head in front of the majority always so that they can live in peace. For Manifestors it is quite a difficult task since they are not interested in themselves.
When I first came to this island (Ibiza), all my friends were these sanyasins, and they started attacking me, speaking about this and that – inner this, inner that. I sometimes don’t even know what is in front of my eyes, I don’t know what they are saying at all. I was this sort of man – when I had relationship with someone, I would come in and ask what did I do, what I knew, what I’ve seen. The first problem for a Manifestor is that we don’t want to know. Because we don’t want others to tell us. The most difficult for Manifestors is to say to the Manifestor that something is impossible. Because Manifestors don’t have this spot within themselves which wants for someone to come to them and say – do you have a problem? Do you want me to help you?” And Manifestor says – get lost. Because it is not natural for us.
We don’t want to be corrected, to be repaired, to be fixed, to be controlled. Someone tells you that they are going to make your life better – it’s just another leash for the Manifestor, one more mechanism of control. And Manifestors can’t take it. I like my joke about a Manifestor who has a heart attack on the street, he is lying there, and these big Generators with big auras are approaching him and asking “can I help you?” He says – no, go away, I’d rather die here alone, I don’t want you to help you. It’s too late!” We don’t want others to help us. I remember these people in my life who wanted to help. I have 5/1 Profile, I always suspected even God when he was kind to me. You want to help? What do you really want from me? This is Manifestor. We don’t want to be controlled.
That’s why it’s natural that Manifestors are deeper than others lost in their conditioning, being in the loneliness of their aura, want to ignore good advice which they receive because it is not for them. For me it was always a tragedy, I always called myself a Manifestor who is good for Generators, Projectors, Reflectors. And my family of Generators are like lost sheep. Every time when I meet one of them in the house, it’s cute, nice because if it is of your fractal line, if it is not your situation, then the opportunity won’t present itself, you won’t change your life, you won’t do anything and you’ll just live those old models that you inherited from your parents and society. You are trying to do in the best possible way something you’ve received from them, and you are suffering in silence. It hurts. And that’s why it is not natural for a Manifestor to say “help me.”
And until Manifestor has this spark, and he wants someone to help him, that will be something standing in his way preventing him from self-realization as a being. This is not a Generator which requires to understand itself or a Projector who is acquiring mastery. As a Manifestor you need to know the basic minimum: where is your Authority. Strategy we know, it’s fake. But the Authority is the mechanics, your True Authority.
Look at my Design. There is no strategy which is written in my Design. You will never find it in Manifestor’s design. There is no strategy because it’s a lie. All you can find is Authority. I always like to deal with women because there is more reward with them. As a man, the most difficult thing for me is to trust my intuition. Look at my Design, I have a very strong, fixed mind. At the same time, my authority is my intuition, my Spleen. Everything which is connected with my life is rooted in my intuition, just like it is for women. When I speak to you, I don’t know. I don’t know why I am saying “no.” This is something that comes out of me in the moment, this is something that my immune system says. “Don’t speak to these people because it will kill you.” In 10 minutes they can come up to me and ask “can I speak to you?” The same person with the same question. And I hear as my Spleen says “OK.” I don’t know what changed. If my mind is trying to understand this, then I have a problem.
People with Defined Spleen that say “I know, I knew it would happen,” but they are saying this when they are already in the hospital. They don’t say this before it happened whatever that is. That’s what Mind does to them. I had to learn that my mind doesn’t know anything. It didn’t know that I had to meet this car and that it would hit me. My mind was really confused about what I did, it still doesn’t trust my Spleen. In those moments when I spontaneously say “yes” or “no” to something, my mind immediately says “what are you doing, why did you just do this? Why?” The Spleen will never answer. You can’t have a conversation with your Spleen. Conversations are in the head, and the Spleen is a boom. It doesn’t matter what kind of Strategy I have, how I play these games, there is my Authority, that’s all. You have to understand one thing – on the surface there is only one value – to know how to make decisions as your True Self. It changes your life. It doesn’t matter what you do, where you are going, what is happening – you are making decisions from your True Self and it changes your life, changes you.
Majority of people change their lives through Strategies – Generators, Projectors, Reflectors, but Manifestors are changing their life only through Authority, only. Everything else is a game, only a game to survive so that we won’t be overthrown. I never understood this, and I made so many wrong decisions in my life, it’s unbelievable how I managed to survive. So many wrong decisions. Because I didn’t know how. And the smarter you become, the harder it is to make decisions because you are letting your mind make decisions. And mind is not worried whether it is right or wrong. That’s the thing – because your mind doesn’t care if this is a right or a wrong decision for you. It doesn’t care! Oh, it didn’t work? Ok, let’s try the other one. It doesn’t look at the mind and say – hm, this mind doesn’t really do it very well.
Nobody ever told us that there is a place within us which knows how to live this life without any problems. Nobody. And when I think about all these children.. Look at this knowledge that was given to me. I am working with adults, and it is the only thing I can do, but in reality I realized how beautiful it is for the children in the beginning. We are making our children homogenous. Those of you who are studying PHS (it’s a section in Human Design which answers for the proper nutrition according to our Design), know this. As soon as you give them the wrong food, you already homogenize them because we know that they are made for choosing a certain type of nutrition, what should be given to them in order for them to fulfill their unique potential. We are making our children homogenized, and this is a side effect of homogenization – the way we were fed, the way we were treated.
To make decisions correctly from our True Self means ignoring all these false authorities. To be a Manifestor is the only thing which save me because I have this place within me which shouldn’t bow to anyone – not to the outer world, not to the God, not to any concept, to nothing. It is something that saved me as a personality, as a human. I know how to operate on this plane, and this is what this life is connected to. There are 2 billion hungry people on this planet, we live in the world which is very cruel. There are many kinds of pain, ignorance, and it’s unbelievable what is happening, and this all is a collateral product of the mind, this madness. And you know when there is a possibility to be able to stand in all this madness which we call a “normal world” where Manifestors are wondering around lonely and angry…And it has always been like this. They don’t know how to behave. And you don’t know how to live on this plane. Because this is a world of decision making.
We all are moving in the space, constantly, this is a great mantra in this life. Everything which is connected with life is the direction. And everything which is connected to getting rid of this resistance is an ability to move along your own line, not anyone else’s, not through anyone else’s rules or authorities. So that you won’t have to blame anyone for following their direction and seeing later on that the direction was wrong.
The magic of this knowledge is that there is an Authority in everyone of us, inside every one of us. But you can’t get peace as a Manifestor any other way, there is no such thing. That’s where your peace starts, this is what needs to be understood, because we see these clichés, and we say about the point of peace, about all these people who are on this planet. And Manifestors out of them all can be the most motionless. They are still, deep, cold. And if you disturb them, it’s terriblе, it’s chaos. But if you let this get settled in, it’s something really deep. This is a Manifestor. It’s motionlessness which is in this closed aura, this peace inside, and not all of these confusions, waves, circles on the water, and that resistance which we face because we have no right to be in aloneness, and we are resisting it, getting offended.
People often say that we are keeping the memories about all sorts of fears which were millions of years ago. I know that each Manifestor carries within themselves the deepest fears and offenses about Manifestors which they keep within themselves for thousands of years. Read all of these sacred books, they were written by Manifestors – you have to, you have to, you will do it, and if you don’t, you’ll be punished. Manifestors always fall out of rules. That’s why it is so difficult for people to live with Manifestors because they don’t follow those rules. But they remember. That’s why other people don’t trust us, they don’t want to be in our aura, they are being suspicious of us. And that is the moment when we can play all these political games – I am this sweet person, let me inform you, let me share with you, let me tell you thank you for sharing with me…Until you are peaceful, I will be sharing with you whatever I can share. But don’t put a leash on me. We have to be free, it is a free horse in the field. And the beauty of this all – that’s what it means to be us.
I always thought about other Types like about aliens, not in the negative meaning, just about something which is completely different from me. They are not like me. Some of my best friends are Generators and Projectors, and Reflectors. And there is no prejudice here. But they are not like me because the way they communicate with one another, the way they live in this world, the way it works for them – this all is absolutely alien for me. Look at the Generator’s world. There are many Generators. You know that they all are stuck behind these huge doors in the big generator kabbalah. And I don’t understand it. I was always on the top of the pyramid, and I had no idea what was happening below. To be a Manifestor means not to be one of the crowd. It’s not like that. And there is nothing sadder than when Manifestor tries to be communicative. It can be even painful. They are not made for this. And sooner or later everyone will notice it and that’s when the real problems start.
If all the people on the planet will put together everything what they said behind Manifestor’s backs, then Manifestors will be on the top. There will be stories told about them even when they are long dead. «Your father was such a bastard…» And these stories will linger on forever. We are so happy that we are not responsible for anything now, and that they are not taking care of us. This is a typical dilemma which I faced in life – I couldn’t hear my Spleen, I was ignoring it, and my mind was directing me through my open centers, and I was receiving all the conditioning there is. That was me. Everything that was wrong in my life, it was something that wasn’t me. And it is really tough.
The glory for a Manifestor is in the moment when you realize that since you have your own authority, you shouldn’t deal with anyone anymore. And this is truly peace. I am playing these games when it is suitable, but I am letting my Spleen decide when to play, when to be nice, not often, I don’t play a nice Manifestor often, I don’t see the point. I don’t see the point because it is a huge theme for a Manifestor – you either accept me or leave. Accept me or leave. You either accept me for who I am, just like that, and then you can approach me as close as I will let you, and you will never be able to come to me closer than that, so if you can live with it, then it’s OK. If you can’t live with it, if you can’t accept it, then go somewhere else, don’t stand on my way, don’t stand on the way of life itself.
Life passes very quickly. If you can imagine…it passes by with such a huge speed. I still can’t believe that I will turn 59. It means there isn’t much time to enjoy smelling the roses. I needed half of the life to understand what is happening in this life. And it’s great. I love maya. I love this illusion. And the only movie that we have – it’s all these people in the world. It is easier to see the dysfunction, the way this all doesn’t work, I can say how many children are dying every hour, how many people can’t receive water, etc. but my life through my own authority is ideal. That’s what’s important.
Human Design is a very egotistical knowledge, you should understand it. It is for one person at a time, so that you can love yourself. The saddest thing that I know is people who hate themselves, who don’t have love for themselves. They don’t think that there is nothing more pathetic than psychology of these people. And I am not blaming them, it’s not their fault. Nobody taught them how to find it within themselves. You can’t love your Non-Self. I can’t love that person who is avoiding confrontation, the truth, who didn’t know when it is enough. I didn’t love this person, he was unpleasant for me, it was not a good being. It was not somebody worth loving. The other person was really nice. That’s what I wanted to become always. Such a gift. And then you see what you are because it’s interesting what this incarnation is all about. I never tell about this, I feel nauseous from this. As if people know when they speak about different incarnations what it means for them…
I didn’t know what it means to be a messenger until I became one. I didn’t have any idea about it. Until you become it. And then it captures you. That’s the beauty of your life. That’s what it means to be in your Incarnation Cross, to open that you are truly helpless, incompetent, and that your Cross and your aim will be satisfied no matter what. And you are just a witness. This is what the passenger is here for, that’s what he has to do, that’s what it is about. It’s not about using your mind for ruling your life, it is connected with enjoying your mind and its perspective, and share with this perspective with others.
We are social beings, social people. Look at the Throat center in the bodygraph, that’s what our gift, and think about what we are saying to each other, just listen to people. They never say the truth, they are practically don’t know how, it comes out of their Non-Self, it comes out of their conditioning. I remember that I never said truth. The only thing when you can get rid of the confrontation of the truth, when you have an open emotional system, it’s to lie, lie, and lie. And the better your memory is, the better you lie.
I never truly have real relationships with other people. It was never me. It was always conditioning controlling my mind and making decisions for me. Such a chaos. And it’s not only my chaos. As Manifestors, we influence, and we mix up lives of other people. Truly. You see, it is so simple. You always go back to your Strategy and Authority. You are going back to your own things which give you a chance to see this being, and not that conditioned being. We are living in this all the time, all the world is the homogenized Non Selves, the mind which is constantly making decisions through rules established by someone else, based on their conditionings. It is such a boring world when you are looking at it from this point of view, so restricted, there is so little variety there, and the world is densely homogenized. The mind doesn’t know how to live. It is just waiting to die on this planet, and that’s what I know about the life here – that the majority people are just waiting for death. And the majority is waiting for liberation when the life will come to an end. They are born, and they didn’t like all that time while they were here. And the majority of people truly are having a hard time on this planet.
This Human Design knowledge requires a lot of money, it’s not for everyone, and it will never be for everyone. It is for a certain percentage of people who can grasp it and begin playing the normal games trying to live the lives which is not them, where they are afraid of the government, doctors, lawyers, teachers, husbands, wives, where the authority of every second person is way more important than your own. It takes courage for this – to stand on your own feet. I see us as the aspect of the godliness, and if I operate correctly in my life, I see this divine shining – I don’t mean anything esoterical, it’s a mechanical truth. We all are filtering the field of consciousness, we all live in the neutrino ocean. Each of us is unique expression of this potential.
And as soon as you don’t live out your uniqueness, you are open to all those diseases, problems which the homogenized world has. And they are much bigger than anything you can imagine. The first 10 years when I was studying, I didn’t even teach Human Design, I didn’t speak about the Non Self because I was afraid that I wouldn’t be able to put it across to people. That’s how powerful the Non Self is. Look at your openness, at the whiteness of your Chart, and understand that this all is a receptor, the genetic receptor. And you think – I have to have this, this is what I need, this is what I am, this is what I have to become. As soon as you were born, you begin to become homogenized because people are feeding you in the wrong way, not what you need, and your neural activity closes down at the age of 3. And then you can’t already realize your cognitive potential.
Nobody ever treated me with respect throughout my life. it’s not like they didn’t love me, they just didn’t know better. I watched as they were destroying my life, I was just watching. It’s good that I am an Ego Manifestor, at least I could withstand it. Because it is so easy to destroy someone. It is so easy to place them in that world where they can live, and they will not find anything but the banal stupid rules. It is not a common knowledge. You won’t be giving it to the masses. You can’t. They are not ready for it. It’s not the way it has to be. We are approaching the end game. And in this end game there is a window of possibilities opening.
We are living in the great times, and it’s truly so, these are the times when people can really understand how to operate as their true Selves. Think about the whole humanity which never heard and knew about the way they operate in the world. This knowledge makes your life so much easier. And when I was given this knowledge at first, I thought, wow, how cool it is, it will be so easy, so simple. But this mind doesn’t let the simple exist. Smart people never like anything simple, they just find it too simple. I can’t say this to smart people, that’s how simple it is. And all what is required is to open the truth – that’s what the experiment makes you do. You can’t trust anything out of it, you can just discover it for yourself, and as soon as you enter this process, you open it very fast. And what a great difference it brings into your life. That’s what it takes.
And I am watching this movie for 20 years now, and it’s incredible for me to see how difficult it is to make people to accept the truth, the simple truth to make them try it themselves. It is so simple to check, and then you understand what I am saying, that this is not something universal, this is not a universal knowledge. No. I am here to teach everyone to be non-normal, out of ordinary. This is my job – to teach what it is like to be out of ordinary and love yourself for this. And how to find your beauty and your otherness. How wonderful it is to meet people which are not alike when you can truly express what there is. I’ve already seen it all and heard it all, I am not interested in anything there is, somebody is interpreting something for me, telling something over and over again, I don’t need to discuss the philosophy concepts which are simply garbage, and they’ve been discussed for centuries as if it is something unique. You have a unique perspective when you are not normal, when you are not bowing down to someone else’s authority, and not when your life is ruled by responsibilities which lock you and don’t give you a chance to see things the way they are, and they don’t give you an opportunity to be correct. Being correct is you are not dropping something which is operating correctly, and that’s the rule for everything. But you have to be correct. And this is again about the Strategy and Authority.
Every time when you meet a Manifestor, do everything to tell them that they can really be useful people. They can do their contribution, and it’s so difficult to get to them. The only way you can get something out of the Manifestor is if you truly love them. Then they can learn something about themselves. It’s enough to understand what it means – to be OK, to be a Manifestor. It’s OK to be a Manifestor. And as soon as Manifestor operates out of their Strategy, plays this game rooted in their Authority, they have peace. But moreover, you will see how incredible you are.
By the time we are 10, we are already full of problems. We think that other people are better than us. We think that they are thinking that we are not good enough. We would like to change a lot of things, if we could, and it is so sad. When I was giving these endless readings, it was so clear to me how people hate themselves, what nervous breakdowns they have as soon as I was pointing my finger at their Non-Self. They were saying “yes-yes-yes”, but I was saying – this is not you, that’s how you were living it, but it was not you». It’s the only freedom for us – to be ourselves. Whatever it means for me to be a Manifestor, with my configuration, or with other, the only thing which saved me – the thing that I am correct in my life. I don’t care what people think about me. I finally found my peace. And nobody can disturb it. And nobody can point a finger at my openness and disturb my peace, take it away from me. I’ve learned to see that I am OK, that there is nothing wrong with me. I am as good a lover as everyone else, and I can express my love just like others, the way that I am, even from behind the closed door. It is my variation of the theme. At the same time, if you don’t like this variation, I am OK. Find something you like. OK, that’s it for today.
I wanted to share with you this article that my favorite Elizabeth Gilbert wrote on her Facebook. When I read it, I was almost weeping. I am OK, I thought. There is nothing wrong with me, I thought. I am not alone in this, I thought.
Have you ever felt anger when someone told you “you should do this because everyone else does it”? Have you ever felt scared for feeling something you were not “supposed” to feel? Have you ever felt misunderstood by pretty much everyone?
Guess what, you are not alone. And guess what, there is nothing wrong with you. Read this, it’s so simple, nourishing and right to the point. Thank you, Liz.
Here is the essay:
Dear Ones:
Once I went to visit a therapist because I was afraid I might be a sociopath.
The reason I felt like a sociopath, is because I thought I was feeling THE WRONG EMOTION. Specifically, my story was this: I was a 30 year-old married woman, and I was supposed to want to have a baby — because that’s what married women are supposed to want when they are 30 years old.
But I didn’t want to have a baby. The thought of having a baby filled me not with a sense of joy, but with a sense of dread.
So I figured I must be a sociopath — obviously! — and I went to a therapist to confirm this diagnosis. This woman helpfully explained to me the difference between a sociopath and myself.
She said, “A sociopath does not feel any human emotion. You, on the other hand, are feeling plenty of human emotion, but the problem is, you believe you are feeling THE WRONG EMOTION. “
That’s why my life was falling apart — not because I couldn’t feel, but because I couldn’t accept my true feelings as legitimate. I was suffering and falling into depression because I still believed that there is a way that we are supposed to feel about every single life event (some sort of industry standard) and if my feelings deviated from that industry standard, then there was something deeply broken and wrong about me.
I do not believe that anymore.
We are not Dell Operating Systems, people.
We are people, people.
And we are complex and unique and perfect and true, and there is no one way to feel.
There is a way that culture teaches you that you are supposed to feel….and then there is what you are actually feeling. And if can’t allow your true feelings to exist, because you’re trying to live within the socially acceptable feeling, then you will suffer, and you will try to cram yourself into the industry standard, or you will try to numb your true feelings with addiction or self-abuse, or you will just stop feeling anything at all (to the point that you almost DO resemble a sociopath.)
Oh, my loves, my loves, my loves…
Have you ever suffered because you believed you were feeling THE WRONG EMOTION?
For years, I have collected so many stories from friends about their experiences with THE WRONG EMOTION.
I have a friend who described her sense of grieving — acute, anguished grieving — on her wedding day. That’s THE WRONG EMOTION! You can’t feel grief about getting married, when 300 guests are waiting to gaze at you in your very expensive Vera Wang wedding gown! WRONG!
And the shame she felt about that feeling of grief was so awful that her internal hard drive basically crashed for several years…effectively turning her into a socially-acceptable zombie, because feeling absolutely nothing was preferable to feeling THE WRONG EMOTION.
My friend the writer Ann Patchett recently wrote a brave and gorgeous essay about the tremendous joy she felt when her father finally died. He had suffered from an awful illness for years, and when he passed away, Ann felt not just relief…but joy! Ecstatic joy!
And man, did she take some shit from the Internet for saying out loud that she was happy her father was dead, because that is THE WRONG EMOTION. And yet that’s what Ann felt — despite, or perhaps because, of the fact that she had adored her father, and been his caregiver. She felt joy for herself, and joy for him, because they had both reached the end of his suffering.
And rather than keeping that WRONG EMOTION under wraps, she brought it out into the daylight and examined it, and talked about it openly, and shared it. Good for her.
I have a friend who finally said, “I hate Christmas, and I’ve always hated Christmas. I’m not doing it anymore.” WHAT?! WRONG EMOTION!
I have a friend who doesn’t feel any regret or sadness or ambivalence about that abortion she had thirty years ago. WHAT?! WRONG EMOTION.
I have a friend who stopped reading the news or being involved in activism and politics because he finally said, “Honestly? I don’t care anymore. I just don’t!” WRONG EMOTION!
I have a friend who stopped being a deacon in her church because she finally had to admit that she couldn’t swallow her church’s teachings anymore: WRONG EMOTION!
I have a friend who told me, “You know that expression about how nobody on their deathbed ever said, ‘I wish I’d spent more time at work’? Because family and friends are supposed to be more important than work? Well, I probably will be the one on my deathbed saying that I wish I’d spent more time at work, because I love working.
I’m crazy about my job, and I love it more than anything! I wish I could work even more hours. My work fulfills me completely. I love my job more than I love my friends — and I find my job so much easier to deal with than my crazy family. Work is where I go for joy.” WHAT?! WRONG EMOTION!
I have a friend who thought she was insane because — after her husband left her — all she could feel was relief….after twenty years of a “good marriage”. She had given everything to that marriage, and she had loved him so faithfully, and then he bailed out on her. She should have been weeping! She should have felt bitter! She should have felt shamed and betrayed and enraged!
There’s a script for how you are supposed to feel when your husband leaves you after you’ve been such a good wife, but she was deviating from the script, because all she felt was pure elation that he was gone and she was free. Her family was concerned about her for her reaction, because that’s THE WRONG EMOTION. They thought she might need to be medicated.
My mother once confessed to me that the happiest era of her life began when my sister and I finally grew up and went to college and she had an empty nest. THE WRONG EMOTION! Women are supposed to hate the empty nest! Mothers are supposed to mourn and collapse when their children leave home. But no.
My mom wanted to dance a freakin’ jig when she dropped her daughters off at college and realized that she was — at last —done with us. All the other moms were weeping, but all my mother could feel was: “Yahoooo!”
But she kept that feeling under wraps, because maternal ambivalence is the single most unacceptable emotion in our culture, and a “good mother” (whatever that even means, God help us) does NOT get to celebrate being free of her children, because: WRONG EMOTION. What would the neighbors say?
And here is the ultimate: A beloved friend of mine, years ago, was diagnosed with a terminal illness. This man, who loved life more than anyone I have ever met, admitted to me that his first thought — when the diagnosis came — was, “Oh, thank God.”
And that feeling didn’t go away over time, either, even as his disease worsened. He felt such deep happiness. He felt like, “Phew, I’m done!” He was dying! He “should” have felt sorrow and rage and pain and loss. But all he could think was that there was so much he didn’t have to worry about anymore!
He didn’t have to worry about saving for retirement anymore. He didn’t have to figure out how to deal with his most difficult relationships anymore.
He didn’t have to worry about terrorism and global warming anymore. He didn’t have to worry about getting the roof on the garage fixed anymore. He didn’t even have to worry about dying anymore, because now he knew how his story would end. He was happy.
And he stayed happy, throughout the whole journey toward his death. He told me, “Look, life is hard. Even a good life is hard, and I’ve had a very good life…but it’s hard. I’m excited that I get to leave this dinner party now. It’s been a fun party, but I’m tired. I’m ready to go.”
WRONG EMOTION! The doctors told him he was in shock, and kept handing him brochures about grieving. But my friend wasn’t in shock. Shock is when you feel nothing; my friend was feeling something —happiness! The doctors just didn’t like it, because it was THE WRONG EMOTION. Not up to the industry standard.
But my friend was standing in his truth – his very own truth — and if sixty years of conscious and openhearted living do not entitle a good man to stand in his own truth and feel his own feelings at the end of his life, then what is life even for?
My friends, listen: I want you to learn how to feel what you are feeling — not what you think you are SUPPOSED to feel, but what you ACTUALLY feel.
And I want you to guide your own life based on that, and only that.
I want you to remove the WRONG EMOTION! button from your internal keyboard forever.
I want you to throw away the idea that there is an emotional industry standard, and that you must not deviate from it. My friend Rob Bell told me that he used to ask his therapist all the time, “Is it normal that I feel this way?”, and the therapist would always reply, “Oh, Rob…we passed normal a long time ago.”
I passed normal a long time ago, too. I will not inflict upon myself anymore the shame and suffering of questioning my own reactions to life, or burying my own true feelings because I am not feeling what I’m allegedly supposed to feel.
If I feel joy, than that joy is right and real…for me.
If I feel grief, than that grief is right and real….for me.
If I love someone, then that love is right and real…for me.
If I feel mistrust or aversion to people I am supposed to trust and admire, then that feeling of mistrust is right and real…for me. And if I feel admiration for people I’m not supposed to admire, than that feeling of admiration is right and real…for me.
Nobody benefits when I try to make myself feel ways that I do not feel, and nobody benefits when I try to make myself NOT feel ways that I do feel…and nobody benefits when you do that, either.
Feel what you feel, allow your emotions to be legitimate, fearlessly examine your own reactions to your own life, and live your absolute truth — there is no other pathway to integrity than that.
Anything short of that is truly WRONG. (For you.)
(the original is here)
Have you ever felt anger when someone told you “you should do this because everyone else does it”? Have you ever felt scared for feeling something you were not “supposed” to feel? Have you ever felt misunderstood by pretty much everyone?
Guess what, you are not alone. And guess what, there is nothing wrong with you. Read this, it’s so simple, nourishing and right to the point. Thank you, Liz.
Here is the essay:
Dear Ones:
Once I went to visit a therapist because I was afraid I might be a sociopath.
The reason I felt like a sociopath, is because I thought I was feeling THE WRONG EMOTION. Specifically, my story was this: I was a 30 year-old married woman, and I was supposed to want to have a baby — because that’s what married women are supposed to want when they are 30 years old.
But I didn’t want to have a baby. The thought of having a baby filled me not with a sense of joy, but with a sense of dread.
So I figured I must be a sociopath — obviously! — and I went to a therapist to confirm this diagnosis. This woman helpfully explained to me the difference between a sociopath and myself.
She said, “A sociopath does not feel any human emotion. You, on the other hand, are feeling plenty of human emotion, but the problem is, you believe you are feeling THE WRONG EMOTION. “
That’s why my life was falling apart — not because I couldn’t feel, but because I couldn’t accept my true feelings as legitimate. I was suffering and falling into depression because I still believed that there is a way that we are supposed to feel about every single life event (some sort of industry standard) and if my feelings deviated from that industry standard, then there was something deeply broken and wrong about me.
I do not believe that anymore.
We are not Dell Operating Systems, people.
We are people, people.
And we are complex and unique and perfect and true, and there is no one way to feel.
There is a way that culture teaches you that you are supposed to feel….and then there is what you are actually feeling. And if can’t allow your true feelings to exist, because you’re trying to live within the socially acceptable feeling, then you will suffer, and you will try to cram yourself into the industry standard, or you will try to numb your true feelings with addiction or self-abuse, or you will just stop feeling anything at all (to the point that you almost DO resemble a sociopath.)
Oh, my loves, my loves, my loves…
Have you ever suffered because you believed you were feeling THE WRONG EMOTION?
For years, I have collected so many stories from friends about their experiences with THE WRONG EMOTION.
I have a friend who described her sense of grieving — acute, anguished grieving — on her wedding day. That’s THE WRONG EMOTION! You can’t feel grief about getting married, when 300 guests are waiting to gaze at you in your very expensive Vera Wang wedding gown! WRONG!
And the shame she felt about that feeling of grief was so awful that her internal hard drive basically crashed for several years…effectively turning her into a socially-acceptable zombie, because feeling absolutely nothing was preferable to feeling THE WRONG EMOTION.
My friend the writer Ann Patchett recently wrote a brave and gorgeous essay about the tremendous joy she felt when her father finally died. He had suffered from an awful illness for years, and when he passed away, Ann felt not just relief…but joy! Ecstatic joy!
And man, did she take some shit from the Internet for saying out loud that she was happy her father was dead, because that is THE WRONG EMOTION. And yet that’s what Ann felt — despite, or perhaps because, of the fact that she had adored her father, and been his caregiver. She felt joy for herself, and joy for him, because they had both reached the end of his suffering.
And rather than keeping that WRONG EMOTION under wraps, she brought it out into the daylight and examined it, and talked about it openly, and shared it. Good for her.
I have a friend who finally said, “I hate Christmas, and I’ve always hated Christmas. I’m not doing it anymore.” WHAT?! WRONG EMOTION!
I have a friend who doesn’t feel any regret or sadness or ambivalence about that abortion she had thirty years ago. WHAT?! WRONG EMOTION.
I have a friend who stopped reading the news or being involved in activism and politics because he finally said, “Honestly? I don’t care anymore. I just don’t!” WRONG EMOTION!
I have a friend who stopped being a deacon in her church because she finally had to admit that she couldn’t swallow her church’s teachings anymore: WRONG EMOTION!
I have a friend who told me, “You know that expression about how nobody on their deathbed ever said, ‘I wish I’d spent more time at work’? Because family and friends are supposed to be more important than work? Well, I probably will be the one on my deathbed saying that I wish I’d spent more time at work, because I love working.
I’m crazy about my job, and I love it more than anything! I wish I could work even more hours. My work fulfills me completely. I love my job more than I love my friends — and I find my job so much easier to deal with than my crazy family. Work is where I go for joy.” WHAT?! WRONG EMOTION!
I have a friend who thought she was insane because — after her husband left her — all she could feel was relief….after twenty years of a “good marriage”. She had given everything to that marriage, and she had loved him so faithfully, and then he bailed out on her. She should have been weeping! She should have felt bitter! She should have felt shamed and betrayed and enraged!
There’s a script for how you are supposed to feel when your husband leaves you after you’ve been such a good wife, but she was deviating from the script, because all she felt was pure elation that he was gone and she was free. Her family was concerned about her for her reaction, because that’s THE WRONG EMOTION. They thought she might need to be medicated.
My mother once confessed to me that the happiest era of her life began when my sister and I finally grew up and went to college and she had an empty nest. THE WRONG EMOTION! Women are supposed to hate the empty nest! Mothers are supposed to mourn and collapse when their children leave home. But no.
My mom wanted to dance a freakin’ jig when she dropped her daughters off at college and realized that she was — at last —done with us. All the other moms were weeping, but all my mother could feel was: “Yahoooo!”
But she kept that feeling under wraps, because maternal ambivalence is the single most unacceptable emotion in our culture, and a “good mother” (whatever that even means, God help us) does NOT get to celebrate being free of her children, because: WRONG EMOTION. What would the neighbors say?
And here is the ultimate: A beloved friend of mine, years ago, was diagnosed with a terminal illness. This man, who loved life more than anyone I have ever met, admitted to me that his first thought — when the diagnosis came — was, “Oh, thank God.”
And that feeling didn’t go away over time, either, even as his disease worsened. He felt such deep happiness. He felt like, “Phew, I’m done!” He was dying! He “should” have felt sorrow and rage and pain and loss. But all he could think was that there was so much he didn’t have to worry about anymore!
He didn’t have to worry about saving for retirement anymore. He didn’t have to figure out how to deal with his most difficult relationships anymore.
He didn’t have to worry about terrorism and global warming anymore. He didn’t have to worry about getting the roof on the garage fixed anymore. He didn’t even have to worry about dying anymore, because now he knew how his story would end. He was happy.
And he stayed happy, throughout the whole journey toward his death. He told me, “Look, life is hard. Even a good life is hard, and I’ve had a very good life…but it’s hard. I’m excited that I get to leave this dinner party now. It’s been a fun party, but I’m tired. I’m ready to go.”
WRONG EMOTION! The doctors told him he was in shock, and kept handing him brochures about grieving. But my friend wasn’t in shock. Shock is when you feel nothing; my friend was feeling something —happiness! The doctors just didn’t like it, because it was THE WRONG EMOTION. Not up to the industry standard.
But my friend was standing in his truth – his very own truth — and if sixty years of conscious and openhearted living do not entitle a good man to stand in his own truth and feel his own feelings at the end of his life, then what is life even for?
My friends, listen: I want you to learn how to feel what you are feeling — not what you think you are SUPPOSED to feel, but what you ACTUALLY feel.
And I want you to guide your own life based on that, and only that.
I want you to remove the WRONG EMOTION! button from your internal keyboard forever.
I want you to throw away the idea that there is an emotional industry standard, and that you must not deviate from it. My friend Rob Bell told me that he used to ask his therapist all the time, “Is it normal that I feel this way?”, and the therapist would always reply, “Oh, Rob…we passed normal a long time ago.”
I passed normal a long time ago, too. I will not inflict upon myself anymore the shame and suffering of questioning my own reactions to life, or burying my own true feelings because I am not feeling what I’m allegedly supposed to feel.
If I feel joy, than that joy is right and real…for me.
If I feel grief, than that grief is right and real….for me.
If I love someone, then that love is right and real…for me.
If I feel mistrust or aversion to people I am supposed to trust and admire, then that feeling of mistrust is right and real…for me. And if I feel admiration for people I’m not supposed to admire, than that feeling of admiration is right and real…for me.
Nobody benefits when I try to make myself feel ways that I do not feel, and nobody benefits when I try to make myself NOT feel ways that I do feel…and nobody benefits when you do that, either.
Feel what you feel, allow your emotions to be legitimate, fearlessly examine your own reactions to your own life, and live your absolute truth — there is no other pathway to integrity than that.
Anything short of that is truly WRONG. (For you.)
(the original is here)
When I was offered my first job in the newsroom in 2005, I replied that I cannot write on demand. You see, I said, the muse is coming to me whenever it feels like. I need an inspiration, I said. I need a space, I said. I need freedom, you know? My boss-to-be looked at me attentively and said: “Got you. We are still offering you this job, though.” “Ok,” I said thinking that everything would be just the way I thought it would be. Should I say how wrong I was? That’s how my journalism career started. The writer’s life started when I was 5.
Today I’d like to share with you the following: how to tame your muse? How can and should we write and draw and create with the deadlines? I’ll tell you about the tools that I’ve been using for quite a long time, and also will “kill” couple of myths that creative people are clinging too just like I was.
Deadlines help creative people to show their dedication for the work they do, which is impossible without some amount of discipline and reveal their responsibility level. When creative people say they cannot act with a gun pointed at their head (meaning “on time”), they are being slightly dishonest. They can meet the deadlines, they would love to do just that but they don’t know HOW. As simple as that.
*
If you do not need to submit your project on time, too bad. There is a chance you’ll never finish what you’ve started. If this is your case, you can deal with this problem easily. All you need to do is come up with your own deadline, – easy-peasy. This rule saves me all the time.
*
Writer’s work is not only a productive time spent on writing and finishing at least half of the chapter in one go. This is also time spent on less romantic stuff like buying the brushes, preparing the tools for painting, mulling over the ideas, etc. What is your creative process? Every single thing is a part of your working life, and it’s important to value it and to take it into consideration. I see a lot of times how writers and other creative fam representatives scold themselves for not writing a line even though they’ve been sitting at their computer for 3 hours trying to be productive. And they didn’t even notice that this time was very important for the creative process.
*
To let yourself be in this emptiness means to give yourself permission to be a creative being. Masterpieces are born in that emptiness. If you are already “full” with something, it’s impossible to be filled with anything new. And being filled with new is just the way the muse works its magic. So don’t scold yourself in vain. The most important thing is that you showed up for your work. You took time to sit at your creation. Now let the masterpiece be born. Gestation period takes time. As Woody Allen said, the biggest part of the success is showing up. So show up at your job. Yes, creative process is a job. Those masterpieces that you are enjoying in the museum, bookstores and galleries were created during many hours of work and emptiness. The muse is a naughty little thing, it shows up only when it is wanted and expected.
*
The next point I am calling the disease of a perfectionist. If you think that the first draft has to be perfect, you won’t make it. There is no such thing as perfection in general, and its standards vary from the angle, perspective, perception, epoch, taste, etc. In order to write one good article I had to write at least a hundred of poor ones. Does it mean that now my articles are the acme of perfection? Of course, not. They are definitely better, but I was lucky – I was never a perfectionist. “Good enough” works for me. So, before you make your first amazing drawing, you’ll have to finish several albums filled with poor ones.
So, don’t think that you are drawing the final draft. Just draw so that the fear of the white page goes out the window. Just write the first words that come to your mind. When I am writing an article, a chapter for my book or the next fairy-tale, first, I am just writing whatever comes to my mind. Sometimes it is just “blah-blah-blah.” And only in time the needed words start flowing onto the screen or paper, the words that have been hiding behind the veil of garbage.
*
The fear of a white sheet is a fear of silence. How often do we switch on music, TV just in order not to end up on our own and silence the inner voice which sometimes overlaps everything – that’s how loud it can be? The best way of fighting this fear is facing it. I know you’ve heard it. But bear with me.
I’ve recently watched how Tony Robbins was sharing the episode with the billionaire Mark Benioff. It goes like this: Tony woke Mark up in the middle of the night and persuaded him to jump together into the raging river, and after the jump told him that it was full of poisonous snakes. Guess what, Mark had a phobia of snakes, and Tony knew it. Needless to say that after this accident Mark’s phobia is no more.
Under no circumstances I am advising you to try the same because you are not Tony Robbins. He knew what he was doing, he had experience AND confidence under his belt. But you don’t have to jump into the river with snakes anyways. All you need to do for now it to admit that there is a fear of silence, if it is there. Just like it is important for alcoholics to admit, as a first step, that they are alcoholics. Because this is the honesty that will save your life and will save your product.
How do you find out whether you have the fear or not? If you are refusing to believe of its existence, if you are constantly running away from it, it’s most definitely there. It doesn’t mean that there is something wrong with you. On the contrary, it’s quite the usual thing among the creative ones. JK Rowling faced it, Salvador Dali faced it as well. In order to get rid of claustrophobia, I had to spend in a crowed subway all day long.
Look into the eye of your fear. In our case it is – look at your white sheet. Stay with it in the silence. Accept its existence. Breathe into it, literally. Be grateful for its existence. Forgive yourself for shooing it away. You are not that person anymore. Sometimes this is all it takes to overcome and see this fear dissipate in front of your eyes. And who knows, maybe that will be the moment when the words of a genius will be revealed to you right there, right that moment. And you are a genius. I know that each and every one of us is a genius because I am doing Human Design and Gene Key Readings, and so far, I haven’t met exceptions to this rule.
*
The next one I will say through Hemingway’s understanding that fitted my experience: It’s better to stop when everything goes well for you, and when you know what’s going to happen further in your creation. Then you will never feel stuck. Always stop when everything is going well, and don’t think about it until you start writing (drawing, creating) the next day. This way your subconscious mind will keep working on it. However, if you will be consciously thinking and worrying about it, your mind will get tired before you start your work.
I use this method quite often since I always work on several projects at a time (as a true Manifesting Generator). The work goes pretty much like this: I write the first draft of an article, put it aside and start recording the video for my Human Design online course. Then I take one of my articles that’s already been published and translate it into English in order to put it on my blog. Then I put it aside as well since after some time I need to look at it with a fresh eye and edit it. So, every time I go back to the place where I finished, I remember the feeling of anticipation, and I like it, it helps me. Try it out and see for yourself – there is nothing like your personal experience. It might be just the saving grace that you need.
Next time I will tell you about the writing awareness techniques which will definitely help you not only to come out of the creative crisis if you have it and get rid of the fear of the white sheet, but also will solve a lot of other problems. Many of these techniques I’ve already described in my book.
Today I’d like to share with you the following: how to tame your muse? How can and should we write and draw and create with the deadlines? I’ll tell you about the tools that I’ve been using for quite a long time, and also will “kill” couple of myths that creative people are clinging too just like I was.
Deadlines help creative people to show their dedication for the work they do, which is impossible without some amount of discipline and reveal their responsibility level. When creative people say they cannot act with a gun pointed at their head (meaning “on time”), they are being slightly dishonest. They can meet the deadlines, they would love to do just that but they don’t know HOW. As simple as that.
*
If you do not need to submit your project on time, too bad. There is a chance you’ll never finish what you’ve started. If this is your case, you can deal with this problem easily. All you need to do is come up with your own deadline, – easy-peasy. This rule saves me all the time.
*
Writer’s work is not only a productive time spent on writing and finishing at least half of the chapter in one go. This is also time spent on less romantic stuff like buying the brushes, preparing the tools for painting, mulling over the ideas, etc. What is your creative process? Every single thing is a part of your working life, and it’s important to value it and to take it into consideration. I see a lot of times how writers and other creative fam representatives scold themselves for not writing a line even though they’ve been sitting at their computer for 3 hours trying to be productive. And they didn’t even notice that this time was very important for the creative process.
*
To let yourself be in this emptiness means to give yourself permission to be a creative being. Masterpieces are born in that emptiness. If you are already “full” with something, it’s impossible to be filled with anything new. And being filled with new is just the way the muse works its magic. So don’t scold yourself in vain. The most important thing is that you showed up for your work. You took time to sit at your creation. Now let the masterpiece be born. Gestation period takes time. As Woody Allen said, the biggest part of the success is showing up. So show up at your job. Yes, creative process is a job. Those masterpieces that you are enjoying in the museum, bookstores and galleries were created during many hours of work and emptiness. The muse is a naughty little thing, it shows up only when it is wanted and expected.
*
The next point I am calling the disease of a perfectionist. If you think that the first draft has to be perfect, you won’t make it. There is no such thing as perfection in general, and its standards vary from the angle, perspective, perception, epoch, taste, etc. In order to write one good article I had to write at least a hundred of poor ones. Does it mean that now my articles are the acme of perfection? Of course, not. They are definitely better, but I was lucky – I was never a perfectionist. “Good enough” works for me. So, before you make your first amazing drawing, you’ll have to finish several albums filled with poor ones.
So, don’t think that you are drawing the final draft. Just draw so that the fear of the white page goes out the window. Just write the first words that come to your mind. When I am writing an article, a chapter for my book or the next fairy-tale, first, I am just writing whatever comes to my mind. Sometimes it is just “blah-blah-blah.” And only in time the needed words start flowing onto the screen or paper, the words that have been hiding behind the veil of garbage.
*
The fear of a white sheet is a fear of silence. How often do we switch on music, TV just in order not to end up on our own and silence the inner voice which sometimes overlaps everything – that’s how loud it can be? The best way of fighting this fear is facing it. I know you’ve heard it. But bear with me.
I’ve recently watched how Tony Robbins was sharing the episode with the billionaire Mark Benioff. It goes like this: Tony woke Mark up in the middle of the night and persuaded him to jump together into the raging river, and after the jump told him that it was full of poisonous snakes. Guess what, Mark had a phobia of snakes, and Tony knew it. Needless to say that after this accident Mark’s phobia is no more.
Under no circumstances I am advising you to try the same because you are not Tony Robbins. He knew what he was doing, he had experience AND confidence under his belt. But you don’t have to jump into the river with snakes anyways. All you need to do for now it to admit that there is a fear of silence, if it is there. Just like it is important for alcoholics to admit, as a first step, that they are alcoholics. Because this is the honesty that will save your life and will save your product.
How do you find out whether you have the fear or not? If you are refusing to believe of its existence, if you are constantly running away from it, it’s most definitely there. It doesn’t mean that there is something wrong with you. On the contrary, it’s quite the usual thing among the creative ones. JK Rowling faced it, Salvador Dali faced it as well. In order to get rid of claustrophobia, I had to spend in a crowed subway all day long.
Look into the eye of your fear. In our case it is – look at your white sheet. Stay with it in the silence. Accept its existence. Breathe into it, literally. Be grateful for its existence. Forgive yourself for shooing it away. You are not that person anymore. Sometimes this is all it takes to overcome and see this fear dissipate in front of your eyes. And who knows, maybe that will be the moment when the words of a genius will be revealed to you right there, right that moment. And you are a genius. I know that each and every one of us is a genius because I am doing Human Design and Gene Key Readings, and so far, I haven’t met exceptions to this rule.
*
The next one I will say through Hemingway’s understanding that fitted my experience: It’s better to stop when everything goes well for you, and when you know what’s going to happen further in your creation. Then you will never feel stuck. Always stop when everything is going well, and don’t think about it until you start writing (drawing, creating) the next day. This way your subconscious mind will keep working on it. However, if you will be consciously thinking and worrying about it, your mind will get tired before you start your work.
I use this method quite often since I always work on several projects at a time (as a true Manifesting Generator). The work goes pretty much like this: I write the first draft of an article, put it aside and start recording the video for my Human Design online course. Then I take one of my articles that’s already been published and translate it into English in order to put it on my blog. Then I put it aside as well since after some time I need to look at it with a fresh eye and edit it. So, every time I go back to the place where I finished, I remember the feeling of anticipation, and I like it, it helps me. Try it out and see for yourself – there is nothing like your personal experience. It might be just the saving grace that you need.
Next time I will tell you about the writing awareness techniques which will definitely help you not only to come out of the creative crisis if you have it and get rid of the fear of the white sheet, but also will solve a lot of other problems. Many of these techniques I’ve already described in my book.
When I need to deal with a concept of a Generator, I always go back to the beginning of my process. Again and again I used to repeat to my clients – when I was given this knowledge, I thought that it would be very easy to find a few Generators which would experiment with their response, and the world would change. As simple as that. I really thought it would be as simple as that. Because there isn’t anything simpler than this concept: if you need to make a decision, do it through responding to life. It seems easy, right?
Our world is all mixed up, confused because the Generators are not OK. They are trying to be Manifestors, they are all frustrated. In a way I was paying little attention to Manifestors, Projectors, Reflectors. I thought that if there is something new in this knowledge in order to change the world, then those Generators will see how it works in reality, they will see that what I am saying is the truth. Because Generators are an ideal instrument. I think of Generators and their gift which was given to them since birth…
That’s because Generator is a perfect instrument. You can spend all your life fighting with this. There is no time for anything else. They don’t have time to love themselves, to see what this life is all about. Because up here, in the head, there is this little box. And if they let their mind make decisions about what their life should be…. When Generators are sleeping and dreaming, they are having the Manifestors’ dreams – I know what it’s like. You can dream your own dreams. But the poor Generator will be suffering from the consequences of those dreams because you will see that Gods signed the best contract with you, and they will be hitting you much harder than anybody else. Because they’ve created a perfect life for you, simple perfection.
I can’t take people’s vanity when they look at their Charts and think that this little mind can rule their life. Those Minds are nothing but a place filled with all sorts of clichés which were gathered by generations. It has nothing to do with what it is like to be in this world. Your mind doesn’t know that you are a Generator and what is right for you. This is Generator’s Signature. It’s called satisfaction.
Each Generator when they are born, the only thing they need, and the only thing they want is to be a Manifestor, this is the dream. Oh yeah, it will be satisfying. I will be satisfied only if I will have this. I am frustrated only because of this, because I don’t have this and that. And that’s why I am constantly paying attention to it. I will try to get it. And the Gods enter and hit you in the face. Sacred people who act like fools because they are in this whole concept. Only Generators are really Sacred. All the other Types, we just came into this world riding on the Generator’s backs. And I don’t like to ride on this frustrated back. But that’s all you get.
And you see the mind – it’s so perfect, it’s so ideal. Generator is everything you’ve ever read in a mystical book, anywhere. Just give in to the beauty of life, the beauty of the vitality. The Generators’ magic is that they don’t know beforehand what they will say “yes” to, and what they will say “no” to, they have no idea if it should be this way or that way.
I remember these amazing questions from Generators which said: what if someone asks me to jump into some cave, and I will say “yeah,” what then? I am saying – go for it. Maybe your life will be over with this, maybe that’s the whole story. You don’t know. Manifestors are not interested in themselves, they are not taking care of themselves. Projectors are interested only in those who is close to them, and who will bring them success. Reflectors would like to be in aloneness, then they would get their peace. And Generators… The sign on the oracle’s door says: “Only for Generators.” If Manifestors will see this sign, they will get angry and leave. Only for Generators. You will enter this door and see the oracle there, he is looking at you and seeing that you are a Projector. No, you are not in the right place, this is only for Generators. Only Generators are here to know themselves. And it means that if they don’t, then they have problems.
They don’t know what they are, they don’t know that they are Non-Self, they know everything which they are NOT. That’s their thing. They think they know themselves. They don’t. Their lives are ruled by the Mind. Their Mind is ruled by the Non-Self. Generator with and open Heart center will not know themselves. They already made a decision that they are not worth anything, and all their life they are trying to prove to others that they are nice people, decent persons, good human beings. They become sort of slaves. It’s very easy to make a Generator a slave. All you need to do is say: be like a Manifestor. And then they will start drinking from their Non-Self.
I am scared when people think that they know their purpose. Because their purpose is lying at their Non-Self. You are born with this Open Heart center, and all you want to do as a purpose – to prove that you are worth something. And you don’t need to prove anything to anyone. If mind will be making the decisions relying on this, it will be lying to you, and lying to others. And what’s worse – it will become envious. I tried to compare Generators with wolves, with the greatest sheep of this world. Blind sheep in frustration are ready to try to do anything. And that’s never about that. It took me 10 years to start curing people from the Non-Self. Because I already saw that Non-Self keeps holding Generators away from their magic. Their mind also is guiding them away from their beauty and magic. Think about this theme of satisfaction. What does it mean?
I have no activation in the Sacral center, and I feel the Generators’ power. For me, Generator is a very powerful beast. They have this incredible depth, fertility, it’s impossible to imagine what they can do. And when I am increasing the Generators’ power as every open and undefined center does, I feel how powerful they are. I have three Generator kids. I inhale their deep purity, their power.
Only when this energy is used by Generators directly and specifically, they can know what it means. If Generators don’t use this mechanism of listening to their gut, they don’t’ know what this power means. This is a Sacral motor which doesn’t respond on its own, it’s a motor. And what does this motor say? What can it say? It says: I can do it. Remember this little train in the cartoon which said: I know I can, I think I can. When the Sacral center is responding, it means that there is power, there is energy for anything. It might be for a split moment or for the whole life. It may be a commitment for one second, or it will be a commitment for life, and it doesn’t matter what the Sacral says “yes” to. It means that this motor says “I can do it.” And more: it says that it will be using the Generator’s energy correctly.
One of the moments which I taught to Generators, it is so important for them to go to sleep when they are exhausted. When Generators go to sleep and say from their Non-self that they need to wake up early and that’s why they need to go to sleep ASAP, it’s not the sacral logic. Here it is important to exhaust this energy which is connected with the motor. For Generators each usage of their energy is like traveling towards an orgasm. Only when you truly grasp this, you will understand what true satisfaction means. When somebody asks a Generator – “can you do this?”, and they say “aha,” in that moment they are giving up their energy not only to the cause but they are also giving in to the fact that they are going to use it until it’s exhausted. That’s why they are not simply Generators, they are reGenerators.
My son Generator taught me this – he is always holding the phone on the charger, all night. And he tells me: “first you need to discharge it completely, and only then you can charge it properly.” That’s what it means to be a Generator. You need to use this energy first, completely, totally, and it doesn’t matter that each action means an action of exhaustion. You should understand, it means that if you give all the energy which Sacral gives for this action, to which you say “yes,” then you will feel satisfied.
And this is a deep satisfaction. Generators need to be really used up in this sense – these resources, this source of energy. You have this incredible power inside of you, and what you need is commitment to use this energy to what is correct. That’s why I am going right to the beginning. I am telling Generators: enough.
Our world is all mixed up, confused because the Generators are not OK. They are trying to be Manifestors, they are all frustrated. In a way I was paying little attention to Manifestors, Projectors, Reflectors. I thought that if there is something new in this knowledge in order to change the world, then those Generators will see how it works in reality, they will see that what I am saying is the truth. Because Generators are an ideal instrument. I think of Generators and their gift which was given to them since birth…
That’s because Generator is a perfect instrument. You can spend all your life fighting with this. There is no time for anything else. They don’t have time to love themselves, to see what this life is all about. Because up here, in the head, there is this little box. And if they let their mind make decisions about what their life should be…. When Generators are sleeping and dreaming, they are having the Manifestors’ dreams – I know what it’s like. You can dream your own dreams. But the poor Generator will be suffering from the consequences of those dreams because you will see that Gods signed the best contract with you, and they will be hitting you much harder than anybody else. Because they’ve created a perfect life for you, simple perfection.
I can’t take people’s vanity when they look at their Charts and think that this little mind can rule their life. Those Minds are nothing but a place filled with all sorts of clichés which were gathered by generations. It has nothing to do with what it is like to be in this world. Your mind doesn’t know that you are a Generator and what is right for you. This is Generator’s Signature. It’s called satisfaction.
Each Generator when they are born, the only thing they need, and the only thing they want is to be a Manifestor, this is the dream. Oh yeah, it will be satisfying. I will be satisfied only if I will have this. I am frustrated only because of this, because I don’t have this and that. And that’s why I am constantly paying attention to it. I will try to get it. And the Gods enter and hit you in the face. Sacred people who act like fools because they are in this whole concept. Only Generators are really Sacred. All the other Types, we just came into this world riding on the Generator’s backs. And I don’t like to ride on this frustrated back. But that’s all you get.
And you see the mind – it’s so perfect, it’s so ideal. Generator is everything you’ve ever read in a mystical book, anywhere. Just give in to the beauty of life, the beauty of the vitality. The Generators’ magic is that they don’t know beforehand what they will say “yes” to, and what they will say “no” to, they have no idea if it should be this way or that way.
I remember these amazing questions from Generators which said: what if someone asks me to jump into some cave, and I will say “yeah,” what then? I am saying – go for it. Maybe your life will be over with this, maybe that’s the whole story. You don’t know. Manifestors are not interested in themselves, they are not taking care of themselves. Projectors are interested only in those who is close to them, and who will bring them success. Reflectors would like to be in aloneness, then they would get their peace. And Generators… The sign on the oracle’s door says: “Only for Generators.” If Manifestors will see this sign, they will get angry and leave. Only for Generators. You will enter this door and see the oracle there, he is looking at you and seeing that you are a Projector. No, you are not in the right place, this is only for Generators. Only Generators are here to know themselves. And it means that if they don’t, then they have problems.
They don’t know what they are, they don’t know that they are Non-Self, they know everything which they are NOT. That’s their thing. They think they know themselves. They don’t. Their lives are ruled by the Mind. Their Mind is ruled by the Non-Self. Generator with and open Heart center will not know themselves. They already made a decision that they are not worth anything, and all their life they are trying to prove to others that they are nice people, decent persons, good human beings. They become sort of slaves. It’s very easy to make a Generator a slave. All you need to do is say: be like a Manifestor. And then they will start drinking from their Non-Self.
I am scared when people think that they know their purpose. Because their purpose is lying at their Non-Self. You are born with this Open Heart center, and all you want to do as a purpose – to prove that you are worth something. And you don’t need to prove anything to anyone. If mind will be making the decisions relying on this, it will be lying to you, and lying to others. And what’s worse – it will become envious. I tried to compare Generators with wolves, with the greatest sheep of this world. Blind sheep in frustration are ready to try to do anything. And that’s never about that. It took me 10 years to start curing people from the Non-Self. Because I already saw that Non-Self keeps holding Generators away from their magic. Their mind also is guiding them away from their beauty and magic. Think about this theme of satisfaction. What does it mean?
I have no activation in the Sacral center, and I feel the Generators’ power. For me, Generator is a very powerful beast. They have this incredible depth, fertility, it’s impossible to imagine what they can do. And when I am increasing the Generators’ power as every open and undefined center does, I feel how powerful they are. I have three Generator kids. I inhale their deep purity, their power.
Only when this energy is used by Generators directly and specifically, they can know what it means. If Generators don’t use this mechanism of listening to their gut, they don’t’ know what this power means. This is a Sacral motor which doesn’t respond on its own, it’s a motor. And what does this motor say? What can it say? It says: I can do it. Remember this little train in the cartoon which said: I know I can, I think I can. When the Sacral center is responding, it means that there is power, there is energy for anything. It might be for a split moment or for the whole life. It may be a commitment for one second, or it will be a commitment for life, and it doesn’t matter what the Sacral says “yes” to. It means that this motor says “I can do it.” And more: it says that it will be using the Generator’s energy correctly.
One of the moments which I taught to Generators, it is so important for them to go to sleep when they are exhausted. When Generators go to sleep and say from their Non-self that they need to wake up early and that’s why they need to go to sleep ASAP, it’s not the sacral logic. Here it is important to exhaust this energy which is connected with the motor. For Generators each usage of their energy is like traveling towards an orgasm. Only when you truly grasp this, you will understand what true satisfaction means. When somebody asks a Generator – “can you do this?”, and they say “aha,” in that moment they are giving up their energy not only to the cause but they are also giving in to the fact that they are going to use it until it’s exhausted. That’s why they are not simply Generators, they are reGenerators.
My son Generator taught me this – he is always holding the phone on the charger, all night. And he tells me: “first you need to discharge it completely, and only then you can charge it properly.” That’s what it means to be a Generator. You need to use this energy first, completely, totally, and it doesn’t matter that each action means an action of exhaustion. You should understand, it means that if you give all the energy which Sacral gives for this action, to which you say “yes,” then you will feel satisfied.
And this is a deep satisfaction. Generators need to be really used up in this sense – these resources, this source of energy. You have this incredible power inside of you, and what you need is commitment to use this energy to what is correct. That’s why I am going right to the beginning. I am telling Generators: enough.
Every story has to start somewhere. Mine starts with a suitcase. It’s big and red. It has its own little story but let me continue with leaving as I see it.
Leaving is never easy. You can say it’s fun, enjoyable and pinky, but let me tell you something. I’ve packed my bags more than I can count. I’ve traveled roads, oceans, skies. I’ve lived an expat life and went back “home” over and over again trying to fit in among those who still remembered me. I’ve dealt with a sorrow of saying good bye and a joy of saying hello so many times that it became trivial. Nobody waved at me at bus stations or airport halls anymore. Taxis were taking me, all alone, toward the departure – I prefer it that way. The goodbyes were said casually, at home, by the gates. I tolerated them pretending that it was not a big deal. Although it always is.
Back to my huge dark red suitcase that is keeping my whole life inside as of now. Usually the packing starts beforehand. First, it’s clothes. There is always too much of them and their comfort is much more important than the beauty. Now that I am striving for the minimalist lifestyle more and more, I’m cutting down on this department. God help me, being a woman and all.
The first bag was black. It didn’t have any wheels, and it fit many things even though back then my life was much simpler in the “stuff” department. I was a 16-year-old teenager from a small Russian-Muslim town whose dream suddenly became true – going to the USA as an exchange student. It was the first time for many things: leaving home, parents, town, country. The most treasured thing in that black suitcase was Koran that I put under my pillow for protection from I wasn’t sure what. It just felt safer this way.
Since then many things changed – me, the bags. Backpacks, medium carry-ons, huge red suitcases (always red, hmm), fancy ones and cheap ones, with four wheels and with all kinds of straps. I loved packing them up. It made me look at my possessions with a different eye. Part of them changed, but over time some of the things have been traveling from one bag into the other. Osho Zen Taro cards, for example that always got me through dark times. Now these cards traveled into another traveler’s bag.
My Kindle has also been travelling with me for the last four years. It has all the books I would like to read in this life. And each book has a mark of a place where it was read. “Love Story” was in the bus on the way back from Nalchik to Moscow next to a girl who didn’t utter a word throughout our 20-hour long trip. “Conversation with God” was on the nightbus from Turkey to Georgia. That New Yorker issue with Gay Talese’s article was on the plane from Florida, Key West back to Lincoln, Nebraska which I used to call my home for two years. Clarissa Pinkola Estes “Women who run with the wolves” was on the way from Bangalore to Rishikesh, India…
Some things lose their relevance and stop traveling with me. I become less sentimental and more practical, less consumerist and more minimalist. I envy men with their small carry-ons. Guys, how do you do that? You seem to fit yourselves into the tiny bags where even my jeans would feel claustrophobic. I also partially envy those who dress so smart for the airports. I never do.
I don’t do many things. I don’t call my family or friends during my trips to pass the time. I don’t shop or window shop in the duty-free zone. I don’t put on make-up (I rarely do it anyway).
I do watch people, though. It’s fascinating to see how different and similar we all are. I can eye for hours a couple of women from Saudi Arabia in burkas trying to guess what they are talking about and who the mother of the countless kids around them is. So, yeah, airports are great places to watch people since it’s the only thing you can do sometimes when your flight, let’s say, is delayed for 14 hours.
People I meet on the way – I remember their faces but don’t remember most of the names. Some of them are adventurers, they are easy to talk to and laugh with. You might not even ask them where they are going or where they are from. You might share a cup of tea in the road café or a glass of cognac on the way to Prague, which will be enough.
Some of them are seeking for romance (that’s actually not the word I would use but oh well). They might want to force that romance upon you, or ask for it in a polite manner. Either way, you will have to deal with it, ‘coz there is no way of running, not when you are on the bus full of strangers, anyway. I remember some images very clearly, although most of their names and faces slipped the memory like everything else that lost its value.
My suitcase is still red. My backpack is still black. And I am still managing to fit almost my whole world into them. The most valuable things I keep inside of me, they are safe and sound, and it’s a great feeling.
Leaving is never easy. You can say it’s fun, enjoyable and pinky, but let me tell you something. I’ve packed my bags more than I can count. I’ve traveled roads, oceans, skies. I’ve lived an expat life and went back “home” over and over again trying to fit in among those who still remembered me. I’ve dealt with a sorrow of saying good bye and a joy of saying hello so many times that it became trivial. Nobody waved at me at bus stations or airport halls anymore. Taxis were taking me, all alone, toward the departure – I prefer it that way. The goodbyes were said casually, at home, by the gates. I tolerated them pretending that it was not a big deal. Although it always is.
Back to my huge dark red suitcase that is keeping my whole life inside as of now. Usually the packing starts beforehand. First, it’s clothes. There is always too much of them and their comfort is much more important than the beauty. Now that I am striving for the minimalist lifestyle more and more, I’m cutting down on this department. God help me, being a woman and all.
The first bag was black. It didn’t have any wheels, and it fit many things even though back then my life was much simpler in the “stuff” department. I was a 16-year-old teenager from a small Russian-Muslim town whose dream suddenly became true – going to the USA as an exchange student. It was the first time for many things: leaving home, parents, town, country. The most treasured thing in that black suitcase was Koran that I put under my pillow for protection from I wasn’t sure what. It just felt safer this way.
Since then many things changed – me, the bags. Backpacks, medium carry-ons, huge red suitcases (always red, hmm), fancy ones and cheap ones, with four wheels and with all kinds of straps. I loved packing them up. It made me look at my possessions with a different eye. Part of them changed, but over time some of the things have been traveling from one bag into the other. Osho Zen Taro cards, for example that always got me through dark times. Now these cards traveled into another traveler’s bag.
My Kindle has also been travelling with me for the last four years. It has all the books I would like to read in this life. And each book has a mark of a place where it was read. “Love Story” was in the bus on the way back from Nalchik to Moscow next to a girl who didn’t utter a word throughout our 20-hour long trip. “Conversation with God” was on the nightbus from Turkey to Georgia. That New Yorker issue with Gay Talese’s article was on the plane from Florida, Key West back to Lincoln, Nebraska which I used to call my home for two years. Clarissa Pinkola Estes “Women who run with the wolves” was on the way from Bangalore to Rishikesh, India…
Some things lose their relevance and stop traveling with me. I become less sentimental and more practical, less consumerist and more minimalist. I envy men with their small carry-ons. Guys, how do you do that? You seem to fit yourselves into the tiny bags where even my jeans would feel claustrophobic. I also partially envy those who dress so smart for the airports. I never do.
I don’t do many things. I don’t call my family or friends during my trips to pass the time. I don’t shop or window shop in the duty-free zone. I don’t put on make-up (I rarely do it anyway).
I do watch people, though. It’s fascinating to see how different and similar we all are. I can eye for hours a couple of women from Saudi Arabia in burkas trying to guess what they are talking about and who the mother of the countless kids around them is. So, yeah, airports are great places to watch people since it’s the only thing you can do sometimes when your flight, let’s say, is delayed for 14 hours.
People I meet on the way – I remember their faces but don’t remember most of the names. Some of them are adventurers, they are easy to talk to and laugh with. You might not even ask them where they are going or where they are from. You might share a cup of tea in the road café or a glass of cognac on the way to Prague, which will be enough.
Some of them are seeking for romance (that’s actually not the word I would use but oh well). They might want to force that romance upon you, or ask for it in a polite manner. Either way, you will have to deal with it, ‘coz there is no way of running, not when you are on the bus full of strangers, anyway. I remember some images very clearly, although most of their names and faces slipped the memory like everything else that lost its value.
My suitcase is still red. My backpack is still black. And I am still managing to fit almost my whole world into them. The most valuable things I keep inside of me, they are safe and sound, and it’s a great feeling.
Meeting Peruquois is like finally going home. The feeling washes over you the moment you see her – blue sparkling eyes seeing right through, a smile that makes you feel welcomed even though it’s you who is supposed to be the host. When I ask Peru’s husband Dragoslav what it is like to be a husband of such a woman, he simply says:
“It’s everything, if you understand how to be with a woman, with true femininity. It requires everything and gives everything. It’s a fair trade – everything for everything.”
I have many questions for Peru but the path unfolds in a different direction. Later Peru will say that it only makes sense. “Love is the subject that goes around the world,” she says.
But here is how it starts.
Q: How did your journey in New Mexico begin?
Peruquois: It happened because there was a wake up – through a lot of suffering, pain, separation. It was through sitting in nature, on the edge of the ocean, I started to listen, sing. I woke up to the fact that I’ve been in my separate universe trying to get somewhere, trying to succeed.
When I fell into this singing, it was as though I sang way back to the source, back to the earth and maybe beyond. But at first it was the realization of this consciousness, its presence, and intelligence. It spoke to me, and I spoke to her and said: I’ve been looking for you all my life. She said: And I’ve been waiting. And I said if there was any way I can help other people to wake up and see.
I could feel this enormous love and realized that my world was so small compared to this enormous love that was making everything on this planet grow, survive and breathe. So I realized that there wasn’t any other reason to sing than for this awakening and love.
Q: Did the answer come right then?
P.: I had no idea how to do it all. So in my innocence I said to her, “please show me how.” I started looking. First it was the aboriginal people but I didn’t feel very welcomed with them. Then I looked towards the South Americans in my community, I went into the archives of the library to listen to some indigenous music and chanting.
I was doing all this research thinking of how does this work, how does it happen, you know? Because when you are trained as a musician, you are trained with certain skills, you learn to improvise. You understand what emotion is and how to evoke it in your audience.
But what I had coming was a deeper emotion that I didn’t find anywhere in the archives or any other places. So I just kept going back to the earth, sitting at this place and singing. It happened for two weeks, I was just so hungry, I knew i just had to keep on looking.
Q: And that’s when you met the Native American medicine man?
P.: There was this festival in Sidney, somebody said to me that I have to come and see this man. So I went. The first thing I heard was this voice – far away, in this chaos of thousands of people, all looking for something! So I just went towards this voice, this ancient sound.
And there he was, this big fat native american on stage, with long black silver hair with the feathers, the leather and all that. I knew what he was singing, I felt it completely. Afterwards I went to him, sang and then said: Listen, I am a singer, and I really feel what you are doing, but I want to understand more.
He said: Well, little lady (he was from Oklahoma), why don’t you come and sing there with me tomorrow, on the same stage.
So the next day I went and sang with him. It was as though all that energy that I have experienced sitting on the edge of the ocean, suddenly just came up through my body, and especially with this tribal resonance, because he was playing these shamanic drums. He called about ten people from the audience, and my voice, it just took off, a primal sound came out of me.
When I finished and opened my eyes, this man just came and hugged me and said: Little lady, I’ve been waiting for you, great mother said she would send you, and here you are. We have many roads to travel together, people to meet.
Q: How did you take it?
P.: Of course, I was pretty freaked out! It felt very scary to suddenly be recognized by a person of power, somebody so charismatic. And I could see he had women all over him because he was so much of a charmer. And because he was speaking a message in front of all these people, they were also saying: come back home with us, this is your home. And you learn how to listen to this.
So it was very scary to make that transition, to go and follow and be with him. It took me about two months to accept it. He went back to America. and then he came again to Australia. And in those two months I really struggled with myself, to accept that everything was going to change, and that it was very dangerous what I was stepping into.
But I jumped. And when I jumped, it was even more difficult than I thought it could be. I was coming out of the city, I was used to coffee shops, musicians, clubs, all the things that served you, the nightlife. Suddenly I was in a dessert forest, with two pregnant women. It was really difficult because suddenly my identity was nothing. I wasn’t a singer there to them. I was just another one of them.
So I had to go through the pain of letting go of all the identity I made for myself in trying to be something, trying to be in the city, all the things I valued – my high heels, cool clothes. All these things that had meant something, meant nothing there.
Q: Did you blend in?
P.: Not really. At first I was quite separate and in my separation I just kept going into the forest. Every morning I walked there for two-three hours for months and months. And I sang. I whaled, cried this pain of letting go of that world. It was like an onion taking out the skin, layer by layer.
So it was very painful, and I was thinking that I made a mistake, that I should go back to my old life. But this man was giving me hope saying: don’t worry, creation is listening to you.
And I started to see that when I would sing, the eagle would fly, the rabbit would hop across my path, the elk would walk up the mountain, the dogs would calm. Something would always come to acknowledge that there was a human being crying from the soul.
Then I understood that everything was listening to me, even though I was in the middle of nowhere. And my memory of what I would sing – would be gone as soon as I would get back to the civilization, to the house, to the people. I would forget everything that I had touched from the forest, that I would struggle with my humanness.
So the babies were born in the house, I had to learn how to be a mother. I was only 23 at the time. So he was like – here, little lady, take the baby, put it to sleep. It was natural daily human life. At the same time, every week there would be ceremonies we would go to, different things would be happening in the mornings and at sunsets.
All the way through this it was very much a man it was devoted to, taking people back into their genetic memory, waking them up, letting them know how did this planet become the way it is, why is the humanity in such a mess, what role have the gods, goddesses, why we keep making the same mistakes.
Very deep study of these eleven years led into understanding how the humanity became the way it is, why we were not in balance and harmony like the trees, why was the humanity the only thing in this planet out of balance.
Q: When did you decide that eleven years were enough and you should move on?
P.: About six years we were touring together and quickly I went from being a student to being a teacher. Because my gift was so strong and so raw with the voice, when I asked the Mother “show me how I can help”, through the ceremony she showed me. She started to give me these chants, songs that I would first share with my immediate community, and everybody would start singing them.
That man was sharing his vision around the planet and we were touring in Europe, Australia, New Zealand over seven years. So it wasn’t like I was in the desserts all these times. I was going sometimes back to Australia, very much having to have a foot in both worlds all the time. I also ended up having a child to this man.
Then there came a time when it was too painful to live in two separate worlds, and I had to let go. I had to let go of this role of a student, a mother, of all of those roles I had played, and allow my life to take on a new path. Me and my daughter – we returned full time to Australia.
Q: Why was it important to keep feet in both worlds?
P.: It was very essential for me to do that. And he was a very good teacher. We would be on stage, on the festival, in the workshop with a lot of people and then he would go: “Peru, clean the toilets, we need them clean.”
There was never a sense that you are special because you have a gift. The reality is that life asks this, this and this at any given moment. So he was a very good teacher for me. I had to always keep a foot in both worlds. So for me this mystical and spiritual world is not a separate one, they are always intertwined.
But there came a time when I realized I could’ve suffered the separation of being with a man and having to live on the other side of the planet for a lot of the time. So I had to cut the ties and let go.
Q.: Does that mean you never see him, talk to him?
P.: No, it was a great love between us, so I kept the communication. I kept sending my daughter too, when I was on tour. But he’s passed now, two years ago.
Q.: How old is your daughter?
P.: She is fourteen, a teenager. I really wanted to keep her connection to that side, the roots, you know. So she would fly there often on her own. They kept a very strong relationship. So I think there was an understanding very much between us that we had to let go of each other. It was a very clean separation.
Shortly after that, maybe a year or so, another man came into my life. And he was also a spiritual teacher. It took me a whole another journey. He was so much what I was searching for. Because in a way what I have done with the medicine man through a lot of rituals and ceremonies, I’d come to understand how was a woman to open up the body to the earth, and how to live together with sisters, with other women. I’ve learned enormous amount about this.
But when the next man came into my life, it was to experience the cosmos. In the feminine nature there is this mother, the feminine spirit. If you go deep and follow her, you get to the Great Mother, Cosmic mother. It’s this energy, that formless blackness that goes down, it’s like a black hole that goes in and out. So I was very ready to experience that. I guess you can call it a kundalini opening. Later I understood that I am her. So through all this time I had been praying, speaking, and it’s that paradoxical place “I am Her and She is Me.” Yet, she is herself and I am myself. So it was very direct.
So for those years that we were together I spent a lot of time in the cosmic place with my whole body experiencing a lot of dissolving as if I was a walking gate of vortex. Sometimes I would be sitting back in a chair and the energy would just flow through that chair falling out of my body. I could feel it so much, and it was so much bigger than me actually, physically. So that was what the next man brought to me.
Q.: And yet you separated over time…
P.: …and again it was a clean cut. After about four years it was very clear to me that all this love that we had shared, was complete. And we let go.
Then I was on my own for few years. In that time, because I had let go, what this love has brought me, was the eternal love, that eternal beloved, eternal lovingness inside the human being. In different traditions they give it a different name. The beloved, the Friend, God, Universe. Really this energy isn’t a figure head but it’s a universal lover, a universal intelligence.
So that’s really what this man has brought me to. And I had to sit with that for a few years and learn to move in the world as that. So I continued touring. I really had this sense that no matter what country I was in, no matter where I was, He was always there.
Some man would always pick the bag for me, give me directions, so no matter what man I met, it was like meeting Him, this cosmic man. He was always there for me to help in daily life. And then when it was time again, it came as my Russian beloved.
Q.: How did you know Dragoslav was the one?
P.: Before he came, there was a couple of, let’s say, pretenders that I thought that maybe possibly they were, you know. But that was because as we, women, on our own, often want him to come so badly that we are willing to compromise, even though our knowing says he’s not the one.
I always say to women that you know he’s the one when time stops, and the world stops. And generally That One will not be as you expected him to be. He will be something that you didn’t expect.
Q.: Lookwise?
P.: Every which way. Whatever you put into projection, in this shopping list, he’s not that. What he is – is what your deepest calling is calling for. So how he looks on the surface, what he does etc. is different from what you expect. But when he comes, I think, there’s this sense, like for me, may I put it very bluntly, “oh shit”.
It’s this enormous phase tends to open up inside of you. And with him… It wasn’t like a physical attraction. It was the attraction of the being. After we had our first dinner together, I actually dreamed him all night long. You know that sleep when you are not asleep but not awake? In this dream he was laying next to me all night, making love to me in this space.
When I would fall into that dream, I would see a projection of our future together, I went to Moscow, I met his mother and father. When I woke up in the morning, I was totally in love with this man. When I went to sleep, I wasn’t.
My daughter went crazy! She was like, Oh mom, you can’t do this (laughing)! And when we met each other again with Drago, such a silence opened up between us. I said to him, wow, not many men would come this close to me. And he said, well, they are not men then. And I told him the bit of my dream about his parents and he said: I hope I was introducing you as my fiancee. And that was the second time we’ve met. So there was a place speaking in him that was not of his mind either. He was shocked!
It has always been this way – the beloved was not what I ever expected, but the love was so strong that I couldn’t do anything about it but move towards it, even though I knew it was going to bring enormous change.
Q: Do you think this is it? That you are not in search anymore?
P.: Yes, exactly, not in search anymore. Your whole being will recognize him. The mind might freak out: “Oh my god, what is this gonna mean, he lives in a different city, country”. Maybe he’s a different nationality. Maybe he doesn’t have any money, you know, whatever. But when this physical pool within the body happens, you have to follow through.
Q: What if you miss him? Is there such a possibility?
P.: There is a possibility to miss him because you’ve got too much conditioning like no, he doesn’t fit. But beautifully, the intelligence of life and love is that often he will come in a different form and you will probably have suffered enough of your separation because of your conditionality that now you’ll be more ready for him.
Q: After all these master-classes that you give, you do need time and place to rejuvenate. How do you do it?
P.: I go home to Portugal. I have a simple life there, with my husband, my daughter. I live by the ocean and the ocean is the greatest regenerator for me. I go there every morning, I walk. There are practices I do on the ocean, and swimming, and there are magical caves around. So almost every day I give myself to my world.
When I didn’t live by the ocean, in Australia, I lived by big river. Every day I walked there too. I went and put my feet and knees into the water, I would open myself to the river. So that’s how I always regenerate. I’ve always lived close to some body of water, and I’ve always made my connection to that water and spent that time.
My natural environment is like my family. Some people look for human beings as their family, and there is that aspect of life. But for me the nature around me is some of the most important families. So when I lived in this place, I knew all the trees on my walk, I clutched each of them, I would say “hello” to them. I would put my body against the trees. And this is a very important practice for women – a way of sharing their love is to put their breast, womb, lips and breathe with the tree. It’s so beautiful.
At first you feel a tree, the smell, the trunk, but actually if you put your whole attention down into those deeper senses, you will start dissolving into the tree. Then you realize the tree’s consciousness. So this is a very important practice. Now I do it with the stones because I don’t have trees close. They also have this energy. Creation loves it when the human beings recognize it. That’s how I learned to recognize myself. I literally dissolved back into the nature.
Q: You were asked a lot of questions before. Was there something you didn’t have a chance to say?
P.: Perhaps, one of the fundamental things that I don’t say is – don’t waste this opportunity to live life fully, miss opening your heart, giving your love. Because, nothing in life matters more than that. The reason that I say it is last year I met Drago’s uncle. It was just a few days before he died, and we had a sense that he would.
I met him, and he looked at me with such a love, because the veil was thin, like he was almost in the other world, and he was so happy to see this love between us. He’d never loved in his life, he has spend his whole life alone. And it’s such a reminder that love is what you live for. If we don’t give ourselves to someone, no matter how much love can hurt, how much you can suffer from the separation, life is empty without it.
OR
A drum or a violin?
It’s funny. For me I would choose a drum. But if i would be choosing for THE stage, I would choose a violinist.
New Mexico, Australia, Portugal or Goa?
Right now I am choosing Portugal. I had experiences in other places and now Portugal is my resting place.
Being in love or to love?
They are the same thing.
Peru or Peruquois?
Peru.
“Here I am beloved” or Om?
Mmm… Very juicy question! I’ll tell you why it’s torturing me. Om is something I do in my daily practice. But I give myself to the beloved daily too. So it’s very hard to separate them! “Here I am beloved.”
Water, Earth, Fire or Wind?
Water.
Yoga or Mandala?
Mandala.
“It’s everything, if you understand how to be with a woman, with true femininity. It requires everything and gives everything. It’s a fair trade – everything for everything.”
I have many questions for Peru but the path unfolds in a different direction. Later Peru will say that it only makes sense. “Love is the subject that goes around the world,” she says.
But here is how it starts.
Q: How did your journey in New Mexico begin?
Peruquois: It happened because there was a wake up – through a lot of suffering, pain, separation. It was through sitting in nature, on the edge of the ocean, I started to listen, sing. I woke up to the fact that I’ve been in my separate universe trying to get somewhere, trying to succeed.
When I fell into this singing, it was as though I sang way back to the source, back to the earth and maybe beyond. But at first it was the realization of this consciousness, its presence, and intelligence. It spoke to me, and I spoke to her and said: I’ve been looking for you all my life. She said: And I’ve been waiting. And I said if there was any way I can help other people to wake up and see.
I could feel this enormous love and realized that my world was so small compared to this enormous love that was making everything on this planet grow, survive and breathe. So I realized that there wasn’t any other reason to sing than for this awakening and love.
Q: Did the answer come right then?
P.: I had no idea how to do it all. So in my innocence I said to her, “please show me how.” I started looking. First it was the aboriginal people but I didn’t feel very welcomed with them. Then I looked towards the South Americans in my community, I went into the archives of the library to listen to some indigenous music and chanting.
I was doing all this research thinking of how does this work, how does it happen, you know? Because when you are trained as a musician, you are trained with certain skills, you learn to improvise. You understand what emotion is and how to evoke it in your audience.
But what I had coming was a deeper emotion that I didn’t find anywhere in the archives or any other places. So I just kept going back to the earth, sitting at this place and singing. It happened for two weeks, I was just so hungry, I knew i just had to keep on looking.
Q: And that’s when you met the Native American medicine man?
P.: There was this festival in Sidney, somebody said to me that I have to come and see this man. So I went. The first thing I heard was this voice – far away, in this chaos of thousands of people, all looking for something! So I just went towards this voice, this ancient sound.
And there he was, this big fat native american on stage, with long black silver hair with the feathers, the leather and all that. I knew what he was singing, I felt it completely. Afterwards I went to him, sang and then said: Listen, I am a singer, and I really feel what you are doing, but I want to understand more.
He said: Well, little lady (he was from Oklahoma), why don’t you come and sing there with me tomorrow, on the same stage.
So the next day I went and sang with him. It was as though all that energy that I have experienced sitting on the edge of the ocean, suddenly just came up through my body, and especially with this tribal resonance, because he was playing these shamanic drums. He called about ten people from the audience, and my voice, it just took off, a primal sound came out of me.
When I finished and opened my eyes, this man just came and hugged me and said: Little lady, I’ve been waiting for you, great mother said she would send you, and here you are. We have many roads to travel together, people to meet.
Q: How did you take it?
P.: Of course, I was pretty freaked out! It felt very scary to suddenly be recognized by a person of power, somebody so charismatic. And I could see he had women all over him because he was so much of a charmer. And because he was speaking a message in front of all these people, they were also saying: come back home with us, this is your home. And you learn how to listen to this.
So it was very scary to make that transition, to go and follow and be with him. It took me about two months to accept it. He went back to America. and then he came again to Australia. And in those two months I really struggled with myself, to accept that everything was going to change, and that it was very dangerous what I was stepping into.
But I jumped. And when I jumped, it was even more difficult than I thought it could be. I was coming out of the city, I was used to coffee shops, musicians, clubs, all the things that served you, the nightlife. Suddenly I was in a dessert forest, with two pregnant women. It was really difficult because suddenly my identity was nothing. I wasn’t a singer there to them. I was just another one of them.
So I had to go through the pain of letting go of all the identity I made for myself in trying to be something, trying to be in the city, all the things I valued – my high heels, cool clothes. All these things that had meant something, meant nothing there.
Q: Did you blend in?
P.: Not really. At first I was quite separate and in my separation I just kept going into the forest. Every morning I walked there for two-three hours for months and months. And I sang. I whaled, cried this pain of letting go of that world. It was like an onion taking out the skin, layer by layer.
So it was very painful, and I was thinking that I made a mistake, that I should go back to my old life. But this man was giving me hope saying: don’t worry, creation is listening to you.
And I started to see that when I would sing, the eagle would fly, the rabbit would hop across my path, the elk would walk up the mountain, the dogs would calm. Something would always come to acknowledge that there was a human being crying from the soul.
Then I understood that everything was listening to me, even though I was in the middle of nowhere. And my memory of what I would sing – would be gone as soon as I would get back to the civilization, to the house, to the people. I would forget everything that I had touched from the forest, that I would struggle with my humanness.
So the babies were born in the house, I had to learn how to be a mother. I was only 23 at the time. So he was like – here, little lady, take the baby, put it to sleep. It was natural daily human life. At the same time, every week there would be ceremonies we would go to, different things would be happening in the mornings and at sunsets.
All the way through this it was very much a man it was devoted to, taking people back into their genetic memory, waking them up, letting them know how did this planet become the way it is, why is the humanity in such a mess, what role have the gods, goddesses, why we keep making the same mistakes.
Very deep study of these eleven years led into understanding how the humanity became the way it is, why we were not in balance and harmony like the trees, why was the humanity the only thing in this planet out of balance.
Q: When did you decide that eleven years were enough and you should move on?
P.: About six years we were touring together and quickly I went from being a student to being a teacher. Because my gift was so strong and so raw with the voice, when I asked the Mother “show me how I can help”, through the ceremony she showed me. She started to give me these chants, songs that I would first share with my immediate community, and everybody would start singing them.
That man was sharing his vision around the planet and we were touring in Europe, Australia, New Zealand over seven years. So it wasn’t like I was in the desserts all these times. I was going sometimes back to Australia, very much having to have a foot in both worlds all the time. I also ended up having a child to this man.
Then there came a time when it was too painful to live in two separate worlds, and I had to let go. I had to let go of this role of a student, a mother, of all of those roles I had played, and allow my life to take on a new path. Me and my daughter – we returned full time to Australia.
Q: Why was it important to keep feet in both worlds?
P.: It was very essential for me to do that. And he was a very good teacher. We would be on stage, on the festival, in the workshop with a lot of people and then he would go: “Peru, clean the toilets, we need them clean.”
There was never a sense that you are special because you have a gift. The reality is that life asks this, this and this at any given moment. So he was a very good teacher for me. I had to always keep a foot in both worlds. So for me this mystical and spiritual world is not a separate one, they are always intertwined.
But there came a time when I realized I could’ve suffered the separation of being with a man and having to live on the other side of the planet for a lot of the time. So I had to cut the ties and let go.
Q.: Does that mean you never see him, talk to him?
P.: No, it was a great love between us, so I kept the communication. I kept sending my daughter too, when I was on tour. But he’s passed now, two years ago.
Q.: How old is your daughter?
P.: She is fourteen, a teenager. I really wanted to keep her connection to that side, the roots, you know. So she would fly there often on her own. They kept a very strong relationship. So I think there was an understanding very much between us that we had to let go of each other. It was a very clean separation.
Shortly after that, maybe a year or so, another man came into my life. And he was also a spiritual teacher. It took me a whole another journey. He was so much what I was searching for. Because in a way what I have done with the medicine man through a lot of rituals and ceremonies, I’d come to understand how was a woman to open up the body to the earth, and how to live together with sisters, with other women. I’ve learned enormous amount about this.
But when the next man came into my life, it was to experience the cosmos. In the feminine nature there is this mother, the feminine spirit. If you go deep and follow her, you get to the Great Mother, Cosmic mother. It’s this energy, that formless blackness that goes down, it’s like a black hole that goes in and out. So I was very ready to experience that. I guess you can call it a kundalini opening. Later I understood that I am her. So through all this time I had been praying, speaking, and it’s that paradoxical place “I am Her and She is Me.” Yet, she is herself and I am myself. So it was very direct.
So for those years that we were together I spent a lot of time in the cosmic place with my whole body experiencing a lot of dissolving as if I was a walking gate of vortex. Sometimes I would be sitting back in a chair and the energy would just flow through that chair falling out of my body. I could feel it so much, and it was so much bigger than me actually, physically. So that was what the next man brought to me.
Q.: And yet you separated over time…
P.: …and again it was a clean cut. After about four years it was very clear to me that all this love that we had shared, was complete. And we let go.
Then I was on my own for few years. In that time, because I had let go, what this love has brought me, was the eternal love, that eternal beloved, eternal lovingness inside the human being. In different traditions they give it a different name. The beloved, the Friend, God, Universe. Really this energy isn’t a figure head but it’s a universal lover, a universal intelligence.
So that’s really what this man has brought me to. And I had to sit with that for a few years and learn to move in the world as that. So I continued touring. I really had this sense that no matter what country I was in, no matter where I was, He was always there.
Some man would always pick the bag for me, give me directions, so no matter what man I met, it was like meeting Him, this cosmic man. He was always there for me to help in daily life. And then when it was time again, it came as my Russian beloved.
Q.: How did you know Dragoslav was the one?
P.: Before he came, there was a couple of, let’s say, pretenders that I thought that maybe possibly they were, you know. But that was because as we, women, on our own, often want him to come so badly that we are willing to compromise, even though our knowing says he’s not the one.
I always say to women that you know he’s the one when time stops, and the world stops. And generally That One will not be as you expected him to be. He will be something that you didn’t expect.
Q.: Lookwise?
P.: Every which way. Whatever you put into projection, in this shopping list, he’s not that. What he is – is what your deepest calling is calling for. So how he looks on the surface, what he does etc. is different from what you expect. But when he comes, I think, there’s this sense, like for me, may I put it very bluntly, “oh shit”.
It’s this enormous phase tends to open up inside of you. And with him… It wasn’t like a physical attraction. It was the attraction of the being. After we had our first dinner together, I actually dreamed him all night long. You know that sleep when you are not asleep but not awake? In this dream he was laying next to me all night, making love to me in this space.
When I would fall into that dream, I would see a projection of our future together, I went to Moscow, I met his mother and father. When I woke up in the morning, I was totally in love with this man. When I went to sleep, I wasn’t.
My daughter went crazy! She was like, Oh mom, you can’t do this (laughing)! And when we met each other again with Drago, such a silence opened up between us. I said to him, wow, not many men would come this close to me. And he said, well, they are not men then. And I told him the bit of my dream about his parents and he said: I hope I was introducing you as my fiancee. And that was the second time we’ve met. So there was a place speaking in him that was not of his mind either. He was shocked!
It has always been this way – the beloved was not what I ever expected, but the love was so strong that I couldn’t do anything about it but move towards it, even though I knew it was going to bring enormous change.
Q: Do you think this is it? That you are not in search anymore?
P.: Yes, exactly, not in search anymore. Your whole being will recognize him. The mind might freak out: “Oh my god, what is this gonna mean, he lives in a different city, country”. Maybe he’s a different nationality. Maybe he doesn’t have any money, you know, whatever. But when this physical pool within the body happens, you have to follow through.
Q: What if you miss him? Is there such a possibility?
P.: There is a possibility to miss him because you’ve got too much conditioning like no, he doesn’t fit. But beautifully, the intelligence of life and love is that often he will come in a different form and you will probably have suffered enough of your separation because of your conditionality that now you’ll be more ready for him.
Q: After all these master-classes that you give, you do need time and place to rejuvenate. How do you do it?
P.: I go home to Portugal. I have a simple life there, with my husband, my daughter. I live by the ocean and the ocean is the greatest regenerator for me. I go there every morning, I walk. There are practices I do on the ocean, and swimming, and there are magical caves around. So almost every day I give myself to my world.
When I didn’t live by the ocean, in Australia, I lived by big river. Every day I walked there too. I went and put my feet and knees into the water, I would open myself to the river. So that’s how I always regenerate. I’ve always lived close to some body of water, and I’ve always made my connection to that water and spent that time.
My natural environment is like my family. Some people look for human beings as their family, and there is that aspect of life. But for me the nature around me is some of the most important families. So when I lived in this place, I knew all the trees on my walk, I clutched each of them, I would say “hello” to them. I would put my body against the trees. And this is a very important practice for women – a way of sharing their love is to put their breast, womb, lips and breathe with the tree. It’s so beautiful.
At first you feel a tree, the smell, the trunk, but actually if you put your whole attention down into those deeper senses, you will start dissolving into the tree. Then you realize the tree’s consciousness. So this is a very important practice. Now I do it with the stones because I don’t have trees close. They also have this energy. Creation loves it when the human beings recognize it. That’s how I learned to recognize myself. I literally dissolved back into the nature.
Q: You were asked a lot of questions before. Was there something you didn’t have a chance to say?
P.: Perhaps, one of the fundamental things that I don’t say is – don’t waste this opportunity to live life fully, miss opening your heart, giving your love. Because, nothing in life matters more than that. The reason that I say it is last year I met Drago’s uncle. It was just a few days before he died, and we had a sense that he would.
I met him, and he looked at me with such a love, because the veil was thin, like he was almost in the other world, and he was so happy to see this love between us. He’d never loved in his life, he has spend his whole life alone. And it’s such a reminder that love is what you live for. If we don’t give ourselves to someone, no matter how much love can hurt, how much you can suffer from the separation, life is empty without it.
OR
A drum or a violin?
It’s funny. For me I would choose a drum. But if i would be choosing for THE stage, I would choose a violinist.
New Mexico, Australia, Portugal or Goa?
Right now I am choosing Portugal. I had experiences in other places and now Portugal is my resting place.
Being in love or to love?
They are the same thing.
Peru or Peruquois?
Peru.
“Here I am beloved” or Om?
Mmm… Very juicy question! I’ll tell you why it’s torturing me. Om is something I do in my daily practice. But I give myself to the beloved daily too. So it’s very hard to separate them! “Here I am beloved.”
Water, Earth, Fire or Wind?
Water.
Yoga or Mandala?
Mandala.
Your excuses are seducers, your fears are liars and your doubts are thieves.
*
If you sense your life’s a mess right now, this is simply because your fears are just a little stronger than your faith.
*
Nothing was an accident. Zero was a waste. You are definitely exactly where you need to be to begin the life of your most supreme desires.
*
Ideas are worth nothing unless backed by application. The smallest of implementations is always worth more than the grandest of intentions.
*
World class begins where your comfort zone ends.
*
Hard is good.
*
Most people wish for phenomenal things to happen to them. He taught me that exceptional performers make phenomenal things happen to them.
*
Time is one of the most precious commodities I’ve learned to bulletproof. Warren Buffett, the brilliant investor, said the rich invest in time. The poor invest in money.
*
Picasso said you should learn the rules like a pro so you can break them like an artist.
*
You can fit in. or you can change the world. you don’t get to do both.
*
I’ve learned the importance of being around only the highest quality, wherever I go.
*
Life’s way too valuable to hang with people who don’t get you.
*
It’s a little miracle how powerfully and profoundly our influeces and environments shape our productivity as well as our impact.
*
Done is better than perfect.
*
The real purpose of commerce is not only to make your personal fortune. The true reason to be in the game is to be helpful to society. My main focus in business is to serve. Money, power and prestige are just the inevitable by products that have shown up for me along the way.
*
We only hear what we are ready to hear. All learning meets us exactly where we are at.
*
Wage a war against weakness and launch a campaign against fearfulness. You truly can get up early. And doing so is a necessity in your awesome pursuit toward legendary.
*
Take excellent care of the front end of your day, and the rest of your day will pretty much take care of itself. Own your morning. Elevate your life.
*
Gargantuan results are much less about your inherited genetics and far more about your daily habits. And your morning ritual is by far the most essential one to calibrate.
*
Remember, every professional was once an amateur, and every master started as a beginner. Ordinary people can accomplish extraordinary feats, once they’ve routinesd the right habits.
*
Force your attention back to the Everests of potential aching for fuller expression and today, release all reasons that feed any stagnation of your strengths.
*
If you sense your life’s a mess right now, this is simply because your fears are just a little stronger than your faith.
*
Nothing was an accident. Zero was a waste. You are definitely exactly where you need to be to begin the life of your most supreme desires.
*
Ideas are worth nothing unless backed by application. The smallest of implementations is always worth more than the grandest of intentions.
*
World class begins where your comfort zone ends.
*
Hard is good.
*
Most people wish for phenomenal things to happen to them. He taught me that exceptional performers make phenomenal things happen to them.
*
Time is one of the most precious commodities I’ve learned to bulletproof. Warren Buffett, the brilliant investor, said the rich invest in time. The poor invest in money.
*
Picasso said you should learn the rules like a pro so you can break them like an artist.
*
You can fit in. or you can change the world. you don’t get to do both.
*
I’ve learned the importance of being around only the highest quality, wherever I go.
*
Life’s way too valuable to hang with people who don’t get you.
*
It’s a little miracle how powerfully and profoundly our influeces and environments shape our productivity as well as our impact.
*
Done is better than perfect.
*
The real purpose of commerce is not only to make your personal fortune. The true reason to be in the game is to be helpful to society. My main focus in business is to serve. Money, power and prestige are just the inevitable by products that have shown up for me along the way.
*
We only hear what we are ready to hear. All learning meets us exactly where we are at.
*
Wage a war against weakness and launch a campaign against fearfulness. You truly can get up early. And doing so is a necessity in your awesome pursuit toward legendary.
*
Take excellent care of the front end of your day, and the rest of your day will pretty much take care of itself. Own your morning. Elevate your life.
*
Gargantuan results are much less about your inherited genetics and far more about your daily habits. And your morning ritual is by far the most essential one to calibrate.
*
Remember, every professional was once an amateur, and every master started as a beginner. Ordinary people can accomplish extraordinary feats, once they’ve routinesd the right habits.
*
Force your attention back to the Everests of potential aching for fuller expression and today, release all reasons that feed any stagnation of your strengths.
This book is in my mind and heart since the day I’ve listened to the audiobook for 1 minute. Jed McKenna “Spiritual Enlightment – the Damnest thing”.
Nobody knows who this guy is; some say it might be Adyashanthi. Who knows. It doesn’t matter. So far, this book (I am listening to the second book right now) is one of the best things that happened to me in spiritual type of reading. After (or I’d rather say – during) the reading/listening, whatever you thought about spirituality, enlightment, the meaning of life will go out in the smoke. You have a choice: to hate the writer for his honesty and sweet brutality, or to fall in love with him (like I did) and soak in those words that totally make sense and feel the love this person actually have for humanity.
These are some of the phrases from the book that stayed with me:
“Suffering just means you’re having a bad dream. Happiness means you’re having a good dream. Enlightenment means getting out of the dream altogether.”
“The point is to wake up, not to earn a Ph.D. In waking up.”
“Enlightenment isn’t when you go there; it’s when there comes here.”
When it comes to watching, I recommend the TV series “Westworld.” Amazing, breathtaking, contemplative, spiritual, entertaining. Watch 1st season, 2nd season, then go back and rewatch the 1st one – you will understand much more.
Vacuum – Let the mountain come to me – that’s the song for today. The song is old but the meaning is still there. And let me tell you this – Swedish musicians know a great deal about good music.
Nobody knows who this guy is; some say it might be Adyashanthi. Who knows. It doesn’t matter. So far, this book (I am listening to the second book right now) is one of the best things that happened to me in spiritual type of reading. After (or I’d rather say – during) the reading/listening, whatever you thought about spirituality, enlightment, the meaning of life will go out in the smoke. You have a choice: to hate the writer for his honesty and sweet brutality, or to fall in love with him (like I did) and soak in those words that totally make sense and feel the love this person actually have for humanity.
These are some of the phrases from the book that stayed with me:
“Suffering just means you’re having a bad dream. Happiness means you’re having a good dream. Enlightenment means getting out of the dream altogether.”
“The point is to wake up, not to earn a Ph.D. In waking up.”
“Enlightenment isn’t when you go there; it’s when there comes here.”
When it comes to watching, I recommend the TV series “Westworld.” Amazing, breathtaking, contemplative, spiritual, entertaining. Watch 1st season, 2nd season, then go back and rewatch the 1st one – you will understand much more.
Vacuum – Let the mountain come to me – that’s the song for today. The song is old but the meaning is still there. And let me tell you this – Swedish musicians know a great deal about good music.
First I came across the whirling dervishes while watching a French movie with my sister. The figures of men dancing in a meditative state while wearing tall weird hats and skirts came up again with the beautiful “Ney Sukun” music that we’ve been listening to over and over again while doing yoga in the USA with friends (we figured, Sufis and yogis wouldn’t mind the clash).
What do they say about third time is a charm?
While being in Turkey, my friend gave me this book by Elif Shafak “40 rules of love” implying that if I have anything else to read right now, it can wait until I get this one devoured. I complied, especially since I heard about this book before and was planning to read it anyway.
It was about dervishes. Funnily, at the time of reading the book I was in Kayseri, about 4 hours drive from Konya, dervishes’ homeland. The book is beautiful, by the way. I would encourage everybody to read it, even if you are not interested in dervishes. There is great piece of ancient wisdom in there.
Anyway, that’s how the idea began to form – to see it all with my own eyes, to walk the streets with the memories of Mevlana (Rumi) and Shams of Tabriz. We called it “Shamsomania,” since me and my friends got hooked up on the person who basically made Mevlana into Rumi the Mystic and Poet.
Mevlana Museum
I don’t like museums. And here I am just expressing my humble opinion. I always think it’s a waste of time, money and energy to walk around and look at the artifacts behind the glass. I don’t know what I am supposed to feel at those moments. Awe? Immersion? Revelation? All I feel is boredom, and I know it doesn’t make me look too intelligent, but I don’t care. I don’t like museums, period.
What I like is to walk the streets where the person whose possessions are in the museum walked. To sit at the café where he liked to have breakfast. Touch the objects that belonged to him. And since touching is not a part of the deal in the museums, they are useless for me. I remember how I almost got kicked out of Metropolitan museum in New York because I was touching Pablo Picasso’s painting.
Nevertheless, there we are, in Mevlana Museum, with these thoughts while my Konya host and I enter the premises. There is some good news: it is the mausoleum of Jalal ad-Din Muhammad Rumi, it was also the dervish lodge (tekke) of the Mevlevi order, better known as the whirling dervishes. So we walk, and breathe, and secretly touch everything there is to be touched. The unpleasant part comes when we face some fanatic old ladies who push everyone around in attempt to touch all the brocades, kiss them and pretty much lie on them. One of the most pleasant moments is exchanging glances with a little guy sitting on his mom’s shoulders holding his hands up in a silent prayer.
Sema
Sema (“listening”) is a Sufi ceremony performed by dervishes. The ritual usually includes singing, playing instruments, dancing, recitation of poetry and prayers, wearing symbolic attire. The ceremonies in Konya are held twice a week – on Thursdays and Sundays. They are free for the public.
That is one of the main reasons I am in Konya in the first place. I am nervous. There are many people who came to see Sema that night, some of them with infants who cry and can’t understand why it is 9 p.m and they are not put to bed with a lullaby as usual.
While we are waiting, I’m thinking about the Rules of Love.
“Whatever happens in your life, no matter how troubling things might seem, do not enter the neighborhood of despair. Even when all doors remain closed, God will open up a new path only for you. Be thankful! It is easy to be thankful when all is well. A Sufi is thankful not only for what he has been given but also for all that he has been denied.”
And I am thankful, really.
I am determined to sit in the first row of a round stage. It doesn’t occur to me that the view from the top would be much better. I don’t care about the pattern the dervishes will make with the dance, all I want is to be close to them, as close as possible, to feel their presence, the vibes, anything else there is to feel.
Whatever I will try to describe right now, won’t come close to the feelings you get when you see it with your own eyes. At first I think that it will be a performance for people, since there are so many of us there. I say to myself, OK, it doesn’t matter, they will still whirl, that’s why I am here. But in the end, the ceremony is not for the people. It doesn’t feel like it is. I feel like I am watching something sacred that I am not supposed to watch. I feel an outsider who barged in, along with everyone around me. I feel we don’t appreciate it the way we should (especially those who are speaking during Sema, walk around, leave their seats, eat popcorn and take pictures with a flash!).
And there comes another Rule.
“The universe is one being. Everything and everyone is interconnected through an invisible web of stories. Whether we are aware of it or not, we are all in a silent conversation. Do no harm. Practice compassion. And do not gossip behind anyone’s back – not even a seemingly innocent remark! The words that come out of our mouths do not vanish but are perpetually stored in infinite space, and they will come back to us in due time. One man’s pain will hurt us all. One man’s joy will make everyone smile.”
So I smile and practice compassion, although sometimes it’s darn hard.
It is beautiful. The way the dervishes carry themselves, surrender to the will of the leader, follow the music, bow to the divine and each other becoming one in this mystic trance. I can’t move, sometimes forget to breathe. Even the tiniest distraction feels wrong and rude. If someone would take a picture of my face at that moment, it would probably say more than these words.
There is this one dervish out of the 28 whose movements mesmerize me. When it is his turn to come into the prayer-dance pattern, he approaches the dervish leader, his hands crossed on the chest, his head in the deep surrendered bow. Walking towards the center, he starts to turn, slowly at first, his hands still on the chest. The movements become faster and his hands first go down and then slowly rise up in the air so that one hand stays turned up to the sky – the receiving part, and the other one stays turned down to the earth – the giving part. His head is slightly tilted to the right side in the same deep bow. And he whirls. I can’t take my eyes off him. As if everyone else disappeared, and he is the only one whirling, and I wouldn’t be surprised to see his levitation at this moment – that’s how it seems, at least.
Another thing that strikes me is the diversity. The dervishes are of all ages, from a thin schoolboy to an old man who moves with a grace of tango dancer. Some are with beards, others are clean-shaven, some have long hair, others don’t, some are thin, others are not so much, some are tall, others are short. But they all are in the surrendered meditative state, they are all one.
Here and Now
I think about the dervishes often – the white long skirts whirling in a prayer, dedication and submission, and Shams of Tabriz that remains the mystery impossible to solve. Another Rule comes to mind:
“The past is an interpretation. The future is an illusion. The world does not move through time as if it were a straight line, proceeding from the past to the future. Instead time moves through and within us, in endless spirals. Eternity does not mean infinite time, but simply timelessness. If you want to experience eternal illumination, put the past and the future out of your mind and remain within the present moment.”
And in the present moment there is me in India, practicing and facilitating some of the Sufi dancing techniques thanks to my amazing spiritual master Osho. The outside destination is determined, the one within is yet to be known.
What do they say about third time is a charm?
While being in Turkey, my friend gave me this book by Elif Shafak “40 rules of love” implying that if I have anything else to read right now, it can wait until I get this one devoured. I complied, especially since I heard about this book before and was planning to read it anyway.
It was about dervishes. Funnily, at the time of reading the book I was in Kayseri, about 4 hours drive from Konya, dervishes’ homeland. The book is beautiful, by the way. I would encourage everybody to read it, even if you are not interested in dervishes. There is great piece of ancient wisdom in there.
Anyway, that’s how the idea began to form – to see it all with my own eyes, to walk the streets with the memories of Mevlana (Rumi) and Shams of Tabriz. We called it “Shamsomania,” since me and my friends got hooked up on the person who basically made Mevlana into Rumi the Mystic and Poet.
Mevlana Museum
I don’t like museums. And here I am just expressing my humble opinion. I always think it’s a waste of time, money and energy to walk around and look at the artifacts behind the glass. I don’t know what I am supposed to feel at those moments. Awe? Immersion? Revelation? All I feel is boredom, and I know it doesn’t make me look too intelligent, but I don’t care. I don’t like museums, period.
What I like is to walk the streets where the person whose possessions are in the museum walked. To sit at the café where he liked to have breakfast. Touch the objects that belonged to him. And since touching is not a part of the deal in the museums, they are useless for me. I remember how I almost got kicked out of Metropolitan museum in New York because I was touching Pablo Picasso’s painting.
Nevertheless, there we are, in Mevlana Museum, with these thoughts while my Konya host and I enter the premises. There is some good news: it is the mausoleum of Jalal ad-Din Muhammad Rumi, it was also the dervish lodge (tekke) of the Mevlevi order, better known as the whirling dervishes. So we walk, and breathe, and secretly touch everything there is to be touched. The unpleasant part comes when we face some fanatic old ladies who push everyone around in attempt to touch all the brocades, kiss them and pretty much lie on them. One of the most pleasant moments is exchanging glances with a little guy sitting on his mom’s shoulders holding his hands up in a silent prayer.
Sema
Sema (“listening”) is a Sufi ceremony performed by dervishes. The ritual usually includes singing, playing instruments, dancing, recitation of poetry and prayers, wearing symbolic attire. The ceremonies in Konya are held twice a week – on Thursdays and Sundays. They are free for the public.
That is one of the main reasons I am in Konya in the first place. I am nervous. There are many people who came to see Sema that night, some of them with infants who cry and can’t understand why it is 9 p.m and they are not put to bed with a lullaby as usual.
While we are waiting, I’m thinking about the Rules of Love.
“Whatever happens in your life, no matter how troubling things might seem, do not enter the neighborhood of despair. Even when all doors remain closed, God will open up a new path only for you. Be thankful! It is easy to be thankful when all is well. A Sufi is thankful not only for what he has been given but also for all that he has been denied.”
And I am thankful, really.
I am determined to sit in the first row of a round stage. It doesn’t occur to me that the view from the top would be much better. I don’t care about the pattern the dervishes will make with the dance, all I want is to be close to them, as close as possible, to feel their presence, the vibes, anything else there is to feel.
Whatever I will try to describe right now, won’t come close to the feelings you get when you see it with your own eyes. At first I think that it will be a performance for people, since there are so many of us there. I say to myself, OK, it doesn’t matter, they will still whirl, that’s why I am here. But in the end, the ceremony is not for the people. It doesn’t feel like it is. I feel like I am watching something sacred that I am not supposed to watch. I feel an outsider who barged in, along with everyone around me. I feel we don’t appreciate it the way we should (especially those who are speaking during Sema, walk around, leave their seats, eat popcorn and take pictures with a flash!).
And there comes another Rule.
“The universe is one being. Everything and everyone is interconnected through an invisible web of stories. Whether we are aware of it or not, we are all in a silent conversation. Do no harm. Practice compassion. And do not gossip behind anyone’s back – not even a seemingly innocent remark! The words that come out of our mouths do not vanish but are perpetually stored in infinite space, and they will come back to us in due time. One man’s pain will hurt us all. One man’s joy will make everyone smile.”
So I smile and practice compassion, although sometimes it’s darn hard.
It is beautiful. The way the dervishes carry themselves, surrender to the will of the leader, follow the music, bow to the divine and each other becoming one in this mystic trance. I can’t move, sometimes forget to breathe. Even the tiniest distraction feels wrong and rude. If someone would take a picture of my face at that moment, it would probably say more than these words.
There is this one dervish out of the 28 whose movements mesmerize me. When it is his turn to come into the prayer-dance pattern, he approaches the dervish leader, his hands crossed on the chest, his head in the deep surrendered bow. Walking towards the center, he starts to turn, slowly at first, his hands still on the chest. The movements become faster and his hands first go down and then slowly rise up in the air so that one hand stays turned up to the sky – the receiving part, and the other one stays turned down to the earth – the giving part. His head is slightly tilted to the right side in the same deep bow. And he whirls. I can’t take my eyes off him. As if everyone else disappeared, and he is the only one whirling, and I wouldn’t be surprised to see his levitation at this moment – that’s how it seems, at least.
Another thing that strikes me is the diversity. The dervishes are of all ages, from a thin schoolboy to an old man who moves with a grace of tango dancer. Some are with beards, others are clean-shaven, some have long hair, others don’t, some are thin, others are not so much, some are tall, others are short. But they all are in the surrendered meditative state, they are all one.
Here and Now
I think about the dervishes often – the white long skirts whirling in a prayer, dedication and submission, and Shams of Tabriz that remains the mystery impossible to solve. Another Rule comes to mind:
“The past is an interpretation. The future is an illusion. The world does not move through time as if it were a straight line, proceeding from the past to the future. Instead time moves through and within us, in endless spirals. Eternity does not mean infinite time, but simply timelessness. If you want to experience eternal illumination, put the past and the future out of your mind and remain within the present moment.”
And in the present moment there is me in India, practicing and facilitating some of the Sufi dancing techniques thanks to my amazing spiritual master Osho. The outside destination is determined, the one within is yet to be known.
I was 7 years old but I still remember that sensation perfectly well. For some reason, I decided to pay attention to my toes that evening. There was no apparent reason for that, I just put my whole attention to them. And that’s where it started.
The more I thought about my toes, the more they throbbed, pulsated, tingled. After some time, I couldn’t control the process anymore. The feeling started resembling pain. I was silently crying in my children’s bed, understanding that I couldn’t explain what was happening to me to anyone.
What was happening to me?
Now I know the answer.
My body was feeling the attention it got. As a kid, I could intuitively bring out sensations in my body but I didn’t know why I needed to do that and, most importantly, I didn’t know how to stop it.
Each cell in our body responds to emotions we are sending to it. I am telling this to the 7-year-old me, with a ‘thank you’ for reminding me about the connection we have with one another. Today I want to promise to myself that this connection will never go away, and that I will remember about it not only when I feel bad but every day, and each day I will treat my body with love and respect it deserves.
What does it mean to love your body?
It means to talk to it. You can do it in the morning before getting out of bed, or you can do it in the evening before sleep. In the mornings, you can start with stretching with closed eyes while obviously enjoying it and remembering that you actually exist in this body. The stretch also helps not to stress out your body too much in the morning. After this, starting from your head, go over your whole body internally (don’t forget your organs, vessels, cells, tissues, skin, bones, etc.) Say to each of these parts “I love you. Thank you for serving me so well. Thank you for being there for me.” If you start your morning like this, you will see positive changes in you throughout the day.
You can talk to your body when it feels sick as well. In this case, don’t address the disease. Talk to that specific organ, part of your body. Does your belly hurt? Caress it and tell it how much you love it. Your intestines don’t work properly? Talk to them as well. Believe me, it responds.
Osho says we should establish connection to our bodies when it feels good, when it is not sick.
Just lie on the grass, he says, close your eyes, and feel what happens inside of you, how good it feels. Lie on the river bank. The water is touching your body, and this pleasant coolness is washing over each cell in your body. Body is an amazing phenomenon, one of the nature’s wonders. Sit on the sun. Let the sun rays penetrate your body. Feel how its warmth is penetrating you deeper and deeper touching your blood cells and reaching your bones. Sun is life, the source. Close your eyes while feeling all of this. Stay alert, witnessing, enjoying. Little by little you will become aware of a beautiful tune that is happening within your body, subtle harmony…
It means taking care of it. Our bodies love when they are nourished, caressed, massaged, taken care of. In the past, I didn’t understand it much, and even when I finally did, laziness got a hold of me. Only with time I started seeing the benefits of doing do. Your body likes attention. It likes compliments as well. Sometimes I like to look at the mirror and send kisses to myself. It’s not narcissism, not even close. I am just reminding my body that I am here, I am alive, I look great, I have my own back.
There was time when I was fighting with my body, starting new life “from Monday”, and one look in the mirror made me cry and overeat. When I dealt with all these issues, my body became slim pretty much on its own – without any diets and restrictions. It appears that all the body needs is care and by “care” I mean exercising, resting, loving, forgiving, giving compliments, smiles, positive impulses all over the body.
I used to aim towards a flat belly, and now I understand that taking care of the body means letting it take its own natural shape, whatever it is for you. Now I am caressing my belly which finally feels accepted in its softness, and understand how much tenderness there is, how much potential.
It means noticing changes in our body. Noticing changes means paying attention to when it is sad and helping it out. Osho says how important it is to be sensitive to our bodies. Listen to it, he says, it tells you a lot of things, but you are too busy with your mind and you never listen. Every time when there is a conflict between your mind and your body, your body almost always will be right, and mind will almost always be wrong because your body is natural, and your mind is made by society; your body belongs to this limitless nature, and your mind belongs to your society; specific epoch and time.
Once we’ve finally established connection with our bodies, it feels alive again. Mind and Body are not two separate matters, but one. Yes, we are not our bodies but our soul and spirit incarnated in this vessel for a reason. If we are going to talk with it in one language, miracles are unavoidable.
Remember when you were seven years old. Who knows, you might have had your own experience like this. We all have it. All we need to do is to remember.
The more I thought about my toes, the more they throbbed, pulsated, tingled. After some time, I couldn’t control the process anymore. The feeling started resembling pain. I was silently crying in my children’s bed, understanding that I couldn’t explain what was happening to me to anyone.
What was happening to me?
Now I know the answer.
My body was feeling the attention it got. As a kid, I could intuitively bring out sensations in my body but I didn’t know why I needed to do that and, most importantly, I didn’t know how to stop it.
Each cell in our body responds to emotions we are sending to it. I am telling this to the 7-year-old me, with a ‘thank you’ for reminding me about the connection we have with one another. Today I want to promise to myself that this connection will never go away, and that I will remember about it not only when I feel bad but every day, and each day I will treat my body with love and respect it deserves.
What does it mean to love your body?
It means to talk to it. You can do it in the morning before getting out of bed, or you can do it in the evening before sleep. In the mornings, you can start with stretching with closed eyes while obviously enjoying it and remembering that you actually exist in this body. The stretch also helps not to stress out your body too much in the morning. After this, starting from your head, go over your whole body internally (don’t forget your organs, vessels, cells, tissues, skin, bones, etc.) Say to each of these parts “I love you. Thank you for serving me so well. Thank you for being there for me.” If you start your morning like this, you will see positive changes in you throughout the day.
You can talk to your body when it feels sick as well. In this case, don’t address the disease. Talk to that specific organ, part of your body. Does your belly hurt? Caress it and tell it how much you love it. Your intestines don’t work properly? Talk to them as well. Believe me, it responds.
Osho says we should establish connection to our bodies when it feels good, when it is not sick.
Just lie on the grass, he says, close your eyes, and feel what happens inside of you, how good it feels. Lie on the river bank. The water is touching your body, and this pleasant coolness is washing over each cell in your body. Body is an amazing phenomenon, one of the nature’s wonders. Sit on the sun. Let the sun rays penetrate your body. Feel how its warmth is penetrating you deeper and deeper touching your blood cells and reaching your bones. Sun is life, the source. Close your eyes while feeling all of this. Stay alert, witnessing, enjoying. Little by little you will become aware of a beautiful tune that is happening within your body, subtle harmony…
It means taking care of it. Our bodies love when they are nourished, caressed, massaged, taken care of. In the past, I didn’t understand it much, and even when I finally did, laziness got a hold of me. Only with time I started seeing the benefits of doing do. Your body likes attention. It likes compliments as well. Sometimes I like to look at the mirror and send kisses to myself. It’s not narcissism, not even close. I am just reminding my body that I am here, I am alive, I look great, I have my own back.
There was time when I was fighting with my body, starting new life “from Monday”, and one look in the mirror made me cry and overeat. When I dealt with all these issues, my body became slim pretty much on its own – without any diets and restrictions. It appears that all the body needs is care and by “care” I mean exercising, resting, loving, forgiving, giving compliments, smiles, positive impulses all over the body.
I used to aim towards a flat belly, and now I understand that taking care of the body means letting it take its own natural shape, whatever it is for you. Now I am caressing my belly which finally feels accepted in its softness, and understand how much tenderness there is, how much potential.
It means noticing changes in our body. Noticing changes means paying attention to when it is sad and helping it out. Osho says how important it is to be sensitive to our bodies. Listen to it, he says, it tells you a lot of things, but you are too busy with your mind and you never listen. Every time when there is a conflict between your mind and your body, your body almost always will be right, and mind will almost always be wrong because your body is natural, and your mind is made by society; your body belongs to this limitless nature, and your mind belongs to your society; specific epoch and time.
Once we’ve finally established connection with our bodies, it feels alive again. Mind and Body are not two separate matters, but one. Yes, we are not our bodies but our soul and spirit incarnated in this vessel for a reason. If we are going to talk with it in one language, miracles are unavoidable.
Remember when you were seven years old. Who knows, you might have had your own experience like this. We all have it. All we need to do is to remember.
Statistically speaking, water is the most popular drink in the world. We were told at biology classes that 70 % of our body is water. When I was young, this information didn’t look too convincing and realistic. If I see a glass of water in front of me, I understand it. However, how can I see this water in my cells? As our collective consciousness says, until I see it, I won’t believe it.
We’ve learned that water is capable of “recording” information much later. It also seemed quite unrealistic, even when we saw water crystals under a microscope and how it changed its pattern according to what was said to the water. We probably believed it, but who went and checked it in practice?
Let’s have a look at water through Human Design and Gene Keys systems. I promise you, it’s worth it. And later on I’d like to offer you an awareness practice that we can do with the help of water.
There is a Type in Human Design which needs to live near the water by default. These are Reflectors, and they are less than 1% of the world’s population. Why do we all need to know about this, not only Reflectors? Because Reflectors are very important for all of us. We need to take care of them. In the far away past, these were hermits living in the faraway lands/caves, and everyone wanted to visit them and be in the presence of their aura to clean their consciousness, get insights, enlightment, awakening.
Despite the fact that Reflectors don’t go into caves nowadays, their capabilities and amazing nature is still there. However, in the modern scenery, they need our support. The least we can do for them is accept their nature and let them be not like everyone else.
There is an enlightened hugging saint Amma who lives in Kerala, southern state of India. She is famous with her hugs all over the world. All she does pretty much is hug a person, and at times one has to stand all day long in a queue in order to get the hug. From my experience I can say that this hug is worth waiting for. Amma is a Reflector, and she is fully following her Life Path. Who are you according to your Human Design? Here (ссылка: jovianarchive.com) you can find out what Type you are. Who knows, you might be a Reflector…
How water is important for Reflectors?
Water helps Reflectors to discharge the world’s conditionings. In the present day realities, Reflectors cannot always live as hermits, so the water helps them to clean up and come back to their true nature, especially if it is done in the moon light. Moon is another Reflector’s ally. If you are a Reflector, remember this about water: if you feel suppressed, overwhelmed, exhausted, dive into the river, lake, ocean or at least take a shower, and come out as a renewed person.
Gene Keys system that came out from Human Design has 55th Gene Key of Freedom which speaks not only about the individual peculiarities of a person who has it in their Hologenetic Profile, but also about what the humanity can expect in the Sleeping Phoenix era which starts in the year of 2027. It happens so that in my chart, this Key depicts my Life’s Work, that’s why I am spreading this information as far and wide as I can.
Now, let me share with you this important message about the 55th Gene Key through the GK founder Richard Rudd’s words:
The secret of the 55th Gift at a physiological level lies in a single element — salt. Salt has long been known for its purifying properties and its ability to leach toxins from the body. Every single cell within your body contains salt, and its balance within the body is a major key to health. Everything connected to this 55th Gift is rooted in its literal and metaphorical relationship to water. As we learned through the 32nd Gene Key, water holds memory. When your emotions become really intense, you release memory through the salt in your tears and/or sweat. What is beginning to happen to humanity now, and what will become more and more intense, is a process whereby ancient memories are being chemically released from our bodies. Heightened emotional awareness will gradually draw the toxic genetic memories out of the human form. At a physical level, this will occur through your sweat, your tears and your urine.
In the same way that seawater evaporates to leave behind its salt, so human beings are going through a process of evaporation and distillation. At a chemical level we are beginning to change. A new network of neuro-circuitry in the solar plexus is superseding the reptilian fear-based neuro-circuitry of the old brain. Human beings will gradually become more transparent as the body no longer produces the old chemicals created by fear. With the closing down of certain chemical processes associated with the hindbrain, the body’s needs will radically change. Without the toxins created by fear, the body will need far less salt, and it will become much less dense.
And, as promised, here is a simple awareness technique with water: take a glass of water, and while looking at it, start thanking it. Tell it as many good things as possible. Tell it that it is full of minerals and vitamins which will nourish your body. Then drink it. This technique not only cleanses the water and raises its vibration; it also raises the vibration of the whole body. And if you still doubt whether meditation and awareness has everything to do with a happy lifestyle, watch this free webinar that I’ve recorded for you. You might change your mind.
We’ve learned that water is capable of “recording” information much later. It also seemed quite unrealistic, even when we saw water crystals under a microscope and how it changed its pattern according to what was said to the water. We probably believed it, but who went and checked it in practice?
Let’s have a look at water through Human Design and Gene Keys systems. I promise you, it’s worth it. And later on I’d like to offer you an awareness practice that we can do with the help of water.
There is a Type in Human Design which needs to live near the water by default. These are Reflectors, and they are less than 1% of the world’s population. Why do we all need to know about this, not only Reflectors? Because Reflectors are very important for all of us. We need to take care of them. In the far away past, these were hermits living in the faraway lands/caves, and everyone wanted to visit them and be in the presence of their aura to clean their consciousness, get insights, enlightment, awakening.
Despite the fact that Reflectors don’t go into caves nowadays, their capabilities and amazing nature is still there. However, in the modern scenery, they need our support. The least we can do for them is accept their nature and let them be not like everyone else.
There is an enlightened hugging saint Amma who lives in Kerala, southern state of India. She is famous with her hugs all over the world. All she does pretty much is hug a person, and at times one has to stand all day long in a queue in order to get the hug. From my experience I can say that this hug is worth waiting for. Amma is a Reflector, and she is fully following her Life Path. Who are you according to your Human Design? Here (ссылка: jovianarchive.com) you can find out what Type you are. Who knows, you might be a Reflector…
How water is important for Reflectors?
Water helps Reflectors to discharge the world’s conditionings. In the present day realities, Reflectors cannot always live as hermits, so the water helps them to clean up and come back to their true nature, especially if it is done in the moon light. Moon is another Reflector’s ally. If you are a Reflector, remember this about water: if you feel suppressed, overwhelmed, exhausted, dive into the river, lake, ocean or at least take a shower, and come out as a renewed person.
Gene Keys system that came out from Human Design has 55th Gene Key of Freedom which speaks not only about the individual peculiarities of a person who has it in their Hologenetic Profile, but also about what the humanity can expect in the Sleeping Phoenix era which starts in the year of 2027. It happens so that in my chart, this Key depicts my Life’s Work, that’s why I am spreading this information as far and wide as I can.
Now, let me share with you this important message about the 55th Gene Key through the GK founder Richard Rudd’s words:
The secret of the 55th Gift at a physiological level lies in a single element — salt. Salt has long been known for its purifying properties and its ability to leach toxins from the body. Every single cell within your body contains salt, and its balance within the body is a major key to health. Everything connected to this 55th Gift is rooted in its literal and metaphorical relationship to water. As we learned through the 32nd Gene Key, water holds memory. When your emotions become really intense, you release memory through the salt in your tears and/or sweat. What is beginning to happen to humanity now, and what will become more and more intense, is a process whereby ancient memories are being chemically released from our bodies. Heightened emotional awareness will gradually draw the toxic genetic memories out of the human form. At a physical level, this will occur through your sweat, your tears and your urine.
In the same way that seawater evaporates to leave behind its salt, so human beings are going through a process of evaporation and distillation. At a chemical level we are beginning to change. A new network of neuro-circuitry in the solar plexus is superseding the reptilian fear-based neuro-circuitry of the old brain. Human beings will gradually become more transparent as the body no longer produces the old chemicals created by fear. With the closing down of certain chemical processes associated with the hindbrain, the body’s needs will radically change. Without the toxins created by fear, the body will need far less salt, and it will become much less dense.
And, as promised, here is a simple awareness technique with water: take a glass of water, and while looking at it, start thanking it. Tell it as many good things as possible. Tell it that it is full of minerals and vitamins which will nourish your body. Then drink it. This technique not only cleanses the water and raises its vibration; it also raises the vibration of the whole body. And if you still doubt whether meditation and awareness has everything to do with a happy lifestyle, watch this free webinar that I’ve recorded for you. You might change your mind.
I wanted to write a book since I was a child. It all started with fairytales but only now, after three decades I will be preparing my first fairytale collection for publishing. It will be my second book since my first one – Design Your Cloudless Life – was published in September with the biggest Russian publisher. My dream came true. However, the writer’s way doesn’t end here, it is only the beginning. What would I like to share with you? That dreams come true? Or that everything is not as it seems? Maybe it’s about all of that and something else.
I had quite a selfish reason when I started writing the book and those thoughts were not about waking up famous. Meditations in Russia is not a popular subject for a book, not just yet. People practice it, people find it fascinating but people are a bit wary to talk about it in the open. Let’s call it “shyness” for now. I’ve written Design Your Cloudless Life for myself: I wanted to systematize what I’ve been practicing for over 15 years, and I wanted to tell it all through my personal experience which appeared to be quite extensive. Another reason was that I could not stop writing.
Elizabeth Gilbert shared in her “Big Magic” book that when somebody tells her that they want to write a book in order to help others, she begs them not to. Don’t write a book to save the world. When she was writing “Eat Pray Love”, the only person she wanted to save was herself. And accidentally she ended up saving other people on the way, even though her intention was different to begin with. That’s what happens when we are following our path with sincerity.
I agree with Liz. Let’s save ourselves. This way we are already helping others at least with the fact that we don’t need to be saved, – that’s already a big thing, don’t you think? I’d like to share with you now my five cents when it comes to writing a book which are numerously written by everyone who has ever written anything. Let me add to that list. Because from my experience, I’ve read those numerous advice myself and they all contributed to my writing. Who knows, maybe this piece of writing will contribute to yours.
1.Somerset Maugham once said: there are three rules to writing a novel. Unfortunately, nobody knows them. If you are looking for a happy formula which will help you to write a book, I am here to support Maugham’s words. That’s the reason a lot of people do not write books. Because it’s not easy-peasy. If this statement doesn’t scare you, keep on reading.
2. Let’s figure out what is lurking behind the question “why am I writing this book” in the first place. Are you planning to save the world with it? Are you entertaining yourself? Do you intend to make your mom happy with it? Is it because you have something to say? Intention matters. If you can NOT write, don’t write – that’s what Tolstoy said. If you are in the same category as me, keep on reading.
3. Writing a book is a commitment. Nobody needs your book – it’s brutal, but it’s a fact. Nobody will be knocking on your door saying “write a book for me, please, and I’ll pay you a million.” That’s why you need to find things to motivate yourself. Financial motivation is not a motivation, at least in my experience. Russian publishing world and American/British ones are two different worlds. As my Human Design teacher Chetan Parkyn said, a book is your glorified business card. May the money be a pleasant surprise for you. If you have a supporting motivation that is with you until at least you finish your first shitty draft, keep on reading.
4. Writing is a lonely labor. These are many hours that you spend working while the whole world is enjoying itself. Writing doesn’t have days off, there is no Friday here, no weekends for relaxation. Friends start forgetting about you little by little just like you are forgetting about them. Your husband is not fed, the dog is not walked, the kids are not brushed – the list is endless. Are you ready for this? Is your family ready? What about your dog? If the answer is yes, keep on reading.
5. Define for yourself whether you want to write fiction or nonfiction. I started off with fiction but eventually wrote the non-fiction. Approaches here are quite different, and they are fulfilling different tasks. What books do you like to read? What book would you like to have your name on it? What book would you like to hold in your hands (my motivation)? If you’ve answered these questions for yourself, keep on reading.
6. The book is your child which you put into foster care. That’s why you should not get attached. Fix a deadline for yourself and work hard towards it. That’s when things will get serious. Of course, it’s a serious business to carry a child in your womb and keep your health up to speed in the process and make sure that your eyes are sparkling throughout (men, it’s your process as well). I’ve already put my child into my publisher’s foster care, and I am not sorry for this. Now I need to work on my next “pregnancy” and as it happens with each pregnancy, you sort of know more than with the previous one, but it still feels like for the first time. Not scared? Keep on reading then.
7. Every book has its reader. It might sound strange to you especially after I’ve said that nobody needs your book. However, if you’ve read this far, it means that there is no doubt anymore, so we keep on going. Your book will be read at least by your loved ones. Now, in the beginning, you have to forget about it. Completely. Begin to write your book honestly and sincerely, no matter what subject you have chosen. Forget the fact that you have to filter yourself, be smaller than you are, hold something back. Don’t. Bleed onto the paper. After all, when it’s time to edit, and it will happen at least a few times, then you can remember about each and every relative in front of whom you can get embarrassed. But not in the initial stage. In my days I had to argue with myself in order not to delete some experiences from my book. I know in my English version I’ll be able to be more explicit, so I negotiated with myself. “Oh my god, mom and dad will read this book!” You still didn’t change your mind? Keep on reading then.
8. Write a plan for your book – and here I am talking about non-fiction literature specifically. I’ve researched tons of literature on how to write a novel, and even took grad class from a very good American writer Jonis Agee, went to workshops with Kate Bernheimer, and some prominent journalists, but my mind is such that it forgets everything it doesn’t need (thank God for that). Non-fiction books require a structure. I’ve seen those without one, or with a structure that was swinging on its thin feeble legs. It was difficult to comprehend what the writer wanted to convey. Everybody needs a skeleton, and your book is no exception.
9. Non-fiction book has to be practical. It means you need to have some knowledge on the subject you are writing about. Or you should have a bottomless well of knowledge coming from a good specialist. Be useful to the reader, and they will not forget you. Well, they might forget you but it’s OK. Make sure you remind them of yourself from time to time. Meditation and awareness is the most practical thing on Earth, Human Design and Gene Keys are phenomenal systems capable changing your life in so many incredible ways, and that’s what I am spreading all over the world. Very practical.
10. Read. Read. Read. Read on your subject and on other subjects. Read good books and bad books. Read on how to write, and read on how not to write. And when it’s time to write, forget everything that you’ve written. Tune into yourself. Somewhere deep down inside you’ll hear this thin little author’s voice which wants to come out. Hear it. In order to do this you’ll have to shut up and listen.
11. Writing takes time. Do you have time? Do you have time for writing? Do you have time to look at the screen or a sheet of paper and not write a word? I used to believe that every minute that was spent under the writer’s hat has to be productive. I was told that it doesn’t happen like this all the time, but only my own experience could prove this to be true. Yes, it doesn’t sound promising, but surprisingly the book cannot happen without these moments. Silence is words that haven’t been revealed yet. That’s when something new is being born inside of you – in the silence. And you need to give it time to be born. Do you have time to be an aspiring writer? Do you have time at all since nobody else does? If the answer is “yes,” keep on reading.
12. Writers are people with strange oddities. They constantly write something on napkins, pieces of paper, and if they don’t write it down, their eyes start twitching. If in those moments you are in their company and you are telling them something, believe me, writers are not hearing you. Do you have any oddity of yours as a writer? I am sure you do. I might jump out in the middle of the night and write down the thought that visited me and doesn’t let me go until I do. Sometimes I am talking to my consciousness at night: let me sleep now, please, and you can remind me about this tomorrow. Sometimes it works. I don’t find it odd at all. It’s a part of my life. Do you like to write so much that you don’t mind to be strange in the eyes of others at least? If yes, keep on reading.
13. Who is your favorite writer? What do you like in this person’s writing? Study their writing style. When we write for the first time, we will want to imitate someone, and it will be great if we imitate someone successful in the field. I realized what was common between all my favorite writers: the sincerity they are describing their experiences with, their sense of humor, their kindness which filled every word and line, and motivation to act, to be, to love and live – right now, every minute. For you it can be a completely different set of characteristics.
14. Knowing your subject and writing about it – these are two completely different things. If you know about cosmetology, it’s good to tell about it in such a say that a person will want to change their job or at least use your tricks right this second. Indifferent reader is much worse than a reader who didn’t like your book. When I started writing, I’ve already had more than 15 years of meditation practice, and whatever I’ve described in my book is just a small part of my journey.
15. It is only the beginning. Once you’ve written your first book, everything just starts for you. Being a writer is an action of a constant Present Continuous. It doesn’t have the past, and the future shouldn’t bother you at least while the process of writing is happening.
There will be more on writing, stay tuned!
I had quite a selfish reason when I started writing the book and those thoughts were not about waking up famous. Meditations in Russia is not a popular subject for a book, not just yet. People practice it, people find it fascinating but people are a bit wary to talk about it in the open. Let’s call it “shyness” for now. I’ve written Design Your Cloudless Life for myself: I wanted to systematize what I’ve been practicing for over 15 years, and I wanted to tell it all through my personal experience which appeared to be quite extensive. Another reason was that I could not stop writing.
Elizabeth Gilbert shared in her “Big Magic” book that when somebody tells her that they want to write a book in order to help others, she begs them not to. Don’t write a book to save the world. When she was writing “Eat Pray Love”, the only person she wanted to save was herself. And accidentally she ended up saving other people on the way, even though her intention was different to begin with. That’s what happens when we are following our path with sincerity.
I agree with Liz. Let’s save ourselves. This way we are already helping others at least with the fact that we don’t need to be saved, – that’s already a big thing, don’t you think? I’d like to share with you now my five cents when it comes to writing a book which are numerously written by everyone who has ever written anything. Let me add to that list. Because from my experience, I’ve read those numerous advice myself and they all contributed to my writing. Who knows, maybe this piece of writing will contribute to yours.
1.Somerset Maugham once said: there are three rules to writing a novel. Unfortunately, nobody knows them. If you are looking for a happy formula which will help you to write a book, I am here to support Maugham’s words. That’s the reason a lot of people do not write books. Because it’s not easy-peasy. If this statement doesn’t scare you, keep on reading.
2. Let’s figure out what is lurking behind the question “why am I writing this book” in the first place. Are you planning to save the world with it? Are you entertaining yourself? Do you intend to make your mom happy with it? Is it because you have something to say? Intention matters. If you can NOT write, don’t write – that’s what Tolstoy said. If you are in the same category as me, keep on reading.
3. Writing a book is a commitment. Nobody needs your book – it’s brutal, but it’s a fact. Nobody will be knocking on your door saying “write a book for me, please, and I’ll pay you a million.” That’s why you need to find things to motivate yourself. Financial motivation is not a motivation, at least in my experience. Russian publishing world and American/British ones are two different worlds. As my Human Design teacher Chetan Parkyn said, a book is your glorified business card. May the money be a pleasant surprise for you. If you have a supporting motivation that is with you until at least you finish your first shitty draft, keep on reading.
4. Writing is a lonely labor. These are many hours that you spend working while the whole world is enjoying itself. Writing doesn’t have days off, there is no Friday here, no weekends for relaxation. Friends start forgetting about you little by little just like you are forgetting about them. Your husband is not fed, the dog is not walked, the kids are not brushed – the list is endless. Are you ready for this? Is your family ready? What about your dog? If the answer is yes, keep on reading.
5. Define for yourself whether you want to write fiction or nonfiction. I started off with fiction but eventually wrote the non-fiction. Approaches here are quite different, and they are fulfilling different tasks. What books do you like to read? What book would you like to have your name on it? What book would you like to hold in your hands (my motivation)? If you’ve answered these questions for yourself, keep on reading.
6. The book is your child which you put into foster care. That’s why you should not get attached. Fix a deadline for yourself and work hard towards it. That’s when things will get serious. Of course, it’s a serious business to carry a child in your womb and keep your health up to speed in the process and make sure that your eyes are sparkling throughout (men, it’s your process as well). I’ve already put my child into my publisher’s foster care, and I am not sorry for this. Now I need to work on my next “pregnancy” and as it happens with each pregnancy, you sort of know more than with the previous one, but it still feels like for the first time. Not scared? Keep on reading then.
7. Every book has its reader. It might sound strange to you especially after I’ve said that nobody needs your book. However, if you’ve read this far, it means that there is no doubt anymore, so we keep on going. Your book will be read at least by your loved ones. Now, in the beginning, you have to forget about it. Completely. Begin to write your book honestly and sincerely, no matter what subject you have chosen. Forget the fact that you have to filter yourself, be smaller than you are, hold something back. Don’t. Bleed onto the paper. After all, when it’s time to edit, and it will happen at least a few times, then you can remember about each and every relative in front of whom you can get embarrassed. But not in the initial stage. In my days I had to argue with myself in order not to delete some experiences from my book. I know in my English version I’ll be able to be more explicit, so I negotiated with myself. “Oh my god, mom and dad will read this book!” You still didn’t change your mind? Keep on reading then.
8. Write a plan for your book – and here I am talking about non-fiction literature specifically. I’ve researched tons of literature on how to write a novel, and even took grad class from a very good American writer Jonis Agee, went to workshops with Kate Bernheimer, and some prominent journalists, but my mind is such that it forgets everything it doesn’t need (thank God for that). Non-fiction books require a structure. I’ve seen those without one, or with a structure that was swinging on its thin feeble legs. It was difficult to comprehend what the writer wanted to convey. Everybody needs a skeleton, and your book is no exception.
9. Non-fiction book has to be practical. It means you need to have some knowledge on the subject you are writing about. Or you should have a bottomless well of knowledge coming from a good specialist. Be useful to the reader, and they will not forget you. Well, they might forget you but it’s OK. Make sure you remind them of yourself from time to time. Meditation and awareness is the most practical thing on Earth, Human Design and Gene Keys are phenomenal systems capable changing your life in so many incredible ways, and that’s what I am spreading all over the world. Very practical.
10. Read. Read. Read. Read on your subject and on other subjects. Read good books and bad books. Read on how to write, and read on how not to write. And when it’s time to write, forget everything that you’ve written. Tune into yourself. Somewhere deep down inside you’ll hear this thin little author’s voice which wants to come out. Hear it. In order to do this you’ll have to shut up and listen.
11. Writing takes time. Do you have time? Do you have time for writing? Do you have time to look at the screen or a sheet of paper and not write a word? I used to believe that every minute that was spent under the writer’s hat has to be productive. I was told that it doesn’t happen like this all the time, but only my own experience could prove this to be true. Yes, it doesn’t sound promising, but surprisingly the book cannot happen without these moments. Silence is words that haven’t been revealed yet. That’s when something new is being born inside of you – in the silence. And you need to give it time to be born. Do you have time to be an aspiring writer? Do you have time at all since nobody else does? If the answer is “yes,” keep on reading.
12. Writers are people with strange oddities. They constantly write something on napkins, pieces of paper, and if they don’t write it down, their eyes start twitching. If in those moments you are in their company and you are telling them something, believe me, writers are not hearing you. Do you have any oddity of yours as a writer? I am sure you do. I might jump out in the middle of the night and write down the thought that visited me and doesn’t let me go until I do. Sometimes I am talking to my consciousness at night: let me sleep now, please, and you can remind me about this tomorrow. Sometimes it works. I don’t find it odd at all. It’s a part of my life. Do you like to write so much that you don’t mind to be strange in the eyes of others at least? If yes, keep on reading.
13. Who is your favorite writer? What do you like in this person’s writing? Study their writing style. When we write for the first time, we will want to imitate someone, and it will be great if we imitate someone successful in the field. I realized what was common between all my favorite writers: the sincerity they are describing their experiences with, their sense of humor, their kindness which filled every word and line, and motivation to act, to be, to love and live – right now, every minute. For you it can be a completely different set of characteristics.
14. Knowing your subject and writing about it – these are two completely different things. If you know about cosmetology, it’s good to tell about it in such a say that a person will want to change their job or at least use your tricks right this second. Indifferent reader is much worse than a reader who didn’t like your book. When I started writing, I’ve already had more than 15 years of meditation practice, and whatever I’ve described in my book is just a small part of my journey.
15. It is only the beginning. Once you’ve written your first book, everything just starts for you. Being a writer is an action of a constant Present Continuous. It doesn’t have the past, and the future shouldn’t bother you at least while the process of writing is happening.
There will be more on writing, stay tuned!
Morning Pages
Technique Description: This technique became famous all over the world thanks to the author of books and transformation courses “The Artist’s Way” and “The Vein of Gold” Julia Cameron.
“Morning Pages” is practiced as a part of those courses but in my experience I can definitely say that it works as a separate and wonderful technique on its own. The instructions are quite simple: every morning before getting out of bed, we take a piece of paper and a pen and start writing.
We can time ourselves, or choose three A4 pages and write nonstop until we finish the papers. This is not a leisure writing; we should write fast without thinking about how nice our handwriting is, or how grammatically correct our sentences are.
It doesn’t matter what you are writing in your Morning Pages and how expressive you are with your sentences. That said, if the only thing in your head that early morning is just “blah-blah-blah,” that’s what you should write out.
“Morning Pages” practice is not about thinking of a theme or writing a flowery phrase, that’s not the idea. With the help of this technique we are freeing our mind from all the garbage polluting our heads – troubles, chatter, judgement, criticism and whatnot – onto the sheets of paper.
If you’d like to skip from one thought to another, then that’s exactly what you should do, Morning Pages allow that. Don’t think about finishing the sentence if that is not what you want to do. And, probably, the most important rule here is this: don’t judge yourself for what you are writing. Nobody will be reading this. You won’t be reading this either. I recommend you to tear those pages into pieces later on or burn them – whatever brings you the most pleasure.
The Result: When we write out all the garbage out early morning, all of a sudden silence arises inside. At first it might seem very unusual and even quite uncomfortable. But discomfort won’t last long. Writing out our negative thoughts on the paper is one of the safest ways to get rid of that negativity.
This is what happens to us a lot of times: we are thinking about something, over and over again, then that “something” comes to us at night as a part of our dreams, and we wake up in the morning without having had a proper rest.
Being grumpy and unhappy we might direct those negative emotions towards those who are there with us at the moment. You know who these people are most of the time – our loved ones. And if we started our morning with the Morning pages, our anger subsides, negativity goes away.
And now it’s only up to us how we fill in that inner emptiness – with a fresh portion of bad mood or with joy and happiness. Also the feeling of lightness that comes along with it brings in the additional bursts of energy.
Important Moments: Don’t forget that Morning Pages are meant to be done in longhand. There is no need to think of new rules, it will be a completely different awareness technique for other purposes then. Also don’t forget that we should write right after we wake up in the morning (unless you work at night and sleep during the daytime).
It happened in the past when I was using this technique during the day time and it brought its positive results as well. But again, it became a different technique for different purposes.
Also remember, we are not trying to solve any problems with the help of the Morning Pages. We are not expecting anything from them. We are just writing out all the garbage that is in our heads in order to free it from negativity. Existence will take care of the rest, it tackled things much harder than this!
Technique Description: This technique became famous all over the world thanks to the author of books and transformation courses “The Artist’s Way” and “The Vein of Gold” Julia Cameron.
“Morning Pages” is practiced as a part of those courses but in my experience I can definitely say that it works as a separate and wonderful technique on its own. The instructions are quite simple: every morning before getting out of bed, we take a piece of paper and a pen and start writing.
We can time ourselves, or choose three A4 pages and write nonstop until we finish the papers. This is not a leisure writing; we should write fast without thinking about how nice our handwriting is, or how grammatically correct our sentences are.
It doesn’t matter what you are writing in your Morning Pages and how expressive you are with your sentences. That said, if the only thing in your head that early morning is just “blah-blah-blah,” that’s what you should write out.
“Morning Pages” practice is not about thinking of a theme or writing a flowery phrase, that’s not the idea. With the help of this technique we are freeing our mind from all the garbage polluting our heads – troubles, chatter, judgement, criticism and whatnot – onto the sheets of paper.
If you’d like to skip from one thought to another, then that’s exactly what you should do, Morning Pages allow that. Don’t think about finishing the sentence if that is not what you want to do. And, probably, the most important rule here is this: don’t judge yourself for what you are writing. Nobody will be reading this. You won’t be reading this either. I recommend you to tear those pages into pieces later on or burn them – whatever brings you the most pleasure.
The Result: When we write out all the garbage out early morning, all of a sudden silence arises inside. At first it might seem very unusual and even quite uncomfortable. But discomfort won’t last long. Writing out our negative thoughts on the paper is one of the safest ways to get rid of that negativity.
This is what happens to us a lot of times: we are thinking about something, over and over again, then that “something” comes to us at night as a part of our dreams, and we wake up in the morning without having had a proper rest.
Being grumpy and unhappy we might direct those negative emotions towards those who are there with us at the moment. You know who these people are most of the time – our loved ones. And if we started our morning with the Morning pages, our anger subsides, negativity goes away.
And now it’s only up to us how we fill in that inner emptiness – with a fresh portion of bad mood or with joy and happiness. Also the feeling of lightness that comes along with it brings in the additional bursts of energy.
Important Moments: Don’t forget that Morning Pages are meant to be done in longhand. There is no need to think of new rules, it will be a completely different awareness technique for other purposes then. Also don’t forget that we should write right after we wake up in the morning (unless you work at night and sleep during the daytime).
It happened in the past when I was using this technique during the day time and it brought its positive results as well. But again, it became a different technique for different purposes.
Also remember, we are not trying to solve any problems with the help of the Morning Pages. We are not expecting anything from them. We are just writing out all the garbage that is in our heads in order to free it from negativity. Existence will take care of the rest, it tackled things much harder than this!
PART 1
(Ra Uru Hu’s words translated from Russian into English and slightly edited by Amara).
“I always paid attention to Generators more, they are the majority, and they can tune into their Strategy and Authority pretty much immediately, and I thought that the only way I can establish Human Design in the world was by waking few Generators up. And so I spend about 10 years trying to wake up as many Generators as possible on my way. I truly tried hard, and I hoped it would transform their lives. Then I realized: it won’t work as fast as I wanted, it doesn’t work, and maybe I should pay attention to someone else. Of course, I am playing with you right now, but nevertheless.
And I’ve noticed that Projectors and Manifestors are those that I feel commonality with, because we have an open Sacral center. At the same time, they are deeply different, and what I understood about the Types, the most important thing is that I see the aura as a wholesome energetic field which lets us meet with different powers. And when I meet a Generator, I don’t just meet the power, I feel this field around myself, as if it entered my field. Whenever I meet Generators, that’s the first expression that I have. And this embrace, it is never personal. It’s interesting – everything that is connected to the aura of Generators. It is something amazing, embracing, but it’s never personal. They are embracing with their aura any person in front of themselves, and behind themselves as well.
But when it comes to Projectors, it’s very different. I meet a Projector, and it is as if this person has a camera. All of a sudden I start to realize that this is a totally different being. I can’t get rid of that feeling. It’s almost uncomfortable, almost. Uncomfortable in the sense that I am a Manifestor, and I see this aura which is focusing on me. At the same time with Generators in this field around me there is nothing personal, they are just moving with this energy, and the Projectors, they are personal. There is nothing more personal than a Projector. You see that if you are a Projector and you are in the room with two people, you are already creating an enemy. Just think about it. Because this is a great truth for a Projector. If you are a Projector, and there are two people there, one of them will be very upset. This person will be upset because your energy as a Projector can be focused only on one person at a time. That’s what you are capable of. When you are focusing your energy on one person, the other one thinks, oh my god, he’s totally ignoring me. When a Generator is in the room, there might be other 8000 people, and everything is fine because everyone is happy, they are all a part of the crowd. With Projectors it’s different. Only one person at a time. And of course, it’s their power, but it’s also something that gets in their way.
The majority of the world population is not Projectors. 80 percent is not. And it’s more than 5 billion of people who are not Projectors. The majority of those 5 billion is energy Types, and Projectors seem like some sort of parasites which focus on one thing. We are all parasites; I understand it because we all live in this Generators’ life. But Projector is so focused on one that his aura practically burns into you, going straight to your G center. It’s not that it is holding a gun on you, but this gun is pointed at you. And it will never let it go. You can’t let it go.
The only people who truly bring Projectors into the world, are people with open Throats. Because everything what people with open Throats want is to attract attention. All they need for this is Projectors. That’s why as long as they have a Projector, they are always ready to meet with the Projector, “they are looking only at me, they are worried about me, they don’t see anyone else in that room but me”. People with undefined Throats are simply inhaling Projectors, sucking them in. There is nothing you can do. They are looking for attention. You will see this power. And then they have a dilemma. There is always a dilemma. There is no energy here, it’s not an energy Type.
Signature of each Type is some sort of a holy Grail, you are getting out from your garbage bin of what your Non-Self is, from the deep bitterness of a Projector. “I feel bitter that the sun is not shining”. Bitterness is always there. And this holy grail is success. Generator can go from frustration to satisfaction with the speed of light. Projectors can’t get to success that fast. It’s not an energy Type. it's not like they don't have this inner ability, no, it's not about that. What I like about Projectors is that they are so ignorant about themselves, just like Manifestors. We are not worried about ourselves. The last thing the Manifestor thinks about is to find out who they are. They are not interested. They want to know whether they can influence others.
*(excerpt from my book “Design Your Cloudless Life” translated from Russian into English)
If you think you are very busy and have no time to meditate, think again. If Oprah can find time in her busy schedule, so can you. If Madonna and David Lynch are practicing, and they are not the kind of people to waste time on unnecessary things, so can you. My research in the subject brought me to the next conclusion: pretty much every successful person came across meditation practice making it a daily habit in their lives.
Billionaire and co-founder of the Salesforce.com Corporation Marc Benioff admitted in one of his interviews that meditation became a daily part of his life since 2005 after his work in the Oracle became too stressful.
The founder of the famous delivery service “Panda Express” Andrew Cherng once said that he interrupted a business meeting in order to make one shop manager meditate. He says he’d like to fix his workers from the inside. Cherng himself has been meditating regularly for a long time.
The former CEO of Monsanto Bob Shapiro turned all his office cabinets into meditation spaces. He turned to meditation thanks to his friend way back during his study at Harvard.
The founder of the coffee company Green Mountain Coffee Roaster Robert Stiller invited a meditation instructor for his employees starting from 2008. He says meditation helps a better concentration and task completion with much higher effectiveness.
Since I’ve mentioned Oprah in the beginning, whose regalia you all know, she’s been practicing meditation for many years, and on top of that she’s the host of my favorite TV program which I hope will be able to stream in Russia soon – Super Soul Sunday. Oprah admitted that this program was the ultimate goal she was striving towards in her work –this is what she wanted to do in the beginning, and finally it has happened –to talk to spiritual world leaders about soul, awareness, happiness. Do you think that she has nothing better to do than do “useless meditation” on a daily basis? Think again. Oprah doesn’t only meditate, she brought this practice to her employees saying that only out of meditative state you can do your best work and create the best life for yourself. I believe her because that’s what I’ve done with my life, and that’s what I’ll never stop doing.
Meditation has been a huge part of Ray Dalio’s life. He is a billionaire-founder of Bridgewater Associates, the biggest hedge-fund in the world. He said that meditation more than other things is the biggest ingredient of every success he’s ever had. It provided him with mental clarity while opening his mind, made him centered, creative, peaceful and healthy.
Ariana Huffington, the founder,the president and the editor-in-chief at Huffington Post Media Group wrote in her Vogue article that yoga and meditation are her triggers for happiness. She is also using meditation in her company providing weekly classes for her employees stating that there is already proof that meditation is an advantage to every business that wants to be successful.
Even Rupert Murdoch, the famous media magnate decided to follow the meditation trend and started practicing Transcendental meditation which he wrote about in his twitter.
Bill Ford from Ford Moto Company is also a huge enthusiast when it comes to meditation in the business world. In the interview to Jack Cornfield, Ford said that when his company went through really tough times, he was practicing Metta meditation in order to live each day with compassion towards everyone and everything.
Larry Brilliant, the CEO of Skoll Global Threats Fund and former Google.org director lived for two years in Himalayan ashram practicing meditation.
Former president of Mozambik Joaquim Chissano is considered to be the most enlightened government official in Africa. He’s been practicing Transcendental meditation twice a day for many years and he gives credit to it when it comes to ending the partisan war that lasted for 16 years.
Now, if you are still not convinced, I’d like to share with you some quotes from famous people – celebrities, billionaires, politicians who don’t think that daily meditation is such a crazy useless idea – quite the opposite!
Benjamin Franklin:
“Reading makes a full man, meditation a profound man, discourse a profound man.”
Eva Mendez:
“I’m actually big into meditation, transcendental meditation, and that really helps create not only a sense of balance, but all the other stuff this is gonna sound cliché …serenity and kind of a calm state of mind, “And not that I’m like that all the time, but it helps me deal with life’s ups and downs, coming from more of a centered place.“ Meditation helps with creativity, and I never thought about it in that way until I read, and listened to, the audiobook of one of my favorite directors David Lynch, Catching the Big Fish.”
Ellen Degeneres:
“It feels good. Kinda like when you have to shut your computer down, just sometimes when it goes crazy, you just shut it down and when you turn it on, it’s okay again. That’s what meditation is to me.”
Russel Brand:
“Meditation is your negotiation with your feelings that you want to think and you want to do stuff. There are lots of techniques.You follow your breath. You sit in a position that’s comfortable,” he says. “I carry tension in my jaw and around my eyes. Scan your body for where you carry the tension. Is it in your shoulders? Is it in your face? I bring my attention to my hands.”
Dr. Oz:
“It’s like, imagine the ripples on top of an ocean. And I’m in a rowboat, reactively dealing with the waves and water coming into my boat. What I need to do is dive into the deeper solace, the calmness beneath the surface.”
Paul McCartney:
“Meditation is a lifelong gift. It’s something you can call on at any time. I think it’s a great thing.”
Orlando Bloom:
“The philosophies behind meditation are very current today and are a way of finding some sort of peace.”
Sting:
“Yoga introduced me to a style of meditation. The only meditation I would have done before would be in the writing of songs.”
Hugh Jackman:
“Meditation is all about the pursuit of nothingness. It’s like the ultimate rest. It’s better than the best sleep you’ve ever had. It’s a quieting of the mind. It sharpens everything, especially your appreciation of your surroundings. It keeps life fresh.”
Ringo Starr:
“At the end of the day, I can end up just totally wacky, because I’ve made mountains out of molehills. With meditation, I can keep them as molehills.”
Susan Sarandon:
“It helps me chill out and focus.”
Jillian Andersen:
“I mean the whole thing about meditation and yoga is about connecting to the higher part of yourself, and then seeing that every living thing is connected in some way.”
Dick Van Dyke:
“When you’re a kid, you lay in the grass and watch the clouds going over, and you literally don’t have a thought in your mind. It’s purely meditation, and we lose that.”
Chuck Norris:
“A walk in nature is a perfect backdrop to combine exercise, prayer, and meditation while enhancing the benefit of these activities.”
Voltaire:
“Meditation is the dissolution of thoughts in Eternal awareness or Pure consciousness without objectification, knowing without thinking, merging infinitude in infinity.”
David Lynch:
“Meditation is to dive all the way within, beyond thought, to the source of thought and pure consciousness. It enlarges the container, every time you transcend. When you come out, you come out refreshed, filled with energy and enthusiasm for life.”
Harrison Ford:
“The focus and the concentration and the attention to detail that flying takes is a kind of meditation. I find it restful and engaging, and other things slip away.”
Alice Walker:
“Meditation has been a loyal friend to me. It has helped me write my books.”
Justin Theroux:
“My grandfather used to write one sentence every day in his journal: ‘I love Anne more than ever today.’ I think that was his meditation – keeping him in his marriage, and also his appreciation for it. It was very touching.”
Celine Dion:
“Golf is a search for perfection, for balance. It’s about meditation and concentration. You have to use hand and brain.”
Richard Gere:
“Mindfulness is a quality that is always there.”
Salma Hayek:
“After doing a juice cleanse, I’m motivated to eat healthier and not emotionally. Cleansing is like my meditation. It makes me stop, focus and think about what I’m putting into my body. I’m making a commitment to my health and hitting the reset button.”
Shirley Maclaine:
“Well, when you’re relaxed, your mind takes you to the whole reality. There’s no such thing as time when you’re really relaxed. That’s why meditation works.”
Miranda Kerr:
“Meditation is a great way to stay centered and I think inversions are great for aging. Specifically, I think the Kundalini yoga is really a life changer.”
Laura Dern:
“I learned Transcendental Meditation at 18. I was not as dedicated back then, but I am now!” Dern revealed. “I feel incredibly blessed to have it in my life, just as a practical application.”
Clint Eastwood:
“I’m a great supporter of transcendental meditation. I’ve been using it for almost 40 years now – and I think it’s a great tool for anyone to have, to be able to utilize as a tool for stress. Stress, of course, comes with almost every business. I think there are enough studies out there that show that TM is something that could benefit anybody. It’s a great system to use. Otherwise, why would I’ve been doing it for all these years, for almost half of my life?”
Goldie Hawn:
“What I’ve learned through my meditation is a sense of equanimity, a sense of all things being equal.”
Donna Karan:
“With all the yoga and meditation that I do, when the chaos happens it happens. But I’m not as affected as a lot of people – I don’t react as much. I just let things drip off my back a little bit.”
If you think you are very busy and have no time to meditate, think again. If Oprah can find time in her busy schedule, so can you. If Madonna and David Lynch are practicing, and they are not the kind of people to waste time on unnecessary things, so can you. My research in the subject brought me to the next conclusion: pretty much every successful person came across meditation practice making it a daily habit in their lives.
Billionaire and co-founder of the Salesforce.com Corporation Marc Benioff admitted in one of his interviews that meditation became a daily part of his life since 2005 after his work in the Oracle became too stressful.
The founder of the famous delivery service “Panda Express” Andrew Cherng once said that he interrupted a business meeting in order to make one shop manager meditate. He says he’d like to fix his workers from the inside. Cherng himself has been meditating regularly for a long time.
The former CEO of Monsanto Bob Shapiro turned all his office cabinets into meditation spaces. He turned to meditation thanks to his friend way back during his study at Harvard.
The founder of the coffee company Green Mountain Coffee Roaster Robert Stiller invited a meditation instructor for his employees starting from 2008. He says meditation helps a better concentration and task completion with much higher effectiveness.
Since I’ve mentioned Oprah in the beginning, whose regalia you all know, she’s been practicing meditation for many years, and on top of that she’s the host of my favorite TV program which I hope will be able to stream in Russia soon – Super Soul Sunday. Oprah admitted that this program was the ultimate goal she was striving towards in her work –this is what she wanted to do in the beginning, and finally it has happened –to talk to spiritual world leaders about soul, awareness, happiness. Do you think that she has nothing better to do than do “useless meditation” on a daily basis? Think again. Oprah doesn’t only meditate, she brought this practice to her employees saying that only out of meditative state you can do your best work and create the best life for yourself. I believe her because that’s what I’ve done with my life, and that’s what I’ll never stop doing.
Meditation has been a huge part of Ray Dalio’s life. He is a billionaire-founder of Bridgewater Associates, the biggest hedge-fund in the world. He said that meditation more than other things is the biggest ingredient of every success he’s ever had. It provided him with mental clarity while opening his mind, made him centered, creative, peaceful and healthy.
Ariana Huffington, the founder,the president and the editor-in-chief at Huffington Post Media Group wrote in her Vogue article that yoga and meditation are her triggers for happiness. She is also using meditation in her company providing weekly classes for her employees stating that there is already proof that meditation is an advantage to every business that wants to be successful.
Even Rupert Murdoch, the famous media magnate decided to follow the meditation trend and started practicing Transcendental meditation which he wrote about in his twitter.
Bill Ford from Ford Moto Company is also a huge enthusiast when it comes to meditation in the business world. In the interview to Jack Cornfield, Ford said that when his company went through really tough times, he was practicing Metta meditation in order to live each day with compassion towards everyone and everything.
Larry Brilliant, the CEO of Skoll Global Threats Fund and former Google.org director lived for two years in Himalayan ashram practicing meditation.
Former president of Mozambik Joaquim Chissano is considered to be the most enlightened government official in Africa. He’s been practicing Transcendental meditation twice a day for many years and he gives credit to it when it comes to ending the partisan war that lasted for 16 years.
Now, if you are still not convinced, I’d like to share with you some quotes from famous people – celebrities, billionaires, politicians who don’t think that daily meditation is such a crazy useless idea – quite the opposite!
Benjamin Franklin:
“Reading makes a full man, meditation a profound man, discourse a profound man.”
Eva Mendez:
“I’m actually big into meditation, transcendental meditation, and that really helps create not only a sense of balance, but all the other stuff this is gonna sound cliché …serenity and kind of a calm state of mind, “And not that I’m like that all the time, but it helps me deal with life’s ups and downs, coming from more of a centered place.“ Meditation helps with creativity, and I never thought about it in that way until I read, and listened to, the audiobook of one of my favorite directors David Lynch, Catching the Big Fish.”
Ellen Degeneres:
“It feels good. Kinda like when you have to shut your computer down, just sometimes when it goes crazy, you just shut it down and when you turn it on, it’s okay again. That’s what meditation is to me.”
Russel Brand:
“Meditation is your negotiation with your feelings that you want to think and you want to do stuff. There are lots of techniques.You follow your breath. You sit in a position that’s comfortable,” he says. “I carry tension in my jaw and around my eyes. Scan your body for where you carry the tension. Is it in your shoulders? Is it in your face? I bring my attention to my hands.”
Dr. Oz:
“It’s like, imagine the ripples on top of an ocean. And I’m in a rowboat, reactively dealing with the waves and water coming into my boat. What I need to do is dive into the deeper solace, the calmness beneath the surface.”
Paul McCartney:
“Meditation is a lifelong gift. It’s something you can call on at any time. I think it’s a great thing.”
Orlando Bloom:
“The philosophies behind meditation are very current today and are a way of finding some sort of peace.”
Sting:
“Yoga introduced me to a style of meditation. The only meditation I would have done before would be in the writing of songs.”
Hugh Jackman:
“Meditation is all about the pursuit of nothingness. It’s like the ultimate rest. It’s better than the best sleep you’ve ever had. It’s a quieting of the mind. It sharpens everything, especially your appreciation of your surroundings. It keeps life fresh.”
Ringo Starr:
“At the end of the day, I can end up just totally wacky, because I’ve made mountains out of molehills. With meditation, I can keep them as molehills.”
Susan Sarandon:
“It helps me chill out and focus.”
Jillian Andersen:
“I mean the whole thing about meditation and yoga is about connecting to the higher part of yourself, and then seeing that every living thing is connected in some way.”
Dick Van Dyke:
“When you’re a kid, you lay in the grass and watch the clouds going over, and you literally don’t have a thought in your mind. It’s purely meditation, and we lose that.”
Chuck Norris:
“A walk in nature is a perfect backdrop to combine exercise, prayer, and meditation while enhancing the benefit of these activities.”
Voltaire:
“Meditation is the dissolution of thoughts in Eternal awareness or Pure consciousness without objectification, knowing without thinking, merging infinitude in infinity.”
David Lynch:
“Meditation is to dive all the way within, beyond thought, to the source of thought and pure consciousness. It enlarges the container, every time you transcend. When you come out, you come out refreshed, filled with energy and enthusiasm for life.”
Harrison Ford:
“The focus and the concentration and the attention to detail that flying takes is a kind of meditation. I find it restful and engaging, and other things slip away.”
Alice Walker:
“Meditation has been a loyal friend to me. It has helped me write my books.”
Justin Theroux:
“My grandfather used to write one sentence every day in his journal: ‘I love Anne more than ever today.’ I think that was his meditation – keeping him in his marriage, and also his appreciation for it. It was very touching.”
Celine Dion:
“Golf is a search for perfection, for balance. It’s about meditation and concentration. You have to use hand and brain.”
Richard Gere:
“Mindfulness is a quality that is always there.”
Salma Hayek:
“After doing a juice cleanse, I’m motivated to eat healthier and not emotionally. Cleansing is like my meditation. It makes me stop, focus and think about what I’m putting into my body. I’m making a commitment to my health and hitting the reset button.”
Shirley Maclaine:
“Well, when you’re relaxed, your mind takes you to the whole reality. There’s no such thing as time when you’re really relaxed. That’s why meditation works.”
Miranda Kerr:
“Meditation is a great way to stay centered and I think inversions are great for aging. Specifically, I think the Kundalini yoga is really a life changer.”
Laura Dern:
“I learned Transcendental Meditation at 18. I was not as dedicated back then, but I am now!” Dern revealed. “I feel incredibly blessed to have it in my life, just as a practical application.”
Clint Eastwood:
“I’m a great supporter of transcendental meditation. I’ve been using it for almost 40 years now – and I think it’s a great tool for anyone to have, to be able to utilize as a tool for stress. Stress, of course, comes with almost every business. I think there are enough studies out there that show that TM is something that could benefit anybody. It’s a great system to use. Otherwise, why would I’ve been doing it for all these years, for almost half of my life?”
Goldie Hawn:
“What I’ve learned through my meditation is a sense of equanimity, a sense of all things being equal.”
Donna Karan:
“With all the yoga and meditation that I do, when the chaos happens it happens. But I’m not as affected as a lot of people – I don’t react as much. I just let things drip off my back a little bit.”
I’ve done eye laser surgery some time ago. Can’t say that the world all of a sudden appeared to me in a new way since I was using glasses and lenses before. However, new comfort came into my life through the surgery, and, no matter how strange it sounds, I had to take time getting used to it.
Some things have changed. For example, all of a sudden I saw imperfections, everywhere. At first it was faces with unfamiliar lines, shadows, curved noses, asymmetrical brows, smattering of freckles, lips – narrow, puffy, overdone, natural, different. When I was wearing glasses, I saw the same things but for some reason it didn’t bring the same feelings.
Guess what, I liked it. I liked the imperfections. And then I remembered that I liked them almost in everything, all along.
Mountains
There was a girl visiting us in Kabardino-Balkaria once who said “Alps are way cooler than Elbrus since you don’t see the pipes sticking out of the ground.” She said this and later on regretted it dearly but that’s a whole different story. Maybe the Alpen pipes are more perfect than Elbrus ones but let’s not forget that Elbrus is a dormant volcano and the highest top of Europe, let alone a place of power which Hitler tried to conquer during the World War II believing there was a gate to Shamballa. Don’t believe me, I’m welcoming you all to experience it for yourself!
Poems
There are poems that are neat and smooth, and there are those which don’t seem to rhyme and at the same time they can penetrate you with their imperfection very deeply. They have their melody, colors which bring out the truth onto the surface. They might be going up and down the spiral stairs, and at times, they might skip a stair or two. But it always reaches the destination, that’s the fact.
Movies and books
The movies we love the most don’t finish with the main characters’ kiss at the final scene. And what about the books which don’t have strict gradation between a villain and a “good guy”? We believe in characters who look, feel, behave like us. And what we are is imperfect. Sometimes we do good, and other times even little rain can aggravate us making us act in the most unpleasant way. At the same time, villains in the movies and books (and life, for that matter) can do good, humanity is not a foreign concept for them. As someone wise once said, there are no bad people, there are those who suffer. That is life – just as imperfect!
Lovers
Sometimes there are couples, imperfect couples who are together not because everything works out for them but because they periodically handle the difficulties and move on to the next step. They don’t have time to post pictures with one another on Instagram to show to everyone that they have an ideal life, they don’t need to congratulate each other on birthdays in front of the whole world through the social media. Yes, they are imperfect, and sometimes they go through incidents here and there just like everybody else, but if we ask them whether they are happy together or not, we will get a positive answer. I’m sure we all have such examples around us. Thank God, I do.
Weddings
Since I mentioned couples, let’s discuss weddings a bit. I like imperfect weddings. Anything can happen there: the groom can mix the wedding reception places, the bride can oversleep and make the groom worried sick, the guests can create lots of crazy scenes, and the wedding dress can be torn by a sweet little kitty as it happened to my sister-in-law. It’s impossible not to mention Charlotte’s second wedding with Harry in Sex and the City, so imperfect and so perfect at the same time. When people can laugh at imperfection during such an important day, I somehow believe that they can make it as a couple.
Flowers
Many of us like not only ideal roses but also field flowers which survived thanks to the sun and the rain despite all odds. Imperfect flowers did their best to come out of the soil, they were not cared after by the best gardener, although I truly believe that nature is the best gardener of all. So what, if this imperfect flower doesn’t smell like the orchid you’ve watered every single moment of its beautiful perfect life? It is still a flower, it still made it into this world, it still makes everything around bright. And it is still standing on its stem. Perfect imperfection.
India
I remember when I was walking along a narrow dusty road in Rishikesh watching the rapid Ganges flowing down, I had no worry in my head. It was the moment of unity with here and now, and I don’t know why it happened exactly at that hot day in May, but all of a sudden I found myself weeping from all this beauty and universal, unconditional life that I felt for this place, these people sitting on the roads among all this unimaginable dirt. What exactly beautiful did I see? There was garbage all over the place, some old men in rags begging for money, the cows and flies soaring around them… but that’s where it hit me – all the beauty of this imperfection.
When did it all start? Maybe when they explained to us that ideal kids are those who are obedient, ideal school assignment book is the one which has all A’s… Maybe when we bought our first Cosmopolitan and compared ourselves with Cindy Crawford (for the record, I like Cindy not only because we both were born on the 20th of February).
P.S.
Something did disappoint me after the vision correction: I started seeing dust everywhere, and so I couldn’t say ‘no’ to the cleaning anymore. In all other departments I am choosing imperfection – mine and everybody else’s, and I am smiling with all my imperfect teeth without being afraid that wrinkles will take over my face. As it goes in Anatomy Grey’s soundtrack, “All of these lines across my face tell you the story of who I am, so many stories of where I’ve been and how I’ve got to where I am.”
Some things have changed. For example, all of a sudden I saw imperfections, everywhere. At first it was faces with unfamiliar lines, shadows, curved noses, asymmetrical brows, smattering of freckles, lips – narrow, puffy, overdone, natural, different. When I was wearing glasses, I saw the same things but for some reason it didn’t bring the same feelings.
Guess what, I liked it. I liked the imperfections. And then I remembered that I liked them almost in everything, all along.
Mountains
There was a girl visiting us in Kabardino-Balkaria once who said “Alps are way cooler than Elbrus since you don’t see the pipes sticking out of the ground.” She said this and later on regretted it dearly but that’s a whole different story. Maybe the Alpen pipes are more perfect than Elbrus ones but let’s not forget that Elbrus is a dormant volcano and the highest top of Europe, let alone a place of power which Hitler tried to conquer during the World War II believing there was a gate to Shamballa. Don’t believe me, I’m welcoming you all to experience it for yourself!
Poems
There are poems that are neat and smooth, and there are those which don’t seem to rhyme and at the same time they can penetrate you with their imperfection very deeply. They have their melody, colors which bring out the truth onto the surface. They might be going up and down the spiral stairs, and at times, they might skip a stair or two. But it always reaches the destination, that’s the fact.
Movies and books
The movies we love the most don’t finish with the main characters’ kiss at the final scene. And what about the books which don’t have strict gradation between a villain and a “good guy”? We believe in characters who look, feel, behave like us. And what we are is imperfect. Sometimes we do good, and other times even little rain can aggravate us making us act in the most unpleasant way. At the same time, villains in the movies and books (and life, for that matter) can do good, humanity is not a foreign concept for them. As someone wise once said, there are no bad people, there are those who suffer. That is life – just as imperfect!
Lovers
Sometimes there are couples, imperfect couples who are together not because everything works out for them but because they periodically handle the difficulties and move on to the next step. They don’t have time to post pictures with one another on Instagram to show to everyone that they have an ideal life, they don’t need to congratulate each other on birthdays in front of the whole world through the social media. Yes, they are imperfect, and sometimes they go through incidents here and there just like everybody else, but if we ask them whether they are happy together or not, we will get a positive answer. I’m sure we all have such examples around us. Thank God, I do.
Weddings
Since I mentioned couples, let’s discuss weddings a bit. I like imperfect weddings. Anything can happen there: the groom can mix the wedding reception places, the bride can oversleep and make the groom worried sick, the guests can create lots of crazy scenes, and the wedding dress can be torn by a sweet little kitty as it happened to my sister-in-law. It’s impossible not to mention Charlotte’s second wedding with Harry in Sex and the City, so imperfect and so perfect at the same time. When people can laugh at imperfection during such an important day, I somehow believe that they can make it as a couple.
Flowers
Many of us like not only ideal roses but also field flowers which survived thanks to the sun and the rain despite all odds. Imperfect flowers did their best to come out of the soil, they were not cared after by the best gardener, although I truly believe that nature is the best gardener of all. So what, if this imperfect flower doesn’t smell like the orchid you’ve watered every single moment of its beautiful perfect life? It is still a flower, it still made it into this world, it still makes everything around bright. And it is still standing on its stem. Perfect imperfection.
India
I remember when I was walking along a narrow dusty road in Rishikesh watching the rapid Ganges flowing down, I had no worry in my head. It was the moment of unity with here and now, and I don’t know why it happened exactly at that hot day in May, but all of a sudden I found myself weeping from all this beauty and universal, unconditional life that I felt for this place, these people sitting on the roads among all this unimaginable dirt. What exactly beautiful did I see? There was garbage all over the place, some old men in rags begging for money, the cows and flies soaring around them… but that’s where it hit me – all the beauty of this imperfection.
When did it all start? Maybe when they explained to us that ideal kids are those who are obedient, ideal school assignment book is the one which has all A’s… Maybe when we bought our first Cosmopolitan and compared ourselves with Cindy Crawford (for the record, I like Cindy not only because we both were born on the 20th of February).
P.S.
Something did disappoint me after the vision correction: I started seeing dust everywhere, and so I couldn’t say ‘no’ to the cleaning anymore. In all other departments I am choosing imperfection – mine and everybody else’s, and I am smiling with all my imperfect teeth without being afraid that wrinkles will take over my face. As it goes in Anatomy Grey’s soundtrack, “All of these lines across my face tell you the story of who I am, so many stories of where I’ve been and how I’ve got to where I am.”
“Am I going to have enough time to read all this?” I asked my mother while trying to carry a huge stock of books into the room. I was 5.
I thought I would never have enough time. I wouldn’t have enough time to find out about everything that I needed to know, to read everything I wanted to read. The more I read, the more books appeared that I wanted to read. I was devouring them one by one dreaming about learning speed-reading. Since I’d been reading so much, I had a notion that I know it all. I have the knowledge, right? So they are a part of me, right?
Obviously, it was just an illusion.
To know something and to be that something are completely different things.
To know what meditation is and to practice it are completely different things.
To know your Human Design and to live it are completely different things.
To have 100 friends and to find time to spend with those friends are completely different things.
To travel all over Europe in 2 weeks and to live in one of the European countries for 2 weeks in order to really feel the country is a completely different thing.
To step on someone’s foot, say “sorry” and be on your way and to step on someone’s foot, say “sorry” and to clean that foot and then be on your way are completely different things.
Slowing down, bit by bit, life showed me why I need it. Maybe, you do too.
To take pleasure from simple things in life. To clean teeth on autopilot is one thing, but when you do it with awareness, feeling every tooth that you are cleaning, it starts meaning something more than just any mundane task. This way each and every thing that we do, no matter how simple it is becomes meditative, interesting, different – in the better sense.
To have time to do exactly what you need. Nowadays I read less books. I still read a lot, but the number of books decreased. Nowadays each book takes the time it needs. And if I like something from what I’ve just read, I put the book aside in order to practice the acquired knowledge.
To prioritize right things in life. What is important to you? To become successful? To become the best parents? To bake pies and be the happiest person alive? To climb the Everest? Each of us defines it for themselves. At least, that’s the way it should be in any healthy society. You can be afraid of your to-do lists because of their endlessness, and you can periodically cross them off and give yourself a holiday. Once you set the priorities straight, it helps. And yes, someone might not agree with your priorities. And it’s ok, they have a right to do so just like you have a right to follow your own goals, not someone else’s.
To realize that the most important activity of the day is breathing with awareness. Just recently a friend of mine shared her realization: she couldn’t quit smoking, and one day it became clear to her. Because of smoking she could take time and have a breather. And since in the society where she lived it was not common just to take a break in order to breathe, she used cigarettes “to fit in,” while secretly all she wanted was to breathe. The moment she had this realization, she quit her unhealthy habit. Now she stops to breathe as much as she can. Just breathe. Inhale-exhale. Inhale-exhale.
To exclude multitasking which is associated with stress. This way even a simplest action can become a meditation. And whatever becomes meditative brings pleasure, even if it is washing the dishes which you don’t like. I dedicated my first book to that subject completely.
When some people ask me to tell them about Human Design and Gene Keys as fast as I can so that the results can be felt immediately, I understand that it is the demands of the today’s reality with the millennials. I am sort of one of them. This world teaches me: write so that the person is able to read you in 1 minute, otherwise they won’t read, they don’t have time for you. Explain in 2 minutes. Catch their attention in 30 seconds. They don’t have time!
I get it. But it doesn’t work like that. Oops.
It happened so that Human Design and Gene Keys, meditations, awareness techniques are impossible to grasp in 5 minutes. The irony of life is such that these amazing systems (HD and GK) came specifically in the millennial era, which means, it came specifically for us. It’s no coincidence. Just like it’s impossible to learn a foreign language in half an hour (and it’s impossible to learn a foreign language per se, you can only study it constantly finding something new all the time, and the more you spend time on it, the more results you get from it – I am saying this as a former teacher of English as a foreign language). The bonus that comes through these actions is pleasure, joy, happiness while doing it.
Self-exploration is the most fascinating journey there is.
I am inviting you into the world where we always have time for each other. Into the world where we listen to the person who is talking to us without thinking that we need to do this or that. Into the world where we can spend time with ourselves. As a famous old Zen saying goes, if you have time, meditate every day for half an hour. If you don’t, then meditate for at least an hour daily.
Meditation, awareness techniques, Human Design, Gene Keys, any spiritual practice that you like doing or going to do require time. Our bodies has to be ready for the changes that are coming along. Our consciousness has to be ready for these changes. Our mind has to be able to accept all that. That’s why it takes the time it takes – from 5 minutes to infinity.
Now, in the times of millennials I am offering you to unite for this purpose – quality vs. quantity, immersiveness vs. multitasking. Changes will start happening in your life from the first moment, but this moment has to have an opportunity to stretch into the time it needs in order to make your life its best version.
I thought I would never have enough time. I wouldn’t have enough time to find out about everything that I needed to know, to read everything I wanted to read. The more I read, the more books appeared that I wanted to read. I was devouring them one by one dreaming about learning speed-reading. Since I’d been reading so much, I had a notion that I know it all. I have the knowledge, right? So they are a part of me, right?
Obviously, it was just an illusion.
To know something and to be that something are completely different things.
To know what meditation is and to practice it are completely different things.
To know your Human Design and to live it are completely different things.
To have 100 friends and to find time to spend with those friends are completely different things.
To travel all over Europe in 2 weeks and to live in one of the European countries for 2 weeks in order to really feel the country is a completely different thing.
To step on someone’s foot, say “sorry” and be on your way and to step on someone’s foot, say “sorry” and to clean that foot and then be on your way are completely different things.
Slowing down, bit by bit, life showed me why I need it. Maybe, you do too.
To take pleasure from simple things in life. To clean teeth on autopilot is one thing, but when you do it with awareness, feeling every tooth that you are cleaning, it starts meaning something more than just any mundane task. This way each and every thing that we do, no matter how simple it is becomes meditative, interesting, different – in the better sense.
To have time to do exactly what you need. Nowadays I read less books. I still read a lot, but the number of books decreased. Nowadays each book takes the time it needs. And if I like something from what I’ve just read, I put the book aside in order to practice the acquired knowledge.
To prioritize right things in life. What is important to you? To become successful? To become the best parents? To bake pies and be the happiest person alive? To climb the Everest? Each of us defines it for themselves. At least, that’s the way it should be in any healthy society. You can be afraid of your to-do lists because of their endlessness, and you can periodically cross them off and give yourself a holiday. Once you set the priorities straight, it helps. And yes, someone might not agree with your priorities. And it’s ok, they have a right to do so just like you have a right to follow your own goals, not someone else’s.
To realize that the most important activity of the day is breathing with awareness. Just recently a friend of mine shared her realization: she couldn’t quit smoking, and one day it became clear to her. Because of smoking she could take time and have a breather. And since in the society where she lived it was not common just to take a break in order to breathe, she used cigarettes “to fit in,” while secretly all she wanted was to breathe. The moment she had this realization, she quit her unhealthy habit. Now she stops to breathe as much as she can. Just breathe. Inhale-exhale. Inhale-exhale.
To exclude multitasking which is associated with stress. This way even a simplest action can become a meditation. And whatever becomes meditative brings pleasure, even if it is washing the dishes which you don’t like. I dedicated my first book to that subject completely.
When some people ask me to tell them about Human Design and Gene Keys as fast as I can so that the results can be felt immediately, I understand that it is the demands of the today’s reality with the millennials. I am sort of one of them. This world teaches me: write so that the person is able to read you in 1 minute, otherwise they won’t read, they don’t have time for you. Explain in 2 minutes. Catch their attention in 30 seconds. They don’t have time!
I get it. But it doesn’t work like that. Oops.
It happened so that Human Design and Gene Keys, meditations, awareness techniques are impossible to grasp in 5 minutes. The irony of life is such that these amazing systems (HD and GK) came specifically in the millennial era, which means, it came specifically for us. It’s no coincidence. Just like it’s impossible to learn a foreign language in half an hour (and it’s impossible to learn a foreign language per se, you can only study it constantly finding something new all the time, and the more you spend time on it, the more results you get from it – I am saying this as a former teacher of English as a foreign language). The bonus that comes through these actions is pleasure, joy, happiness while doing it.
Self-exploration is the most fascinating journey there is.
I am inviting you into the world where we always have time for each other. Into the world where we listen to the person who is talking to us without thinking that we need to do this or that. Into the world where we can spend time with ourselves. As a famous old Zen saying goes, if you have time, meditate every day for half an hour. If you don’t, then meditate for at least an hour daily.
Meditation, awareness techniques, Human Design, Gene Keys, any spiritual practice that you like doing or going to do require time. Our bodies has to be ready for the changes that are coming along. Our consciousness has to be ready for these changes. Our mind has to be able to accept all that. That’s why it takes the time it takes – from 5 minutes to infinity.
Now, in the times of millennials I am offering you to unite for this purpose – quality vs. quantity, immersiveness vs. multitasking. Changes will start happening in your life from the first moment, but this moment has to have an opportunity to stretch into the time it needs in order to make your life its best version.
Who haven’t heard about forming a habit by automatic repetition of a certain action for 21 days? Especially when it comes to something we are lazy to do even though we know it is healthy for us? Thanks to Ivan Pavlov, a Russian scientist and his Law of Classical Conditioning, a lot of habits have been formed and the essence is this: make any needed action into a “tooth cleaning” process repeating it for 21 days in a row. I have to admit, some of my habits were also formed through this technique. And I would’ve continued on that path until one day I started noticing that my life started partially resembling scenes from a movie “Click.”
Remember Adam Sandler? With the help of a magic remote control the main hero fast forwards some uncomfortable scenes from his life, and over time he starts missing not only those but also the ones that he’d like not only to remember but to experience as well. That’s how some parts of my life started disappearing as well. Did I wash my hands after the subway? Don’t really remember… Did I feed the cats? They look hungry but they always look like that… The habit of doing Norbekov’s exercises for the spine had been formed but I didn’t remember how I did it on any given day. I knew that I’d done it only because it was crossed off my long to-do list but I didn’t remember how I was keeping my posture and a smile – and these were the main components of the exercises. My conveniently formed habits became memory blackouts.
I realized there was something I was not doing right. I stopped enjoying the walks in the park, my daily yoga, writing my book. When I came to India for the first time, I heard these words “awareness” and “consciousness” from every corner. I was told to “walk consciously,” “talk with consciousness,” “sit with awareness”, and it seemed to me that I understood what it meant although it was quite a foreign word for me – literally and figuratively – until one day I understood that meditation, the famous “here and now” and awareness is practically the same thing.
In Human Design and Gene Keys we talk about awareness and about how important it is to be aware of your own Type, Strategy and your unique way to make decisions in life. If awareness is “switched on”, the rest of the rules cease to exist. Human Design and Gene Keys raise our awareness in the best possible way until it becomes a part of our being.
How can we de-automatize and instead of forming a habit form awareness? This is what I practice myself and share with others in my workshops:
We also can do this awareness technique at home/work/anywhere: during the day make about 6 stops like that no matter what you are doing at the moment. Maybe you are eating your porridge and all of a sudden freeze with a mouthful for 6 seconds. This stop helps to bring awareness into our actions bringing us back into the “here and now,” bringing sense of purpose and taste to something that we have already forgotten.
2.Simple actions can also help to de-automatize. For example, you can do some things with your left hand you are used to do with your right one – brush your teeth, eat, etc. Or you can walk to work through a new route you’ve never tried before. Or you can brush your hair feeling every stroke and getting response from each of your hairs making sound and breathing. Yes, that was my experience. Also this way you apply the right amount of pressure with your brush and don’t harm the delicate skin on your head. Or you can make a herbal tea from scratch without using tea bags. Each of us has his or her own experience.
It can be anything really. Find your memory blackouts, act accordingly and see the results. Then the questions about how fulfilled was your day and either your cat is really hungry will be raised less and less, to say the least.
Remember Adam Sandler? With the help of a magic remote control the main hero fast forwards some uncomfortable scenes from his life, and over time he starts missing not only those but also the ones that he’d like not only to remember but to experience as well. That’s how some parts of my life started disappearing as well. Did I wash my hands after the subway? Don’t really remember… Did I feed the cats? They look hungry but they always look like that… The habit of doing Norbekov’s exercises for the spine had been formed but I didn’t remember how I did it on any given day. I knew that I’d done it only because it was crossed off my long to-do list but I didn’t remember how I was keeping my posture and a smile – and these were the main components of the exercises. My conveniently formed habits became memory blackouts.
I realized there was something I was not doing right. I stopped enjoying the walks in the park, my daily yoga, writing my book. When I came to India for the first time, I heard these words “awareness” and “consciousness” from every corner. I was told to “walk consciously,” “talk with consciousness,” “sit with awareness”, and it seemed to me that I understood what it meant although it was quite a foreign word for me – literally and figuratively – until one day I understood that meditation, the famous “here and now” and awareness is practically the same thing.
In Human Design and Gene Keys we talk about awareness and about how important it is to be aware of your own Type, Strategy and your unique way to make decisions in life. If awareness is “switched on”, the rest of the rules cease to exist. Human Design and Gene Keys raise our awareness in the best possible way until it becomes a part of our being.
How can we de-automatize and instead of forming a habit form awareness? This is what I practice myself and share with others in my workshops:
- “Stop!” meditation. This practice was brought to us by beloved Osho in order to de-automatize our actions. You can do it in groups and in your own time and space. In the “lab conditions” follow this: get up and start walking in a fast pace looking forward and down. Keep on walking until the facilitator (or yourself) says “Stop!” At that moment you have to freeze in that pose. During the first six seconds you are completely aware of this pause, this stop, and the mind freezes for those short seconds as well. Soon enough it starts working again, so we start walking again too. Until we hear/say the next “Stop!” You can repeat this sequence 6-10 times.
We also can do this awareness technique at home/work/anywhere: during the day make about 6 stops like that no matter what you are doing at the moment. Maybe you are eating your porridge and all of a sudden freeze with a mouthful for 6 seconds. This stop helps to bring awareness into our actions bringing us back into the “here and now,” bringing sense of purpose and taste to something that we have already forgotten.
2.Simple actions can also help to de-automatize. For example, you can do some things with your left hand you are used to do with your right one – brush your teeth, eat, etc. Or you can walk to work through a new route you’ve never tried before. Or you can brush your hair feeling every stroke and getting response from each of your hairs making sound and breathing. Yes, that was my experience. Also this way you apply the right amount of pressure with your brush and don’t harm the delicate skin on your head. Or you can make a herbal tea from scratch without using tea bags. Each of us has his or her own experience.
It can be anything really. Find your memory blackouts, act accordingly and see the results. Then the questions about how fulfilled was your day and either your cat is really hungry will be raised less and less, to say the least.
When 10 years ago I was getting into yoga, nobody told me that yoga deals with a masculine type of energy and that women who practice it better balance it through practicing some “female” type of practices. That’s how dancing became a part of my life. And through dancing I came to three major rules for any type of dance:
I like to experiment with different styles of dancing: it can be a temple dance Mandala, African dance, belly-dance, tribal-fusion or Bollywood style dance. I also love to practice different dancing meditation techniques many of which I describe in my book “Design of a Cloudless Life: Big Book of Practices and Meditations for everything and from everything” (in Russian it sounds better J). Here I’d like to share with you two meditation dancing techniques which you can do at home any time and which probably will change your understanding of the word “meditation” per se.
This dancing practice has different variations. I am offering the one I used to practice in the Osho International Meditation Resort in Pune (India). It lasts 60 minutes. Choose a place where nobody will disturb you throughout that time. You can choose to wear a wide skirt as dervishes do. On the other hand, you can wear anything you want as long as it is comfortable for you.
Meditation has two stages. Practice can be done in silence, or you can download the music specifically for this meditation (it’s called Osho Whirling Meditation), or you can make your own playlist with Sufi music. In this case make sure that the music doesn’t distract you, that it doesn’t have any text and that each stage has a separate music. You can also find the demonstration of this practice online.
Before the meditation make sure that you didn’t eat 2-3 hours before, otherwise you might feel sick. If you still feel nausea, skip to the second stage even if the first one isn’t finished yet.
“Whirling” is one of my favorite Sufi techniques. It makes us centered, and when we are centered, stresses don’t affect us, and we go back into our natural condition of health and beauty. Whirling also connects the Earth with the Sky and helps us to get rid of the excess energy in the body. This practice of the whirling dervishes clears our mind and makes us aware of the universal love. In the past, dervishes used to whirl in the crowds clearing and balancing the space. It would be great to see this practice restored. Who knows, it could be you!
Dervishes’ homeland is Konya in Turkey, and few years ago I was lucky to go there and visit sema with the whirling as a part of the sacred ceremony. It was an amazing experience, I would recommend it to everyone. Here is the description of the technique itself.
First Stage lasts 45 minutes and consists of whirling. It is done on one spot in an anti-clockwise direction, with the right arm held high, palm upwards, and the left arm low, palm downwards. Don’t think whether you do it right or wrong. Let go of any judgement. People who feel discomfort from whirling anti-clockwise can change to clockwise, changing the position of the arms as well. Your body should be soft, eyes opened but unfocused, so that images become blurred and flowing. Remain silent.
Start doing slowly and let the pace pick up the speed on its own. The whirling will takes over and you become a whirlpool of energy. By the end of this stage your body will be ready to fall by itself. Don’t make the fall a decision on your part and do not try to arrange the landing in advance; if your body is soft you will land softly and the earth will absorb your energy.
Second Stage lasts 15 minutes. Let your body fall down on the ground. Immediately roll onto your stomach so that your navel is in contact with the earth. Feel your body blending into the earth and the excess energy going into it. If for some reason you feel discomfort lying this way, lie on your back.
Keep your eyes closed and remain passive and silent.
Regular active meditations can be literally the answers to your prayers, especially if you are a Manifestor or a Manifesting Generator which is about 40% of the world’s population. It helps to release their anger in a healthy way. I love Nataraj, it’s one of my favorite meditation techniques.
Duration: 65 minutes.
Place to do: any place where no one can disturb you.
Clothes: freestyle. Whatever you are wearing shouldn’t restrict your movements. It is best to be barefoot.
Stages: there are three stages in this meditation.
Music: download Nataraj music from the Internet.
When to do and why? Any time. With Nataraj meditation we can release any emotion and feeling that disturbs us in a healthy way. It also helps to bring forth the catharsis when it is needed and to calm down whatever needs to be calmed. At the same time it is a rather pleasant technique!
Instructions: As usual, read the instructions completely before doing the meditation. Nataraj is a dance as a total meditation. Nataraj is a king of dance and one of Shiva’s images. It starts with the first stage which lasts 40 minutes. We close our eyes and we dance. How? As anyone who is possessed with a dance would dance. Let your unconsciousness take over. Don’t control your movements, nobody is watching you or judging you, there is no one to be shy about, no one to show the beauty of your movements to; this meditation is not about that. Just move, just dance, just become the dance where the doer, the dancer, completely disappears in the act of dancing. As beloved Osho says, be total in that dance.
Second stage lasts for 20 minutes. Lie down with your eyes closed. Keep quiet and still.
Third stage lasts for 5 minutes. Since we started the meditation with a dance, it is best to come out of it in a dance as well. So we are dancing, again, but this time we are just enjoying and celebrating. During this stage you can keep your eyes closed or open, it doesn’t matter.
This is what Osho says about Nataraj Meditation.
“Let the dance flow in its own way; don’t force it. Rather, follow it; allow it to happen. It is not a doing but a happening. Remain in the mood of festivity. You are not doing something very serious; you are just playing, playing with your life energy, playing with your bioenergy, allowing it to move in its own way. Just like the wind blows and the river flows – you are flowing and blowing. Feel it. And be playful. Remember this word “playful” always – with me, it is very basic. In this country we call creation God’s leela – God’s play. God has not created the world; it is his play.”
I have come across some meditators who were resisting the music that was written specifically for the Nataraj Meditation. They were saying something like this: “This music doesn’t suit me, I can’t dance with it. Let me create my own playlist and do my own Nataraj.” Right? Not exactly. If you create your own playlist, it will be a different meditation. Probably, it will be a great one, but different, not Nataraj. The music here is not accidental, so please, trust Osho, and trust me. Everything is perfect as it is in this music, so there is no need to make it more perfect. Accept your resistance if it comes, don’t scold yourself for that, just accept that there is discomfort there, that something hurts and aches inside. And continue dancing and celebrating that discomfort and pain in spite of everything.
- Dance barefoot.
- Close your eyes during dancing in order to attune with earth to receive and balance female energy.
- Enjoy.
I like to experiment with different styles of dancing: it can be a temple dance Mandala, African dance, belly-dance, tribal-fusion or Bollywood style dance. I also love to practice different dancing meditation techniques many of which I describe in my book “Design of a Cloudless Life: Big Book of Practices and Meditations for everything and from everything” (in Russian it sounds better J). Here I’d like to share with you two meditation dancing techniques which you can do at home any time and which probably will change your understanding of the word “meditation” per se.
Sufi Whirling
This dancing practice has different variations. I am offering the one I used to practice in the Osho International Meditation Resort in Pune (India). It lasts 60 minutes. Choose a place where nobody will disturb you throughout that time. You can choose to wear a wide skirt as dervishes do. On the other hand, you can wear anything you want as long as it is comfortable for you.
Meditation has two stages. Practice can be done in silence, or you can download the music specifically for this meditation (it’s called Osho Whirling Meditation), or you can make your own playlist with Sufi music. In this case make sure that the music doesn’t distract you, that it doesn’t have any text and that each stage has a separate music. You can also find the demonstration of this practice online.
Before the meditation make sure that you didn’t eat 2-3 hours before, otherwise you might feel sick. If you still feel nausea, skip to the second stage even if the first one isn’t finished yet.
“Whirling” is one of my favorite Sufi techniques. It makes us centered, and when we are centered, stresses don’t affect us, and we go back into our natural condition of health and beauty. Whirling also connects the Earth with the Sky and helps us to get rid of the excess energy in the body. This practice of the whirling dervishes clears our mind and makes us aware of the universal love. In the past, dervishes used to whirl in the crowds clearing and balancing the space. It would be great to see this practice restored. Who knows, it could be you!
Dervishes’ homeland is Konya in Turkey, and few years ago I was lucky to go there and visit sema with the whirling as a part of the sacred ceremony. It was an amazing experience, I would recommend it to everyone. Here is the description of the technique itself.
First Stage lasts 45 minutes and consists of whirling. It is done on one spot in an anti-clockwise direction, with the right arm held high, palm upwards, and the left arm low, palm downwards. Don’t think whether you do it right or wrong. Let go of any judgement. People who feel discomfort from whirling anti-clockwise can change to clockwise, changing the position of the arms as well. Your body should be soft, eyes opened but unfocused, so that images become blurred and flowing. Remain silent.
Start doing slowly and let the pace pick up the speed on its own. The whirling will takes over and you become a whirlpool of energy. By the end of this stage your body will be ready to fall by itself. Don’t make the fall a decision on your part and do not try to arrange the landing in advance; if your body is soft you will land softly and the earth will absorb your energy.
Second Stage lasts 15 minutes. Let your body fall down on the ground. Immediately roll onto your stomach so that your navel is in contact with the earth. Feel your body blending into the earth and the excess energy going into it. If for some reason you feel discomfort lying this way, lie on your back.
Keep your eyes closed and remain passive and silent.
Nataraj Meditation
Regular active meditations can be literally the answers to your prayers, especially if you are a Manifestor or a Manifesting Generator which is about 40% of the world’s population. It helps to release their anger in a healthy way. I love Nataraj, it’s one of my favorite meditation techniques.
Duration: 65 minutes.
Place to do: any place where no one can disturb you.
Clothes: freestyle. Whatever you are wearing shouldn’t restrict your movements. It is best to be barefoot.
Stages: there are three stages in this meditation.
Music: download Nataraj music from the Internet.
When to do and why? Any time. With Nataraj meditation we can release any emotion and feeling that disturbs us in a healthy way. It also helps to bring forth the catharsis when it is needed and to calm down whatever needs to be calmed. At the same time it is a rather pleasant technique!
Instructions: As usual, read the instructions completely before doing the meditation. Nataraj is a dance as a total meditation. Nataraj is a king of dance and one of Shiva’s images. It starts with the first stage which lasts 40 minutes. We close our eyes and we dance. How? As anyone who is possessed with a dance would dance. Let your unconsciousness take over. Don’t control your movements, nobody is watching you or judging you, there is no one to be shy about, no one to show the beauty of your movements to; this meditation is not about that. Just move, just dance, just become the dance where the doer, the dancer, completely disappears in the act of dancing. As beloved Osho says, be total in that dance.
Second stage lasts for 20 minutes. Lie down with your eyes closed. Keep quiet and still.
Third stage lasts for 5 minutes. Since we started the meditation with a dance, it is best to come out of it in a dance as well. So we are dancing, again, but this time we are just enjoying and celebrating. During this stage you can keep your eyes closed or open, it doesn’t matter.
This is what Osho says about Nataraj Meditation.
“Let the dance flow in its own way; don’t force it. Rather, follow it; allow it to happen. It is not a doing but a happening. Remain in the mood of festivity. You are not doing something very serious; you are just playing, playing with your life energy, playing with your bioenergy, allowing it to move in its own way. Just like the wind blows and the river flows – you are flowing and blowing. Feel it. And be playful. Remember this word “playful” always – with me, it is very basic. In this country we call creation God’s leela – God’s play. God has not created the world; it is his play.”
I have come across some meditators who were resisting the music that was written specifically for the Nataraj Meditation. They were saying something like this: “This music doesn’t suit me, I can’t dance with it. Let me create my own playlist and do my own Nataraj.” Right? Not exactly. If you create your own playlist, it will be a different meditation. Probably, it will be a great one, but different, not Nataraj. The music here is not accidental, so please, trust Osho, and trust me. Everything is perfect as it is in this music, so there is no need to make it more perfect. Accept your resistance if it comes, don’t scold yourself for that, just accept that there is discomfort there, that something hurts and aches inside. And continue dancing and celebrating that discomfort and pain in spite of everything.
I came across the term “contemplation” while working my way through the Golden Path in the Gene Keys, a system that came out of Human Design and became big on its own through its medium and founder Richard Rudd. Before that it was associated with some sort of daydreaming – this sleepy state of inactiveness which doesn’t bring any benefit and kind of smells of procrastination. Only further on it became clear that it was contemplation which helped Archimedes to exclaim “Eureka!,” Einstein to create his relativity theory, that it was contemplation that revealed the mysteries of my Gene Keys to me and set me on path to guide others through the maze.
Contemplation, what is it exactly? As Richard Rudd puts it, there are three classical ways to reach the Truth. They are: Path of Meditation, Path of Concentration, and Path of Contemplation.
Three Paths towards the Truth
Path of Meditation is the Yin way, and some traditions call this path “a path of the left hand, female way.” It doesn’t mean it is meant only for women, it’s not. Each of us has a male and female inside of us, and the balance of these two elements brings equilibrium, – a state which each of us is aiming towards, more or less. Path of meditation has to do with the right brain which is wholesome as it is.
One of the examples of Meditation Path is Vipassana in the Buddhist tradition which entails “witnessing, observing.” The other example can be tantra which is also about witnessing, letting life be as it is. Yin-way doesn’t create any resistance. It says that everything there is is already perfect. It is awareness in its purest, it’s the surrender, letting go, following life. Meditation is an effortless path which came from the East.
Path of Concentration is on the opposite side. It is a Yang path, “path of the left hand,” a masculine path connected with the left brain, with its logical part which likes to see things in points, sequences, stages. Yoga can be an example of this path as it is working with the male type of energy. And again, it doesn’t mean that yoga is meant only for men. It works with our male part within us, that’s all.
On the Path of Concentration we need effort. Western version of concentration is especially popular in the form of prayers, and Eastern version can find such example in Zen tradition. It is when through concentration the insights, breakthroughs come. Concentration is the path of effort.
And, finally, we’ve reached Contemplation. As Richard Rudd puts it, this path doesn’t belong to any hand, and it’s kind of forgotten by all. It’s more difficult to give it a description in comparison with the previous two. He names Tao as the best example of the Contemplation Path. On the one hand, it may seem like contemplation is quite a mental thing; however, it is not like that at all.
It’s a profound way, and its advantage is that it’s less categorical than the two previous paths, and at the same time, it uses elements of concentration and meditation altogether. It’s some sort of Middle Way: we don’t relax enough to become completely soft, yet, we don’t get tense in order not to become completely rough.
Contemplation borrows from all the traditions. It uses the stable, longstanding pressure, and it does so playfully, with a smile on its face. It’s a less formal way, more mundane and more suited for a modern person. The key in contemplation is to single out the object of one’s contemplation. It can be anything. In the context Richard Rudd is speaking about, it is our Gene Keys, our genetic inheritance which opens us up, layer after layer, specifically because of our contemplation.
Three Planes of Contemplation
Rudd says that contemplation has a trinary base. It works on the mental, emotional, physical plane. For example, first we read about our Gene Keys immersing our mind deeply into information. Then we gradually open the second layer – the emotional aspect which is connected to our heart and sharing with others. While we can walk through the mental aspect of contemplation in solitude, the emotional one is connected with others. It is about our relationships.
As Rudd says, if we stay on the mental level, the contemplation will not go further. It will be just an additional toy for the mind: yes, it will be tasty but as a matter of fact, it will be useless and will not bring any satisfaction. Emotional aspect is concerned with our feelings, and it’s on this level we start to remember at the DNA level who we really are. This memory comes up on the surface not at the mental level but at the level of the feelings, emotions. The power of heart and mind joined together is the essence of contemplation.
When awareness dawns upon our body through sensing, we might feel discomfort because very often the first thing we come across on the emotional level is our pain, our shadow side, our victimness. That’s where we can find the real treasure. While we continue diving deeper into contemplation, we reach the physical level, the deepest one.
The path towards the physical level might take its time, and there are reasons for that: the body needs to get used to the continuous transformation. Also the third deeper layer is usually the densest, and in order to pierce it through, we need not only inner readiness but also the readiness of our physical body. And this deep physical layer is located in our belly, the area around our navel. That’s where the mystery of our DNA lies.
Gene Keys are Meant for Contemplation
In our contemplative journey none of us can predict how it is going to go and what is going to happen. We don’t know how our body will react. Monitor how it happens for you. Contemplation is considered to be a solitude journey, and it makes sense; your experience will be unique, it will not be like anyone else’s. That’s the level where the transformations and changes find us, and they are not fleeting, they are rather “solid,” specific.
But for that we need to go through all the layers, one by one. We can’t start with the deepest one without clearing up whatever is on the surface. And what the journey will bring – God only knows. We need to surrender to the contemplation, and as my own experience supports Rudd’s words, it has a great unknowing installed in it.
Gene Keys are meant for contemplation. In some way, it is a new way in which joy prevails over seriousness. It’s a way of synthesis of all that we is familiar to us, and of all that we are not familiar of. It’s a way of openness, innocence and trust into the life’s mysteries. And as I said before, it matches our day-to-day life in the best way.
P.S. I have written this for Yoga Journal Russia, and translated it into English for you, dear readers.
Contemplation, what is it exactly? As Richard Rudd puts it, there are three classical ways to reach the Truth. They are: Path of Meditation, Path of Concentration, and Path of Contemplation.
Three Paths towards the Truth
Path of Meditation is the Yin way, and some traditions call this path “a path of the left hand, female way.” It doesn’t mean it is meant only for women, it’s not. Each of us has a male and female inside of us, and the balance of these two elements brings equilibrium, – a state which each of us is aiming towards, more or less. Path of meditation has to do with the right brain which is wholesome as it is.
One of the examples of Meditation Path is Vipassana in the Buddhist tradition which entails “witnessing, observing.” The other example can be tantra which is also about witnessing, letting life be as it is. Yin-way doesn’t create any resistance. It says that everything there is is already perfect. It is awareness in its purest, it’s the surrender, letting go, following life. Meditation is an effortless path which came from the East.
Path of Concentration is on the opposite side. It is a Yang path, “path of the left hand,” a masculine path connected with the left brain, with its logical part which likes to see things in points, sequences, stages. Yoga can be an example of this path as it is working with the male type of energy. And again, it doesn’t mean that yoga is meant only for men. It works with our male part within us, that’s all.
On the Path of Concentration we need effort. Western version of concentration is especially popular in the form of prayers, and Eastern version can find such example in Zen tradition. It is when through concentration the insights, breakthroughs come. Concentration is the path of effort.
And, finally, we’ve reached Contemplation. As Richard Rudd puts it, this path doesn’t belong to any hand, and it’s kind of forgotten by all. It’s more difficult to give it a description in comparison with the previous two. He names Tao as the best example of the Contemplation Path. On the one hand, it may seem like contemplation is quite a mental thing; however, it is not like that at all.
It’s a profound way, and its advantage is that it’s less categorical than the two previous paths, and at the same time, it uses elements of concentration and meditation altogether. It’s some sort of Middle Way: we don’t relax enough to become completely soft, yet, we don’t get tense in order not to become completely rough.
Contemplation borrows from all the traditions. It uses the stable, longstanding pressure, and it does so playfully, with a smile on its face. It’s a less formal way, more mundane and more suited for a modern person. The key in contemplation is to single out the object of one’s contemplation. It can be anything. In the context Richard Rudd is speaking about, it is our Gene Keys, our genetic inheritance which opens us up, layer after layer, specifically because of our contemplation.
Three Planes of Contemplation
Rudd says that contemplation has a trinary base. It works on the mental, emotional, physical plane. For example, first we read about our Gene Keys immersing our mind deeply into information. Then we gradually open the second layer – the emotional aspect which is connected to our heart and sharing with others. While we can walk through the mental aspect of contemplation in solitude, the emotional one is connected with others. It is about our relationships.
As Rudd says, if we stay on the mental level, the contemplation will not go further. It will be just an additional toy for the mind: yes, it will be tasty but as a matter of fact, it will be useless and will not bring any satisfaction. Emotional aspect is concerned with our feelings, and it’s on this level we start to remember at the DNA level who we really are. This memory comes up on the surface not at the mental level but at the level of the feelings, emotions. The power of heart and mind joined together is the essence of contemplation.
When awareness dawns upon our body through sensing, we might feel discomfort because very often the first thing we come across on the emotional level is our pain, our shadow side, our victimness. That’s where we can find the real treasure. While we continue diving deeper into contemplation, we reach the physical level, the deepest one.
The path towards the physical level might take its time, and there are reasons for that: the body needs to get used to the continuous transformation. Also the third deeper layer is usually the densest, and in order to pierce it through, we need not only inner readiness but also the readiness of our physical body. And this deep physical layer is located in our belly, the area around our navel. That’s where the mystery of our DNA lies.
Gene Keys are Meant for Contemplation
In our contemplative journey none of us can predict how it is going to go and what is going to happen. We don’t know how our body will react. Monitor how it happens for you. Contemplation is considered to be a solitude journey, and it makes sense; your experience will be unique, it will not be like anyone else’s. That’s the level where the transformations and changes find us, and they are not fleeting, they are rather “solid,” specific.
But for that we need to go through all the layers, one by one. We can’t start with the deepest one without clearing up whatever is on the surface. And what the journey will bring – God only knows. We need to surrender to the contemplation, and as my own experience supports Rudd’s words, it has a great unknowing installed in it.
Gene Keys are meant for contemplation. In some way, it is a new way in which joy prevails over seriousness. It’s a way of synthesis of all that we is familiar to us, and of all that we are not familiar of. It’s a way of openness, innocence and trust into the life’s mysteries. And as I said before, it matches our day-to-day life in the best way.
P.S. I have written this for Yoga Journal Russia, and translated it into English for you, dear readers.
(from Elif Shafak’s Book “40 Rules of Love”)
Rule # 1
How we see God is a direct reflection of how we see ourselves. If God brings to mind mostly fear and blame, it means there is too much fear and blame welled inside us. If we see God as full of love and compassion, so are we.
Rule #2
The Path to the Truth is a labor of the heart, not of the head. Make your heart your primary guide! Not your mind. Meet, challenge, and ultimately prevail over your nafs with your heart. Knowing your self will lead you to the knowledge of God.
Rule #3
Each and every reader comprehends the Holy Qur’an on a different level in tandem with the depth of his understanding. There are four levels of insight. The first level is the outer meaning and it is the one that the majority of the people are content with. Next is the Batini – the inner level. Third, there is the inner of the inner. And the fourth level is so deep it cannot be put into words and is therefore bound to remain indescribable.
Scholars who focus on the sharia know the outer meaning. Sufis know the inner meaning. Saints know the inner of the inner. And as for the fourth level, that is known only by prophets and those closest to God.
Rule #4
You can study God through everything and everyone in the universe, because God is not confined in a mosque, synagogue, or church. But if you are still in need of knowing where exactly His abode is, there is only one place to look for Him: in the heart of a true lover.
Rule #5
Intellect and love are made of different materials. Intellect ties people in knots and risks nothing, but love dissolves all tangles and risks everything. Intellect is always cautious and advises, ‘Beware too much ecstasy,’ whereas love says, “Oh, never mind! Take the plunge!” Intellect does not easily break down, whereas love can effortlessly reduce itself to rubble. But treasures are hidden among ruins. A broken heart hides treasures.
Rule #6
Most of the problems of the world stem from linguistic mistakes and simple misunderstandings. Don’t ever take words at face value. When you step into the zone of love, language as we know it becomes obsolete. That which cannot be put into words can only be grasped through silence.
Rule #7
Loneliness and solitude are two different things. When you are lonely, it is easy to delude yourself into believing that you are on the right path. Solitude is better for us, as it means being alone without feeling lonely. But eventually it is best to find a person, the person who will be your mirror. Remember, only in another person’s heart can you truly see yourself and the presence of God within you.
Rule #8
Whatever happens in your life, no matter how troubling things might seem, do not enter the neighborhood of despair. Even when all doors remain closed, God will open up a new path only for you. Be thankful! It is easy to be thankful when all is well. A Sufi is thankful not only for what he has been given but also for all that he has been denied.
Rule #9
Patience does not mean to passively endure. It means to be farsighted enough to trust the end result of a process. What does patience mean? It means to look at the thorn and see the rose, to look at the night and see the dawn. Impatience means to be so shortsighted as to not be able to see the outcome. The lovers of God never run out of patience, for they know that time is needed for the crescent moon to become full.
Rule #10
East, west, south, or north makes little difference. NO matter what your destination, just be sure to make every journey a journey within. If you travel within, you’ll travel the whole wide world and beyond.
Rule #11
The midwife knows that when there is no pain, the way for the baby cannot be opened and the mother cannot give birth. Likewise, for a new Self to be born, hardship is necessary. Just as clay needs to go through intense heat to become strong, Love can only be perfected in pain.
Rule #12
The quest for Love changes us. There is no seeker among those who search for Love who has not matured on the way. The moment you start looking for Love, you start to change within and without.
Rule #13
There are more fake gurus and false teachers in this world than the number of stars in the visible universe. Don’t confuse power-driven, self-centered people with true mentors. A genuine spiritual master will not direct your attention to himself or herself and will not expect absolute obedience or utter admiration from you, but instead will help you to appreciate and admire your inner self. True mentors are as transparent as glass. They let the Light of God pass through them.
Rule #14
Try not to resist the changes that come your way. Instead let life live through you. And do not worry that your life is turning upside down. How do you know that the side you are used to is better than the one to come?
Rule #15
God is busy with the completion of your work, both outwardly and inwardly. He is fully occupied with you. Every human being is a work in progress that is slowly but inexorably moving toward perfection. We are each an unfinished work of art both waiting and striving to be completed. God deals with each of us separately because humanity is a fine art of skilled penmanship where every single dot is equally important for the entire picture.
Rule #16
It’s easy to love a perfect God, unblemished and infallible that He is. What is far more difficult is to love fellow human beings with all their imperfections and defects. Remember, one can only know what one is capable of loving. There is no wisdom without love. Unless we learn to love God’s creation, we can neither truly love nor truly know God.
Rule #17
Real filth is the one inside. The rest simply washes off. There is only one type of dirt that cannot be cleansed with pure waters, and that is the stain of hatred and bigotry contaminating the soul. You can purify your body through abstinence and fasting, but only love will purify your heart.
Rule #18
The whole universe is contained within a single human being – you. Everything that you see around, including the things you might not be fond of and even the people you despise or abhor, is present within you in varying degrees. Therefore, do not look for Sheitan outside yourself either. The devil is not an extraordinary force that attacks from without. It is an ordinary voice within. If you get to know yourself fully, facing with honesty and hardness both your dark and bright sides, you will arrive at a supreme form of consciousness. When a person knows himself or herself, he or she knows God.
Rule #19
If you want to change the way others treat you, you should first change the way you treat yourself. Unless you learn to love yourself, fully and sincerely, there is no way you can be loved. Once you achieve that stage, however, be thankful for every thorn that others might throw at you. It is a sign that you will soon be showered in roses.
Rule #20
Fret not where the road will take you. Instead concentrate on the first step. That’s the hardest part and that’s what you are responsible for. Once you take that step let everything do what it naturally does and the rest will follow. Do not go with the flow. Be the flow.
Rule #21
We were all created in His image, and yet we were each created different and unique. No two people are alike. No two hearts beat to the same rhythm. If God had wanted everyone to be the same, He would have made it so. Therefore, disrespecting differences and imposing your thoughts on others is tantamount to disrespecting God’s holy scheme.
Rule #22
When a true lover of God goes into a tavern, the tavern becomes his chamber of prayer, but when a wine bibber goes into the same chamber, it becomes his tavern. In everything we do, it is our hearts that make the difference, not our outer appearances. Sufis do not judge other people on how they look or who they are. When a Sufi stares at someone, he keeps both eyes closed and instead opens a third eye – the eye that sees the inner realm.
Rule #23
Life is a temporary loan, and this world is nothing but a sketchy imitation of Reality. Only children would mistake a toy for the real thing. And yet human beings either become infatuated with the toy or disrespectfully break it and throw it aside. In this life stay away from all kinds of extremities, for they will destroy your inner balance. Sufis do not go to extremes. A Sufi always remains mild and moderate.
Rule #24
The human being has a unique place among God’s creation. “I breathed into him of My Spirit,” God says. Each and every one of us without exception is designed to be God’s delegate on earth. Ask yourself, just how often do you behave like a delegate, if you ever do so? Remember, it falls upon each of us to discover the divine spirit inside and live by it.
Rule #25
Hell is in the here and now. So is heaven. Quit worrying about hell or dreaming about heaven, as they are both present inside this very moment. Every time we fall in love, we ascend to heaven. Every time we hate, envy, or fight someone, we tumble straight into the fires of hell.
Rule #26
The universe is one being. Everything and everyone is interconnected through an invisible web of stories. Whether we are aware of it or not, we are all in a silent conversation. Do no harm. Practice compassion. And do not gossip behind anyone’s back – not even a seemingly innocent remark! The words that come out of our mouths do not vanish but are perpetually stored in infinite space, and they will come back to us in due time. One man’s pain will hurt us all. One man’s joy will make everyone smile.
Rule #27
This world is like a snowy mountain that echoes your voice. Whatever you speak, good or evil, will somehow come back to you. Therefore, if there is someone who harbors ill thoughts about you, saying similarly bad things about him will only make matters worse. You will be locked in a vicious circle of malevolent energy. Instead for forty days and night say and think nice things about that person. Everything will be different at the end of forty days, because you will be different inside.
Rule #28
The past is an interpretation. The future is an illusion. The world does not move through time as if it were a straight line, proceeding from the past to the future. Instead time moves through and within us, in endless spirals. Eternity does not mean infinite time, but simply timelessness. If you want to experience eternal illumination, put the past and the future out of your mind and remain within the present moment.
Rule #29
Destiny doesn’t mean that your life has been strictly predetermined. Therefore, to leave everything to fate and to not actively contribute to the music of the universe is a sign of sheer ignorance. “The music of the universe is all-pervading and it is composed on forty different levels. Your destiny is the level where you will play your tune. You might not change your instrument but how well to play is entirely in your hands.”
Rule #30
The true Sufi is such that even when he is unjustly accused, attacked, and condemned from all sides, he patiently endures, uttering not a single bad word about any of his critics. A Sufi never apportions blame. How can there be opponents or rivals or even “others” when there is no “self” in the first place? How can there be anyone to blame when there is only One?
Rule #31
If you want to strengthen your faith, you will need to soften inside. For your faith to be rock solid, your heart needs to be as soft as a feather. Through an illness, accident, loss, or fright, one way or another, we all are faced with incidents that teach us how to become less selfish and judgmental, and more compassionate and generous. Yet some of us learn the lesson and manage to become milder, while some others end up becoming even harsher than before. The only way to get closer to Truth is to expand your heart so that it will encompass all humanity and still have room for more Love.
Rule #32
Nothing should stand between yourself and God. Not imams, priests, rabbis, or any other custodians of moral or religious leadership. Not spiritual masters, not even your faith. Believe in your values and your rules, but never lord them over others. If you keep breaking other people’s hearts, whatever religious duty you perform is no good. Stay away from all sorts of idolatry, for they will blur your vision. Let God and only God be your guide. Learn the Truth, my friend, but be careful not to make a fetish out of your truths.
Rule #33
While everyone in this world strives to get somewhere and become someone, only to leave it all behind after death, you aim for the supreme stage of nothingness. Live this life as light and empty as the number zero. We are no different from a pot. It is not the decorations outside but the emptiness inside that holds us straight. Just like that, it is not what we aspire to achieve but the consciousness of nothingness that keeps us going.
Rule #34
Submission does not mean being weak or passive. It leads to neither fatalism nor capitulation. Just the opposite. True power resides in submission – a power that comes from within. Those who submit to the divine essence of life will live in unperturbed tranquility and peace even when the whole wide world goes through turbulence after turbulence.
Rule #35
In this world, it is not similarities or regularities that take us a step forward, but blunt opposites. And all the opposite in the universe are present within each and every one of us. Therefore the believer needs to meet the unbeliever residing within. And the nonbeliever should get to know the silent faithful in him. Until the day one reaches the stage of Insan-I Kamil, the perfect human being, faith is a gradual process and one that necessitates its seeming opposite: disbelief.
Rule #36
This world is erected upon the principle of reciprocity. Neither a drop of kindness nor a speck of evil will remain unreciprocated. Fear not the plots, deceptions, or tricks of other people. If somebody is setting a trap, remember, so is God. He is the biggest plotter. Not even a leaf stirs outside God’s knowledge. Simply and fully believe in that. Whatever God does, He does beautifully.
Rule #37
God is a meticulous clockmaker. So precise is His order that everything on earth happens in its own time. Neither a minute late nor a minute early. And for everyone without exception, the clock works accurately. For each there is a time to love and a time to die.
Rule #38
It is never too late to ask yourself, ‘Am I ready to change the life I am living? Am I ready to change within?’ Even if a single day in your life is the same as the day before, it surely is a pity. At every moment and with each new breath, one should be renewed and renewed again. There is only one way to be born into a new life: to die before death.
Rule #39
While the parts change, the whole always remains the same. For every thief who departs this world, a new one is born. And every decent person who passes away is replaced by a new one. In this way not only does nothing remain the same but also nothing ever really changes. For every Sufi who dies, another is born somewhere.
Rule #40
A life without love is of no account. Don’t ask yourself what kind of love you should seek, spiritual or material, divine or mundane, Eastern or Western. … Divisions only lead to more divisions. Love has no labels, no definitions. It is what it is, pure and simple. Love is the water of life. And a lover is a soul of fire! The universe turns differently when fire loves water.
Rule # 1
How we see God is a direct reflection of how we see ourselves. If God brings to mind mostly fear and blame, it means there is too much fear and blame welled inside us. If we see God as full of love and compassion, so are we.
Rule #2
The Path to the Truth is a labor of the heart, not of the head. Make your heart your primary guide! Not your mind. Meet, challenge, and ultimately prevail over your nafs with your heart. Knowing your self will lead you to the knowledge of God.
Rule #3
Each and every reader comprehends the Holy Qur’an on a different level in tandem with the depth of his understanding. There are four levels of insight. The first level is the outer meaning and it is the one that the majority of the people are content with. Next is the Batini – the inner level. Third, there is the inner of the inner. And the fourth level is so deep it cannot be put into words and is therefore bound to remain indescribable.
Scholars who focus on the sharia know the outer meaning. Sufis know the inner meaning. Saints know the inner of the inner. And as for the fourth level, that is known only by prophets and those closest to God.
Rule #4
You can study God through everything and everyone in the universe, because God is not confined in a mosque, synagogue, or church. But if you are still in need of knowing where exactly His abode is, there is only one place to look for Him: in the heart of a true lover.
Rule #5
Intellect and love are made of different materials. Intellect ties people in knots and risks nothing, but love dissolves all tangles and risks everything. Intellect is always cautious and advises, ‘Beware too much ecstasy,’ whereas love says, “Oh, never mind! Take the plunge!” Intellect does not easily break down, whereas love can effortlessly reduce itself to rubble. But treasures are hidden among ruins. A broken heart hides treasures.
Rule #6
Most of the problems of the world stem from linguistic mistakes and simple misunderstandings. Don’t ever take words at face value. When you step into the zone of love, language as we know it becomes obsolete. That which cannot be put into words can only be grasped through silence.
Rule #7
Loneliness and solitude are two different things. When you are lonely, it is easy to delude yourself into believing that you are on the right path. Solitude is better for us, as it means being alone without feeling lonely. But eventually it is best to find a person, the person who will be your mirror. Remember, only in another person’s heart can you truly see yourself and the presence of God within you.
Rule #8
Whatever happens in your life, no matter how troubling things might seem, do not enter the neighborhood of despair. Even when all doors remain closed, God will open up a new path only for you. Be thankful! It is easy to be thankful when all is well. A Sufi is thankful not only for what he has been given but also for all that he has been denied.
Rule #9
Patience does not mean to passively endure. It means to be farsighted enough to trust the end result of a process. What does patience mean? It means to look at the thorn and see the rose, to look at the night and see the dawn. Impatience means to be so shortsighted as to not be able to see the outcome. The lovers of God never run out of patience, for they know that time is needed for the crescent moon to become full.
Rule #10
East, west, south, or north makes little difference. NO matter what your destination, just be sure to make every journey a journey within. If you travel within, you’ll travel the whole wide world and beyond.
Rule #11
The midwife knows that when there is no pain, the way for the baby cannot be opened and the mother cannot give birth. Likewise, for a new Self to be born, hardship is necessary. Just as clay needs to go through intense heat to become strong, Love can only be perfected in pain.
Rule #12
The quest for Love changes us. There is no seeker among those who search for Love who has not matured on the way. The moment you start looking for Love, you start to change within and without.
Rule #13
There are more fake gurus and false teachers in this world than the number of stars in the visible universe. Don’t confuse power-driven, self-centered people with true mentors. A genuine spiritual master will not direct your attention to himself or herself and will not expect absolute obedience or utter admiration from you, but instead will help you to appreciate and admire your inner self. True mentors are as transparent as glass. They let the Light of God pass through them.
Rule #14
Try not to resist the changes that come your way. Instead let life live through you. And do not worry that your life is turning upside down. How do you know that the side you are used to is better than the one to come?
Rule #15
God is busy with the completion of your work, both outwardly and inwardly. He is fully occupied with you. Every human being is a work in progress that is slowly but inexorably moving toward perfection. We are each an unfinished work of art both waiting and striving to be completed. God deals with each of us separately because humanity is a fine art of skilled penmanship where every single dot is equally important for the entire picture.
Rule #16
It’s easy to love a perfect God, unblemished and infallible that He is. What is far more difficult is to love fellow human beings with all their imperfections and defects. Remember, one can only know what one is capable of loving. There is no wisdom without love. Unless we learn to love God’s creation, we can neither truly love nor truly know God.
Rule #17
Real filth is the one inside. The rest simply washes off. There is only one type of dirt that cannot be cleansed with pure waters, and that is the stain of hatred and bigotry contaminating the soul. You can purify your body through abstinence and fasting, but only love will purify your heart.
Rule #18
The whole universe is contained within a single human being – you. Everything that you see around, including the things you might not be fond of and even the people you despise or abhor, is present within you in varying degrees. Therefore, do not look for Sheitan outside yourself either. The devil is not an extraordinary force that attacks from without. It is an ordinary voice within. If you get to know yourself fully, facing with honesty and hardness both your dark and bright sides, you will arrive at a supreme form of consciousness. When a person knows himself or herself, he or she knows God.
Rule #19
If you want to change the way others treat you, you should first change the way you treat yourself. Unless you learn to love yourself, fully and sincerely, there is no way you can be loved. Once you achieve that stage, however, be thankful for every thorn that others might throw at you. It is a sign that you will soon be showered in roses.
Rule #20
Fret not where the road will take you. Instead concentrate on the first step. That’s the hardest part and that’s what you are responsible for. Once you take that step let everything do what it naturally does and the rest will follow. Do not go with the flow. Be the flow.
Rule #21
We were all created in His image, and yet we were each created different and unique. No two people are alike. No two hearts beat to the same rhythm. If God had wanted everyone to be the same, He would have made it so. Therefore, disrespecting differences and imposing your thoughts on others is tantamount to disrespecting God’s holy scheme.
Rule #22
When a true lover of God goes into a tavern, the tavern becomes his chamber of prayer, but when a wine bibber goes into the same chamber, it becomes his tavern. In everything we do, it is our hearts that make the difference, not our outer appearances. Sufis do not judge other people on how they look or who they are. When a Sufi stares at someone, he keeps both eyes closed and instead opens a third eye – the eye that sees the inner realm.
Rule #23
Life is a temporary loan, and this world is nothing but a sketchy imitation of Reality. Only children would mistake a toy for the real thing. And yet human beings either become infatuated with the toy or disrespectfully break it and throw it aside. In this life stay away from all kinds of extremities, for they will destroy your inner balance. Sufis do not go to extremes. A Sufi always remains mild and moderate.
Rule #24
The human being has a unique place among God’s creation. “I breathed into him of My Spirit,” God says. Each and every one of us without exception is designed to be God’s delegate on earth. Ask yourself, just how often do you behave like a delegate, if you ever do so? Remember, it falls upon each of us to discover the divine spirit inside and live by it.
Rule #25
Hell is in the here and now. So is heaven. Quit worrying about hell or dreaming about heaven, as they are both present inside this very moment. Every time we fall in love, we ascend to heaven. Every time we hate, envy, or fight someone, we tumble straight into the fires of hell.
Rule #26
The universe is one being. Everything and everyone is interconnected through an invisible web of stories. Whether we are aware of it or not, we are all in a silent conversation. Do no harm. Practice compassion. And do not gossip behind anyone’s back – not even a seemingly innocent remark! The words that come out of our mouths do not vanish but are perpetually stored in infinite space, and they will come back to us in due time. One man’s pain will hurt us all. One man’s joy will make everyone smile.
Rule #27
This world is like a snowy mountain that echoes your voice. Whatever you speak, good or evil, will somehow come back to you. Therefore, if there is someone who harbors ill thoughts about you, saying similarly bad things about him will only make matters worse. You will be locked in a vicious circle of malevolent energy. Instead for forty days and night say and think nice things about that person. Everything will be different at the end of forty days, because you will be different inside.
Rule #28
The past is an interpretation. The future is an illusion. The world does not move through time as if it were a straight line, proceeding from the past to the future. Instead time moves through and within us, in endless spirals. Eternity does not mean infinite time, but simply timelessness. If you want to experience eternal illumination, put the past and the future out of your mind and remain within the present moment.
Rule #29
Destiny doesn’t mean that your life has been strictly predetermined. Therefore, to leave everything to fate and to not actively contribute to the music of the universe is a sign of sheer ignorance. “The music of the universe is all-pervading and it is composed on forty different levels. Your destiny is the level where you will play your tune. You might not change your instrument but how well to play is entirely in your hands.”
Rule #30
The true Sufi is such that even when he is unjustly accused, attacked, and condemned from all sides, he patiently endures, uttering not a single bad word about any of his critics. A Sufi never apportions blame. How can there be opponents or rivals or even “others” when there is no “self” in the first place? How can there be anyone to blame when there is only One?
Rule #31
If you want to strengthen your faith, you will need to soften inside. For your faith to be rock solid, your heart needs to be as soft as a feather. Through an illness, accident, loss, or fright, one way or another, we all are faced with incidents that teach us how to become less selfish and judgmental, and more compassionate and generous. Yet some of us learn the lesson and manage to become milder, while some others end up becoming even harsher than before. The only way to get closer to Truth is to expand your heart so that it will encompass all humanity and still have room for more Love.
Rule #32
Nothing should stand between yourself and God. Not imams, priests, rabbis, or any other custodians of moral or religious leadership. Not spiritual masters, not even your faith. Believe in your values and your rules, but never lord them over others. If you keep breaking other people’s hearts, whatever religious duty you perform is no good. Stay away from all sorts of idolatry, for they will blur your vision. Let God and only God be your guide. Learn the Truth, my friend, but be careful not to make a fetish out of your truths.
Rule #33
While everyone in this world strives to get somewhere and become someone, only to leave it all behind after death, you aim for the supreme stage of nothingness. Live this life as light and empty as the number zero. We are no different from a pot. It is not the decorations outside but the emptiness inside that holds us straight. Just like that, it is not what we aspire to achieve but the consciousness of nothingness that keeps us going.
Rule #34
Submission does not mean being weak or passive. It leads to neither fatalism nor capitulation. Just the opposite. True power resides in submission – a power that comes from within. Those who submit to the divine essence of life will live in unperturbed tranquility and peace even when the whole wide world goes through turbulence after turbulence.
Rule #35
In this world, it is not similarities or regularities that take us a step forward, but blunt opposites. And all the opposite in the universe are present within each and every one of us. Therefore the believer needs to meet the unbeliever residing within. And the nonbeliever should get to know the silent faithful in him. Until the day one reaches the stage of Insan-I Kamil, the perfect human being, faith is a gradual process and one that necessitates its seeming opposite: disbelief.
Rule #36
This world is erected upon the principle of reciprocity. Neither a drop of kindness nor a speck of evil will remain unreciprocated. Fear not the plots, deceptions, or tricks of other people. If somebody is setting a trap, remember, so is God. He is the biggest plotter. Not even a leaf stirs outside God’s knowledge. Simply and fully believe in that. Whatever God does, He does beautifully.
Rule #37
God is a meticulous clockmaker. So precise is His order that everything on earth happens in its own time. Neither a minute late nor a minute early. And for everyone without exception, the clock works accurately. For each there is a time to love and a time to die.
Rule #38
It is never too late to ask yourself, ‘Am I ready to change the life I am living? Am I ready to change within?’ Even if a single day in your life is the same as the day before, it surely is a pity. At every moment and with each new breath, one should be renewed and renewed again. There is only one way to be born into a new life: to die before death.
Rule #39
While the parts change, the whole always remains the same. For every thief who departs this world, a new one is born. And every decent person who passes away is replaced by a new one. In this way not only does nothing remain the same but also nothing ever really changes. For every Sufi who dies, another is born somewhere.
Rule #40
A life without love is of no account. Don’t ask yourself what kind of love you should seek, spiritual or material, divine or mundane, Eastern or Western. … Divisions only lead to more divisions. Love has no labels, no definitions. It is what it is, pure and simple. Love is the water of life. And a lover is a soul of fire! The universe turns differently when fire loves water.
There is an old joke that one of my friends calls “deja moo” since everybody in Russia heard it a million times. A patient meets his doctor and tells him all about his physical problems. Doctor listens to him attentively, nods understandingly and prescribes…mud baths. “Will it help?” the patient asks with hope. “It will not help but you’ll get used to the ground pretty fast,” the optimistic doctor replies.
I like this joke. It reminds me of that connection that used to arise unconsciously, spontaneously, and now comes into my life more and more. It is returning to the natural, to the authentic, to the truth. This is “grounding” and how I see it. How can we ground ourselves?
~ Walking barefoot whenever it’s possible. Maybe our feet will not resemble an infant’s buttocks in their softness but wearing socks for some time afterwards will help to bring them back to life. Also walking barefoot helps to treat flat-footedness and massages the biologically active points on our feet.
~ Dancing barefoot. I found out that my body doesn’t move otherwise. I used to think that somehow the wish and ability to dance depends on how comfortable I am in my clothes. At so many points this conclusion proved me wrong. Then I thought that maybe it depends on the mood. Or on the music. One fine day I decided that dancing is probably not my cup of tea. Only when I started dancing barefoot, I had my Eureka moment. The energy that comes from the Earth and the excess of which also goes back to the Earth, brings so much power that it’s possible to dance endlessly to any music, even if it’s a silent one.
~ Washing dishes without gloves. Doing laundry manually. There are exceptions to that, certainly, if we use chemicals to wash something. However, I don’t like to do house chores in gloves, I can’t feel the cleanliness of the plate that I am washing at the moment, and for me it means I can’t get satisfaction from that work. The aesthetic aspect doesn’t scare me, I put some cream after the washing, and my hands are grateful. And doing some of the laundry manually is my other favorite thing. It brings me back from daydreaming and sitting on the cloud #9 like nothing else.
~ Sitting on the ground. It can happen in a beach shack, a deserted sand or a family garden. I got used to it in the USA where people like to sit on the floors a lot even if it is a floor of a serious Senate Hall. At first I was surprised and wondered how they are not afraid to get dirty. But for some strange reason, America doesn’t have that much dust and dirt J, and also they tend to change their clothes several times a day, so they don’t see it as a problem. I got used to it pretty quickly, and later on started noticing that there is an urgency in me to sit on the ground even if it’s not too clean. India strengthened this habit, and I am grateful for that. It calms me down, breathing gets slower and deeper on its own, without additional effort.
~ Eating food with hands. It used to be slightly uncomfortable to do so in certain places. So I had to pretend that I can skillfully handle a fork and a knife. Then I got tired of pretending J. It’s much tastier to eat with hands than with cutlery. Also when during cooking we tear the salad with hands but not cut with a knife, their health properties get preserved for a longer period of time, and green veggies don’t oxidize.
~ Not using perfume but essential oils or nothing at all. I believe that one of the tastiest smells on Earth is a fragrance of a clean body. Each of us has its own fragrance, and on some animalistic level we get attracted to one another (especially if your Spleen is Defined, in Human Design terms) or we get repulsed – yes, that happens too. When there is an addition to that natural odor, it disturbs this intuitive sense. My perfume dislike became conscious quite recently, before I couldn’t explain it neither to myself, nor to others.
~ Doing yoga barefoot, not in socks. For most of you it will probably be quite a natural thing to do, but surprisingly this is something that I have to explain to many of my friends who do yoga for the first time. It’s almost impossible to feel the connection with the Earth through “mediums,” it hardly accepts that. Also a yoga mat is specifically designed for barefoot.
~ Stop styling hair with a hairdryer, iron, and other artificial things for hair. I have to admit: I am lazy in certain things and in this specific case my laziness comes as a benefit. When I go to the hairdresser, I always ask for one specific hairstyle that I call “wash and go.” I like almost everything that is natural, and nature supports me in that.
~ Forgetting headphones at home while jogging/walking. That’s when this activity becomes a meditation. This is what Osho says about running: “Running against the wind is a perfect situation. It is a dance of the elements. And while running you cannot think; if you are thinking you are not running rightly. When you are running totally, thinking stops. You become so earth-bound, the head no longer functions. The body is in such an activity that there is no energy left for the head to go on and on; thinking stops. And in those moments of non-thinking, your existence is pure, you simply are – you don’t know who…”
And if you are able to intake all the nature’s sounds while doing so, the effect is even stronger.
~ Breathing with a belly, going back to our source of energy. Three inches down the navel – that’s where you can find hara, that source. When we sleep at night, our bodies naturally go back to that breathing style, and that’s how it rejuvenates.
What else can we do to get “grounded”? We can forget about the gloves while gardening. We can take off our swimsuits in the sea when possible. We can touch each other consciously. We can greet each other with a smile. We can forget about artificial makeup. We can wash ourselves in the mountain river. We can forget about manicure, pedicure, waxing, shaving for the time being… Anything that feels natural to you might be added to this list. And the Earth always thanks and gives back, there is no doubt in that.
I like this joke. It reminds me of that connection that used to arise unconsciously, spontaneously, and now comes into my life more and more. It is returning to the natural, to the authentic, to the truth. This is “grounding” and how I see it. How can we ground ourselves?
~ Walking barefoot whenever it’s possible. Maybe our feet will not resemble an infant’s buttocks in their softness but wearing socks for some time afterwards will help to bring them back to life. Also walking barefoot helps to treat flat-footedness and massages the biologically active points on our feet.
~ Dancing barefoot. I found out that my body doesn’t move otherwise. I used to think that somehow the wish and ability to dance depends on how comfortable I am in my clothes. At so many points this conclusion proved me wrong. Then I thought that maybe it depends on the mood. Or on the music. One fine day I decided that dancing is probably not my cup of tea. Only when I started dancing barefoot, I had my Eureka moment. The energy that comes from the Earth and the excess of which also goes back to the Earth, brings so much power that it’s possible to dance endlessly to any music, even if it’s a silent one.
~ Washing dishes without gloves. Doing laundry manually. There are exceptions to that, certainly, if we use chemicals to wash something. However, I don’t like to do house chores in gloves, I can’t feel the cleanliness of the plate that I am washing at the moment, and for me it means I can’t get satisfaction from that work. The aesthetic aspect doesn’t scare me, I put some cream after the washing, and my hands are grateful. And doing some of the laundry manually is my other favorite thing. It brings me back from daydreaming and sitting on the cloud #9 like nothing else.
~ Sitting on the ground. It can happen in a beach shack, a deserted sand or a family garden. I got used to it in the USA where people like to sit on the floors a lot even if it is a floor of a serious Senate Hall. At first I was surprised and wondered how they are not afraid to get dirty. But for some strange reason, America doesn’t have that much dust and dirt J, and also they tend to change their clothes several times a day, so they don’t see it as a problem. I got used to it pretty quickly, and later on started noticing that there is an urgency in me to sit on the ground even if it’s not too clean. India strengthened this habit, and I am grateful for that. It calms me down, breathing gets slower and deeper on its own, without additional effort.
~ Eating food with hands. It used to be slightly uncomfortable to do so in certain places. So I had to pretend that I can skillfully handle a fork and a knife. Then I got tired of pretending J. It’s much tastier to eat with hands than with cutlery. Also when during cooking we tear the salad with hands but not cut with a knife, their health properties get preserved for a longer period of time, and green veggies don’t oxidize.
~ Not using perfume but essential oils or nothing at all. I believe that one of the tastiest smells on Earth is a fragrance of a clean body. Each of us has its own fragrance, and on some animalistic level we get attracted to one another (especially if your Spleen is Defined, in Human Design terms) or we get repulsed – yes, that happens too. When there is an addition to that natural odor, it disturbs this intuitive sense. My perfume dislike became conscious quite recently, before I couldn’t explain it neither to myself, nor to others.
~ Doing yoga barefoot, not in socks. For most of you it will probably be quite a natural thing to do, but surprisingly this is something that I have to explain to many of my friends who do yoga for the first time. It’s almost impossible to feel the connection with the Earth through “mediums,” it hardly accepts that. Also a yoga mat is specifically designed for barefoot.
~ Stop styling hair with a hairdryer, iron, and other artificial things for hair. I have to admit: I am lazy in certain things and in this specific case my laziness comes as a benefit. When I go to the hairdresser, I always ask for one specific hairstyle that I call “wash and go.” I like almost everything that is natural, and nature supports me in that.
~ Forgetting headphones at home while jogging/walking. That’s when this activity becomes a meditation. This is what Osho says about running: “Running against the wind is a perfect situation. It is a dance of the elements. And while running you cannot think; if you are thinking you are not running rightly. When you are running totally, thinking stops. You become so earth-bound, the head no longer functions. The body is in such an activity that there is no energy left for the head to go on and on; thinking stops. And in those moments of non-thinking, your existence is pure, you simply are – you don’t know who…”
And if you are able to intake all the nature’s sounds while doing so, the effect is even stronger.
~ Breathing with a belly, going back to our source of energy. Three inches down the navel – that’s where you can find hara, that source. When we sleep at night, our bodies naturally go back to that breathing style, and that’s how it rejuvenates.
What else can we do to get “grounded”? We can forget about the gloves while gardening. We can take off our swimsuits in the sea when possible. We can touch each other consciously. We can greet each other with a smile. We can forget about artificial makeup. We can wash ourselves in the mountain river. We can forget about manicure, pedicure, waxing, shaving for the time being… Anything that feels natural to you might be added to this list. And the Earth always thanks and gives back, there is no doubt in that.
I don’t believe in diets. Not because they don’t work. I didn’t try. However, I can tell you what exactly I did try. I tried to fight with food. I tried to ignore it. When it didn’t work, I overate. I suffered because of it. Then at 16, I became an exchange student in the USA going straight to Massachusetts from a rural town in the South of Russia.* In the USA everybody was telling us about the culture shock we were bound to experience, how traumatic it could be, etc. However, nobody told us that…
…America has a “unique” approach when it comes to food, and that obesity is a national problem. In just one month I gained 10 kilos – me, a tall and slim teenager who’d never had problems with weight no matter how much and what she ate. Depression came along with extra kilograms. That’s when I had to face the food subject and that’s when I started fighting it with all the means I had in hand.
Rule #1: fighting doesn’t help. The only thing that helps is self-love. It’s not about narcissism or self-adoration, it’s acceptance of what you are with all advantages and faults. And that is a separate subject for a whole dissertation.
In 2008 yoga came into my life, and my attitude towards food started gradually shifting. First I stopped liking fried cutlets, then any kind of cutlets, then I started experimenting with meat – “to be or not to be.” Since I come from the Caucasus area, any dish that doesn’t contain meat is not taken seriously. What do you mean – a dinner without chicken in the sour cream sauce or a picnic without barbecue?
But yoga did its thing: some things simply disappeared from my menu. I can’t say it happened overnight or “forever” and here I come to the Rule #2: if my body wants to eat something whether it is meat or sprouts, I need to provide. How do you exactly understand if it is my body telling me or if it comes from my clever but conditioned mind? This is what I do to make sure: I close my eyes, imagine, visualize this specific food and chew it. Do I still crave it? Then I better have it.
In my experiments with food I went from one extreme to another. There was a period of “comfort” eating. Then there was another period when I didn’t eat anything after 6 p.m. Then there was a time when I didn’t think much about food. That’s where I would like to direct your attention to and explain something.
Food is not a cult, at least, not for me. However, awareness about this relative indifference towards food didn’t come overnight. The first “signal” was a trip to the writer’s conference in the Key West Islands in Florida. I wanted to go to this two-weak marathon heaven for writers and journalists so much that I won a stipend that completely covered all my expenses including food, stay, the conference and workshop on storytelling. But as my beloved says, everything is a package, so there was one disadvantage in this spectacular event for me: the subject of the conference was “Food in literature.”
So, the famous writers were taking turns on stage to speak about food, how they are writing about it, what they are writing about it, etc. Even Julia Child’s editor was there to share her memories that became the base for the famous Hollywood movie “Julie and Julia” with Meryl Streep as a leading actress.
But when the same writers started exchanging recipes with the audience, I started silently howling. I was bored, slightly depressed, so I decided to visit Hemingway’s house to meet his six-fingered cats. That’s when I realized completely (and it became a Rule#3):
food is a pleasant thing for me that sustains me and helps me to be strong and healthy, and that’s it. After I finish my meal, I forget about it. I don’t reminisce about how tasty the Baskin Robbins ice-cream was (I mostly don’t crave ice-cream), I don’t remember my mom’s pancakes even though they are delicious, and I don’t dream to end up in Italy specifically to try their famous Napoli pizza. I treat food with respect it deserves, I don’t like to throw it away, and sometimes I even like to cook it. But I am not living for it.
Some other values came along over time which I would like to share with you. For example, there is a Rule #4 that came into my life after reading Charles Eisenstein’s book “Yoga of Eating.” In short, he said that we eat what we watch, listen to, talk about during the food consumption. For many years I’ve been eating in the company of my favorite American TV series (the serial killer Dexter was among them). Now I am changing that habit. It’s taking its sweet time but I do believe that eventually my awareness wins. By the way, this way I get satisfied with food much faster and it sustains me for a longer period of time.
Let’s go back to the dieting. This word immediately sends me into depression. Just one thought about limiting myself in something brings back the memories that I’d probably inherited from my ancestors. Even if it’s corn I don’t particularly like, if I can’t have it, – I immediately want it. So, in order not to stress my body too much, I use the Rule #5:
I cancel all the diets in my life – Kremlin diet, one-day diet, Atkinson diet, fruity diet. Again, it’s not because they don’t work. They don’t work for me, period. I am telling myself that I deserve any food that my body really wants. And that’s it, the stress gives way to the relaxation, and I stop throwing myself at a piece of cake. Because I know that any time I want it I can have it. This feeling of freedom gives me additional wings. I am also currently experimenting with fasting for 16-24 hours at a time per week, and so far I see it as a very healthy and liberating technique that saves me from a lot of troubles. So far so good!
All in all, I am vouching for awareness. Along with awareness I get the weight which is right for my body, and I develop taste for food that brings me health and nourishment. I don’t fight with food and my body anymore. Food is my ally and my body is a favorite vessel that deserves the best. And even if I am eating “forbidden food,” it’s only because this phrase doesn’t exist in my vocabulary anymore. If my body craves it, then it’s needed.
*It’s very far from Moscow, that’s how I explain it to people who think that Moscow is what Russia is all about. It’s not 🙂.
…America has a “unique” approach when it comes to food, and that obesity is a national problem. In just one month I gained 10 kilos – me, a tall and slim teenager who’d never had problems with weight no matter how much and what she ate. Depression came along with extra kilograms. That’s when I had to face the food subject and that’s when I started fighting it with all the means I had in hand.
Rule #1: fighting doesn’t help. The only thing that helps is self-love. It’s not about narcissism or self-adoration, it’s acceptance of what you are with all advantages and faults. And that is a separate subject for a whole dissertation.
In 2008 yoga came into my life, and my attitude towards food started gradually shifting. First I stopped liking fried cutlets, then any kind of cutlets, then I started experimenting with meat – “to be or not to be.” Since I come from the Caucasus area, any dish that doesn’t contain meat is not taken seriously. What do you mean – a dinner without chicken in the sour cream sauce or a picnic without barbecue?
But yoga did its thing: some things simply disappeared from my menu. I can’t say it happened overnight or “forever” and here I come to the Rule #2: if my body wants to eat something whether it is meat or sprouts, I need to provide. How do you exactly understand if it is my body telling me or if it comes from my clever but conditioned mind? This is what I do to make sure: I close my eyes, imagine, visualize this specific food and chew it. Do I still crave it? Then I better have it.
In my experiments with food I went from one extreme to another. There was a period of “comfort” eating. Then there was another period when I didn’t eat anything after 6 p.m. Then there was a time when I didn’t think much about food. That’s where I would like to direct your attention to and explain something.
Food is not a cult, at least, not for me. However, awareness about this relative indifference towards food didn’t come overnight. The first “signal” was a trip to the writer’s conference in the Key West Islands in Florida. I wanted to go to this two-weak marathon heaven for writers and journalists so much that I won a stipend that completely covered all my expenses including food, stay, the conference and workshop on storytelling. But as my beloved says, everything is a package, so there was one disadvantage in this spectacular event for me: the subject of the conference was “Food in literature.”
So, the famous writers were taking turns on stage to speak about food, how they are writing about it, what they are writing about it, etc. Even Julia Child’s editor was there to share her memories that became the base for the famous Hollywood movie “Julie and Julia” with Meryl Streep as a leading actress.
But when the same writers started exchanging recipes with the audience, I started silently howling. I was bored, slightly depressed, so I decided to visit Hemingway’s house to meet his six-fingered cats. That’s when I realized completely (and it became a Rule#3):
food is a pleasant thing for me that sustains me and helps me to be strong and healthy, and that’s it. After I finish my meal, I forget about it. I don’t reminisce about how tasty the Baskin Robbins ice-cream was (I mostly don’t crave ice-cream), I don’t remember my mom’s pancakes even though they are delicious, and I don’t dream to end up in Italy specifically to try their famous Napoli pizza. I treat food with respect it deserves, I don’t like to throw it away, and sometimes I even like to cook it. But I am not living for it.
Some other values came along over time which I would like to share with you. For example, there is a Rule #4 that came into my life after reading Charles Eisenstein’s book “Yoga of Eating.” In short, he said that we eat what we watch, listen to, talk about during the food consumption. For many years I’ve been eating in the company of my favorite American TV series (the serial killer Dexter was among them). Now I am changing that habit. It’s taking its sweet time but I do believe that eventually my awareness wins. By the way, this way I get satisfied with food much faster and it sustains me for a longer period of time.
Let’s go back to the dieting. This word immediately sends me into depression. Just one thought about limiting myself in something brings back the memories that I’d probably inherited from my ancestors. Even if it’s corn I don’t particularly like, if I can’t have it, – I immediately want it. So, in order not to stress my body too much, I use the Rule #5:
I cancel all the diets in my life – Kremlin diet, one-day diet, Atkinson diet, fruity diet. Again, it’s not because they don’t work. They don’t work for me, period. I am telling myself that I deserve any food that my body really wants. And that’s it, the stress gives way to the relaxation, and I stop throwing myself at a piece of cake. Because I know that any time I want it I can have it. This feeling of freedom gives me additional wings. I am also currently experimenting with fasting for 16-24 hours at a time per week, and so far I see it as a very healthy and liberating technique that saves me from a lot of troubles. So far so good!
All in all, I am vouching for awareness. Along with awareness I get the weight which is right for my body, and I develop taste for food that brings me health and nourishment. I don’t fight with food and my body anymore. Food is my ally and my body is a favorite vessel that deserves the best. And even if I am eating “forbidden food,” it’s only because this phrase doesn’t exist in my vocabulary anymore. If my body craves it, then it’s needed.
*It’s very far from Moscow, that’s how I explain it to people who think that Moscow is what Russia is all about. It’s not 🙂.