Cheers!

It doesn’t do as much without my narration, but I hope to refine and give the presentation again at one of the many Boston-area innovators’ groups; I’ll see what I can do about getting it recorded, or at least publishing a more complete set of notes. To be honest, I was winging the presentation the first time; made it up in about 3 hours with Keynote on Saturday, and had NO notes for my talk.

A herd of kool-aid drinking apple gnomes are assembling it now and it should be making its way around the globe to me soon!

Which brings me to something that I heard talked about quite frequently in Maui: ‘manifestation’ … Viewers of the movie ‘The Secret’ or listeners to Tony Robbins and a half-dozen over inspirational or motivational speakers (including my friend and former Body-for-Life cohort Bob Doyle, who incidentally also appears in ‘The Secret’) talk about it, maybe in different terms, but it’s always the same idea: Know what you want and set about making conditions in yourself and in your life favorable to receiving what you want, and you will get it.

Jess and I heard this message over and over again while we lived in Maui, but neither of us really took it seriously until we decided to move back to Boston; within weeks of our decision - even before we’d made our decision public to our families and our friends, pieces of the puzzle fell back into place.

Suddenly, I connected with Brian and Aaron and found myself interviewing to become a part of Zaadz - a dream job for me, Jess’s family offered her a car, she was offered a teaching position at a well-known Boston studio (which later fell through, but it turned out to be better that way) and a place for us to stay. We were very easily able to move back to Boston on the cost of mailing our boxes and food along the way; even our plane tickets cost us less than $100!

The weird thing about manifestation is that you can’t not expect it to happen and have it happen, but nor can you just expect magic to occur if you don’t create the necessary conditions. Personally, I’m not accustomed to having so many good things happen to me in such a short time, so it’s been a hard trip moving from ‘When is the other shoe going to drop?’ to ‘How am I helping create this bounty?’ But that’s what it’s about; it’s about gratitude and really respecting what I’m creating in my life, and realizing that manifestation neither a passive process nor is it something I can ultimately control - at least not in the ways I’m accustomed.

The other thing I realized, while talking with Jess the other day: manifestation doesn’t work for ephemeral things, like emotions. You can’t manifest emotions. You have to ask yourself - what do I need in my life to feel this way? Sometimes that means physical objects, or a certain job or a certain person… But in creating a mindset, there are two major methods: feel it from within, create the emotion first, or create the conditions that you believe will bring about that mindset. Indeed - just envisioning the things that will put you in a certain mindset often put you at least halfway there.

Believe nothing.
No matter where you read it,
Or who said it,
Even if I have said it,
Unless it agrees with your own reason
And your own common sense. - Buddha

Here’s the thing about spiritual teachers. They’re human. They’re not gods, and when we hold them up to the standards of such, we’re often sorely disappointed. My yoga teacher, whom many people consider a master at what she does, specifically disavows such terms, smoking and eating pizza to illustrate her point. The only thing she’ll admit to is “I’ve practiced for a lot longer than you.”

I’m not saying we should forgive the indiscretions of our teachers (for example, the current allegations of a certain Rabbi formerly affiliated with Integral Institute which is affiliated with Zaadz), especially when they do things that offend our own moral sensibilities. Indeed, understanding a ‘guru’ or a ‘teacher’ as a human being is key to making an informed decision whether one believes in the ideas a person teaches.

Personally, I read WIE occasionally and enjoy the magazine even though I’m not sure about Andrew Cohen, and even though a trusted female friend of mine met him once and got really bad energy from him. And I’m aware Zaadz pulled for WIE’s Webby award this year - I actually helped in that effort.

But I think people get caught up in the idea of ‘ooh, spiritual teacher, these guys are supposed to be something more than me’ and get defensive about it. And then when one - this Rabbi for example - is plagued by his issues, people try to follow the threads back and infect the rest of the teachers with the stain of connection. (And this is not limited to non-”traditional” spiritual systems either; look at Catholic priests!) That doesn’t make sense. The most challenging accusation you can make is: “Well, if [teacher] is so evolved, how come he/she didn’t know this was going to happen?”

The answer, my friends, is that they’re only human. (But if they try to tell you differently, if they try to tell you they ARE different from you, more than human, that’s often a danger sign.)

And while I know from personal experience that there are abilities that go beyond the six senses, even people with heightened ability to perceive have blind spots, because they have emotions, they have physical limitations, they have a human form.

Connections such as our link with I-I and I-I’s former connection to Rabbi Gafni do not mean you must believe in the Rabbi (or his ideas) to believe in I-I’s ideas to be a member of Zaadz. In fact, I’m much happier saying one of our goals is the free and respectful dialogue of ideas of many shapes and forms, aimed at improving all of us.

My whole spiritual paradigm comes not from the collection of gurus but the accretion of ideas and concepts that agree with my own reason and common sense; along the way, I have met people I consider helpful in guiding me - either by showing me the path to follow or by showing me the path to avoid. The closest person to a guru for me is the Dalai Lama, and - though I can’t find evidence of this - some people say even he is not the angel he’s portrayed as.

There are people and web sites who use the failings of teachers to discount the quality of ideas; as a former student of philosophy, I recognize that as a classic ‘ad hominem’ attack - if the person is unsound, so are his ideas, or so the reasoning goes.

But that’s where it comes down to trusting yourself. The only true spiritual teacher in your life is you. Even if you think you’re giving yourself over to the will of another, you’re the one who ultimately decides whether to believe or not to believe at every moment of your life. You choose what will bring you closer to fulfillment, or God, or enlightenment, or peace. The role of a Guru is not to tell you what to do, but to get you to get off the fence and choose.

And when someone you respect or believe in acts in ways that break that trust, it helps to remember that you can choose to break those bonds, because in reality… the only thing that’s different between them and you is that they’ve been practicing longer than you.

But there’s a few pounds that just stubbornly won’t let go. The other day, however, I stumbled upon a few posts on the [Shangri-la Diet][1], which is based on — literally — sugar water and flavorless oils. You drink plain sugar water and/or flavorless oils a few times a day, an hour or so away from meals, and you get full faster and snack less and viola, lose weight.

Sounds crazy, doesn’t it? That’s one of the reasons I decided to try it. And amazingly enough, during the three meals I’ve eaten since starting it, I’ve felt full **so much faster** it’s incredible. Even Jess has commented on my change in appetite several times, and she thinks the idea is nuts.

I’m not sure whether that’s the mental effect of suggestion, or actual effect of the sugar water, but so far it’s just crazy enough to work. I’m interested to see how it goes from here!

[1]: http://del.icio.us/tag/diet+shangri-la

Indecisiveness and complexities are a part of you, and you revel in that, as you say, and your true fit will love who you are. Maybe he will find someone laid back who will be different - but better? Believe in yourself, believe in who you are. Revel in the rush of feelings; enjoy the life spread out before you.

And find the time to smile.

My housemate, however, said to Jess that it’s not a real Boys’ Night Out without strippers and beer. So I guess it was more like a Boys’ Night In.

I walked back from his place into Harvard Square at a quarter of one in the morning; I’m not sure how to describe how much I love the peace and calm of the city after it’s settled down for the evening. Cambridge and Boston still have the sense of being vibrant, but all the bustle and noise of the day fades away after midnight and leaves in its stead the buildings and the lights and the empty streets. The faint halo of mist around the streetlights, the branches (just beginning to bloom) glistening with the dampness of earlier rain, the faint din of muffled voices in a thousand dorm rooms — still diligently studying for tomorrow’s test now that the distractions of day have ceased — all fill me with a sense of peace and contentment.

It’s crazy how hard it is for me to focus during the day, but how **simple** that same focus becomes after the rest of the world has gone to bed.

When I share my life with others, it’s not so easy to be the night owl I used to be.

I felt so tempted to stroll through Harvard Yard last night before I caught a cab home. Every time I’m on the campus I’m reminded of how much I miss the atmosphere of learning and exploration that good colleges foster - and for that matter, just how much I missed the incredible strong connection to history - my history - that I feel in Cambridge and especially on that campus.

I’m not going to take any of their summer classes, but I plan to go back in the fall for one or two classes - maybe three if I can afford the money and the time. But before that happens, I need to see someone about managing my attention deficit issues. Can’t wait, though!

[1]: http://www.whathefilm.com/Pages/cast.html

I’ve been using at Zaadz. them to clear certain parameters out of parameter hashes in Rails, and I got tired of typing `something.delete_if { |k,v| %w{this that}.include?(k) }`… so I wrote a couple of extensions to Hash that let you filter a hash, selecting all __except__ the keys you specify or selecting __only__ the keys you specify.

And just because, I dedicate this one to my friend [Steph][1]:

[1]:http://stephalicio.us/

class Array
# Converts a nested array suchs a [[1,2],[3,4]] into {1 => 2, 3 => 4}
def to_h
hash = {}
self.each do |ary|
hash[ary.first] = ary.last
end
return hash
end
end

class Hash
# Usage { :a => 1, :b => 2, :c => 3}.except(:a) -> { :b => 2, :c => 3}
def except(*keys)
self.reject { |k,v|
keys.include? k.to_sym
}
end

# Usage { :a => 1, :b => 2, :c => 3}.only(:a) -> {:a => 1}
def only(*keys)
self.select { |k,v|
keys.include? k.to_sym
}.to_h
end
end