We’re on the home stretch now to complete this series on Positive Change. If you’ve followed along with me as I’ve explained my journey to explore and master this aspect of my life, I am confident that what I’ve written resonates with you on some level.
Even if you haven’t always agreed with my opinions, ideas and conclusions, the fact that you are taking on board my words with an open mind is admirable. I appreciate the attention and hope I’m helping you realize positive change in your life.
If this is the first time you have read this series, please read through the following previous sections to gain a more complete picture of the process –
- Is It Really Possible To Create The Change You Want In Your Life?
- What I Can Teach You About Getting What You Want
- Why Creating The Change You Want Is All About You
- Don’t Let Ignorance Stop You
- How I Realized My Sense Of Self and Why It Changed My Life Forever
- Is There A Force Behind Everything In Life?
The previous chapter of this series (chapter 6) introduced many ideas taken from various spiritual authors and resources from what you might call the “New Age” movement. I’m not a fan of labels, because they tend to create subjective bias simply because of the baggage people associate with them. The same can be said about the people spreading the ideas, as they certainly have “baggage” built up based on what media says about them, what they have done or not done in their lives, or what your immediate peers have told you about them.
I attempt to see these resources as coming from people with ideas to share that I can choose to take on board, or not – and it’s the ideas you want to assess, not the baggage or the people giving you the ideas. Make up your own mind, don’t follow other people’s assumptions or gossip.
As best I can, I apply the same reasoning whenever I encounter any resource, whether it’s words that have come from something historical, like the bible or Bhagavad Gita, or a more contemporary book, or from ancient spiritual figures like Jesus or Buddha, or a modern day mentor or even someone who I come into direct contact with, like a family member or friend. It’s not easy to do this, but becoming aware of the need to do so, is a positive first step.
The challenge when studying any resources, as I outlined in chapter four about avoiding ignorance, is that by default you can’t help but respond with some kind of bias based on the source of the information you are receiving. You’re going to give more credence to someone who has studied and practiced something – who is a perceived expert – over what your friend tells you, or perhaps you might value your friend’s input more simply because of who they are to you, or a whole range of other influences, some your are consciously aware of, others you are not. It’s human nature to attach emotional expectation and validation to ideas, things and people, regardless of how accurate it is (Eben Pagan calls this concept “emotional estimation”)
I’ve yet to master a complete lack of bias or judgment when I encounter new input, and I expect there’s bias in how you view the world too, you can’t help it because you have built up a frame (your view of the world) and have an ego. Even as you read these words you filter the ideas through your lens, which results in some kind of instant feedback mechanism within your mind based on your current beliefs.
The greatest potential danger when you have bias is when your ego attaches itself to an idea, which then limits your ability to take on other ideas. It can be so strong that you feel an emotional response when someone challenges your beliefs, or delivers information to you that you don’t agree with.
If you find yourself feeling angry or annoyed or a need to defend yourself or project what you think is “right” on to someone else, then you’re suffering from an attachment to your own view of the world, which hinders your ability to see some things. You become blind because of the absolute nature of your perception – what you think is right is right, and if something or someone contradicts it, then they are therefore wrong.
You can see these judgments, or bias, or maybe you want to call them opinions, live in action in the comments left on the articles that make up this series on Positive Change. In particular, if you read through the last two chapters (five and six), and read the comment streams that follow them, you will see some very strongly worded discussion from people who have something to share about the subjects I’ve introduced in this series.
The comments demonstrate people come at this from all kinds of viewpoints, and experience all kinds of emotional responses to my words, and the words of other people who leave comments.
Some people simply want to thank me for sharing my experiences and thoughts on this blog, others want to agree with and extend the ideas I talk about, or offer suggestions for further study from a desire to help. Then there are those who challenge the validity of the concepts, and others who have a very strong existing belief structure, which clashes with what I’ve written about, so they feel the need to demonstrate that the ideas I discuss are not the correct path, and their way is the truth.
The discussion can become particularly heated when you have two or more people with viewpoints that simply can’t coexist. The holders of these viewpoints have attached their ego so strongly to their opinion or beliefs that they must vehemently defend them – and even attack others. You can see evidence of this in every flame war that has ever occurred online.
Beyond the comments left to my blog, I also receive private emails from readers of the articles offering more feedback. Some want to thank me for the insights I gave them and congratulate me for the new direction I’m taking with my blog. Others want to complain and warn me against wasting time with these subjects and focus back on pure internet marketing and blogging subjects.
Some want to tell me that Jesus, or God or whatever religion or savior they follow will one day enter my life and I’ll be fine, and offer me invitations to explore their faith. Others want to blast concepts like the Law of Attraction and The Secret as a load of bunk and warn me against writing about these ideas because they misguide people. Then there are those who advise me to look towards and study accepted modern day fields, like science, or psychology, which they perceive as having verifiable and thus practical truths, proven methods for doing things the right way.
In short, I get everything from thanks, to stop talking about this useless information to guidance toward a particular religion or to believe only in science and accepted practices.
All of this, whether it comes from a desire to help, or share, or guide, or disprove, or argue against, I believe comes from the ego’s need for recognition – to feel important, or right, or smart, or to be perceived as a caring or intelligent person by others or because of an absolute attachment to a set of beliefs, beliefs so strong that it’s beyond possible to consider them as invalid – it could cause a mental breakdown. Even my motivation for writing a series like this has an element of ego in it – I want the recognition for sharing these ideas and the sense that I have value because I impact other people with my words.
Let me be clear here – I’m not attacking anyone who leaves comments on my blog or sends me an email, whether they are perceived as positive or negative. I value all feedback, and especially appreciate those who are willing and brave enough to share their thoughts publicly on my blog. I’m pleased that I’ve invoked you enough with my words that you feel the need to write back. In fact, I especially appreciate those who don’t agree with me, because when I receive your emails and comments that disagree with what I’ve taken on board as valid, I feel a strong emotional response. My ego fires up and I want to defend myself, my ideas and viewpoint and prove your ideas wrong and show you how ignorant you are being.
Despite my initial desire to defend my ideas, I stop and remind myself that what I consider right is no less valid than what you consider right, even if our two opinions can’t overlap. What is right is subjective, and I have to accept that my readers apply a judgment to me and the ideas I share, just as I do to other people’s ideas. Your frame of view of who I am, is impacted greatly by what I write about here, so much so that you may even stop reading my words if you don’t like what I’m saying. Therefore I risk damaging relationships when I discuss challenging topics, but that’s the nature of good blogging.
Ok, you might be saying to yourself – this guy is seriously over thinking all this!
I promise you it’s necessary that I begin this article with this discussion, because as I continue this series I will talk about resources and concepts that have been vital in my process for creating change. Without exploring the nature of opinion, bias, judgment, frames, ignorance – and ultimately – truth, I can’t accurately explain how I became aware of the ideas. I believe it’s helpful to you, if you know where I’m coming from. The process behind the conclusion is just as important as the conclusion itself.
It’s also vital that I attempt to obliterate any frames you currently place over your perception that might stop you from at least considering my words. Of course I know you can’t completely destroy your frame, you have to come from some kind of perspective (this is actually very important and I’ll talk more about it later). What I’m hoping is that your perspective is at least open to these ideas, so you can assess them, then choose what to do with them, if anything at all.
You Have To Have Beliefs
I believe it’s of vital importance that you raise your awareness to a point where you understand there is no objective reality, only subjective reality based on your choice to perceive things in certain ways. That was essentially the point of the discussion above and the entire chapter on ignorance.
I went through this awareness process and while I really benefited from becoming open minded to different ideas and relished the power I had to interpret anything in any way I so choose, it led to a problem. I became a fence-sitter, a person who never wants to commit fully to an opinion, or at least I thought I had.
When you focus on avoiding judgment, you tend to be very careful about what you believe in. I became so “open to ideas” that I was becoming lost in a sea of possibilities. Sometimes, especially when it comes to very existential topics, I confuse myself because I can’t come to an absolute conclusion. I enjoy thinking about this stuff a little bit too much, and you can’t reach a conclusion only through thought. You need to know things through experience and feeling.
Confusion leads to indecision, and indecision stops action, which means you don’t have the experience that leads to significant change. Experience is absolutely vital in the process of life – and is a critical component of change – so being in a state of indifference is not helpful.
Without a platform to stand from, you can’t actually get things done, because in order to take action, you have to come from a place of belief. You have to believe in something in order really go after it, so if you spend your entire time pondering the possibilities assuming nothing is absolutely true, then you’re stuck.
You could say I had managed to dig myself into an existential hole while trying to build the foundations for the grand castle that is my life.
Thankfully, there is an answer to this problem, which you can’t avoid, because you’re doing it every day, even now as you read this.
The truth, in my perspective, is that in every given moment you are creating something and having an experience, even if you think you are doing “nothing”. Even the choice to do nothing is an experience, the experience of inaction. However none of us truly do absolutely nothing and at all times we take actions based on what we have decided is true in the moment.
While there is no absolute truth, and no objective reality, there is your truth right now, based on your subjective reality and what you choose to focus on. Even simple actions, like choosing what to eat, or what clothes to wear, or what to say during a conversation, or what time to go to bed, requires you believe in something as true, even if in the grand scheme of things these decisions aren’t that important, subjectively, to you.
In short you can never really fence sit absolutely because your existence denies the possibility. You have to cease to exist to cease making decisions – to cease creating. If you’re doing anything or nothing, then you’re still doing something, which means you’re having an experience and always feeling something. In other words, you are perpetually creating – and as I have written about before, you are constantly changing, you can’t help it, you exist, therefore you change.
The important point, as it relates to positive change, is to understand that what you focus on in a given moment is what changes in that moment. You can spend your entire life focusing on things that ultimately aren’t that important (what television show to watch on TV for example), or be brave and decide to focus your thoughts, actions and feelings on the things you want to change that really matter to you, that result in true positive change on a grand, life-altering scale.
Eventually you’re going to decide that your experience right now is not what you want, and will choose to believe in a possibility – to have hope – and then go after that. In order for that to happen, you have to decide, in that moment, to see a form of truth that is different to what you are experiencing now, and then take actions that are congruent with your new truth.
Practicing Your Truth
To recap, the process I went through was first realizing that I choose my reality, and what is true for me is only ever true for me and is all that really matters. I have complete control over this, and it’s all I have control over, there is nothing else because I view everything through my mind and body. I create my reality.
The next step, after this opening of perspective, is to reconfigure your awareness to focus on what matters to you most. Work to change your perception to a truth that is what you want to experience and feel.
All of this assumes you want to experience and feel things you enjoy, but there’s no right or wrong here. I call this positive change, and what is positive is completely subjective to you. It’s your choice to go through this process in order to become what you want to, you cannot ever do anything else – you always choose your own reality – but it isn’t necessarily a reality you derive pleasure from.
For my life – my perspective – I concluded that balance is required. You don’t want to be so rigid that you become ignorant and can’t see new ideas, which could open doors to wonderful things. At the same time, you don’t want to be so fluid that you are stuck and never make changes big enough to get you what you want.
Underlying all of this is the limitation of your perception, you can only focus on a few things at a time. In fact I believe focusing on only one major positive change at a time is the best formula. Of course in your life every day you make hundreds of thousands of little decisions – each thought is one – but you can have big, practical, changes you are working towards, like quitting your job, or finding a partner, or buying a house, or losing weight, or perhaps less physical goals like reconfiguring your thought patterns to positive instead of negative, or deciding to view the world from a lens of trust and love, rather than distrust and fear, or abundance over scarcity.
The options are, literally, endless. It’s all a matter of you deciding what you want to be true for you, right now. There is nothing else, but there is a process, and while you can’t experience the future and the past only exists as data in your mind, you can certainly impact the experiences you have as each given moment changes. This, ultimately, is how you experience true positive change.
From Abstract To Absolute
This article, in a lot of ways, is saying the same thing over and over again in different ways. In fact you may have seen lots of repetition in this series where I repeat key concepts over and over again, but with a different way of describing it.
This is important and deliberate. It takes more than one practice session to become a master, and for the most important concepts, it’s vital you experience repeat exposure.
Fundamental shift in how you view the world is not immediate, it comes only when you open your eyes to new ideas and see proof of your new perception again and again. You have to experience and feel these truths for you to really believe in them. The challenge, as you no doubt know very well, is not coming to an intellectual understanding of a concept (for example, I know it’s possible that I can become financially free), it’s truly, authentically, believing that it’s possible and then experiencing it as reality in your life. As I said before, you can’t fool yourself.
There are many aspects of my life that I have made very deliberate effort to change, and I’ve gone through the processes I’ve described to you in this series in order to make it happen. In fact I’m doing it right now as I work to change parts of my life to have experiences I want with all my heart. Writing this series is part of the process for me, as I teach and reinforce my own beliefs as I write to you (teaching is the best way to learn).
I believe at this point in the series if I have a chance to open your awareness to these ideas, then it’s done, or perhaps you already did before you started reading my words and I’m serving as further clarification of what you already know (that’s actually all I can ever do).
If not, that’s fine, as I’ve said from the start, none of this is absolute and you take on board whatever you want, however you want to – you cannot do anything else. If you’re confused, that’s okay, keep clarifying your focus and what you need to know you will become aware of. If these ideas are too foreign, irrelevant, wacky, crazy, new age, spiritual, or just plain annoy you, that’s cool, I appreciate you reading this far. If you want to just read the content I publish on internet marketing and blogging, and ignore the rest, I appreciate your attention.
As I promised at the end of chapter six, next I’m going to introduce to you a very important outside resource – a series of books that for me have resulted in a fundamental shift in how I view existence. This book series offered me further reinforcement of the ideas I talked about in chapter six from people like Eckhart Tolle, The Law of Attraction movement, author Paulo Coelho and resources that attempt to mix science with spirit like What The Bleep Do We Know, and added an entire new set of concepts, that for me, has felt more true than anything else in my life thus far.
After that, I’ll take this series to it’s final conclusion, which, as I’ve alluded to before, ties in your role as a creator of positive change not just for yourself, but for all of humanity.
Next Chapter: Continue to the next article in this series – Love, Change And The Reason For Your Existence
Yaro
Revealing My Truth
Interesting thoughts Yaro!
I like your thoughts on fence-sitters. Basically there are none, because when pushed they will fall either side of the fence (figuratively) and take a particular point of view.
Yaro, I’m a real estate agent and entrepreneur. I took reverse out of my life. From now on forward is my only gear. I stay away from negativity and welcome positivity. Thank you for all the outstanding information. You keep me motivated. Motivation is the key to a great life.
ive tried motivation… but realized i needed something.
i needed the big fella up top to keep me going. (Jesus… hes a legend)
Experiencing God in my own life is flipping amazing. and you cant describe it.
the only way to truly know is to experience it
You have a very level head Yaro. It’s certainly hard to stand back and not take offence to other people’s opinion, especially if they are attacking your core belief system.
I’ve seen a fundamental shift in my way of thinking too, so what I believe to be “truth” today can always change.
It’s amazing what can happen, if you just open yourself up to listening or trying different ideas 🙂
That’s a great post and really enjoyed your deep thought and insights on the topic and how you stayed quite realistic and even down-to-earth in a good way at the same time. I can even imagine myself writing the same as I share many of the ideas.
But there is one thing I am quite sceptical about. And this is the distinction of so called “yours” and “not yours” (aka conditioned by society) beliefs and goals. Yes I agree that people are on the different levels of consciousness and the types and the levels of the filters they apply vary greatly. But still there are filters always. And these filters are always in some way or another are external by origin.
Let’s say someone is setting a goal consciously trying to sort out all the social expectations that don’t resonate with him or her. In order to this it will still be necessary to filter & prioritise all the things to define what’s important to do and what’s not. And then he or she goes to the next level of beliefs which are in turn somehow influenced by external environment as well. Because the same thing repeats all over again. Even if a person tries to chose and form his or her own beliefs he or she will need some coordinate system once again. It can be a goal for example which will get easier to achieve if you have a certain set of beliefs it can be a social image or anything else.
And then it all comes down to the question of meaning of life. Which nobody knows an ultimate answer for…
Yaro,
I like this post because I feel you are really getting to the heart of why people succeed or fail as entrepreneurs. Creating a new product or some that makes a positive impact on a person’s life is tied to your ego. IF you really truly want to help someone. No one wants their baby to be called ugly. Thems fightin’ words, right?
I guess the issue I take with portions of this post is the defensive dialogue. Your blog is your living room, your domain. I don’t feel obligated to try to defend my feelings. Either you care enough about me to understand how I feel or not. AND the fact is that everything you write is simply not for everyone. It’s like a man trying to relate to a tampon commercial. The message wasn’t intended for them. He’s just not going to relate. The joy comes when your message reaches the people who need to hear it and that’s not something I would apologize for especially if it’s how you feel. I will be reading the next post and keeping an open mind in hope of gain a broader understanding of the man behind the blog.
Yep. Stand up for yourself Yaro!
Cheers!
Alright, good work!
I think it is great that you encourage “responsibility” because that is the way I see it. This perspective gets you away from being a victim into being capable and I agree with all that
BUT 😉
There is a contradiction here that I don’t think you intend and it is a biggy:
The idea of my “truth and your truth”.
It just does not hold up as a fundamental truth. Because then if I say you are incorrect than my idea is as valid as you saying it is correct, for example.
In this way “my truth and yours” can’t be a fundamental truth.
I do think it is true that we all have different “perspectives” on things, absolutely. But the planet is here not because of our perspective.
The baby still cries whatever you feel and think about it. The mountain is still there whatever you see it or not. Your knee is still working even if you are consiously aware of it or not. You can “know” your knee. Not because of the definition or interpretation, but because it exists. You can “know” your surroundings and be a part of it.
Existence is here. I can’t just nulify that with saying that Yaro does not exist. In this case as well it is not a matter of “my or your truth”. You exist Yaro. This is not subjective.
And some ideas are better than others. If all ideas are the same, Hitler’s action is as valid as Gandhi’s action and we know this is not true.
So it is important to see that here are differnet levels of interpretation but that does not mean that reality is only subjective. There is objective “knowing”, beyond judgement and concepts.
I think you are pointing out a really important point about your own “power to create” but if you say that is just a matter of “my and your truth” than that wisdom “disappears” into opinions. It loses its value because you say that truth is as valid as for example “I want to kill myself”. It isn’t.
I say perspective matters and it is not just a matter of opinion. All wisdom we have is a mixture of our entire culture. Anything you see is just not your thoughts and feelings. It is the result of everything that is. All your ideas are influenced by the entire planet. Just believing in your own opinion as a “separate truth” makes you very disconnecter to the world.
Yaro, your opinions are good and they are true and they are better than many ideas out there. That is why you have an audience. Your thoughts have more value than just “my and your truth”. I say this because I don’t agree with that you take away the validity of your statements by saying it is just an opinion like anyone else’s. I trust more in the wisom of Gandhi than Hitler. They are not the same.
And ultimately there is “more” than ego that controls our reality and I would say I know of very few people who are aware of more than their ego. Most are not even aware of all of our ego alone. So we do not control our entire reality, only a part and that part is not so big. But it still matters of course and I fully agree with that we should be aware of this. AND to know there is more…
oops, long. sorry….
I have many friends and family members with deeply held beliefs that they wear on their sleeves and will argue at any time with any body for. That’s cool, but what’s wrong with a little uncertainty? Whats wrong with admitting you don’t know and probably never will?
This is a common problem most of us run into, I think. Most times, I just don’t fight it to save me time and effort. I am just amazed how people will readily accept and believe something that was told to them by another human just like them, and take it as the only truth. Shows that despite being the most advanced form of life as we know it, we’re still not bright enough.
Till then,
Jean
“If you seek the plain truth,be not concerned with right and wrong. The conflict between right and wrong is the sickness of the mind.”
– Taoist saying/
Your Message also carlos dasteneda’s don juan, the sorcer’s “there is no right or wrong/good or evil, there is only power” ? been chew’n on that for a couple decades!
That’s a really good quote!
I find it really amazing how people are so quick to blast the law of attraction and the Secret, but then go on to say that you need to believe in science and psychology. It’s all the same thing. There is nothing mystical about the law of attraction. It’s just a simplified tool for programming your subconscious mind to work on the things that you want in life. People do it every day.
You reality becomes the things that you spend the most time thinking about. There is no way around that. I suggest that we all spend a ton of time working on things that we want instead of worrying about the things that we don’t want.
-Joshua Black
The Underdog Millionaire
I am really enjoying this article series on positive change Yaro.
I started to read the series about 2 weeks ago and will now read each new article when it is posted. These articles are extremely valuable and are not meant to be read later.
You have inspired me to change my life in all the ways that I want too. I think we are in a time where more and more people want to change a lot about there lives, but they never end up doing so for several reasons.
I guess I am lucky enough to have found you and your internet marketing material. For you to write about positive change is an absolute blessing as you are truly making a huge difference in my life.
I hope to inspire millions of people across the globe and help millions in various things, especially health. You are inspiring me meaning you are indirectly inspiring millions more.
Keep up the excellent work Yaro. I have thoroughly enjoyed everyone of these Positive Change posts.
Yes, this series of articles on positive change has been really eye-opening. So many different opinions and insights by everyone, more than I’ve ever seen. 🙂
Till then,
Jean
Another thing about subjective reality is that it is certainly influenced by our upbringings. How we are brought up definitely affects how we perceive things-right or wrong. Those biases will most certainly bring about close-mindedness.
Hello Yaro,
I’m loving this conversation! I’ve read many of the books you’ve mentioned and watched the movie “what the bleep”. It pleases me to live my life as if love matters. People say, “what would Jesus do?” I ask what would love do. That serves as my compass as I make my decisions.
What’s strikes me as odd is when people then infer that I should do what they want me to do because that would be a sign of my “love”. haha!
No. Actually, it doesn’t work like that. What feels loving to me is what feels loving to me. When that is lined up with another person’s needs, it feels really awesome.
That’s my two cents. None of us have the “right” answer. Brilliant exploration – I love it.
I like this article because it successfully describes the path I am presently trying to take. I know that I’m still in the earliest stages of defining what reality means for me, and I still have a long way before finding and attaining positive change.
I nonetheless appreciate how you clearly explained the factors we have to consider and the direction we should take in order to reach the change we need.
You have a way of explaining this that seems to make me say “that’s how I see it too” over and over. However, if I were to try and explain what you make me feel is my truth, I could not. Quite a strange feeling really..
Very touchy post. Your writing has inspired me a lot. Many people have many beliefs. You can’t change them, we have to accept their compliment, also at the same time we have to face their anger/unhappiness. These are all part of life, you can call it- the beauty of life.
To end up in a positive environment, in a place and situation you want to be in I believe it is crucial to really focus on what is positive and believe that what you want to achieve can be done while trying to not focus on small or big things that give you bad energy, this can be extremely hard.
To try to feel the feeling that the goal would make you feel and just try to see all small great things in life can make a huge difference and I believe it can take anyone anywhere.
Greetings Yaro,
I am a firm believer in following the principles of Naploen Hill, Stephen Covey, etc.
One of my favorite quotes is,”your mind is the greatest asset that you own. Your mind is also the greatest liability that you own.” You have full control over how your attitudes, feelings, thoughts are.
Knowning this and acting upon those thoughts will improve your own life. Feel free to read my articles on my blog @=> http://BCodyFrugality advice.blogspot.com
Follow me on twitter @=> http://www.Twitter.com/FrugalityAdvice
Positive change is possible for everybody, who acts upon those thoughts.
I found it interesting that at the beginning of the post you said that some people call these ideas “New Age”. That may have been true many years ago, but I see this movement becoming very much mainstream now.
The comments that you have received about stopping this type of writing and getting back to business are humorous to me, because, after all, isn’t that what you are doing? This IS about business, blogging, or anything else in your life. There is no separation.
I’ve so enjoyed this series, Yaro. I hope you will still continue to toss in some more of your thoughts, even once you have “ended” this series.
It’s wonderful to see the evolution of your truth and how each new layer unveils a deeper truth. It is very reinforcing to me. I especially can relate to the part about being so open to researching new ideas that it delays gaining the wisdom that comes only from experience and experimentation. Finding the balance that’s right for us is the dance of life.
Thank you.
I am glad you have done this series of posts, Yaro.
I have read your blog for years, eagerly look forward to your reports, and even went through the Become a Blogger course–but I know we approach this area of thought and experience from such different mindsets. However divergent our paths or perceptions, though, I believe we are enriched to be able to see someone else’s viewpoint. And I know that questioning your own beliefs, sources of inspiration, and paths of enlightenment *can* shipwreck you–but it can also affirm and strengthen your core values and “faith”.
This isn’t a venue to sway or convince you to accept any other position–that would take dialogue (and as someone mentioned previously–this is your living room!). As a Christian, I can hope (and pray) that opportunities would present themselves for good conversations in your future to further explore this path. Thanks again!
Nice post Yaro-thanks for sharing.
I too need to rein in my ego and reactions occasionally. Growth…it’s a process. I know, I’m a gardener!
And lest I ever feel TOO full of myself, I remember the words of Ram Dass:
“If you think you are truly enlightened, go spend a weekend with your parents”
That usually does the trick 🙂
You lost me at hello…..j/k.
Very deep and interesting stuff.
Silly girl,up, no one owns truth, the truth is never pretty, it requires you to look at you.Make the change in habits for that is all you are is a load of habits.
Yaro,
I want to thank you for sharing your viewpoints with us – surely this is something very few people are prepared to do openly. These days everything revolves around the materialistic and we sometimes forget to stop, become quiet en think these truths through.
The wonderful thing about this series of posts is that it got many people to think! This is the value of it all. Fact is, you have influenced your readers for the better. That’s priceless! That’s a legacy your leaving behind.
I enjoyed reading this post and appreciate your clarity, Yaro. I understand what you were saying about individual truth but I think I’m with Samuel and believe a higher or universal Truth exists as well, or must exist, in addition to individual truths. Or maybe that thought simply helps me sleep at night. I’ll have to spend more time on this . . . a lifetime or two might do the trick.
I concur about an intellectual understanding of a concept that needs to be felt and experienced before it can become a reality, which is why permanent change can be so difficult. Lifelong patterns of behavior and beliefs are hard to change. The ego is strong and well-defended. Seeing, feeling, and experiencing those parts of ourselves that need work is arduous with setbacks, hurdles and u-turns along the way. Deep, authentic, spiritual work is not for the faint of heart, most people, in fact, avoid seeing and learning about their shadows. That’s been my experience, or my truth, anyway. I don’t think you can change that which is not in your awareness, and the ego fights hard to maintain its illusions, fantasies, the status quo.
That’s why I like this work that you’re doing. It’s another ray of light in a world that could never be too bright. I appreciate the time and effort you’ve put into it. So, thank you.
Your Message Yaro, first, thank you so incredibly much for turning me on to Katie’s Unified Tribe. I’m in and very excited! I’ve been experimenting with Internet marketing in different ways for about four years, looking for the right vehicles and techniques for sharing powerful personal growth tools. The tribe is the best thing I’ve seen.
Now, to comment on your thoughts in this blog post and the series. Your identification of the ego filtering that happens when people begin seeking, is critical for people to understand as they choose to become responsible for navigating change in their lives (which means they are choosing to consciously develop themselves). You obviously have keen powers of self-reflection and a natural ability to context the process of becoming self-reflective for those who are not as naturally endowed.
Navigating the process of becoming self-reflective is very tricky as you have implied, because of the distortions. That is why it is imparitive to understand the right use of the “isms” that are out there so we can more directly source the inner self, but how do we do that?
The answer is, we find lenses, many different lenses, through which to view ourselves. This is essentially what we are doing when we go from teacher to teacher. Each teacher, training, religion etc becomes a different lens, but each brings a distortion. This gives us two ways to proceed. First we can slog through all of the distorted lenses, sifting and sorting for what rings true to us – which as you have said, is the dance of life. But there is a way to greatly speed up the process so that we can, more readily, dance that life in our own unique steps––live the authentic life instead of spend our life looking for it.
So, the second option is to find and create undistorted lenses. This second option allows us, then, to explore the isms with a more integrated ego which means we can quickly slough off the distortions and get what is relevant to our individual uniqueness. This too, is a life work if done in a vacuum, but with tribes forming, and work already accomplished by others, new possibilities abound and the time table can be greatly shortened.
Here’s what I’ve learned about how lenses work. One lens, like a simple values assessment, gives information that penetrates ego and enhances authentic self-understanding. (Most blustering egos don’t know what their values are, so they project false, or compensatory, values.) Two lenses, like a values assessment plus a personality inventory, create an exponential effect in self understanding because we match and sort relevance from both and thus, begin a process of creating (collaging) a new identity of self. (I really think that this identity is coded in our DNA and we are just re-membering it in our collage experience.)
Add in more and more lenses and the self-identification process penetrates more and more deeply into the subjective realm, because the logical mind cannot hold the complex process of sorting and integrating them all. At that point, the emotional and imaginal dimensions of mind kick in to help, and the process of self-identification escalates exponentially. Then, one is in a whole new world of bringing self-knowledge into conscious competence, of building authentic self-worth, and thus of integrating ego as a healthy champion of the true self.
I look forward to seeing more of your ideas, Yaro.
Very nice posts. I’ve been reading quite a few of them over the past half an hour. You make it so easy to make money. I’m just starting so hopefully someday I will be even a third successful as you.
You said it!
No objective reality? It sounds like you believe this! It sounds like you even believe this to be true. (In short I think this position is a contradictory circle.) As you say, we need to have beliefs. Do all those resources you listed really not exist if I ignore them? Enough of the metaphysics.
I really like your practical emphasis on focusing and going step by step. This is the only way that change has ever happened for me. Thanks for sharing how things have happened for you – many successful people are very reluctant to do this. I very much appreciate your doing it. Thanks.
Yaro,
Ah, yes….balance in life! What a quest!
Thank you for sharing your gifts of self-reflection and of your superb articulation of your inner experiences. I look forward to checking out your reading list.
For me, part of mindfulness is “checking my ego’s investment” in my experiences of discomfort, confusion, fear, and pain. I am learning…and you are helping me along the way.
Thanks again, Yaro!
Tom W.
And through this whole series you really reveal to us the journey that you’re on, one that we all go through. Although the experience will always be unique to us, there are common threads.
Of course the religious/spiritual part of what you are saying is undeniable, and that is the framework that our world has constructed around these sorts of discussions. It’s just a label, and these are thoughts pretty much everyone has to deal with. But you’ve really expressed them in a very clear way that is easy to discuss.
Although much of what I’ll say below is a Christina perspective, fear not, because over a decade ago (and today still) I have wrestled with these same questions and thoughts about life. These are some things I learnt.
I completely disagree that there is no right and wrong, but know that the ideas about right and wrong imposed by society, religious leaders, political leaders and whoever else have often been constructed to their own ends. Jesus knew this and was vocal about how the Pharisees had twisted the rules to their own ends, to both boost themselves and oppress others. Jesus’ anger towards the Pharisees was because, as Jews, they had chosen to believe and trust in God, but had abused their God-given position, but yet to unbelievers doing the same thing no judgement this harsh was made. So from that perspective, the oppression was wrong, but only the Pharisees were held responsible for their actions.
Truth and lessons on life are certainly revealed from different sources. But “beware the yeast of the pharisees” as the lies that are permeated through others can have a detrimental effect on, and spread through, your own life. Many of the New Age books are like that, they certainly do have lots of good points and I don’t doubt the sincerity of most of those authors. The law of attraction and the secret often just expose outside, effective character methods to get things done. We can all use improvement in aspects of our lives. But as you mentioned, you need to filter outside information, to accept everything just doesn’t work. You have to make a choice, stand up and be counted, and stick up for what you believe. But even then, you need to keep a level head. And believing that what is expressed in those new age books is the key to all of life is not correct.
And this is where an ultimate truth comes into play, and for me personally, that is a loving God, whose son was sent here to die for me. I cringe when people use Bible verses to put others down, or to judge them (I doubt if you haven’t received some nasty emails like that), but as humans we love to be right. In the end, this verse, which Jesus praised as being very wise, holds the essence of everything…
“Love the Lord your God with all you heart, soul and strength. Love your neighbor as yourself.”
… the ultimate truth.
And it’s this passage that is a measuring stick for every action. This is not flowery, mushy, cutesy love that we see on TV, it’s the “Greater love has no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends” sort of love.
So with that, here’s to your journey to find the truth! Cheers.
You are on the right road. There is one absolute truth..God is.
Nothing anyone says or does can change this truth. The scripture you
posted was very appropriate.
ONE PATH, ONE TRUTH, ONE LIFE. The truth can be demonstrated to be true if you are searching for it, if you are looking hard enough for it. Once the truth is shown to you, you can reject it or accept it. Whatever your truth is is what makes up your reality. Your reality is the eyeglasses that you are looking through to view the world. It can be subjective or objective, blurry or clear. We all possess a little bit of the ULTIMATE truth that is in the universe. The more we learn, the more we grow to attain nirvana.
“Who moved my cheese?”
maybe the most important thing is to be positive toward change!
and 1000 thanks for YARO 🙂
Man, what a bunch of “blah”. The whole “law of attraction” or “who moved my cheese” is a nothing but wishful thinking for those who can get real on what it actually takes to be successful. And no, the pink-glasses won’t do it.
I think everyone need change in one point in his life! and the way you deal with change is crucial.
I think that entrepeneurs are the ones that mostly need a positive thinking aspect. They often have to deal with a lot of set backs, that need a change in thinking. They are first to learn how to change their life.
I myselve had ups and downs as a entrepeneur. Its when you reach the bottom, you learn how to implement change in your life and turn it around.
You encounter a lot of pitfalls when you are at the bottom (the so called gutter), its at this point that you fight your way up. At this point you descide you need to start over and change the outcome. Its when you discover the inner brakes and hesitations you have, that denie you your comeback.
Keeping a positive mindset and a “I can do it” mentality is vital. There is no limit in what someone can do. Keep believing in yourself and you will get there.
Well this was my 2 cents on the topic. Take care
have you ever read the book The Celestine Prophecy? I think you would enjoy that book. It reminds me of your posts.
Your Message I’m using this series as a guide to my daily life, and I’m now trying to apply my new ideas and these new perceptions in most of what I do. I’m finding it hard to be consistent but by practicing, I know I’ll have a smoother ride.
Yaro, the positivity and love that permeates your work is absolutely surreal. You sure are spreading the light, and I am honoured and humbled to be able to have access to your work. Keep it coming, brother!
Your Message Your messages/thoughts/ideas are so profound and absolutely resonate with the truth Yaro. Change is absolutely necessary for us to grow (or shrink). In our experiences of giving all our money and power away through our lessons with a conman this also is what we have learnt and wish to share with others – we are the creators of our lives – you are doing a mighty job and are to be highly commended.
What is it about people who want you to feel bad about what you have done, want you to apologize, yet they do NOT want to forgive the mistake.
Read the old book “Games People Play” which was a best seller years back. You will marvel greatly at some of the ‘games’ these researchers discovered. We are a crazy species indeed!
An astonishing point really and I wonder how deep you have been reading on and off the net concerning life and succeeding in it. You have touched some great aspects of life and it is very interesting how on/offline globes could get in touch with each other sometimes.
The successful webmasters could in most cases become successful in life as well. It is the matter of being and remaining honest, pursuing the truth which would definitely lead to cool results and working on the grand schemes to proceed.
> it’s the ideas you want to assess, not the baggage or the people giving you the ideas
Very well put. I fumbled for these words today as I tried to capture the heart of distinguishing the messenger from the message, or the book from its cover, or even the “do as I say, not as I do” concept. Failing to do so, means missing out on some of the best insights.
This is really nice stuff, Yaro. I suggest that you perhaps look at combining all of this into a book. You’ve got a fabulous way with words, and gloriously immense insight. All of these chapters will really combine well into print, or an ebook at least.
I really admire and respect what you’re doing. You’re a beacon of light that shines bright.
Be well
Jacques
Your Message Yes, yes to the e-book idea!
It seems to be hard to put your real meaning of life up for everyone to see and to comment on. You did it so bravely without hesitation. That is so admirable.
So many views and so many ideas out there. The only one that really matters is your own and I like the way you owned it, made it easy to understand and easy for others to put forth their ideas.
Thank you for showing this to us!
The challenge when studying any resources, as I outlined in chapter four about avoiding ignorance, is that by default you can’t help but respond with some kind of bias based on the source of the information you are receiving….
Hi Yaro,
I really love your posts. You really have interesting topics. I think regarding with this topic, entrepreneurs are the ones that mostly need a positive thinking aspect. They often have to deal with a lot of setbacks that need a change in thinking. They are first to learn how to change their life. Balancing our lives is one of the most important thing to be done. Always keep a positive mindset because a strong positive attitude will create more miracles than any wonder drug and if we fall, we don’t need self-recrimination or blame or anger – we need a reawakening of our intention and a willingness to re-commit, to be whole-hearted once again. You know, life is not a matter of having good cards, but of playing a poor hand well.
Each person is born with a calling. It is your task to discover what that calling is and find a way to make that calling a reality. And always remember: Don’t let the fear of the time it will take to accomplish something stand in the way of your doing it. The time will pass anyway; we might just as well put that passing time to the best possible use.
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Véridique ~ Highly accurate online transcription services.
I must admit it was by a fluke chance that I stumbled upon this article. The opening to your article was fascinating and well put. I have been an Entrepreneur since 1999 and only recently in 2007 really started to learn more about internet marketing and building home businesses online. Through my own experiences I have found similar feedback when sharing openly lessons that have been learned. For a long time, it was the fear of criticism that had prevented me from moving forward. However, as perfectly illustrated, some will appreciate, relate, and yet others will be against what you believe as Truth. You must believe in something!
There is a message in every article. What was meant at the time you write an article may not be what is received by the person reading it. You can see this illustrated perfectly as parents when disciplining your children. You will lecture them, they will listen, however, what they hear is not always as you intended.
As you pointed out, we are constantly growing and changing, therefore our perspective of what is Truth will continue to evolve.
This has been thought provoking indeed. Thanks for sharing!
Ron
Well Yaro, you are absolutely brilliant! I am so glad I stumbled upon your blog – there is so much insightful info on every page. Thanks again.
Well,
I appreciate the humility (consistent to the point made in your post) of the farewell sentence “Revealing My Truth”.
I believe in the existence of an absolute, all-embracing and non-disputable Truth which is only God’s prerogative to have hold of and of which we, as imperfect creatures, are not in a position to grasp the wholeness. As a result, we are bound by our subjectivity in seeing only a portion of this Truth — somewhat like a facet or more of an elaborately worked diamond, which will we never be able to see the entirety. The number of facets we can gaze at depends solely on our level of enlightement. This limited view is what ultimately leads us, if willing enough to accept our finite nature, to the formulation of the concession that “the truth is in the eye of the beholder.”
I suggest that we never forget, though, the distinction between “Truth”, the ever-existing and intangible one, and “truth” as we humans visualize it. I think it is important to hold that in mind, because otherwise we might be tempted to fall in the trap of thinking that everything IS relative to one’s viewpoint instead of thinking that WE understand it as relative.
Believing that this last point merits some pondering on,
I leave you with my best regards
Hi Yaro,
I’ve just read all posts relating to this topic so my comments relate to the overall piece of work. First i must say thank you for sharing your story . We all get times in our lives when we fear or experience low vibration emotions . Sharing is about being authentic and that is so much more interesting, connected and buyable than being superficially successful. I didn’t appreciate you were so spiritual. You have mentioned every book/movie etc I ‘ve read at least 20% of my bookcase! I’ve been on my own pers dev journey now for 5 years (very seriously for 2) and my life is unrecognisable in so many positive ways as a result of a change of perspective. Paulo is my favourite writer and I’ve read everything he has written so this section gave me goose-bumps. I now teach/coach/blog about the universal laws of success and how real empowerment and permanent change can only ever come from the inside out. When I started there was quite a lot of my old friends who thought I had lost the plot. Let’s just say these days I have different people in my life. I love to connect with like-minded open ‘truth seeking’ (as much as you can get that) individuals who believe in the universal mind and interconnection of all life. The ancients and tribal folks had so much right and what about the greeks, after all, when we talk about personal power etc it was Plato and Socrates works that laid the foundations to modern day quantum physics.They can’t all have been wrong.
Being aware of the fact that you’ve got a built in bias is an important first step towards minimising the impact of your conditioning on your decision making. Very few people ever attain this realisation, and continue to be stubbornly set in their ways.
There are really times that people’s viewpoints can’t coexist. However, attacking one person is a different story. In reality, all of us have different opinions and perceptions. We should respect one another in order to have tranquility.
You wrote – “there is no objective reality, only subjective reality”. How do you know that is a truth?
Truth can be defined in the following way. It has three parts. (a) Laws of nature are the only truth. (b) Nature always demonstrates its laws. We must learn to observe them (c) Since truths are laws of nature, the truth must be unique and universal, over entire space and for all time.
As an example Gravity is a law of nature. It is true everywhere, on earth, moon, or on any star. It was true million years back, it is true now, and will remain true for all time in future.
Another example – all objects are created by its own soul. This is true for sun, moon, dogs, and even humans. It is true over entire universe and for all time. Humans are created by the human soul. All souls are same. Nature gives proofs of these facts also.
Since nature (i.e. soul) created the humans, it will be impossible for humans to understand the soul. Just like computers can never understand humans, creations also cannot understand the creator (i.e. soul).
Whatever we understand must be all wrong, if it does not match or is not derived from the demonstrations that nature has given. We cannot do any experiment to verify the laws of nature. This means all of math, physics, economics are completely wrong. There is no truth in the mainstream. For more details please look at the Chapter-1 on Truth in the blog site of Soul Theory at https://theoryofsouls.wordpress.com/