Health

All aspects of health, including Mental, Physical, Emotional, Social and Environmental.

The Happy Atheist

Published on by Jim

It has long been attested by religious people that one needs a god to be happy or to find joy and love in life.  The reality is far from this.

The atheist can be as happy or even happier and have more joy and love than a theist if they recognize that happiness, joy and love is what they want in life.  Any person who recognizes that our emotions are a product of our ways of thinking AND our habitual physiological (emotional) reactions will then practice those positive emotions until they have perfected them.

The theists are taught that happiness, joy and love (God is love) are outside of them or come from outside of themselves so they are always lead to believe that these positive emotions or states are only available under certain conditions, conditions that can be used like carrots on a stick to manipulate and enslave the them.

Of course, not all atheists are happy people.  Many if not most atheists are very materialistic and think that happiness, joy and love comes from material things (pretty much like religious people).  Yet the atheist has the advantage of not being dictated to by some deity flying around in the sky, they can go after whatever makes them happy without worry of the opinion of that deity.

So again, the atheist has a better opportunity to find happiness, joy and love than the theists.

What is Love? How to Love?

Published on by Jim

On a search of Google adwords I find that those two topics each get 185 MILLION searches a month. I realized yesterday that those two questions are what I started looking for answers to thirty years ago.  I realize now that I have found the answer to those question, found it to perfections, and so therefore I have something to offer those 185 million people who are still searching for answers.

Which is why I am re-dedicating my website, Yesness.com to answering these question.  Starting today I will just be focusing my blogging efforts on these questions.  I suspect that from time to time I will post on other topics but they will go to my personal blog, JimFreedom.com/blog.

I am sure there are many people out there who might read this and will be wondering why I would think I know something about love, for they might think I have no clue what love it.  After all, I have never had a romantic relationship that has lasted even a year and I have had very few relationships.  PLUS, I am one of the biggest assholes that many people who know me have ever known, so how could I say that I know anything about love?

I think that question is funny.

I imagine going into a Christian church and asking, “Was Jesus a loving person?”  I am sure that virtually everyone there would say that YES, Jesus was not just a loving person but the very incarnation of love.

Yet, if you asked the religious people of Jesus’ time if Jesus was a loving person they would say, “HELL NO”, for to them he was Satan incarnate, he was mad, crazy or possessed by demons.  To use modern language they would say that Jesus was an asshole extraordinaire.  Which is why the religious people wanted Jesus dead, because he kept pushing their button or “bearing witness to the truth” of how they were conditioned to ABUSE THEMSELVES and lie to themselves about it by blaming other people for their own emotional behavior.

Jesus then went on to talk about blessedness, which was the theme of his whole Sermon on the Mount.  One of the things he said there was, “Blessed be those who do not take offense at me,”  which put the onus of responsibility for being offended back onto the one who is offended.  Then Jesus went even further and said, “Take cheer, for I have overcome the world,”  which means that you could not push Jesus’ buttons and piss him off the way he could piss off the religious people’s buttons.

So Jesus was not just pointing out that people had been programmed to abuse themselves emotionally, but he cared enough to show them that there was a way out of that abuse.  He loved those people who were persecuting him, enough to take their hatred yet he still tried to inspire them to get free from the unhealthy/unholy habits.

That is what I do and that is why some people still see me as an asshole who knows nothing about love.  I may not yet be as big an asshole as Jesus was, but I aspire to and to even go beyond where Jesus went.

What I have learned is that when I was like everyone else I would abuse myself emotionally all the time, which lead me to experience this world as HELL, but when I learned to be honest with myself and to love myself I was then able to see, appreciate, enjoy and love ALL that life had to offer, which makes my experience of life heavenly.

I have learned how to love myself in the presence of whatever the world is offering and I feel that skill is valuable enough that people will come to my website/blog to hear what I have to say about it.

I would love to hear what you think about this.  Please post your comments wherever you read this.  Your criticism is VERY valuable to me, for it enables me to improve my method of communication and service to others.

Thank you.

I Love People

Published on by Jim

I have not always loved people.  In fact there was a time I wanted to be a forest ranger just so that I could go off and live in a forest in a cabin all by myself, never having to deal with people.  I outright hated people.

I am not saying that I hated this or that person, I hated ALL people.  I hated the very idea of people.  I hated humanity.  If there was a button that I could have pushed to wipe humanity off the planet I would have jumped on it with both feet.

And, I would say that the feeling was mutual; humanity seemed to hate me.

That has now all changed.  I have totally changed my attitude toward and behavior with people.  As I said, I love people.  I love to be around people.  I love crowds, small groups, meeting (even boring meetings sometimes).  I love any opportunity to interact with humanity, even people who do not speak my language.  I love both left wing and right wing conservatives, liberal of any sort, ever haters of the darkest kind.  In fact, I sometimes feel of most value to humanity when I am with people who are obsessed with hate, for I am constantly looking for a way to help them out of that darkness.  My heart opens to them for I can still remember what it was like to be in that hellish dark pit of existence.

How did I go from hating to loving people or humanity?  Honesty, being honest with MYSELF.

When I was a hater my anger and hate was based on the lies I was telling myself, lies that I had learned to tell myself from my family and society at large.  Eventually I recognized that everyone was doing that and that they had learned that from their parents, the lies had been handed down from generation to generation with only an occasional person daring to question them, daring to challenge the basic assumptions of society for fear of being further ostracized or rejected by humanity.

But I was now willing to question those assumptions because I felt totally ostracized and rejected by humanity and I had totally rejected humanity, therefore I had nothing to lose.

Getting honest with myself was not easy and in fact was not just very difficult it was actually dangerous.  I had to learn to be nice to myself first, nice enough to not beat myself up around all the terrible things I had been doing to myself all these years.

This learning to be nice to myself came in the form of mindfulness, which is one of the basic skills one learns in meditation.  Mindfulness is not meditation, it is something we do to prepare for meditation.  Mindfulness is watching ourselves, our thoughts and our behaviors as we go about our life to see where we are creating pain and trouble for ourselves.

I realized that my greatest pain came from my reactions to others. It really did not matter what they did, sometimes I would just take offense at them and I was off and running directly to my own personal hell.

It was a painful day that I finally accept that I was my own worst enemy.  But it was the beginning of the end of my personal hell, for until I was honest enough with MYSELF to accept the fact that I was my own worst enemy nothing was going to change.

I had a terrible habit of telling myself that it was other people’s fault that I was angry or upset or offended or whatever.  I had learned to lie to myself in this way from all the people around me; everybody was doing it so why wouldn’t I lie to myself also.

It took me many years to stop my habit of blaming others for my reactions to them, and it took many more years to stop reacting to the world around me.  In fact, I still react to the world around me in ways that does not always add to the quality of my life experience, but at least I now never blame the world for my reactions, for that would only trap me in that hellish experience.

As I look back on the process of how I stopped my self-injurious behavior that it was not necessarily the practice of meditation that stopped it, but the realizations that came from the clarity that I obtained in meditation that helped me see that practicing positive emotions instead of the negative ones I had been ‘practicing’ all my life was what was going to change my experience.

Meditation just helped me see this.  Meditation is just the practice of finding stillness within so that you can gain clarity that will enable you to see the truth of what is really going, that truth will set you free to enjoy and love what life is offering.

16 Desk Meditations That Will Change Your Life – OnlineDegrees.org

Published on by Jim

16 Desk Meditations That Will Change Your Life – OnlineDegrees.org.

This is a good article with suggestions on how to deal with the stress of working at a desk all the time.  I find that just taking a timeout for a few minutes, closing my eyes and taking some deep breathes really helps.   AND, it makes your efforts more efficient, in case anyone were to complain about you taking a break.

Since I drink a lot of water, I often have to take bathroom breaks.  As I am standing there relieving myself I take several deep breathes as my body relaxes.  This is one way that I pace myself and kind of force myself to take these mental health breaks.

We work to survive, but if work is killing us then it is not worth doing.  By bring mindfulness into our work we cut down the stress that it causes and can improve the quality of the experience of working.  Being mindful of our attitude toward work, our co-workers and our work environment, reminding ourselves that a positive attitude improve the quality of our experience, we can greatly enhance our life experience that work is part of.

When you become aware that what you seek is quality of life, then taking a few minutes to enhance your work experience and create a healthier mind and body is worth it.

Beyond Nonduality II

Published on by Jim

In my personal spiritual evolution I turned first to the eastern traditions because I had seen the corruption of the western traditions and the eastern traditions offered me a way to find inner peace and not just some nebulous concept like salvation.

After finding some degree of inner peace and the clarity that comes with it I turned to the western traditions and read about Saint Theresa’s “Dark Night of the Soul”, which I was now more prepared to deal with because of my skills developed via the eastern traditions.  Because of my study and seeking I was getting very depressed as I saw though the ideas and beliefs I had had from childhood and seeing that they were just my wishful thinking and not reality.  This depression was really a ‘dark night of the soul’ in which I truly felt abandoned by God, Consciousness and/or life itself.  There did not seem to be any real reason to continue living.

Around this time I read a book titled, “The Experience of No Self” by a former Catholic nun who was documenting her own spiritual evolution and process. In this book she talked about how she spent twenty years in the Dark Night of the Soul.  Since I was experiencing what she described I was even more depressed as I pondered that I might be stuck in this dark place for twenty years.

Yet, at the same time I was also studying Zen and it was showing me that all the negativity I was experiencing was just thoughts in the mind.  When it finally dawned on me that my depression was just a product of my thinking, just thoughts in my mind, I laughed at myself for making the thoughts so important.

With this laughing I realized I was immediately out of this dark night experience, my laughter being the light that was shined on my reality for me to see again.

Of course I would fall back into my negativity and fall back in to that pit of darkness, but eventually I would realize what I was doing to myself and again laugh at myself and my thoughts thus popping me out of that dark pit and depression and back into the light.

Every night I would set and watch what was coming up for me in my mind and in my body.  When I would go into this thinking that produced depression or negativity.  I would sometimes get caught up in for a while in the thinking and depression until I would catch myself seeing what I was doing to myself and would laugh at my silliness.  The laughter would feel so good I just dwelled in that feeling until I was tired and there everything would drift back into rest, equanimity and a deep inner peace.

This process made it easier to get to equanimity than if I was just trying to get to equanimity, for the very trying itself worked against my intention.  The more I tried to get out of negativity and into equanimity the more resistance and negativity I experienced.  I realized later that it was my effort or will that was creating the tension within my body/mind that I was experiencing as negativity, pain and suffering and keeping me from the equanimity and clarity I was seeking.

I realized that by going beyond equanimity from the negative into the positive emotional states and then resting in that positive state thus allowing the body/mind/human instrument to relax and drift back to a place of equanimity and inner peace allowing clarity which enable one to see the truth that permanently sets them free to enjoy and love ALL that life has to offer.

Beyond Nonduality

Published on by Jim

I went to talk by a nonduality teacher this week.  He was pretty good as nonduality teachers go (I have heard many teachers of the nonduality persuasion talk and ply their trade).  I have studied the teachers of old who started the modern nonduality movement, I even meditated on Ramana’s bed in the ‘cave’ in India that he gained his enlightenment.  [Ramana is founder of the modern movement http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ramana_Maharshi.]  I know the verbiage or dogma of this philosophical tradition.

As I sat there and listened, particularly to the questions of the audience, I could not help but feel sad as I realized how primitive this method was of dealing with the challenges that people have in their lives.

Obviously, people go to spiritual teachers looking for something, something they do not feel they have.  This sense of lack or the emotional pain they feel is a negative in their life and they are looking for a release from that negativity.  Spiritual teachings and teachers are there to help people find that release from the negativity.

Eastern traditions talk a lot about the end of suffering with the goal being equanimity or inner peace.  Yet, equanimity or inner peace is not what we want, it is only the half way point in our journey.

I can hear it now as the those who see themselves as nondualists read that paragraph above they will ask, “Who is it that seeks this goal, who is it that is on the journey?” But this is all part of their method, to question the idea that we are the doer of anything.   A nondualist questions their assumptions as to their own identity, which traditionally people think of as something that is separate from something else.  For the nondualist there is no separation, they think of the self as infinite and eternal, without form or substance.

The value of this nondualist way of thinking is that when thoughts come up that produce negativity, like the idea that we are going to die, they quickly replace that thought with a thought of non-attachment to the form that dies or incurs some form of loss. Thus diminishing the pain of the contraction of fear and negativity that is the conditioned habitual response most humans have.  The nondualist is not trapped in a negative thought form of concern about what happens to them in the future, after death or so one.

This is all good as far as it goes.  Nonduality is replacing one way of thinking, one philosophy (or theology) with another philosophy (or theology).  It is true that the nonduality way of thinking is an improvement over the traditional dualist way of thinking, but it is still very archaic system for dealing with negativity.  I can see better ways of getting human where they want to go.

Through conditioning the human instrument has learned to react to these thoughts with either contraction/tension or expansion/relaxation.  The eastern tradition tries to introduce a different reaction, or should I say LACK of reaction to thoughts that we have habitually reacted to with contraction.  They try to get us to stop reacting and just be still.  Of course this is very hard, for the very effort to try and stop creates or comes from contractions itself.

What I have seen and what I now do is that I recognize that all this is just thoughts, electro-chemical impulses traveling along the neurons of the brain.  When we recognize that a thought is just a thought and cannot hurt us, it is only our reaction to the thought that causes us harm, then we can directly address the problem of our reaction.  A reaction of contraction (fear based), if held,  is experienced as negative.  Holding on to any idea is just holding our contracted state and that creates a sense of being trapped in a negative state.

We can address this ‘problem’ directly by just practicing relaxing around all thoughts, thus releasing the sense of being trapped in a negative state.

Here is where the eastern traditions are handicapped in their effort to help people release, for they are ONLY seeking to release people from the sense of being trapped in the negative state.

The reality is that we do not want to just be released from negativity, we want to have positive experiences and by practicing positive responses to thoughts we excel PAST equanimity, PAST inner peace, toward a richer, more positive life experience.

We do this by practicing appreciation, joy and love at any and all thoughts we experience.  We stay constantly aware that they are JUST thoughts, electro-chemical impulses traveling along the neurons of the brain and nothing more.  We stay aware that we have a choice about how we react to those thoughts and that we can enjoy the process of thinking, thus creating a positive experience from all thoughts.

This is not a new idea, I am only articulating it in a new way.  I see this idea expressed in many tradition like those that say there is no way to happiness, happiness is the way.  Also in the traditions that teach people to love God or to love one another and to even love our enemies.  All of these traditions are encouraging people to PRACTICE a positive response to thoughts.  It does not matter what you are thinking about, whether it be God or some person or some future or whatever, if you respond to that thought with love or some other positive emotion then you will experience life as positive.

When a person has the capacity or skill to UNCONDITIONALLY love all that life has to offer then they will experience this world as heaven or nirvana and it can be said that they are ‘enlightened’, for they can lighten up and be light-hearted about thoughts of everything that life offers.

From my experience I do not want to ALWAYS practice this.  I actually find value in the negative experiences of contraction to thoughts.  It is those negative or painful reactions that motivate this stupid piece of meat that I call Jim Freedom to get up off his lazy and/or cowardly ass and do something.  But when Jim is tired or sees no way to do anything constructive then he can just sit back and practice his joy and love in heaven or nirvana.

There is value in the equanimity or inner peace, for with equanimity and inner peace we gain clarity that enables us to see the truth that permanently sets us free to fully enjoy and love all that life has to offer.  So I am not saying that we NEVER should allow equanimity only that we do not need to seek equanimity through philosophies or beliefs.

In summary, why go to all the trouble of all these philosophies and theologies?  We really do not need them to get us where we want to go, we can go directly to the positive by just recognizing the thoughts for what they are and recondition ourselves to have positive experiences by practicing positive emotions.

Loving Bullies

Published on by Jim

I love bullies, and that is why bullies have no power over me.

Bullies are people who have learned how to bully by being bullied; they are hurting too.  What they seem to want is for others to hurt as much as they are hurting, or to show them how to stop hurting.

A bully hurts others by words or violence, both to entice an emotional response out of the bullied that causes them to be afraid or in some way emotionally manipulated.

To overcome the power of the bully one practices positive emotions IN SPITE of what the bully is trying to create in you.

This is why I love bullies, for they force me to practice love.

Since I do not want to feel fear or be intimidated, I practice love when my normal conditioning or habit would be to react with fear or some other negative emotion.  This love drives out that feeling of fear or whatever negative emotion I might habitually react with. This practice is not easy at the beginning, but it gets easier.

When I remember that bullies are people who learned how to bully by being bullied I can feel compassion for the bully.  Compassion is an aspect of love, all of which feels good or at least better than the intimidation and fear that the bully seems to want us to feel.

It is the compassion that motivates me to demonstrate to the bully that it is possible to overcome the world and its ability to cause them emotional pain.

I am reminded of a line that Jesus is reported to have said, “What profit you to love those who love you, even the sinners can do that.  So much greater is the profit to love those who persecute you.”

In my experience, my skill or ability to love grows faster when I am challenged to love those who torment, judge or bully me in some way.  It really is easy to love your friends and loved one, anyone can do that.  But you gain so much more in your skill of loving by loving those who torment you.

AND, you are demonstrating to them the way out of their suffering, which in itself is an act of love.  When you no longer feel the pain of the words or mean behaviors because you are no longer reacting to them in a way that causes you pain, then you are demonstrating to them how they too can overcome the world.

The way to end bullying in the world is to first top bullying ourselves by our reactions to what life is offering.  The practice of happiness, joy, love and gratitude in spite of what life is offering is how we stop bullying ourselves.  In my experience, all spiritual traditions around the world and most psychological systems encourage people to practice these positive emotions.

Don’t worry, be happy.

There is no way to happiness; happiness is the way.

The great commandment is to love…

Love one another…

All of these are encourage us to practice positive emotions.

Usually we think that emotions are something that happens to us, not something we have a choice in whether or not we experience.  But when a person endeavors to pursue and effort to developing their ability to feel any emotion at will, they will find that there is no greater gift they can give themselves or other than to make that effort.  Again, this is something that Jesus seemed to be talking about in his teachings but I also see it in the teaching of most great teachers.

We can overcome all bullying if we care enough about ourselves and others to make the effort.  Practicing joy and love in the presence of bullying is how we can get free from bullying and show the bully how they too can get free from those who bully them.

Could Monsanto Be Right?

Published on by Jim

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rAL_AMdMXqY&feature=share

This is a real good short documentary. Did you know that Monsanto has a product out there that is GMO designed to make people infertile? If you eat this GMO food you will no longer be able to make babies. I find that very interesting and in a way good. Only the ignorant people will eat the GMO foods and that will make them infertile so they cannot reproduce. The awakened ones will eat the organic foods and will be able to reproduce. Since our planet is overpopulated with stupid people what Monsanto is doing here is actually good for humanity. I never thought I would say this but, GO Monsanto.

We still need to force GMO labelling so that intelligent or caring people can at least be informed.

Why is the government supporting Monsanto? Maybe this is the reason: the planet is overpopulated, there is no doubt about that. With genetically engineered foods we can decrease the rate of procreation by stupid people by feeding them foods that will sterilize them. Monsanto is working on this job for the government because the big thinkers in the government can see this crisis coming, a crisis that narrow minded people cannot see and do not care about anyway.

Stupid people will not care so they do not read the labels anyway.  They will just eat this toxic food and become sterilized, stopping them from procreating.

I might add that vaccinations are part of this same strategy, vaccinate the stupid people with toxic chemicals that will either kill them or make them sterile. Personally, I do not like this idea but I do recognize the need for something to be done to stop all the baby making in the world. If we do not do things like this then we will destroy the planet we live on.

Education is the solution, not laws or government. We have to educate those who have ears to hear and let the others pass away.  We do not need to outlaw GMO foods, we just need to inform the people who care enough about themselves to be informed.  The stupid people will not listen anyway.  Using government to limit the options here will only delay the problem and make it worst in the long run.

Label those GMO foods but not make them illegal.

Master Your Mind

Published on by Jim

Master your own mind.  This is the heart of the message of all the great teachers or ‘masters’ that ever existed, be they called Buddhas or Christs, for they were masters over their own minds and hence masters over the world.

Meditation or ‘watching’ is just the process of watching your own mind so that you can see how it works and then become a master over it.  Meditation enables us to gain clarity and it is with clarity that we can see the truth that sets us free to enjoy and love all that life offers us.

The Four Steps or Four Skills, which I call the Four Ss, enable us to come to that place of clarity.  When you follow these steps, you develop these skills and then whenever you have lost the light within these steps or skills enable you to get back to clarity which again allows you to see the truth that sets you free to go back to enjoying and loving ALL that life has to offer.

When you have found the perfect truth that sets you perfectly free to love unconditionally ALL that life has to offer, and then you will know the Nirvana, the Heaven that is here, now, and AT HAND.

What is Unconditional Love?

Published on by Jim

I do not want to talk about theory or philosophy here; I really want to talk from my personal experience of Unconditional Love.

It took me a lot of work, time just asking myself what I wanted, listening to that inner voice or guidance, before I realized I prefer the experience of loving what life is offering to not loving what life is offering.  AND, it took a lot of work to cut through all the beliefs I had that restricted or limited my opportunity to love.  I had so many beliefs that told me I cannot love this or I cannot love that.  With time and a willingness to look at these beliefs, I eventually saw through ALL of those beliefs that limit my love.

I LOVE to love.  Love is the richest experience I have ever found, or at least love is the word I use to describe the richest experience I have ever had.  Therefore, I had to ask myself, why would I create or allow any conditions to exist that would limit my experience of love?

With a willingness to examine my beliefs and doing so, I realized that there are no good reasons to limit my love.

So now, I can and often do Unconditionally Love ALL that life has to offer.

When I love unconditionally all that life has to offer then I am experiencing Unconditional Love.

It does not matter if another or even the whole world can love me unconditionally, if I do no love then I will not know love.  As someone else once said, the measure you give is the measure you shall receive.

Does this mean that I will always CHOOSE to love what life is offering? No!  Part of life is the experience of fear, hate or whatever emotion life is offering, and I want to have these experiences too.  With consciousness or awareness that I have a choice on what type of emotion I experience, I have the freedom to choose the experience of love or not, it is not conditional upon external situations.

I do not need a complicated philosophy or theology to allow me to love unconditionally.  I do not need any person or object to practice the art of love.  I choose to love unconditionally when love is the experience I want to have.

I also find that with this unconditional love in my heart I have less or no need to see others change, yet I am available to demonstrate that change is an option if you should want it.  Loving what life is offering makes me a softer, kinder person.