Alignment

If you want to achieve anything, bring yourself into alignment with everything. If you want to be happy, do the same.

If you want to know who you truly are, employ that exact approach. If you want to soar to new heights of effortless attainment and at the same time journey to the centre of your being, while enjoying an ongoing feeling of thrilling fulfillment, come into absolute alignment.

Alignment is intelligence.

Alignment is a surrender of the self. It is a relinquishing of all attempts to control. It is the dissolution of the sense of separation, and is, thus, the reunion with the experience of oneness.

It is a return to the truth. It means getting back into the flow, allowing the stream of life and all existence to move unhindered. It is not ego-bound. 

No wonder it brings achievement. No wonder it is blissful. Now wonder it takes you up as much as it draws you in.

Alignment is a coming home to being nothing. This is how it is everything.

Alignment is alchemy.

Imitation

The universe has created just one of you, just one in all of existence. Your specificity is assured and asserted, a special gesture of creation. 

No matter who has lived before and what they have done in their lives, you are still obligated only to your uniqueness, your own singular self. Your job is not to imitate in any way. You are bound to your own being. 

Your work is to be yourself. Your salvation is in fully realising who you are.

Each individual is here to fulfil their particular function, not to follow the way or precedent of anyone else. If someone suggests that you simulate them, they are not a true teacher. 

A master turns you back onto yourself and leaves you to find and define your own personal path. A sincere source of insight knows that you are your own source, and they insist that you live your personal and incomparable piece of perfection. 

Imitation is for frauds and fools.

New INSIGHTS Book Chosen

A newly-written book needs time to sit before it gets published. The author needs time away from it, too, before he can re-enter it as a reader and editor.

The book I finished writing a couple of months ago, book 15 in the INSIGHTS series, and I needed these things respectively, and so I took a break from the keyboard, and read some of the nine other titles lined up in the sequence.

There were the four books written between SEXIER INSIGHTS (book 10, which came out in November 2014) and the just-finished one, all of which made possible successors.

Then there were earlier books, like the one straight after TRUER (book 4), or the one three after that, which, I realised on revisiting it, is very strong. But then, so are all of them in their way and their place.

So which one would come out next, making a suitable symbol for the anniversary of my setting out twenty years ago and coining the phrase ‘being yourself for a living’?

For a while I had wanted it to be the one before the latest, written in 2015, because of the title, but I was also still partial to sharing the one immediately before that, also written in 2015, as it travels through India and climaxes in Thailand.

I looked at the whole series in a way I had not done before, by re-reading more than half the unpublished titles, and now having fifteen in total (including the five already in print). I began to suspect strongly, though, that the latest one would come out next. Still, I suspended judgement. Then I revisited it with perspective and I knew for sure. It’s the one.

I’m a couple of edits and a cover design away from announcing the title, but I can say that it is a fitting one for the occasion, and the book is brimming with where things are at.

New INSIGHTS Book Update

2016 marks twenty years since I set out on my own and coined the phrase 'being yourself for a living' as a description of my experience and, while I was at it, a vision for humanity.

As part of this twentieth anniversary, I will be releasing a new INSIGHTS book, the sixth in the series, the title of which is still to be announced. This is owing to anticipation-inducing tactics, but also to me still deciding which book it will be.

There are five titles out so far, and ten more written, from which I am working to choose the next sequel. There is the one I recently finished writing, and the one immediately before that, produced in the second half of 2015. Both have an immediacy to them, and both have names that fit with the occasion and the significance of the anniversary.

Then there are others earlier in the series that have been waiting years to be put out into the world. They will all be released in due course, and I have been reading through them, looking at the whole body of work in a way I had not done until now.

Each book has a theme, its own shape, and a place in the growing picture. It's fascinating and fulfilling to see them slotting together. Which one will be released in 2016?

The answer is coming.

Reflection

I see myself reflected in the mirror

I see myself reflected in the tap

I see myself reflected in my lover

I see myself in the object and the gap

I see myself reflected in my feelings

I see myself reflected in my thoughts

I see myself reflected in my actions

I see myself in my books, of course

I see myself reflected in the window

I see myself reflected in my friends

I see myself in the past and in the future

I know myself in the now that never ends

 

Story

I looked at your breasts and then at your face. I have no regrets, they both have their place. I looked at your heart and saw empty space. I strode through the mall with a natural-lit grace. 

I finished a call from a friend near and dear. I sat down for lunch and ordered a beer. I valued much more my just being here. I saw him aspire to live like I steer. 

I wrote in the sun and this is what came. I drank in the light and remembered my name. I felt my heart open to more of the same. I let my life lift to new heights of my game.

I got so excited it surely was showing. I got the full feeling of knowing and flowing. I loved where I am and where I am going.

I thought of your breasts and my cheeks started glowing.

Trying

Trying is a quick route to tension and trouble. As soon as you exert yourself, you induce anguish. 

As soon as you aspire, you set up a struggle with the way things are. If you are already in hell, it won't make much difference if you turn up the heat, so trying might seem entirely fitting for you, perhaps even somewhat redemptive, in the short term anyway. 

But when you are in tune, even the slightest attempt will tell you immediately that you have gone wrong. 

 

Things should arise from within you and synchronise with what surrounds you. Your job is to be present, that's all. 

This is where creativity flows best and easiest, and it is where you are most harmonious with the world. You act on your inspiration and connect with your context, effortlessly, entirely in the flow. 

Trying is not in the flow. Trying seems appropriate when you are out of synch and want to induce a solution. Trying seems appealing when you are unfed from your source and need to compensate with external attention, accolades and assets. 

Trying is ego-driven and ego-affirming. It seems like a solution when you are the problem. Trying cannot work. You need to stop doing it.

You need to get back to being.

Hero

The 'being yourself for a living' journey is a heroic one. The valiance happens within, and it happens in relationships. You are the hero of your own life and also in the community.

Part of your job is spiritual and part of it is social. The hero is at the centre in both instances.

Being yourself for a living means going beyond the bounds of social convention and consciousness, and bringing back insights for the benefit of the tribe.

The artist explores the outer reaches of awareness and returns to translate findings into creative expression for the well-being and evolution of the collective.

The shaman shifts out of group-think and shows the boundaries and the beyond to the clan. The warrior risks rejection, endures ambivalence, faces fear, embraces aloneness, and performs a transformative function.

She is a rebel. He is a change agent. She is a teacher. He is a wizard.

They are all heroes.

Acceptance

Nothing trumps acceptance and nothing can. If anything tries to, you can simply accept it. 

You can accept everything as it is. Pain. Illness. Death. What can any of these do if you accept them? They fall below you and you rise above. 

Acceptance makes you transcendent. It makes you detached. It frees you from form and frustration. It lets you be who you are. 

Ego cannot accept, it always resists, so acceptance is above ego. It is the quick and easy way out of ego identity. 

You can cultivate it anytime and employ it at particular times. When you remember or get the chance, you can actively accept everything and feel the world open up. You can feel all worry, tension and pain fall away and the essence of all things rise to meet you. 

Or you can catch yourself at particular points of resistance and be particularly accepting at those times. 

Acceptance transforms whatever you are going through into enlightenment.

Hand

How much do you love when you hold a newborn's hand? How overwhelming, powerful and pure is that feeling? It comes from somewhere sincere, not superficial. It isn't considered, budgeted or logical. It is not from the horizontal plane. 

It shoots through you from deep in your core, restoring your sense of the vertical, the veritable, the vital. Holding a baby's hand reminds you of who you are and how to love. It reconnects you with the essential. 

How much do you love when you hold an old person's hand? Brittle and vulnerable, it carries such gentle power, such wisdom, such grace. It has seen and done so much, helped so many for so long. It has touched lots of lives and survived many trials, yet it remains more tender than ever. 

The feeling overcomes you, cuts away all callousness, gives you great knowing of your true nature along with your frailty. It makes you grateful and reverent. It shows you love. 

How much do you love when you look at your own hands? How old are they? How far have they come? Do they contain elements of a newborn and qualities of an aged body? 

Are they still as sensitive as the pads on a puppy's paw? Do they still hum with life force and beauty? No matter the circumstance, vitality endures like a new morning. Freshness is always in the ether. 

You are worthy of your true love. 

We forget how to live and who we are, as the worldly tries to swallow us up every day. When we do have glimpses, we still find it easier to love others than we do to be true and close to ourselves. We have hands and hearts but we lose touch with them, which makes us unwell in the world. 

Loving heals. The way home is to return to love. 

How much do you love when you hold a newborn's hand? How much do you love when you hold an old person's hand?

This is how to love yourself. 

Vision

Where are we going? We are about to find out. Where is the world heading? We are choosing right now.

Who is choosing? That's up to you, to us. Are you proceeding in authenticity and full awareness? The time has come to live a total yes.

Something completely new needs to be born. Are you its birth? If not, you may be dying. Things are certainly changing. We cannot keep going the way things have been misled.

People are waking up. They are perhaps not sure how to proceed or how to speak up, because of fear or feeling isolated, but every single step by every single individual is significant. Your choices are transformation itself. Simply be the new, now.

Don't be afraid to be yourself for a living.

How will this look? You will find out by doing it. You will create it by walking it. You already know in your heart.

You already see clearly around you the nature and consequences of the false. You can see the corruption and the crumbling. Face the facts.

Come from your inner core. Lift the heavy weight of your head and step forward from your soul. Step out of the dark shadow and into your light.

Drop the slavery and prostitution of the past and be uncompromisingly true to yourself in your vocation and your moment-to-moment existence. Drop conformity and realise authenticity.

Don't expect the answers before you take action, let them arise from your courageous and total presence. The new emerges in presence.

Be this vision for you, your immediate loved ones and for all of humanity. Do it for life itself.

Take your stand.

Resolve

You have more resolve than you realise. You will only discover it under duress. 

You will be challenged, beaten down, disrespected, disregarded, exploited, ignored and left to stew in the pain, frustration and self pity. Only when you are fed up enough and pushed past your limits will you dig deeply and find what you have in store. 

Resolve is on the other side of tears. You have to break before you become unbreakable.

In this world, you are going to get bullied everywhere you turn, in the classroom, the boardroom and the bedroom. Used, abused and then blamed as if it was all your doing. 

You were born into subversive slavery and your kids have already been sold. It is a fight at every turn for your dignity. 

It may not be entirely your doing but you are still responsible. Those are the two key words: responsibility and resolve.

People are weak. People are cowards. People are crooks. People are corrupt. People are lost. People are violent. People are unconscious. People are revolting. 

Yet people are supremely strong. People are fearless. People are just living by their highest values at the time. People know in their hearts what is true and right. People are loving and gentle. People are aware. People are beautiful.

You are fully legitimate. You are fully deserving. You are the ocean in a drop, the whole universe in a single cell. 

You have everything within you.

Claim it.

Permission

Being yourself for a living comes down to giving yourself permission. Doing that is a lifetime's work. The issue is there with you every step of the journey. 

What are you allowing? What do you grant yourself? Do you feel worthy? Do you do things for the right reasons? What have you given yourself permission to experience and enjoy in life? How much are you holding yourself back?

Permission is there wherever you turn. What did your parents and teachers allow you to do, think and feel? Who did they let you be? Have you ever had permission to be yourself?

Are you upholding the limits taught to you by others? Are ancestral patterns preventing the actualisation of your individuality? Are you unconsciously telling yourself no?

Are governmental and corporate values defining your life? Have you signed over your power to the system in exchange for a false sense of security? Are you keeping yourself a child by avoiding responsibility? Are you stuck at a juvenile stratum of emotional development? 

Permission clips our wings. Permission puts us in a cage. Permission comes from the outside but then sets in as a prison we lock from the inside. We give power mongers permission to control us. We give ourselves permission to be poor. 

Once you are on the path of being yourself for a living, though, the issue of permission comes boomeranging back and kicks you in the teeth. How can you consciously continue killing your greatest gifts? How can you be true when you are living a lie? 

How can you grow up when you are staying stuck? How can you live the dream if you won't wake up?

Being rich comes down to giving yourself permission.  

Leaving

Getting out of town isn't easy. Getting on a plane isn't plain sailing.

Getting everything ready to go; getting everything organised for while you're away; getting yourself dislodged from routines and comforts; getting your goodbyes said and the dirty work done; getting so many decisions made and so few bags packed with so much in such a short space of time; getting through the roller coaster ride of emotions; getting to the airport on adrenaline; and, getting your threadbare self into that upright seat, is a long list to get through.

You only just make it, every time. It takes some trusty thrust to get over that threshold.

Leaving is seldom light. It carries the burden of endings. It wears the weight of sizable spiritual and emotional work. It holds you down until you work yourself loose and lunge into the new and unknown. Leaving comes at a price. It cannot be taken lightly.

It's like a death; a symbolic and psychological termination; a rushing as time seems to accelerate; a sorting out as you race towards a dwell point in the imminent future. It presents you with issues and insights that you would normally not notice. It stirs up tensions you usually gloss over.

It puts you in touch and makes you sensitive. It makes you more alive. Leaving takes you along with it as you get sucked through a porthole into...

You have to leave and find out.