Like many, I lost some friends and even some distant relations in this tragedy as well as a High School classmate that was a flight attendant on one of the planes involved.  Few in this country were not touched very personally by the almost three thousand deaths resulting from these terrorist acts.  As a result, the past ten years for many have been years of pain, loss, and in many cases an anger that has not diminished.

Many of us have committed ourselves to living lives of presence and enlightenment that cannot be maintained with these emotions and motivations as a constant.  And yet the fact is that the events of September 11th 2011 cannot be denied.

Living in denial of these facts would be just as destructive to the lives we are seeking to lead at any rate, so where does that leave us?

First let me say that I will not tell you that you should not mourn the loss of loved ones, friends or the same of those close to you.  Living a life of presence, consciousness and enlightenment doesn't mean suppressing natural emotions in such circumstances.

I will ask you to do whatever mourning you need to, and then to allow these people to be a part of that life you seek to lead.

With or without these types of  tragic events, lPeople will come and go from the fabric of our lives.  Yet these lives were taken from us suddenly and with savage violence.  We had no opportunity to prepare ourselves for the loss, and this makes the pain itself almost like a physical wound.

This is not a pain that you could or should try to suppress,  We must all accept the pain and anguish of these losses as real.  To resist this is as futile as it is dangerous to our own wellbeing: Physical, Emotional and Spiritual.

• The loss of these people from our lives is real.
  

• The loss of these people from our lives is tragic.

• The loss of these people from our lives is a fact that we cannot and should not deny.

The acceptance of the loss of these people from my own life and the lives of my friends and family plus the experience of mourning them as individuals is an important memory for me.  It is also a key part to living the life of presence, consciousness and enlightenment that I seek to live.

How can that be?

Accepting the loss of even those that are the closest to us means experiencing pain.  It means going through some sort of mourning and sometimes if there is someone that bears some direct (or even indirect) responsibility for that loss it can mean dealing with some anger as well.

Any one of these can cause all sorts of emotional paralyses or handicaps that render the individual unable to function with presence and consciousness because they simply cannot process anything else.

This is natural…

We are talking about some very powerful feelings because we are talking about people that are very important to us.  Trying to deny this is, again futile!

I wholeheartedly encourage you to ignore anyone telling you to "Just get over it!" and allow yourself to feel whatever it is that comes to you.  The very act of non-denial of these emotions will prevent the emotions from taking over your life, and therefore your presence and consciousness ongoing.  

People get stuck in emotional cycles that they deny, and not in emotional processes that are allowed to run their natural course.  

As we go through whatever emotional cycle of process is appropriate (for us and nobody else!) we will discover how this loss will fit into our continual presence and consciousness ongoing.  Be sure however, to do the following:

• Cherish the memory of your unique mourning experience for each individual lost:  This is the end of an important phase in your relationship with them.

• Don't assume your relationship is over:  The life lessons and experiences you shared with them will continue to instruct you, and perhaps with more poignancy than ever before.  

• Accept that the loss makes way for more connections in your life, and that this is no reason for any feelings of guilt.  You didn't ask for this gap to be created, so there is no possibility for appropriate guilt to be assessed.

Now let's talk about those heroic individuals that lost their lives endeavoring to save the lives of those caught in these attacks.  These amazing people dedicated their lives to protecting and serving their fellow humankind.  Such people are an enormous source of the most powerful and positive energy in all of creation.  

And their acts of selfless heroism and service to all of the victims of these cowardly and hateful acts are even more so.  This is really powerful stuff people.  In spite of the horrid nature of what happened, first responders and all of those that rose to this occasion imbued it with enough positive energy to do exponentially more good than the bad done in taking all those thousands of lives.

If you are like some that I know quite well, you may have lost quite a few people in your life that were first responders at ground zero.  Many of the rest of us also feel a connection to and a sadness for the loss of these amazing individuals as a direct result of their being the source of so much that is good and beneficial.  What is involved here is not just amazement and appreciation for their heroic acts, but powerful natural laws of attraction that we need to be in harmony with.  

But remember: First last and foremost, these were people.  Husbands, wives, sons and daughters.  And their loss must first be dealt with in those terms, especially if they were a part of our personal lives.

Considering how their dedication to their calling allowed so many to avoid a premature loss to so many can and should allow us to connect to the energy and essence of these individuals. This therefore increases our presence, consciousness and connectedness to the positive energy that continues to bring us all enlightenment throughout our lives.   

What this can mean cumulatively for all humankind is staggering.

Aside from the serenity, satisfaction and purpose that living a life of presence and consciousness brings, there is a far large issue involved.  The larger the segment of humankind living their lives this way becomes, the more this connection will benefit us.  

The size of this contingent of mankind is not just dependent on the spiritual curiosity that may or may not exist within our population.  We actually manifest that "spiritual curiosity" and in reality spiritual need for connection through the energy that we emanate.  

I would be the last person to try and tell someone that their father, mother, son or daughter was taken from them because "God needed another angel", but indeed there is more going on here than we are seeing on the surface.  

We each must find our own meaning in all of this, but the greatest tragedy that could come from any of this is that it causes us to lose our:

• Presence in the moment:  
• Consciousness of what is happening all around us in that moment.
• The Fulfillment and Enlightenment that comes from living our live thus…

This can still be how we live our lives.  Not just in spite of catastrophic events like those of September 11th, 2001 but sometimes it can be amplified by them.  Just remember:

Experience your loss, as you need to.  Don't let others define what an "appropriate" level of grief is, and don't resist the need for this pain and sorrow.

Accept that life has changed, and that it is in no way a betrayal for that change to become a positive part of your life going forward.  

Stay Present!  

Stay Conscious!

And most of all:

Seek to align yourself with the positive energy that is as much a part of these events as were the hatred and destructive energy were motivators for the perpetrators and architects of these losses from all of our lives.

We all have seen and heard the people that concentrate all of their energy and spend their lives on hatred and spite for the misguided and disconnected "evil-doers" of 9-11.  The energy of all types that radiates out from these events is undeniable.  Each of us will add to that energy by amplifying whichever form of that energy we align ourselves with.

Make no mistake, you must consciously and with present aforethought choose to align yourself with the energy of connectedness and goodwill toward all of humankind.  Otherwise your choice by default is to amplify the hatred, and ill will of the perpetrators through the dysfunctionally endless cycles of pain and sorrow they caused.  

And what kind of monument is that for those we have lost…

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Living a life of peace and serenity is a goal shared by more and more people today.   While the overall impression you get from the media as well as from society in general is that they are nowhere to be found…

A life of peace and serenity is available to each and every one of us though with certain principles operating in our lives.  In previous articles I have written about the role of Don Miguel Ruiz Toltec teachings of The Four Agreements contribute to this pursuit, and for me they are a vital piece of the puzzle.

The Power of Now by Eckhart Tolle gives us ever more powerful tools allowing us to get closer and closer to this aim.  Just as Don Miguel taught us from his Toltoc background, Mr Tolle brings together information from far ranging sources and ties them together into a fabric that also allows us to get closer still.

These two aspects of our being are quite important, and can get us closer to living in peaceful bliss all by themselves than most people ever will.  One of the final pieces to this puzzle requires us to examine a very seminal part of our lives, backgrounds and the nature of our existence as it relates to our creator.

Whatever our level of faith, few of us are ignorant of the details of the Eden story.  And just about all are profoundly affected by it's implications, for good – peace and serenity,  or for bad – isolation and conflict preventing our attaining that same peaceful serenity..

Stop now and consider the Eden story.

What was the one limitation that God gave to Adam and Eve governing their life in the garden?  

• GEN 2:16,17 And Jehovah God commanded the man, saying, Of every tree of the garden thou mayest freely eat: but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it: for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die.      

So the one rule set by the creator for humans to live in paradise (assumably a peaceful and serene existence) was tied to the knowledge of good and evil:

• GEN 3:1-5 Now the serpent was more subtle than any beast of the field which Jehovah God had made. And he said unto the woman, Yea, hath God said, Ye shall not eat of any tree of the garden?  And the woman said unto the serpent, Of the fruit of the trees of the garden we may eat:  but of the fruit of the tree which is in the midst of the garden, God hath said, Ye shall not eat of it, neither shall ye touch it, lest ye die.  And the serpent said unto the woman, Ye shall not surely die: for God doth know that in the day ye eat thereof, then your eyes shall be opened, and ye shall be as God, knowing good and evil.

In the Eden account our creator thought it so important to our wellbeing that we not decide for ourselves what is right and what is wrong but to accept his own judgement that he equates it with death.  

A great deal of emphasis is placed today in deciding for ourselves what is right and what is wrong.  A great deal of controversy also surrounds exactly what it is that our creator considers to be good and evil!

So how do we go about this?

We can only really be guided by this if we seek to connect to our creator on a continuous basis.  So for us Good is equated with anything that aids in our connection to Our creator, the universe and our fellow humans.  Conversely, anything that hinders or even seeks to limit that connection is Evil…

We "Lay Down The Fruit" of the Tree of Knowledge by making that connection our chief aim.  

What is more, the greater the number of people that are seeking to establish this connection, the easier it becomes as well as the more powerful it is.  

The only path to a life of peace and serenity is through connection to the creator, the universe and the rest of humanity.  Seeking to live our lives by "The Four Agreements" and living "In The Now"  will only make this easier.  And that connection is how we show our creator that we accept that it is NOT up to us to decipher Good & Evil.

The message of the Eden story is clear to me.  If I want to live a life of peace and serenity.  This is the road to it…

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I was having a conversation with a close friend today about how to connect with God, The Universe and the rest of humankind to attain a more enjoyabe, fulfilling and peaceful life.  As with many in this country, my friend had been brought up in a Christian faith, and the stumbling block that reared it's head was "The Old Blame Game."

As I work with individuals to attain their spiritual goals, it is almost predictable that at a certain point in the conversation they will say exactly what my friend did this morning: 

"So you're saying it's my fault?"

A conversation followed wherein I tried to assure her that this wasn't the case, but the reality of the situation is this:

To progress meaningfully in a spiritual sense, you will eventually have to opt out of the need for Blame & Guilt.

Obviously the need to assign blame has a different psychological need than to punish oneself with guilt, but they really are two sides of the same coin.  And the cold hard fact is that they are both destructive to what we want and where we want to be.

Letting go of these twin concepts will do more for for your spiritual progress than any other single thing you can address.

In spite of what I said above, it isn't just those with a Judeo-Christian upbringing that have this hangup, but with or without an ingrained need for forgiveness in one's belief structure we can logically eliminate guilt, and by extrapolation the need to find someone at fault.

Let's start with our Judeo-Christian friends:

• Needing Forgiveness – Most of us brought up in western society were brought up with the concept of sin being an ingrained part of us, and that we therefore have a need for forgiveness unobtainable except via a savior (Jesus Christ) or through ritual sacrifice.  Our inherently sinful nature renders us unacceptable to God without his forgiveness.  The answer to this lies in the definition of sin.  As used in the Hebrew Scriptures the word Sin carries the meaning of Missing the Mark.  So anything that leaves us short of the "Mark" or all that we should be, falls under "Sin".  

This concept of human perfection is one that leaves most people feeling needlessly hopeless in their pursuit of contentment.  So how does someone escape from this trap?  By understanding that Jesus role as savior and in the forgiveness of ALL sins, that any guilt that we actually have is already paid for.  So holding onto residual guilt is not just counterproductive and unnecessary, it means that we are not accepting the very vehicle that was set in place to allow us the peace we seek.

Having accepted the forgiveness the ransom sacrifice holds out to us means that we have perfection imparted to us.  And just what does this perfection mean?

It means that we once again can become perfect through our connection to God, his creation and our likeminded brothers and sisters in humankind.  

We have then "Hit The Mark!"  and are no longer imperfect sinners!  This leaves us free to make the connection we need to achieve peace, contentment and enlightenment.

• Not Needing Forgiveness – If your belief system has not ingrained in you a need to be forgiven, then we can approach this from a much more pragmatic standpoint.  Each and every one of us would like to be given the benefit of the doubt as we go about our lives that we are not trying to do something hurtful or wronging others.  It becomes very easy to lay aside the Blame & Guilt game if we just keep in mind that this is true of the people we deal with every day as well.

There is an old NLP saying that sums this up quite nicely:  "Everybody is doing the best they can with the resources available to them."

I probably say this to myself at least 5 times each and every day.  

Think about it:  You have no idea what the person that cut you off in traffic, or that threw an insult at you had happen in their life today.  You also don't know what their childhood was like, or what aptitudes skills and/or diseases they have, or lack!  

There is a whole wealth of information we don't have about that person, but we do know that they are using everything they have in them to deal with what life is throwing at them in every moment of every day.  We know this because it is true of ourselves as well.  

If we want the benefit of the doubt, that we are doing out best to deal with life's challenges then we need to give that same benefit to each and every person we come across.

And if we succeed?

Without the Blame & Guilt game obstructing us, we are free to connect to a higher plane of existence that is available to any and all that reach out for it.  

Connecting to that life will not necessarily make life's challenges disappear, but it will feel like it has!

I had this conversation with another friend a while back and when I ran into him again, I asked how he was doing with this and he said: "I'm working really hard on it!"

Don't do that! I said.  

We must each approach all of this very lightly.  If we are "Working very hard on it."  Then we are worrying or obsessing over it, and that will not work.  Just understand the unnecessary nature of the whole thing and lay it down!

That is the whole point…

Jim Patterson

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Most of us have heard the Socrates quotation “The unexamined life is not worth living.” Well we have learned the hard way that neither is the Over-Examined life too hot either.  Living a balanced life however, is the best way of all.  Going about seeking balance has it’s own challenges that can only be overcome with Clarity of Mind.  In my experience, the best way to attain this is be associating with individuals and groups of people that have this in spades.  It isn’t even necessary for them to be people in the same fields of study and/or endeavor.  Neither do they need to be in agreement when their fields overlap, or even to agree with your own beliefs and perspectives.

If you take a look at the bottom of the sidebar of this page you will find the RSS feed to the TED YouTube channel.  TED is a group of 1,000 people that are invited each year to a summit where they speak on their own arenas of interest.  The best minds of the world from Tony Robbins to Stephen Hawking and from Rick Warren to Dan Dennett each speaker is an able speaker with an amazing mind.

If you want to stretch your mind and achieve clarity, you can do no better than to listen to these speakers.  Each segment is about 20 minutes long, and whether you agree or strongly oppose what is being said, I guarantee you will be benefited by the time you spend listening to these well thought out presentations.

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The book is said to be taken from ancient Toltec teachings, and does indeed have some interesting archival information on Toltec legend and how it leads into the main body of the work, which is made up of the Four Agreements themselves.

This part of the book is simple, straightforward and accessible without being tedious.  This may be why it is such a small volume, but don’t be fooled it is packed with useful and usable insights and teachings.  The Four Agreements are:

1.  Be Impeccable With Your Word. This may not sound like ground breaking stuff, until you consider what is meant by this.  Ruiz stresses the vital import of being impeccable with your word to yourself. It is made quite clear however that this is not just self serving but beneficial to society as a whole.  Seeking to do no harm by your words or actions so that your own path is not hindered is a vital aspect of the first agreement.

2.  Do Not Take Anything Personally. A very difficult agreement for many to keep if you consider the animosity between people as a matter of course, but quite simple in application.  Once you understand that people are reacting to their own internal dialog (or dream as Ruiz teaches us) it becomes much easier to separate the words and actions of others from ourselves.  This agreement brought to mind the NLP thought: Everyone is doing the best they can with the resources available to them.

3.  Do Not Make Assumptions. Closely related in some ways to the second agreement, this deals with our tendency to not take into account that there is almost always more to any situation than we are aware of.  Acknowledging that we are not omniscient removes so much emotional detritus from our lives that this agreement alone will relieve a huge amount of stress from our lives.

4.  Always Do Your Best. The part of this that makes it such a vital agreement is understanding that your best will be a dynamic thing.  Your best will be better at some times than it will at others, and you must accept this!  If you always to the best you can in that moment then you can be at peace with the results, knowing that your effort held all you could do with the knowledge and resources at your disposal.  Notice the synergy with the previous two agreements?

An important aspect here is that these four agreements are ones that you are making with yourself.  As such they require the cooperation of no other individuals, and are therefore adoptable by any one that chooses to do so.  They are meant to replace agreements you have already made with yourself: agreements that are destructive to yourself on almost every level.

Integrate these four positive and constructive agreements with a life lived in the ever unfolding present moment and it will add joy to your life, and even more importantly remove pain and stress from your life nearly effortlessly.

The Four Agreements: A Practical Guide to Personal Freedom,

A Toltec Wisdom Book

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You see it in the news, in politics, in discussions about religion, in the wars being waged across the globe, and on the streets of our cities, in the business world…

Just about everywhere. It is so pervasive that it makes people more than a little obsessive about their belief systems. It causes people to get so entrenched in dogma and their own rigid and frequently narrow viewpoints, that the actuality of life in this universe gets missed in the hysteria.

Having said that, you may be surprised that I do believe that this struggle is being waged, and is at a crucial point as we speak…

The only way to understand the nature of this struggle however, is to understand what actually is Good and what actually is Evil. And the shocking thing is that to understand the nature of this struggle and really take part in the most important issue facing mankind today is to put most of your own personal belief structure aside!

Huh?!

The fact of the matter is that the real nature of this battle is tied directly tho the greatest Good in the Universe: Awareness or Consciousness, Presence in the Moment, and Connection to the Universe and it’s Creator.

Which means that the greatest Evil is being Unaware or Unconscious, Living Oblivious to the Present, and being Isolated from the Universe.

As you can see, this means that most of what people are centered on, and spend their lives and energies fighting about and either for or against, is immaterial to the real battle being waged. And this is the misdirection that goes on each and every day, not only robbing people of the happiness they could be experiencing in their lives individually, but also halts the progress of humankind as they seek to progress as a race.

No, I am not oblivious to the issues facing the world, creation as a whole, and humankind today. I just see these issues as all related to this far greater issue, and subservient to it…

The only hope we really have of overcoming war, hunger, poverty, disease and the host of other ills running rampant across the globe has no political, activist or military solution. So how can these be addressed? For that matter can they be addressed?

The only way they can or will be addressed is when the rising tide of Conscious, Aware and Connected individuals sweep away the inert masses of the inert population that have bought into the old and established ideas about what is necessarily Good or Evil by nature.

Let’s be clear! I am not advocating or predicting a military action or violence against those choosing not to align themselves with my own view of what constitutes Good and Evil. When I say that the inert masses will be swept away, what I mean is that their inertia, their lack of Awareness, Consciousness and Connection will be swept away and mankind will flourish as a result.

The battle will be won by Good without a doubt. It is only a matter of time. Why?

Because the most powerful force in the Universe can only be accessed through connection with the Universe and it’s Creator. Becoming Aware. Becoming Conscious. Becoming Connected with the very source of dynamic energy is the quickest avenue to a better life for each of us as individuals, and for humankind as a whole.

Thanks for listening…

Jim

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