One night in the early days of my six-month tenure managing a holistic healing retreat center in Puerto Escondido, Oaxaca, Mexico, our community gathered as we always do for the evening activity. This evening’s activity focused on a discussion of the ten spiritual realms. The person sharing his knowledge on the subject was a short Italian traveler and devout Buddhist named Lorenzo.

His claim to fame at the retreat center was being voted most likely to be found chanting the mantra: “Namu Myōhō Renge Kyō”, which means “Devotion to the Mystic Law of the Lotus Sutra” or “Glory to the Sutra of the Lotus of the Supreme Law.” In his words: “Namu Myōhō Renge Kyō is a vow, an expression of determination, to embrace and manifest our Buddha nature. It is a pledge to oneself to never yield to difficulties and to win over one’s suffering. At the same time, it is a vow to help others reveal this law in their own lives and achieve happiness.” This is the central mantra chanted within all forms of Nichiren Buddhism and Tendai Buddhism. The practice of prolonged chanting is referred to as shōdai while the purpose of chanting daimoku is to reduce sufferings by eradicating negative karma along with reducing karmic punishments both from previous and present lifetimes, with the goal to attain perfect and complete awakening. Sometimes he would be found chanting this mantra for hours at a time. This was his “thing” and we loved him for it!

In the very beginning of his talk he looked at each of us wide-eyed and asked the group: “Has anyone here ever been in hell?” I looked around the room and after a few seconds of waiting, slowly raised my hand. Without hesitation, he looked me directly in the eyes and said “Good! Now you can help others get out.” There are few things that people have said to me throughout my life that I know will stay with me forever; this was one of them. So began our intro to the ten spiritual realms.

The 10 Spiritual Realms as described by Nichiren Daishonin are listed below. Broken into two parts, the first six (Hell, Hunger, Animality, Anger, Humanity & Heaven) are derived from the Indian concept of the six realms of rebirth. Above these lie the four holy states (Learning, Realization, Bodhisattva & Buddhahood)

Ten Spiritual Realms:

1. Hell or Jigokudō: A state of suffering and despair in which we perceive we have no freedom of action. It is characterized by the impulse to destroy ourselves and everything around us. It is also commonly referred to being in s state of mind completely absent of hope and being unable to construct our future in our minds.
2. Hunger, Hungry Ghosts or Pretas: The state of being controlled by insatiable desire for money, power, status etc. While desires are inherent in any of the Ten Worlds, in this state we are at the mercy of our cravings and cannot control them.
3. Animality, Beasts or Chikushōdō: In this state, we are ruled by instinct with neither reason nor moral sense nor the ability to make long-range judgments. We operate by the law of the jungle and will not hesitate to take advantage of those weaker than ourselves and fawn on those who are stronger.
4. Anger, Titans, Asuras or Shuradō: Here, awareness of ego emerges, but it is a selfish, greedy, distorted ego, determined to best others at all costs and seeing everything as a potential threat to itself. In this state we value only ourselves and tend to hold others in contempt.
5. Humanity or Jindō (also known as Tranquility): This is a flat, passive state of life, from which we can easily shift into the lower four worlds. While we may generally behave in a humane fashion in this state, we are highly vulnerable to strong external influences.
6. Heaven: This is a state of intense joy stemming, for example, from the fulfillment of some desire, a sense of physical well being, or inner contentment. Though intense, the joy experienced in this state is short-lived and also vulnerable to external influences.
7. Learning, Śrāvaka or Shōmon: In this state, we seek the truth through studying the teachings or experience of others.
8. Realization, Pratyekabuddha or Engaku: In this state we seek the truth not through others’ teachings but through our own direct perception of the world.
9. Bodhisattva or Bosatsu: Those who aspire to achieve enlightenment and at the same time are equally determined to enable all other beings to do the same. Conscious of the bonds that link us to all others, in this state we realize that any happiness we alone enjoy is incomplete, and we devote ourselves to alleviating others’ suffering. Those in this state find their greatest satisfaction in altruistic behavior.
10. Buddhahood: A dynamic state that is difficult to describe. We can partially describe it as a state of perfect freedom, in which we are enlightened to the ultimate truth of life. It is characterized by infinite compassion and boundless wisdom. In this state, we can resolve harmoniously what appear from the standpoint of the nine worlds to be insoluble contradictions. A Buddhist sutra describes the attributes of the Buddha’s life as a true self, perfect freedom from karmic bonds throughout eternity, a life purified of illusion, and absolute happiness.

Be Your Own Guru:

Personally, I feel that understanding the difference between each of these realms and integrating the lessons learned by visiting them all can inspire rapid personal growth. As someone who has set out on a seemingly unending quest for personal and spiritual development years ago, I have learned quite a few things in my travels. One of the greatest lessons was how to truly listen to others, but ensure that their thoughts don’t become my own unless they align with my personal truth. In my experience, individuals who lack control over their own emotions and actions tend to feel the need to push their own ideas, agendas and influences onto others. When it comes to giving advice, I appreciate Tony Robbins’ approach on this subject. As he would say, “I am not your guru”, but if talking with me can help you realize what steps you need to take in order to better your own life without harming others, then great! I’m not you. I have no idea what you’re going through, but if I can assist in removing mental blockages to get you to where you need to become your own guru, then that’s a beautiful thing.

Learning Through Suffering:

It is essential to take some time and look at the positive aspect of suffering. The creative forces inside each and every one of us seem to be activated when we are experiencing difficult times. Have you ever wondered why you prefer the earlier work of your favorite musicians? Did you ever think maybe it has to do with the fact that they were “hungry artists”, channeling their own pain and utilizing it as a source of creativity while desperately trying to make their mark on the music scene? Once I realized this a while back, I always make sure to look for the lesson to learn and wonder how I can use that seemingly negative energy to create something beautiful in times of despair.

We will constantly revisit these realms, sometimes many of them throughout the course of a single day or even only a few hours. Just because we’ve previously attained the higher spiritual worlds doesn’t mean we won’t revisit the other lower ones later on in life. By developing a deeper understanding of these states of mind, we are better equipped to conquer them.

What Makes Someone “Spiritual?”

            So let’s say that you meditate and do yoga daily, you pray for the well being of others, you don’t eat meat, you go to farmers markets, buy locally sourced produce, wear conscious-made sustainable clothing, have a vast collection of Lumerian Quartz Crystals for your shrine, have full moon ceremonies with your soul tribe and attend Burning Man every year. Does that make you spiritual? Not exactly, at least not in my opinion. These are however things that many people do as part of their spiritual path. However for me, spirituality is defined simply being someone whose highest priority is to love themself and others. That’s it. If you do all the aforementioned things, but you’re still an asshole to other people, sorry but you’re doing it wrong.

The basic principles of spirituality are at the core of every religion and often referred to as the “Golden Rule.” It has been taught for millennia and is most well known in the phrase “Do unto others as you would have them undo to you.” Nothing has changed from this Golden Rule other than the verbiage as you can see in the diagram below.

At the end of the day, I view truly spiritual people as those who have been through hell themselves and want nothing more than to help others get out because they know what it’s like. These are beings that help others with humility and don’t allow a self-serving ego to subsist within their being. Killing the ego is not a phrase I like to use. The ego is part of our personality and who we are as human beings, however we must keep it in check to ensure that it exists to serve us so that we may serve others. Now that’s being spiritual as fuck!

This article was featured on Collective Evolution on Dec 30, 2017: CLICK HERE FOR LINK TO ARTICLE

About Luke:

Over the past two years my life has gone through a dramatic change. I have been involved with development work for the past decade, but only in the last two years have I begun to truly understand what it means to live in the heart. The full story of this is one I am still living, so do not yet feel called to tell. I have only just begun and re-blogging on my own blog after a one-year hiatus during this dramatic transition my life is undergoing.

In many ways I started living the dream early on. I finished my undergrads in Chile and then I started hitchhiking north with the plan of making it all the way to Alaska. I made it as far as Guatemala, where I started work directing a health/education charity. When I left that job in 2012, I went full nomadic and tried to make it as a traveling writer. It’s five years later and I’m still out here, so I guess I was successful. But I feel the change in the air. Do you feel it too? I felt that while I was looking for meaning in the world. The meaning I am searching for is somewhere within—yoga, meditation, devoting yourself to unconditional love—these are all ways of exploring this path and I strive every day to renew myself and dedicate myself to seeking inwards while giving to those around me. 

I met Joe in Puerto Escondido, Mexico when I rolled up to the holistic living center he was managing. We didn’t need much time, nor have we had much time, to become friends. Kindred spirits recognize their own. People on the path recognize those on their own path of seeking. Later when I returned from a shamanic mushroom journey in the mountains, I was walking home thinking, “I’d love to chill out with a joint and work on my novel,” and boom, Joe appeared in the street and sated this longing of my heart 😉

LUKE’S STORY OF HOW GIN IN GUATEMALA LEAD TO CRACK IN SAN FRANCISCO:

When I’m in Guatemala, I drink gin. On one such night, sipping my gin at The Snug, I met the musician Corissa Bragg, who was drinking next to me. We made tentative plans to jam in Antigua, Guatemala, but nothing ever panned out. Her baby was to blame, since every time we were about to play music he would get sick and vomit.

In San Francisco, where Corissa is based, she invited me to join her at “The Circle” jam session at Mission and 16th Street Bart stop.

As the listing on the Bay Area Open Mic Calendar, it sounded pretty awesome: “This is San Francisco embodied: an unorganized, impromptu gathering of folks to spout off, sing, dance, shout, play . . . whatever. There’s no organizer, no stage, no PA – whatever happens, happens. There’s a chalk circle drawn to invoke the creative space; jump in or jump out.”

Earlier that day, Corissa messaged me and informed me that, surprise-surprise, her littlun was sick and vomiting. She would not be making it to “The Circle.”

Like U2, I had already decided to go with or without her, so I  set off with my guitar to the subway stop to see where my six strings might take me. If fun correlates to the amount of crack being smoked in one’s vicinity, then a good time was had by all.

I came upon the subway station and approached an area with two guys and a girl all dressed like Sid Vicious drinking malt liquor out of paper bags. One of them was wearing an army helmet, and I took this to be a good sign I was in the right place.

“Are you here for the circle,” they asked me.

“Yes,” I told them.

They asked me where I had heard about the circle. I told them, from someone I had met in Guatemala. All three were quite pleased that word of the circle had spread to Central America. I asked them if it was okay to drink liquor in public like this.

One of them raised his bag of malt liquor and said, “Oh yes, as long as you’re not a dick about it, the cops don’t care.”

They asked me if I was going to play my guitar. I told them that first I was off to buy a tall-boy and a paper bag. At the grocery store the guy in front of me was buying two tall boys, but he only had money for one. So I spotted him two-fifty and he also seemed quite pleased with his night’s prospects.

When I returned to the subway stop, all three people dressed like Sid Vicious were being booked by the cops. I sat down next to them and asked the police if it was legal for me to play in the streets. They told me it was as long as it was not amplified.

So for the third time in my life, I found myself playing guitar for the police and people being arrested.

I have been on a Joe Purdy musical binge ever since Pandora injected his tunes into my ears, so I played about showing the police Paris in the morning and London in the afternoon. Neither the cops nor the kids being given minors seemed to enjoy the music very much.

Soon, I was left alone and I continued to play. It had rained all-day, so maybe nobody else was coming. Maybe everyone in The Circle but me had already been arrested. In which case, it was my responsibility to hold down this fort. So I was happy to play and sing and be that guy with a guitar in a heavily trafficked metro area singing for the love of it.

A few people of Asian descent came up with confused dollars that they tried to give me. To each I smiled and waved it off, “I’m not playing for money,” I said, “I’m just playing.” One young man hesitated with a dollar in his hand, reluctant to put it back in his pocket. After vacillating between decisions, he set the dollar on the ground next to me and said, “Just take it.”

There had been three black men at the other end of the tiled courtyard that served as the entrance to the Bart station. The sight of the dollar attracted one. He came over and said, “I’ll take that dollar.”

“Take it,” I said. He took it.

Then a man in a wheelchair wheeled himself over to me and threw me a bag of corn chips, “I don’t want em,” he said.

“I don’t want your corn chips,” I told the man.

“Well, I don’t want em either.” He laughed.

To the rescue came the man who had taken the dollar. “I’ll take those chips,” he said. He took the chips.

Then a man in a Jamaican beanie, who looked he might be a sage, came over and gave me a Street Sheet. I have just learned about Street Sheets. As our friends at Wikipedia sum it up, “The Street Sheet is a street newspaper published and sold in San Francisco, California which focuses on the problems of homeless people in the city, and on issues of poverty and housing. The Coalition on Homelessness publishes the newspaper, and vendors distribute the paper on the streets of San Francisco, usually in exchange for a one-dollar donation.”

Jamaican beanie and I chatted for a bit. He told me a few memories from his younger days, when he was just arrived in San Francisco from Texas. I sang him and the two other men a few songs. Around this time, at the other end of the station to where my back was turned, some sort of spoken word was erupting. I listened, and decided to stay where I was. The spoken word were frantically yelled accusations that seemed more cathartic than constructive, more keening than verse and I was happy where I was even if The Circle had re-formed angrily behind me .

After a time, the three men went off in the corner of the station park and smoked some crack.

I drank my tall boy in the paper bag and watched them. When they came back, I gave them a single serving of wine I had brought just in case the jamming at the station got real crazy.

While everyone at some point should have an expansive discussion on crack and the problems it poses to society, on this particular night I enjoyed these men’s company for a time and from where I sat on that night their crack smoking was one of many attributes, not their defining characteristic.

At one point the man in the Jamaican beanie told me that he wished he had another dollar so that he could get a McDonald’s sandwich. Feeling gastronomically decadent, I too felt that a McDonald’s sandwich would hit the saturnalian hunger spot growing inside me. So I gave him $5 and asked him to get me a hamburger laced with extra pickles. McDonalds is dirty food of orgiastic origins and a vegan will never understand what glutinous pleasure it is to occasionally take this filthy culinary dive.

I noticed after the man disappeared to get our sandwiches that the McDonalds across the street was closed. Perhaps, he was going to another one I hoped, fairly sure from even before I gave him the money that he was not going to return.

Some readers might not find this feeling comprehensible, and I don’t really understand it fully myself. But I was kinda rooting for him to steal my money. I get scammed often for small amounts and it never really bothers me. In Belize, I gave a guy $5 for a fish dinner I think we both knew he was never going to cook me. I find that offering yourself up for petty scams is a win-win scenario. If the person ends up coming through, it is a wonderful surprise of finding honesty and integrity amid poverty—and isn’t this a value Americans hopelessly cherish?

Sometimes, a guy comes back with a hamburger. Mostly, you are scammed. When I am scammed, I feel like it’s a victory for the underdog. For me the headline, “Crack Addict in San Francisco Tricks Privileged White Man Out of $5 And Buys Crack” will always be more hopeful than “Wealthy Banking Executive Exploits Dubious Loopholes in Finance Law To Pay for his Fiji Estate.”

At some point, I left to find some tacos and enjoyed speaking in Spanish to the Mexican guys running the shop. Each had been in the US for around ten years. I can’t be helped if I love surprising Latinos in America by being able to fluently converse in their language. I doubt the dopamine of this thrill well will ever run dry.

When I came back to the station, I joined the poets who had stopped shouting and were now mulling about. I’d had a few beers with my tacos, so this is the point where the memories of the night are more disjoined. I know at some point a new crack smoker, much higher than the previous, began alarming two young women seated near me. I struck up a conversation with him in order to extricate them from it and they seemed grateful.

The  conversation began tense and confrontational, but eventually it settled into deferential dialogue that yielded to harmless banter. Some people came, others went. A crackhead knocked over my guitar, and now it has some new dings.

At the end of the night, I took the Bart one stop back to my barrio and remember enjoying a conversation with an intoxicated woman who waited with me at the station platform.

I left the night feeling I had gotten something out of it. It was not independently remarkable, but I think that if I’m lucky enough to one day fade away in a death-bed scenario, will be these many independently unremarkable nights that will make me wish life did not have double bars at its last measure.

If I were pressed under oath to tell a judge what the night felt like, then I would have to say it felt like we were all characters on Sesame Street. Everyone was a character and some characters looked like they lived in trash cans, but everyone got along okay. There were the kids all dressed like Sid Vicious. There was the guy smoking crack in the wheelchair and his gift of corn chips. There was the guy smoking crack in the Jamaican beanie who likely bought crack instead of my McDonald’s sandwich. There were the angry poets. The friendly police who had to do what they had to do and pleasantly handed out citations to the minors. If I was forced to explain under oath, I would say,

“Judge, isn’t it wild how a gin in Guatemala can lead to such serendipity in San Francisco?”

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For more on Luke or if you’d like to follow his adventures through life:

Luke’s Blog: www.TravelWriteSing.com

Luke’s Book: The Nomad’s Nomad

YouTube Trailer: The Nomad’s Nomad Trailer

Facebook: Travel Write Sing

Instagram: LukeSpartacus

Cause: Operating a School for 81 Children in 2017

2016: WHY THE “WORST YEAR EVER” WAS THE BEST YEAR OF MY LIFE SO FAR

The first portion of this post will focus on the more tangible aspects of my year in review; the external.

The second will focus on the more abstract portions that I’ve been wrestling with in the depths of my consciousness; the internal.

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THE EXTERNAL

I’ll begin by stating the obvious. The general consensus of 2016 is that it has been the worst year in recent memory. The highlights of the year include, but are not limited to: an insane amount of untimely beloved celebrity deaths, Brexit, Standing Rock, fake news, Trump, Harambe and the ongoing War in the eastern hemisphere.

I have no intention on writing in detail on any of these topics, but I did want to highlight the fact that without darkness there can be no light. This post will focus primarily on the light side of 2016, from the only topic I have the authority to write on, my own perspective.

Let’s begin with some quick esoteric information to get us started, shall we?

According to numerology, 2016 was destined to be a “bad” or completion year. Luckily after every ending comes a new beginning and I carry a strong belief that 2017 is destined to yield drastic change. 2017 bids us all to start something brand new, something that expresses our uniqueness, that uses our leadership abilities, that opens us to new perspectives. It is a time to think and act independently. It’s also a year to put our leadership abilities and unique talents to use in the greater world, to practice cooperating without losing individuality.

In short, some “bad” shit needs to happen before we can begin anew. What greater catalyst than adversity to push us out of our comfort zones in order to promote personal growth?

That was exactly how my 2016 started.

Just over one year ago from today, the plan that originally brought me to Mexico completely fell apart and I felt more lost than I have ever been in my life. My 3+ year relationship had ended, I had no job, no place that I felt like I could call my home and I was in a foreign country where I was in no way fluent in the language.

In short…

So… what did I do?

I took some time to myself and fell back on my life’s constants in order to get in the right mental space to move forward. Some of these included yoga, meditation, reading, writing, swimming in the ocean and of course… mindful consumption of alcohol. What can I say, old habits die hard.

Once I was in a better emotional mindset, I began devising a plan for the remaining 3 months left on my tourist Visa in Mexico. I hopped on a bus to Guadalajara where I found a work-exchange opportunity through HelpX at The Roof Backpackers Hostel where I could work a couple hours a day in exchange for a place to sleep, breakfast and use of all facilities. I used my spare time to do more research and begin some SEO consulting work. Surprisingly, the right clients came to me naturally and I gave them the best possible service I could offer.

One notable client being Discover Magic Places.

Not too long after that, I was informed of an Ayahuasca ceremony in the Pueblo Mágico of Tepoztlán, so I went.

Several days later I sat ten days in silent Vipassana meditation, the same technique that the Buddha used to attain enlightenment, in the Pueblo Mágico of Coatepec.

Two days after roughly 240 hours of silence and 100 hours of meditating, my next stop was The Sanctuary in Puerto Escondido. Little did I know at the time that I’d become the general manager of this incredible place and that it would become my home for the next six months. When it comes to describing my time at the Sanctuary, it can be best summed up by saying this: Managing, living in and experiencing the spiritual/vegan/yogi lifestyle all the while interacting with people from all over the world that chose to come there, each for their own reasons, was one of the greatest gifts and lessons I have received in this life.

Only a few days before leaving Mexico, I came across one of the final people I was destined to meet during my time there. This person facilitated a DMT ceremony for myself and one of my old Sanctuary co-workers, Cristina, and it was by far one of the most profound experiences I’ve ever had, if not THE most.

This was the reset button I have been searching for!

After leaving Mexico, my incredibly talented soul-friend and co-worker from The Sanctuary, Angelica, and I headed to Northern California to trim weed as the timing of the marijuana harvest season aligned with our departure of the Sanctuary. We met our friend and future trim-mate, Uma, in Sacramento only to find that the job we had lined up was being pushed back. Luckily Mount Shasta was close by, so we decided to go camping there until we got the call that work would be starting.

Luckily, this turned out to be one of the most incredibly magical detours of our lives. Feel free to read more about it on my previous blog post HERE if you haven’t already.

Once trimming began, it was clear that the days would be long and the work mostly tedious. The three of us were very fortunate to have such an incredible alchemy and the three months we spent together were some of the most inspirational and educational of our lives. The knowledge exchange, compassion shown and dream sharing between us will prove to be one of the greatest payments any of us could ever receive.

After we parted ways, I went back to New York to visit family and friends. Check out the blog post HERE for more on this trip.

Now in Puerto Rico, I have had the absolute pleasure of ending 2016 and ringing in 2017 with the person who has occupied my thoughts every day for the 5 months we were apart.

I’ve followed my heart almost every step of the way in 2016 and can say with confidence that it has paid off in ways I never could have imagined. Perhaps the greatest lesson I’ve learned to date is this: Be true to myself and follow my heart so that I may live a life abundant in love and never to give my power away to any person, organization or belief system ever again.

2016 was the year I officially took back my power and I’ve been reaping the benefits of a life well-lived ever since! As Varys from A Song of Ice and Fire, or better known HBO Series Game of Thrones, once explained to everyone’s favorite Imp, Tyron Lannister:

Power resides where men believe it resides. No more and no less.

Now and forever, my personal belief is that my power resides within my physical, etheric and astral bodies. This is where my search to expand on it continues… nowhere else.

Do I have everything in my life figured out? Absolutely not! Have I made progress in the end goal of truly living a life where I make little distinction between my work and my play?

YES… without question! 2016 was the rebuilding year I was in desperate need of.

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THE INTERNAL

Sometimes its the thoughts that keep us up at night that force us out of our comfort zones and grow in ways we never though possible. Below is but a small portion of the internal workings of my mind that have supplied me with the firepower for some of my larger interior mental battles this year.

At the end of 2015, I came face to face with my own self and the stark realization that I did not like or appreciate the way I’ve been treating myself and others in my life. I needed drastic change to correct this… so I took it at every opportunity.

Living through 2016 has given birth to so many internal inquiries, conflicts and wonders. Nothing was as simple as it once was living a more typical, compliant, “normal” & “civilized” way of life. Though what my life lacked in simplicity, it made up for in personal expansion and adventure.

One of the most difficult tasks for me to wrap my arms around is the subject of the truth. Once an individual admits to his or her self that they in fact “know” nothing, it is liberating, yet opens the door to ever more complex quandaries.

To say I really truly believe in anything would be a lie. I TRULY believe in nothing because I know that I know nothing, at least not yet. What I THINK I know, is what I personally experience and integrate first hand. A child “believes” in Santa, the Tooth Fairy & the Easter Bunny if their parents choose to follow the status quo and pass these white lies on to their children. However, as long as the child believes this lie, it is as real as the gifts under the tree, the candy in their basket or the money under their pillow. Belief is a matter of perception and the more we explore this Earth and the incredible people that inhabit her, the better equipped we are to understanding it.

My new reality has me understanding how individuals who have lived most of their lives in the same town, whose only outlet to the rest of the world rests on their wall, connected to fiber optic wires that transmits a well-rehearsed script handed down to them from those who will profit greatly from the fear-based messages broadcasted, are the new weapons of mass destruction and disinformation of the 21st century. It is by carefully critiquing and consciously criticizing this widely accepted way of being that I use as a way to pave the path toward a new way of living for myself.

Those who wander the Earth in steadfast belief that they know all they need to know and have nothing new to learn are, in my personal opinion, one of the greatest dangers to the ever expanding collective consciousness of humanity. You need only look at the past few hundred years of history to see how we as a species, so rooted in our false belief systems, thought the Earth was the center of the solar system and also that it was flat, among many other false-truths.

For too long I’ve blindly accepted all that was presented to me and was rarely encouraged and often scolded when challenging what I was “taught”. Ex-U.S. Army chief of psychology and famed author M. Scott Peck proposed a hypothesis regarding this very conflict I faced in his masterpiece, and my favorite book of all time, The Road Less Traveled. It is his belief that humankind’s original sin was blindly following God’s orders not to eat from the tree of knowledge rather than inquiring as to WHY it was forbidden. In essence, his theory is that our original sin is laziness… something we embrace and celebrate in our society filled with instant gratification & numbing products to distract us from our true feelings.

I see laziness and complacency as two of the greatest hurdles in reaching the goal for peak human evolution.

And why not? We are, in fact, each the creator of our own lives. The choices we make and actions we take create the reality we live in.

After all…

It is also his belief that no one is born evil, but rather that people become evil when they attack others rather than face their own failures. One example of this would be Adolph Hitler’s failure as an artist. Imagine how history might have been vastly different if someone gave this guy a hug and bought a couple of his paintings?

It is nothing short of astounding to think how something as simple as our thoughts end up manifesting into our life’s destiny. What better way to take control of one’s own brainwaves than spending time in silence to focus on your breath and bodily sensations for ten hours a day for ten consecutive days.

Vipassana helped me reclaim a big part of my life that I lost after having a stroke that took nearly half my eyesight and temporarily… a good portion of my sanity.

I haven’t really come out of my cave with most people to share that I had a stroke for the simple fact that I don’t want to be seen as a victim. There aren’t many things I hate in this life, but at the top of that list is receiving pity. I hated the face people made when I told them about how I collapsed in an airport in Puerto Vallarta, Mexico back in 2014 because of a blood clot in the left hemisphere of my brain. Moreover, I hated how it affected my mental well-being for so long, thus leading to nearly a year of depression and roughly two months of near-insanity.

Though I was able to reclaim most of myself that I lost, I was still very much in search of guidance. The best advice I received while in silence came the evening of the 5th day when I went to the instructor, Tim Lanning, to inquire about recurring thoughts that were interrupting my practice. I explained to him how my mind kept drifting away as I was worrying about other people in my life who were making decisions that I saw as destructive. He took a moment to think on my inquiry and after a few seconds, reflected something to me that was so simple, yet so profound.

He said this:

An injured person cannot carry another injured person. They need to heal themselves first before they can assist in healing another. If you wish to see this change in others, it first must come from you.

His words, which have proven true time and time again this past year, still resonate in my heart today. I doubt they’ll ever leave.

Healing oneself inevitably leads to assisting others in search of their own personal rehabilitation. It begins with those we are close with; those who reach out to us when they sense a resolute resonance in the words we share when our hearts are cracked open and spilled out for all to behold. Once unimpeded, the mind can’t help but wonder the limits of the heart’s potential to heal.

What holds true for myself and my loved ones, I also believe the same for my country and the rest of the world. Once we step out of our bubbles to the reality of what’s happening around the globe, we see nothing short of a revolution on a global scale. The gap between the takers and leavers, the haves and have-nots has been growing exponentially in recent years. Most of us can feel it to some degree, but continue to press on in our lives because that’s what we’ve been so very well trained to do.

“Keep your head down and be grateful for all you have.” or everyone’s favorite British World War II slogan:

Since kindergarten we’ve been well trained to shut up, not to make too much noise and stick to the status quo. Why would we as a society come to accept this as the way we should be unless it was indoctrinated on us on a massive scale?

Turns out it was… over 100 years ago.

During the education reform of the early 20th century, lead by none other than John D. Rockefeller, Frederick T. Gates, director of charity of the Rockefeller Foundation wrote in The Country School of Tomorrow, Occasional Papers Number 1:

“In our dream we have limitless resources, and the people yield themselves with perfect docility to our molding hand. The present educational conventions fade from our minds; and, unhampered by tradition, we work our own good will upon a grateful and responsive rural folk.  We shall not try to make these people or any of their children into philosophers or men of learning or of science.  We are not to raise up among them authors, orators, poets, or men of letters.  We shall not search for embryo great artists, painters, musicians.  Nor will we cherish even the humbler ambition to raise up from among them lawyers, doctors, preachers, statesmen, of whom we now have ample supply.”

Now roughly a century after this was put into place we’re seeing rapid decline in collective intellect like we’ve never seen before. We are drowning in information and yet starving for knowledge. We are drilled with repetition and told WHAT to think but rarely HOW to think.

One of the heartiest worries I carry with me is the confidence that uninformed uneducated people hold in their steadfast belief systems. I fear those who feel they have nothing new to learn when the world and universe is filled with unanswered questions.

I’ve graduated high school, college and spent ten years in the workforce in one of the most fiercely competitive markets (New York City) and industries (Finance) in the world. I can honestly say that I have learned more in my past year and a half on the road than I have in any other equal time frame in my life.

I now understand very much what Mark Twain meant when he said…

Make no mistake, I am by no means conveying that all information learned from school, news, a career or any other source is not worth taking in. I’m rather saying that I’ve begun looking at all information presented to me as a “truth” with speculation, wonder and curiosity. Not doing so will without a doubt be destined to lead to negative consequences later in life.

I can think of no better example of this than the debacle of the 2016 American presidential election. Having someone weigh in with their opinion on the subject of politics by merely regurgitating the lies, half-truths and propaganda they’ve been spoon-fed by the once highly-regarded mainstream media can only be likened to asking someone for medical advice after they watch an episode of Grey’s Anatomy.

Thought it may not ring true for you, me or many others, like it or not, Donald Trump is a reflection of the collective consciousness of America and is proving to be no less than the red pill being rammed down our throats.

I don’t like saying this, but I am “happy” that he won for the reasons in the video link below.

WHY I’M “HAPPY” TRUMP WON

Fear-based economics and the celebration and profiteering off of war and violence has brought the world to its current state. What better mirror than Donald Trump to reflect to us what we have become and remind us that we are far from a Sane Society. Why wouldn’t he get elected? Doesn’t a large enough portion of our society blindly follow and worship reality TV stars simply for the fact that they are famous?

I believe that as a collective, we are considerately better than this. There was a time in my life where I was deep inside the Matrix and couldn’t see the forest from the trees.

I’ve been living the active change from this old way of being where I had devolved to the point where I became loathe to invite others to share an open and honest space with. I was but a slave to political correctness and a co-creator of my own mental prison that I would habitually retreat to on a daily basis.

Make no mistake, there is no worse prison than the one we fabricate in the depths our own minds. This was the dwelling I constructed for myself where indifference and doubt were the guards and fear was the warden.

The great trick is that the gates to this “prison” are never locked and we are free to leave whenever we choose to. Though of course it’s never that simple. What some see as bondage, others see as security.

It’s almost as if…

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IN CLOSING

Throughout this past year, absolutely NOTHING has worked out exactly the way I had planned, but somehow it has always ended up much better. By living a life where I follow my heart and remove as much negativity as possible, accepting this reality has become easier at every turn.

I have been met with a ton of resistance on the path I have taken over the past couple of years, understandably so given the fact that nobody but myself has any idea about all the inner conflicts constantly waging war within the depths of my consciousness.

Through traveling I’ve discovered more about myself in the past year and a half than I have in my first 32 years of existence. I have come to find that many of us travel in order to find the missing pieces of our heart that are scattered throughout the globe. With every piece we find, we inevitably become more whole.

I deeply value my own personal evolution & involution and my choice to be a free-thinker that challenges any opinion, dogma or “fact” set before me. I prefer to be the engineer of my own life so that wherever it takes me, it will be a result of adhering to the will of my highest self.

Making choices out of love and facing fear head-on strips away the power that we allow fear to hold over us. I now “know” this because I have lived it. I was scared shitless but kept pushing forward until fear’s grip on me weakened to the point where it had no choice but to let go.

Among all the lessons I’ve learned this past year, none has been more valuable than finally learning to listen to my own internal guidance, gut feeling, intuition, higher self or sixth sense… whatever you choose to call it.

I’ve also unlearned a lesson from my life that I started out 2016 by following. Three little words which hold so much power that can be misinterpreted, misunderstood and misleading toward our greater goals in life.

Kill the ego

It’s a ridiculous statement really. If you are to keep yourself, the ego will never “die” because it is a part of you. I now allow my ego to be present with me as long as it passes through these two gatekeepers:

1. Does it serve me?
2. Does it serve me so that I can, in some way, serve the betterment of humanity and all other living things on the planet?

From the best of our current limited knowledge, humans have lived on earth for about 200,000 years, and in that time we have lived in a vast number of ways. What an incredible experiment that we are lucky enough to take place in as these highly-evolved lab rats who get to run in this never ending maze. Let our cheese be love-driven knowledge and may the mazes be ever more challenging to ensure the continuation of our evolution and involution through consciousness expansion.

Removing duality from my mindset and living a life guided by pure love is the ultimate goal in my time here in this incarnation.

By recognizing what wasn’t serving my highest truth in my life, I started to discover what does work. This in no way means my search is over. I’ve only just begun and cannot wait to see all that is within my conscious and subconscious minds materialize before me.

It’s amazing how when we change the way we think, act and see the world, the people we manifest to enter into our lives also changes.

In 2016 I fell deeply in love… with myself, with life and one of the most incredible women I have ever had the pleasure of being in the presence of.

Now that 2016 has been over for a short while, I find myself already learning new things in this year of new beginnings. The first lessons I have learned thus far is that the more I write, the more honest I become with myself and others. May this ring true for the rest of the year and all years to come.

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To those of you who have made it to the end of my longest and most personal blog post yet, thank you. I encourage you to comment, like/share on social media or tag someone who you feel has something to gain from reading this.

NaMaStE

VISITING FAMILY IN LONG ISLAND

Ahh, there’s no place like home… especially when your home is New York and you haven’t had a decent bagel or slice of pizza in five months. Sorry Mexico and California, but you’ve got absolutely no game on this!

Yeah, they’re that good. I highly recommend going absolutely nuts on these if and when you visit New York.

Here’s a little known fact regarding pizza and bagels unbeknownst to most non-New Yorkers. There is an ongoing argument as to whether they are better in NYC or Long Island, so I’ll just settle the score right here and now. There is no winner, it completely depends on the place and your taste, though some are exponentially better than others. I can’t even begin to get into where my favorite pizza place is because that’s gotta be similar to asking Ghengis Kahn to pick a favorite child. I will say this though, the best bagels I’ve ever had actually come from JP Bagels in Hoboken, New Jersey.

I could write an entire post on the topic of bagels and pizza alone, so I’ll just stop now.

Moving on…

So, what’s better than having NY/NJ bagels and pizza you may ask? How about having a mother who you swear has a serious phobia of you absolutely starving death if she doesn’t feed you at least 10,000 calories a day. Maybe I’m exaggerating? No, actually that’s an accurate figure… I stand by it.

After telling my mother I didn’t want anything for Christmas that would add to my travel baggage, she thought outside the box to find a way to get me a gift, spend time together and lighten my load all at once… so she  treated me to my first pedicure.

As the time spent with my family is so very limited lately, I have cultivated a much deeper appreciation of our togetherness. This was one of the greater gifts that has come as a result of my new lifestyle. I am so very grateful to have them in my life and to call them my family.

VISITING FRIENDS AND BRO-ING OUT IN NYC

What’s “bro-ing out” you might ask? I felt a strong need to dedicate a portion of this blog post to this topic as it has been brought to my attention quite recently that there is a plethora of people walking this Earth who have absolutely no idea what it means to “bro out”. As a seasoned bro-ing out veteran with over a decade of experience in the field, I’m sure you can understand how this comes as a complete and utter shock to me. That being said, I shall now promptly school those unversed in the anthropological intricacies of a proper Bro’s Night Out.

Let’s start at the beginning, with a standard phone call or text, that would go something like this:

WARNING: What you are about to read is very… uhh how do I say this… Bro-ey. I did however refrain from the usual 10-12 f-bombs that would be dropped in the conversation for no particular reason. Long Islanders curse a lot… f-ing deal with it.

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INITIATION OF A TYPICAL BRO’S NIGHT OUT

Bro 1: Sup bro, you comin’ out tonight?

Bro 2: Hell yeah bro, what’s good?

Bro 1: Nothin… yo! We’re goin to the city tonight, you down?

Bro 2: Nice, who else is comin’?

Bro 1: You know, the usual… except [insert name of friend(s) who never comes out], because… well you know him.

Bro 2: Aight no doubt, what train we takin’? (note: this question is only asked if the aforementioned bros did not plan on pre-gaming together. If they had planned on doing so, they would most likely meet at a friend’s house to play beer pong and talk shit to each other until they ran out of beer.)

Bro 1: The 10:35 out of Pequa (LI slang for Massapequa)… meet you at Sevs @ 10:15 (“Sevs” is LI slang for 7-11, a convenience store with a plethora of cheap domestic beers which serve well for pre-gaming on the train)

Bro 2: Aight, peace

Bro 1: Peace

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What goes on during a standard bro’s night out? Typically a dangerous mixture of alcohol, testosterone, shit-talking, sometimes horrible dancing and women chasing are the main cornerstones. Who said Americans had no culture!?😂

After ten years of working in corporate finance in New York City, I came to realize that drinking was one of my favorite numbing activities to assist me in forgetting about all the spreadsheets, conference calls, meetings and more spreadsheets I had to deal with Monday – Friday. Legendary and controversial comic Bill Hicks once said “There are essentially only two drugs that Western civilization tolerates: Caffeine from Monday to Friday to energize you enough to make you a productive member of society…

…and alcohol from Friday to Monday to keep you too stupid to figure out the prison that you are living in.”

Apologies if this strikes a chord with anyone. My intention for this blog was not merely to increase the seratonin levels of my readers, but rather to openly and wholeheartedly express my own truth as it finally comes to the surface after years of suppression.

You know what Plato said over 2 millennia ago:

Back to bro-ing out:

 At this point in my life, bro-ing out usually consists of happy hour and classy AF dinner parties with wine and cheese.

Needless to say, due to new life choices, I don’t “bro out” a fraction of the amount I used to, but still enjoy it from time to time. As famous 18th centrist British linguist and author Samuel Johnson once said: “He who makes a beast of himself gets rid of the pain of being a man.” What can I say? Once in a while I still like to let the beast out of its cage.

This past Saturday, my good friends Matt & Lilian hosted a lovely holiday dinner party at their apartment with some of my closest friends, a handful of which I haven’t seen since I left NYC back in the summer of 2015.

I was delighted to see that some of these friends are even breeding now! My actual words as I arrived at the party: “There are babies here!?!? Give them to me!”

After returning these adorable offspring to their rightful birth-givers and the party started winding down… I found some tequila and thought to myself: “I’ll just have a little taste.”

So yeah… I went clubbing @ the new club Flash Factory for some proper New York City house music until I couldn’t club anymore.

Note: House Music is not to be confused with EDM. EDM is nothing more than low-vibrational garbage noise for people with mental disabilities. I’m not joking…. it’s actually science. No, seriously. Here’s the article 👉🏼 PEOPLE WHO LIKE EDM ARE TECHNICALLY RETARDED

So how was it? I enjoyed myself thoroughly and it seemed like a good idea at the time. The next morning, however, was a different story.

Thanks for the memories to everyone who came out. I treasure your friendships and our time together. Until next time!

GOING TO SEE ABOUT A GIRL

During my six months working at The Sanctuary, I’ve had the exquisite pleasure of living and working with some of the most incredible people I’ve ever met in my life. Many of whom I now consider my soul tribe that I’ve been waiting decades for to come and assist me in reshaping my archaic belief systems that no longer served me.

There was, however, one person who stood out among all the others. We met back in mid-June, just a few days before I flew to New York for a long overdue two week visit to see my family and friends. She and I kept in touch and upon my return, she and I were practically inseparable during her final week in Puerto Escondido. In the bat of an eye, we experienced what felt like a lifetime together.

From yoga on the palapa of the Sanctuary…

to bonfires on the beach…

an overnight trip to Mazunte for the beautiful beaches and sunset @ the southern most point of Mexico, Punta Cometa (Comet Point). Shooting stars are a natural occurrence here, hence the name…

and we finished with an excursion to the Magic Mushroom Mountain Town of San Jose Del Pacifico.

Now I find myself in a similar position that I was in this past summer, back here in New York, literally counting down the days until I get back to her. We’ve been apart for 158 days, to be exact. Now, five months have passed since we said our goodbyes at the airport in Puerto Escondido. By the time you read this post I’ll be sitting in the airport patiently waiting for my 5:55 flight to take me back to her. Now we only have hours between us.

CUE BOBBY DARIN