Month: April 2009

Happiness Statistics

Psychologists have been studying happiness lately.  Since happiness can’t be measure directly they have to take surveys.   To make their studies more credible they take a lot of surveys and apply statistics.   But here is the thing statisticians will tell you.  Correlation does not mean causation.

From all these surveys on happiness psychologists concluded that there are a number of habits or activities that happy people do.  Their conclusion is that if you practice these habits or actions you can raise your level of happiness to be as happy as them. These activities include things like practicing gratitude, having a close social circle, gardening, and giving to the community.

But what if the correlaton is from the opposite direction.  Perhaps thos happy people have a lot of love to share.  What if the emotion of love coming out of them is so great that they have to share it in some way?  Out of that need to express their love they build close social circles, engage in activities and with communities in a way of sharing the love coming out of them.

If your love coming out of you is so strong you will find channels to express that love through social circles, activities like gardening, and caring for your community.

It is the emotion of love that will drive your activities,,, not the activities that that will change your emotion to happiness.

For specific exercises for identifying and dissolving fear based beliefs, begin with the free practices in the Self Mastery audio program.

The original  post on Happiness Statistics

How do you care for someone?

So often we pretend to care about someone.  We convince our self that we are concerned for their happiness.  But when our emotions become a wave of reaction to them our own well being is now at stake.  When this happens our caring for them becomes unduly influenced to try and make our self feel better.   At this point our caring for them might more honestly be called selfishness.

For specific exercises for identifying and dissolving fear based beliefs based in the Four Agreements, begin with the free practices in the Self Mastery audio program.

The original  post located at What it means to Care For Someone

Search for Truth

The search for truth is often an iterative search.

Let’s say that you have a lot of false beliefs in your mind and they distort your perception and clarity of life, events, other people, and understanding your self.  Let’s assume a number and say that 50% of your beliefs are false and 50% of your assumptions and beliefs are true.  If you read a book that is 60-70% truth, it could have extraordinary insights on truth. It could open your mind to more truth and help shatter many of your illusions.

While it can be an incredible book that brings you clarity on so many things, you will still have 30-40% illusions in that book, and in your mind. Perhaps what is more interesting is that the clarity that book gives you might inspire you to faith in everything it says, even those things that are illusions.  You become inspired and passionate about a book that is 30-40% illusions even though it gave you great insights.  For you it is as if you found something that was “The Truth.”

Now imagine another scenario.  Imagine that a person that lives under many more false beliefs than you do.  Imagine someone’s mind where 70-80% of their beliefs are false, or distorted by false assumptions.   Imagine that they read the same book that has truthful clarity of 60-70%.

Do you think that they will just completely understand and accept the information in that book?  The truth of what that person reads will be in conflict with their existing set of beliefs.  The ideas in that book will be in conflict with so much of what they already accept as true.  The belief system in their mind will reject the ideas on the page as not true.  To accept as true the material in that book would mean the collapse of so much of the structure of their belief system.  This would be uncomfortable and in an effort to avoid that discomfort their mind would reject the new ideas even though they have greater clarity.

When the mind is full of illusions there is no room for the truth.  The existing set of beliefs rejects any ideas that are contradictory to it’s current structure.  When in search of The Truth it can be more valuable to empty your mind of false beliefs than to attempt to fill it up with more truthful ones.

For specific exercises for identifying and dissolving fear based beliefs based in the Four Agreements, begin with the free practices in the Self Mastery audio program.

The original  post located at The Search for Truth

What Is Forgiveness

What is forgiveness?

Forgiveness is the process of detaching your faith from your belief in what “should” have happened, or what someone “should” have done.   When you no longer hold on to that expectations, you are left accepting life as it is.

For specific exercises for identifying and dissolving fear based beliefs based in the Four Agreements, begin with the free practices in the Self Mastery audio program.

The original  post located at What is Forgiveness?

Four Agreements Workshops in Your Area

A request for workshops in your local area.   Part of why I created the Self Mastery on line study course at www.PathwayToHappiness.com

Gary,

I recently purchased the book Beyond Fear. I have found that Don MIguel’s words speak to me on a very deep level. I had no idea that the ancient people of my country had such a rich spiritual tradition of their own. I’m thinking that it would probably have been better to start off reading The Four Agreements first, but I guess I can just make that my next book.

Anyway, I am really interested in working with a spiritual guide, one who can teach me on Toltec Wisdom. I live in Wisconsin, and I notice that most workshops, events, etc are not in my area. Do you have any suggestions on where to start?
Any info would be greatly appreciated! Thanks for your time.   —  Dan

Hi Dan,

I don’t think there is a wrong order to reading don Miguel’s material.  Just add his other books to your list.

I live in California so I’m not local to your area.  However I do travel for events. If people wish to create a workshop or event in their area and invite me to teach and share, then I will do so.  Aside from that, no there are not a lot of teachers of his work.  He taught a small group of people very intensely, focusing on quality more than quantity.  Even then, most of those people don’t teach as they choose to do other things with their life.  Some are doctors, lawyers, yoga teachers, graphic artists, or raising their children.

Not having a widespread cadre of teachers has been a problem for a while.  One that has improved greatly since I started when it was just don Miguel in a limited number of locations.  It is something that I began addressing by putting a lot of material on line.  It’s at my other site http://pathwaytohappiness.com/index.htm

Where to start?

I suggest here – http://pathwaytohappiness.com/insights.htm
This page has a lot of free audio.  They are from my free podcasts.   You can also find them on iTunes in the Self Help section.   Search under “Happiness through Self Awareness”

The free audio addresses the lay of the land in terms of beliefs, emotions, will power, perception, assumptions etc that make up our minds.   The Self Mastery sessions are the action steps of what to do.   You will find entry to that work on this page.  http://pathwaytohappiness.com/self_mastery.htm

This is where the real work is done.  These are specific exercises and practices that I have put together based on my years of study with don Miguel, and teaching my own clients.  It is a paced on line audio workbook process where you learn many skills to gain control over your attention, raise your awareness, and inventory and change your core beliefs.

For people who are more focused, or want specific guidance, I also do coaching over the phone.  Often this is in support or in addition to the exercises people are doing from my Self Mastery program.

Hope that helps.   Send me an email if you have any questions.

Gary

For specific exercises for identifying and dissolving fear based beliefs based in the Four Agreements, begin with the free practices in the Self Mastery audio program.

The original  post located at Four Agreements Events and Workshops