The Buddha said, “There is no way to happiness. Happiness is the way.”

Spinoza said, “Happiness is virtue.”

I see a pattern emerging.

I think time flies when you’re having fun because that’s what you’re supposed to be doing, so the universe gives you a little hand. The faster time seems to go, the fewer decisions you have to make in the same amount of time. Therefore, the chances of your screwing up your happiness with a poor decision are lower.

For depressed people, time seems to move slower. I think this is the universe giving us a hand too; the slower time seems to move, the more opportunities we have to make decisions that help us climb out of our unhappy predicaments.

Make sense? I hope so.

–Mike

I’ve noticed a distinct difference in experience that I think deserves a lot of attention.

One example of what I’m calling “false pleasure” would be the acting-out of an addict. The alcoholic who fills the hole in her soul with wine may believe the experience is pleasurable, but what she experiences as pleasant is merely the filling of that hole. Relief from the agony of having that hole in the first place is not true pleasure.

True pleasure builds upon a platform of already-completeness. In the non-addict, there is no hole that longs to be filled, so the experience of drinking alcohol simply adds to the already-wonderfulness of life.

Another clear example of the difference between pleasure and relief is in the difference between lust and eroticism. Lust is that insatiable longing, that need for sexual release that tears at one’s guts and is unpleasant and bothersome. Eroticism is the arousal that naturally arises when one is already free of this compulsive need for sexual release. Erotic arousal is enjoyable for its own sake and simply adds to the experience of an already complete sense of sexuality.

The difference between pleasure and relief can be experienced in a myriad of ways, such as when eating food, watching television, having sex, smoking cigars, etc. True pleasure is complete in and of itself, and only enhances one’s life, whereas false pleasure is merely relief from some sort of painful lack.

While one type of pleasure may or may not be morally “better” than the other, the distinction between them necessitates the question, “Am I truly enjoying this?”

Hey all,

I’ve been writing a lot of songs lately and my demo album will be live on CDBaby.com sometime soon. For now, one of my favorite songs is available for download on iTunes, and I’d love for you to have it! Here’s the link: Angels Whisper

Enjoy!

–Mike

It just occurred to me that the levels of consciousness seem to be contractions and relaxations. For instance:

Courage: You see the future as hopeful, you work hard to steer clear of nonintegrity and toward truth
Neutrality: You realize that you’re trying too hard to control things and surrender a bit, relax
Willingness: You see the future as inspiring, you have tons of forward-moving energy and you use it all to pursue your goals
Acceptance: Like Neutrality, only you have far more energy
Reason: You find definite meaning in life and dedicate your life to it
Love: You let go of the tight constraints on your sense of self and begin to identify with others

It seems to be alternating steps between using your power, and refining your power. Exertion, and efficiency. Then when you get to high levels like Love, your power has become so efficient that the work is practically all more refinement.

Voiceovers for the game company Maxis.

You know how the Sims speak gibberish? Some human had to record that into a microphone before it could be spoken over and over by virtual humans. And if you think the Sims’ speech is weird, check out the voices in Spore.

Imagine… you look over to the guy in charge, like “Line?” and he says: “Frah juh swah, juh frah juh swah!!”

or

“You really glommed up an inzerg!!”

(Sometimes the gibberish people mess up and start speaking English xD)

We’ve all heard a saying like this one from Alcoholics Anonymous, “You are responsible for the effort, not the result,” or “The ends do not justify the means,” or “Attitude is everything.”

These sayings all point toward the same spiritual principle: How you do things is much more important than what you do.

This is because how you do things is your true “being”. Your being = how you do things.

For instance, I can play some Stevie Ray Vaughan licks on my guitar, but it doesn’t have the same power and beauty as when Stevie played them. Stevie was a master, who had put a lifetime of effort and love into his guitar playing, and I’ve only been playing a few years.

Another area where many men (and some women) are discovering this is dating. An awkward dork can learn the same pickup line, make the same gestures, and speak with the same voice tone as the ‘cool guy,’ but he doesn’t get the girl. The difference is in the vibe. If the awkward dork watches porn and hates his life and isn’t in touch with his heart, that’s how he’s doing life, and the aware woman picks up on that.

A quote from Zen: “The way you do anything is the way you do everything.”

You can’t separate your inner being in one aspect of life from your inner being in another aspect of life.

—-

Why Microwaves, Fluorescent Lightbulbs, and Digital Music are Evil:

One day, I cleaned the shit out of my room. Meaning, I cleaned it really well. Paid super attention to details, making sure the post-it notes were lined up exactly parallel to the pencils and everything. When I was done, there was a definite stillness and serenity about the space. A holiness. My room had become a little sanctuary.

It naturally started to lose that perfection, so a couple days later I cleaned the few little deviants back into their proper places so that everything was the way it had been when I was done the first time. But this time, there was no sense of holy stillness. This is because although everything was in the same place, organizing it all had not taken same amount of love and care (and effort) as it had the first time.

—————–

Now you want some chicken nuggets from the freezer. You can bake them (20 minutes) or you can microwave them (2 minutes). You’ve heard the rumors about microwaves killing all the good nutrients and whatnot, but you’ve also heard that it’s just a rumor, so since you can’t decide whether or not it’s true you just say “fuck it” and nuke the fuckers. Two! Zero! Zero! Start! Whhhhuuuuhhhhhhhhhhhhh Beep! Beep! Beep! Beep! Chicken done. You eat ‘em, and they’re alright. No complaints.

Or you bake them. Lay out a nice sheet of tinfoil on a baking tray, space the nuggets apart evenly, and bake the fuckers. 20 minutes later, you get them out, put them on a nice plate and eat them. There’s a certain wholesomeness about them that wasn’t present in the microwaved batch. The heat seems to linger longer and they seem more thoroughly… something.

You literally experience the extra patience it took to prepare the nuggets. It’s an affirmation of your worth: “I am a beautiful human who deserves beautiful chicken nuggets prepared with care. I am not a machine that just needs cheap fuel inserted into it.”

Why all the fuss over “homemade” this or that, which advertisers inevitably put on all those CANS in the grocery store? They’re trying to associate their product with that feeling of home-iness, love, care. What’s always the best thing to eat when you’re sick? MOM’s chicken noodle soup. Mom has to make it or it doesn’t count. You know this to be true. It’s not the soup, it’s the love.

Advertisers can try to convince you otherwise, but you can’t cheat God by claiming your product has more love in it when it doesn’t.

Now look at this! Penn and Teller, on their widely acclaimed HBO show (it’s actually Showtime, I’m just saying HBO as a cute little ‘fuck you’ to people who try to sear their logos into my brain… and succeed) devoted an entire episode to the attempt to debunk the superiority of fancy restaurants to Chef Boyardee. Take a look:

How did Russ make this cheap food seem better? He made it beautiful, with tenderness and care. So although the food was originally cheap, the patrons who ate it experienced the care that Russ put into preparing it and the beauty of its presentation. They had also paid “fancy restaurant prices” for it, so they were expecting to enjoy their meals, making it more likely that they will. I love Penn and Teller, but this video proves not that “fancy restaurants are bullshit,” but that the mastery and care of the chefs, decorators, and even the custodians is largely responsible for the difference between shitty and lovely.

—-

When I first walked into my college dorm room, I flipped on the light. I immediately said “ugh” and turned it back off. The window light was plenty, and the fluorescent light was literally disgusting. You can feel the cheapness of it. It feels like you’re being bathed in plastic. I went ahead and plugged in my floor lamp and switched it on. Much better.

There’s a lot of hype these days about fluorescent lights because they are so damn cheap, last so damn long, and give off the same amount of light as incandescent lights while consuming far less energy. However, compact fluorescent light bulbs contaminate the environment with 30,000 lbs of mercury each year. Not only is the light they produce much “shittier,” but fluorescent lights literally endanger mankind. And I just found out that Congress has already passed a law banning incandescent lights and replacing them with fluorescent. Shit!

“Green” assholes can try to convince you otherwise, but you can’t cheat God by trying to get cheap, shitty light from poisonous vapors instead of using good ol’ Edison’s version.

—-

Now when you listen to an mp3 of a song, and then listen to that same song on a LP, there’s a certain depth and detail and quality that the mp3 misses. I’ve often noticed that a song will sound much better on the radio than on my ipod, and the only difference I can think of is that the radio station uses LP’s while I use mp3s. Mp3’s can still be great, I don’t think they’re necessarily ‘bad’ for you like fluorescent lights and microwaves, but they definitely seem to sacrifice love for convenience, just like the other two examples.

iTunes can try to convince you otherwise, but you can’t cheat God by compressing the beauty of analog recordings into digital.

—-

All in all: perhaps microwaves emit harmful radiation or kill good nutrients in food, fluorescent light bulbs are gonna kill us all, and mp3’s aren’t as beautiful. Perhaps not, perhaps it’s all rumors. What is plainly obvious is that something is awry. I think I’ve found the pattern, and it is trying to exchange love for convenience. When we do that, we may be succeed, but always end up fucking ourselves extra hard in the long run (and not enjoying the short run as much in the meantime).

I suppose the moral of the story is, do everything with absolute love and care.

—————————
Written by Mike Elias, in the voice of ‘the uppity self help blogger who is sometimes angry and is not Steve Pavlina but might be Ariel of youaretrulyloved.com but probably not’.

Last night—Wednesday, December 3rd—I attended the 2009 Grammy Nominations Concert, during which LL Cool J interviewed the Jonas Brothers at their seats in the audience at about 6:10PM West Coast time. I saw them in the flesh with my very own eyes. They looked like this:

And that is clearly the inside of the Nokia Center.

Today, my girlfriend informed me that she watched them perform live on TV that same night at the Rockefeller Center in New York, at 8pm East Coast Time.

This is clearly impossible.

Therefore, the Jonas Brothers are either aliens, or they have discovered teleportation or cloning technology. Either way, I have discovered their craziness and exposed it to the world—it is only reasonable that therefore, I am entitled to a large share of their profits.

Ideagasms used to do this, it was incredible. I experienced a period during which each day was progressively more amazing than the last.

From the facebook group: http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=37432248105

“For where two or three have gathered together in My name, I am there in their midst.” –Matthew 18:20

Collective prayer is very powerful, and the more people that do it, the more powerful it becomes. This group will bless the world at the same time each day, and each day you will feel the power of the group supporting and uplifting you. Invite a ton of people to this group; the effect we have on the world, ourselves, and each other is dramatic. If you’d like to be a part of this, set your cell phone alarm for:

US West Coast 1:40pm
US Mountain 2:40pm
US Central 3:40pm
US East Coast 4:40pm
London 8:40pm (20:40)
Amsterdam 9:40pm (21:40)

For other time zones, check out: http://www.timezoneconverter.com/cgi-bin/tzc.tzc

When that alarm goes off, take a few minutes wherever you are to send light and love to the world. Perhaps you’d also like to ask your Higher Self/God/The Universe to send you something you desire, be it love, money, healing, etc. Bless the world, yourself, and others, and ask that your intention joins with ours and empowers all blessings.

I’ve started a new blog to dedicate to realizations and ideas about spirituality, without the personal slant of this blog. It will be where I post insights and whatnot from now on, basically the way I have here.

http://wisdomidonthave.wordpress.com

The following is from the ‘About’ page:

I’ve often had the feeling that by describing my realizations and insights, I diminish their personal significance. However, I’m often inspired to share my little ‘aha!’ moments (also known as “ideagasms”). Perhaps I’m inspired to share for a reason, and perhaps the verbalization of insights diminishes them because they weren’t true insights.

A true insight is a new identity. An expansion of your sense of self. A permanent change in perspective.

Such a thing could never be diminished so easily. However, an idea that seems special can quickly lose its significance when it becomes apparent that it is only an idea, and not one of these fundamental shifts. Ideas can be important in facilitating true insights and spiritual evolution, but in order to truly know anything, it must become part of your identity. Therefore, nothing that is truly known can be put into words.

If only I truly knew that.

Thank you very much!

The idea that ‘nothing is inherently good or bad’ can be interpreted in two basic ways.

Moral relativism states that nothing is inherently good or bad; therefore, saving a life and murdering someone are of equal benefit to the world, and the ends justify the means.

The other interpretation doesn’t imply moral relativism and grant everybody the automatic right to do anything. Instead, it grants everybody the right to unconditional forgiveness. It says, “You’re free to do whatever you want, but there’s a direction you’ll like and a direction you won’t like. Choose the latter as much as you want to, the former will always be there for you, but be warned.”

Instead of specific actions or things being good or bad, good and bad are directions; only they’re not called ‘good’ and ‘bad’. The directions are ‘toward God’ and ‘away from God’, or ‘for the good of the limited, imaginary self’ and ‘for the good of the infinite, real self’. So instead of specific actions or deeds being inherently bad and rendering them spiritually off-limits (which would disrupt the law of free will), it is not the action that contracts or expands you, but the motive.

There is only one moment in which experience happens.

Let’s say, at this moment, you’re here:

Limited self/illusion/ego<—————|—————->Infinite self/reality/God