Month: May 2015

FIVE BUCKS
Metaphorically speaking each and every one of us has five bucks. If there is a measuring device we can measure the smarts, strength and the ability to live for self and help the others around.

Say you are standing on the bank and you have to get to the other side of the river. First of all you have to think, plan and then act on your plan. You can gather some branches, make a raft and row yourself to the other side.
If the wisdom, power, energy and the ability to do everything is measured, metaphorically it is worth five bucks for each individual. If the whole community contributes their fiver to build a bridge, everyone in the community can cross the river whenever they want to.
Logically a single individual is weaker than the big family depending, if they get along and work as a unit. One can be very smart and have a lot of resources to hire lot of helping hands to function at a higher level. Either way that smarts still comes from the five bucks.
Fighting infectious diseases like Ebola out break, issues with Global warming, spread of internet or even building of space station is best functioning or its usefulness is meaningful if the humanity comes together with five bucks at a time.
An example, a human cell is meaningless on its own but with the right circumstances, it has the power to create a whole and functioning body of the human being with limitless potential. We each have trillions of cells in the body, individually cell may be insignificant but when work together the potential is limitless. There is a new world record of dead lift, someone just sent me on the face book and it is one thousand one hundred and fifty five pounds. I see there is a potential to spare, because I know for sure someone will break it some time in the future.

A child tries to mimic his/her parents and feels the limitations because of the comparison between him/her and grown up parent.
I am using this comparison between God and the human individual. Just like the child we put everything impossible for us on God’s shoulders. We expect that God should take care of every thing what concerns us.
In case of our inability to take care of the task at hand, we pray to God and ask for help. Believing that you are going to get help is great, but after you have used up your five bucks, just like the individual who built the raft to cross the river. The idea of building a bridge and community coming together is God speaking through the human individuals. That means all the advances made by the man kind is related with God as well. These advances are made because God and the mankind are evolving with each other’s help.

If you separate yourself form God which most religions believe we are. That is the reason even the most innocent of us is considered a born sinner and insignificant according to the belief systems. I believe each and everyone of is a third equation in the grand scheme of life and that is because of that fiver, it is not going to go very far if you believe that you are born in sin.

As an individual you have been put down for thousands of years, if you really buy into that you run the risk of being worthless, thus become the victim of the inferiority complex, which would give all the business and the powers to the religion runners. You want to see the proof just look at the majestic buildings of the religions, yet regardless of the head pounding or bowing down on your knees you can’t find God in there.

The real God is found in the practical help to the humanity. There was a survey in New York, what made people really feel happy? The over whelming answer was that when people could help an other human being in need. This is the spiritual happiness everyone is seeking when they go to the mosque of church. Ask yourself if you are spiritually getting fulfilled by going to mosque or church. If not go out and find a charity and pray practically, which is related to the God who lives through the humanity.
When you chew more than you can handle it is usually related with the fiver you have.
Ask yourself if you are the one who expects the community to provide you with bridges, or are you the one who can built the raft and row your self to the other side of the river.
Instead of sitting on the bank of the river, you should take charge and live your life on your terms. If you are waiting and expecting the community’s help, you don’t respect your fiver and have no idea of its value.
You think it is not enough to function at the level you desire so you fail before even trying. Society has brain washed you and you don’t even try to use your fiver to live your life. There is an attitude of inferiority complex and lack of self worth.
The trail blazers usually appreciate and value that fiver, they take charge and dive into the adventures of life fearlessly.

Happiness is usually related to the understanding of your ability to be flexible, when you accept your limitations and at the same time understand your potential. You can easily understand that, when you become a CEO of your life, other wise you are going to be swept away by the politics of God, Devil and the politician who is running the religion.
There is always a hidden picture, and it is you who has to clear all the influential fog of the time and era you are born in. After all you are the one who is mortal with all the responsibilities of your individual happiness and contentment.

If you get caught up in the personal strength and believe that you have way more than the five bucks. You became a doctor or a successful business man or a super star in any field by your personal efforts, or believe that you are doing everything by yourself is not acceptable to me, because I believe, you have been helped all along.

From helpless baby to grown up, there has always been help all along to keep you alive. The sky is not falling, the oxygen is still there yet you have no control over it. That is external, and the body is so complex internally that we still don’t know everything about it. At times the best doctors can’t save a dying individual whose time is up so running the show is not a task of the one single individual.

The functioning of the body is no less than a miracle, if you still believe you are doing everything you are making your life too simple, just ask the sick about the vulnerabilities, especially to the patient with the brain disease who had been the most successful in everything what he/she has touched throughout his/her life.
I am not humanizing God, I am trying to clear the clutter to make my case, so we can take our individual responsibilities and stop killing each other over unfinished and incomplete knowledge of God.
Your fiver is a direct connection between God and the man or a woman, there is no middle man everyone is blessed with the free will so it is not related with the religious beliefs it is deeply related with the personal spirituality.

The politics of sense of belonging and the knowledge about the falls securities has come to the point, that we need to cross the lines of group politics and enter into the zone where the humanity is an evolving organism and one entity. The God and mankind live through it.
As the human individual evolves and gain strength, God strengthens as well.
Today instead of throwing the innocent virgin over the cliff to please God we can save lives by predicting the path of the storms and tsunamis. We have a lot more knowledge about the earthquakes but no control yet, because we are a work in progress.

It may be against the popular beliefs but I personally don’t believe God punishes, is a destroyer or wants sacrifice, it is all related with human emotions and with incomplete knowledge. If God was responsible for everything, our five bucks, free will or our justice systems throughout  the world become meaningless.

Just think and feel if you use your free will everyday, what makes you to use the politics of God and the Devil? If you dig in, and be honest you will find your sense of belonging is getting the best of you. As a CEO, if you can strain out the politics of all kind you will find the spirituality.
Regardless of the differences humanity gets together when natural disasters hit. These are the glimpses of God through the human beings, only if one wants to see it.
We want God to protect us because we have been taught to put God in that position, where God can do any and everything, with this notion we take our five bucks out of the equation and sometime face with the disappointments.

A father or a mother protect the child with the best of their efforts but sometimes it’s not enough. A teen can be reckless and handful, regardless of the availability of the help, it can be difficult for them see and appreciate that help because of the hormones. No parents can help and control one hundred percent of the time. When a grown up human acts like a teen it is because of the incomplete knowledge and obviously the lack of understanding of the hormones. Our chemicals dictate how we feel, thus we get our egotistic emotions go wild when it comes to the knowledge of God.
Sure we have to know more about our emotions, the entity who runs the computer and uses the information has to have the upper hand.

Whether we like it or not there is new theme of religion, and yes that is the human individual rights, even Pope has to changed his tune because the world is changing. Just look at the Irish referendum, human rights are the number one reason a Catholic country allows a gay marriage.

I believe a religion is a spiritual system which should be pure of politics. Having to set the religious rules as the law belong to the political arm of the religions which has no place in spirituality. Religions have put their foot in their mouth because they connected God with their laws, thus can’t be changed. All laws have to have the reason and the foundation, and God is in the zone where no one knows for sure or I would say one hundred percent. That is what makes me against the capital punishment as well because our knowledge regardless of the area, is never complete. Killing someone with out the complete knowledge is not acceptable. The proof is in the pudding, just look at our everyday progress, from the technology to science to human relationships we are evolving into a new era regardless of the resistance put by the conservative and religious people.

DOTTED STORY: CONTROL VERSUS HAPPINESS
May24th 2015
I took the kids to McDonald’s long time ago, they use to give the coloring sheet with the meals. It had a maze, a picture and then an other picture with the dots and numbers. If you can read the numbers you can create the picture and then color it. I believe God has a picture for all of us but the numbers are not there for us, so it is the individual who has to connect the dots to create his/her respected picture. If you are lucky you can find the right one and stay healthy, happy and successful, otherwise you may follow the trends of the society and try to create a picture of influences, thus lose your happiness and eventually health. If you feel that you are successful regardless of your happiness or health it is your personal choice. As a mortal you can’t sacrifice your whole life for the other people’s approval, or spend whole life to fit in, impress them or be admired by them.

Imagine giving a picture to the child with no numbers. He/she would still have to connect the dots to create a picture but would have to rely on his/her imagination. If he/she is unable to create the picture, he/she will get frustrated which could further complicate the problem.

That is why there are so many frustrated people – we all have an idea in our minds of how we would like our lives to be, but we must use our imagination and connect the dots. We can also rely on outside sources, like our parents. If we are fortunate, we can figure out a pretty good picture. If not, we run the risk of messing up the picture and
spend our lives trying to fix it .

A less-than-perfect picture can create a personal struggle, which can last an entire lifetime. This frustration can cause adults to act like a child and mess up the whole picture, or even worse, walk away from it all. Patience is the key to avoiding this situation.

You also need to have faith in the picture you were given. You must examine if it is your desires that are causing you the frustration, usually the desires are related to the influences of the society. You need to accept the fact that nature plays a strong role in your life.
For instance, suppose you were destined to become a mechanic, but instead you became an accountant, or you were destined to become a professional basketball player, but your parents forced you to become a doctor. It is unrealistic to expect that everyone will be successful in every career they choose. As a temporary being you have to be happy at all cost. The measure of the right picture is your happiness and contentment.

The definition of a successful life is determined by how content and happy you have lived. If you knew that life was like writing an exam, and that happiness and contentment are the answers how would you fare by following the life style you are following. Life on earth, a temporary period, means knowing how to manage your life to ensure, that it is fulfilling.
By nature you are meant to be a CEO of your life, and you should not limit yourself to being a manager of one department. Being successful without the happiness or health is no success at all.

You need to map out your life with the vision of a successful CEO, who could mange all departments with equal or balanced attention. It may be hard at times but you have the potential. Each and every one of us has the responsibility and the ability to judge and make choices with the gift of free will. If you have neglected the department of health or spirituality along the way, because of you were too busy taking care of other departments, you may regret latter in life. Without health there is unhappiness and with out spirituality the deeper happiness and contentment of life are unachievable.

Yes, it is all a matter of happiness. We have it all wrong when we want to be somebody we’re not. Society places pressure on us – high hopes and a lack of faith pushes the individuals to sacrifice and spend whole life as if everything is on the horizon which never comes and then it is too late. We are in this world where the salesman mentality rules: Push, push, push, and you will succeed, succeed to get what? hopefully its happiness.

Just think for a minute about what success means to you. It’s happiness in all parts of life. Having all the money in the world will not bring about happiness. If you were to have a terminal illness, you would realize that you are not here for eternity. Life is temporary, so live yours to the fullest. Life is about more than connecting the dots. You have a limited time for every thing; you just have to break it down into our 24-hours a day. You have to work, sleep, eat and still leave some time for fun. You have to be a believer for your picture to be complete. Don’t be afraid to let fate play a role in your life.

When we have a target in front of us, we can shoot an arrow, and watch it hits the target. The result is immediate, but sometimes, we have to shoot the arrow at an unseen target. That requires skill as well as luck. A lot of people who are bad shooters think they are messed up and blame themselves for everything wrong in their lives. We are not 100% of anything, until we reach to our potential. We probably use twenty percent of our brain power which makes us far from potentially what we can be. I believe spirituality, for example, works against boasting or bragging because it is not only you, who is making it all happen. It is that little oxygen you breath in first before you are able to make things happen. There is always somebody that makes you make things happen, and this entity can make you fail as well as succeed. The difference between you and other people is not just the effort or strategies you put into things, it is also the luck and destiny.

You can play music all your life in the bars or become a child super star overnight, just look around how many people want certain profession but end up doing something else. Ever wonder why? that is the dotted picture. If you are unhappy try something else you may find peace with in by believing and letting it go. If you achieve inner peace you may become more productive and useful to yourself and the people around you. Ultimately that is the foundation of the deep and inner happiness and contentment. Bottom line, Being productive period…..

Sense of belonging verses sense of freedom.

This is a vast subject but I would try to some it up, I may write more about it in future again.
Say you are walking around and deliberately step into the dog poop, while you walk you stink. Others around smell you and think down about you. Life has its responsibilities, you have to pay attention while walking around and especially you don’t step into the poop with intention. You can’t just say you don’t give a dame about the others around you.
Sense of belonging compels you to care what others think about you.
From the name brand clothing to muscle building to anorexia to suicide bombing they all are related to the sense of belonging.

This phenomenon is so powerful that we do things automatically without asking the questions and while we are abiding by the sense of belonging we think there is no other way. From cheering for your team regardless of the performance to killing and dyeing for your religions or nations regardless of guilt is perfectly normal thing to do.

The opposing thing is the sense of freedom, not giving a dame, it has the potential to make you lose your freedom yet it is called the sense of freedom. From the real jail to the jail of obesity is usually connected to not giving a dame.

These opposing senses are ingrained in the individual naturally yet the individual is given the free will to balance the imbalances. Whether its physical, psychological or spiritual all imbalances are individual’s responsibility. The inner demons are related to being torn apart or having an imbalanced triangle. In the end of the day the individual who uses the free will has more responsibilities than we are taught.

A belonging group would always seek and keep the powers to keep the individual from becoming stronger and questioning everything, so its up to the individual to follow to be a sheep or become a CEO. A CEO who can buy into the politics or question to make a good use of the God given powers of the free will.
You can make life limited or simple by following one or the other sense, but its your duty to balance the inner conflicts or demons individually. For instance, if you join a street gang for protection and security, there is a bigger force out there who is looking for the interest of the whole community which has the power to land you behind the bars. The law and order is required in the human societies and we have more people working against the gangs, thus your security can actually become an insecurity. Naturally the next step you take is to join the community, obviously it is bigger than the gang but it has its limitations as well, because the provincial rules need to be followed. The next comes the federal or national level of community, which also has its limits because the religions spill over the jurisdictions of the nations. Sometime they conflict and sometime they can live in harmony but the power struggle has been always present.

The affiliation with the religions come with its own set of rules as well, thus it is related with the politics of the belonging group. Any thing related to any one particular group of people, is a pure political system for the security and the well being of that particular group.

This is like the animals marking their territories, we are still doing that regardless of the level of our civilization or evolution. This has been around for millions of years, so it is the normal thing for us, thus we can’t or would not think beyond our boundaries. This is the vary reason we always have wars and can’t get together as a humanity, but these days nature is forcing us to think beyond our sense of belonging to one particular group and rethink the politics, because we can’t survive unless we start to pull together as a humanity. From the infectious diseases to global warming to information highway and everything in between is forcing us to think like a connected humanity.

The group politics makes us to live in the ponds with the boundaries yet we qualify as human individuals, who is boundless. Just look at the achievements of the mankind.
With that free will each and everyone of us is a CEO who needs to understand the right side up triangle.
Man

sense of belonging sense of freedom

The CEO has the power to create a balance or choose a side with choice.

Cheering for your team regardless of the performance is one thing but killing an other human being regardless of the guilt for your sense of belonging is a spiritual crime. As an individual you are responsible for your actions regardless of power of the sense of belonging because you are blessed with the free will.

If you consider yourself as an extension of an ideology or a nation, you have a political identity but spiritual identity comes from becoming a CEO who is connected to the humanity as a whole.

If you choose to be Black, White, Muslim, Christian, American, Canadian or Pakistani, or crusader of gender equality these are your political choices. Sense of belonging to certain group of people whether it is to a gang, gender community, nation or a religion has the potential to make you live in a pond with the boundaries or like a computer without the connection to the internet. just like the justice should be blind we need to look at equal rights for the individual blindly.
You are born to a human family which qualifies you as a human being thus you belong to the humanity since the day you are born, if your parents or community paints you as a part of their belonging group, you are being limited and denied your potential, because potentially you are a human being who is a born CEO. Since you use free will, you have to question if and when you are asked to commit spiritual crimes on the name of your community, nation or religion. You are connected to the humanity by nature first, then your intellect makes you the part of politics of your belonging group which is second and it is you who is the CEO, the balancing entity.

From the health care to personal relationship to spirituality, it always takes two to tango.
Health care is a great spiritual and humanitarian thing, but it should come with the individual responsibilities. You can’t just believe that doctor would take care of everything regardless of your life style. Life still is lived but there are certain standards for the wellbeing and the quality of life. If you don’t participate in your own wellbeing you have a disconnection in several departments of your life. For instance God is in the same vicinity; if you believe in God it can be very useful in individual’s temporary life but just like the doctor, God can’t work alone. Whether it’s a doctor or God they need your input and cooperation.

Regardless of the disabilities, if you are putting too much emphases or reliance on the doctor or God, health and life in general will leave you behind. A doctor can suggest certain things to live better and God can help you to provide the oxygen but expect your input to have your life a successful story. Most people believe in God, pray to God for protection and believe that whatever is not in their control God can do it for them. The expectations of God are regarded as, all the impossible things are possible if the God is on their side true and questionable at the same time. God helps who helps themselves, that is what I learnt as growing up.
God has been on the pedestal, especially in the Eastern side of the world where people put a lot more on the God’s shoulders compare to the West. It is like you let the God drive your car, and have faith in surviving the accident. In the West, God is given a back seat or altogether dropped out of the car both are extremes and need balance. I believe God should be in the passenger seat as a guide. If you kick the God out altogether your life is quite heavy and burdensome. If God is your driver your purpose of having a free will disappears and you are not taking responsibilities given to you. For instance it is our responsibility to evolve, if we stop doing our share we can end up losing faith if God does not show up when needed regardless of the prayers.
A doctor can expect from you to put more efforts in your health area, but do you? You are expected to pull your end of the bargain, meaning your side of the wheel.
Whether it is relationship with your doctor, God or your spouse it takes effort from your side. If you think that the other side is pulling so you don’t have to do anything, your personal expectations can cause imbalances in your personal relationships whether it is with God, your doctor or your spouse resulting in your unhappiness.
In any kind of relationship, both parties have to pull, if one wheel is stuck, the cart will go in circle and you would not get anywhere. If you are a part of a couple pull the cart equally, house wife or a house husband is not the issue, its about pulling the cart equally. Don’t hold sex as a put out because it is not a favor card. Sex is the most loudly speaking proof of reciprocation which is for the two of you.
If everyone begins to put an honest effort, life can be much happier regardless of circumstances. You will be physically healthy because of your doctor and your efforts, your relationship would be stronger because the cart is being pulled by both sides and spiritually you would be happier and content with stronger faith in God, just because you took responsibility according to your abilities.
Whenever you feel proud of yourself, be humble because everything you have achieved or are achieving is done after you have taken in that little oxygen which is provided to you, and you have no control over it, inside or out side of you.
If you feel there is no God start looking at the abilities of your own body how it runs and how sophisticated it is. If you think it is still an accident that you are able to even think and retain memory, remember you are not a computer. You are the one who is running the computer. As a baby you are born with the computer and we all install or get the memory installed as we grow but you are complete before the installation of the memory. Scientifically or religiously nothing is complete because we have not reached our potential yet, the proof is in the learning new things, inventing new things and evolving everyday, so claiming whether there is or there is no God is still an assumption related with the probably twenty percent use of the capacity. When we reach one hundred present of our capacity then we can passionately argue about the existence of God, Until then don’t take pride and credit of the whole thing because you, your body, brain and all the installed knowledge is dependent on that little oxygen you are blessed with.

Ladder of Horizon and the River of Time.

Picture yourself you are in the river of time which has different levels of calm and turbulence. If you are born into the turbulence zone, just like your parents did or you somehow fall into it, you will have to struggle and put efforts to stay afloat. If you are in the middle zone where you have sometime turbulence and sometime calm, you get to work and relax sometime. If you are born in the calm where you can stay afloat without putting efforts. Since every single one of us is in this metaphoric river and we can see everyone’s status, we all know where everyone is. So struggle begins for most of us, if you are in the turbulence you want to get to the neighboring calm and  turbulence zone. When you reach there, its a given that you would want to get to the calm zone. Our focus makes the calm a destination, so everyone strives to get there regardless of the price or mortal nature. Since our focus has the potential to make us forget the mortality we end up paying a heavy price of losing happiness and contentment necessary for a mortal to accumulate. A mortal individual should have one goal and that is to obtain as much happiness as possible before passing on. Yet we come in this life and get caught up in day today life so badly that we put our life on a literal hold. Our hopes and desires become too powerful to handle, so we struggle to get to the calm area of the river at all price and forget about our mortal nature, and spiritually get lost which cost us later in life.

Regardless of your placing in the river, if you find out that you have got six months to live, everything will come crashing down and your whole life will change. So as a CEO of your life you have the responsibility to make decisions and choices along the way but keeping your mortality in front. If you choose to seek calm zone of the river as a destination you would just make your life limited to certain department. As a CEO who is able to see their life as a business project with several departments, you would not neglect happiness and contentment. You would choose to be happy and hopeful in all kind of circumstances or the turbulence of life. That means you would understand life at spiritual level. When the time comes to leave it all behind, you will have the satisfaction that you have done the best you could in accumulating  happiness and contentment.
Since I am a personal trainer, by no means am I preaching complacency. I expect from myself and my clients to do better than they have done previously, so I tell them about my metaphoric ladder of horizon.

 Inspiration along with appreciation.
Say you are climbing a ladder with a lot of people above you, you work hard to climb, may be too slow for you but if you are slowly climbing one step at a time you are still climbing. Even its slow but if it still moving upwards it is still acceptable, but there comes a time. No matter what strategy you use or how hard you try you just can’t climb any more simply because you are stuck. You get frustrated and angry but no go, that is where you lose happiness and contentment of your life. When you are there where you have lost happiness, now is the time to look down and see how many millions of people want to be at your spot where you already are yet you are still unhappy. This is where spirituality come to put things in perspectives so look up and compare with the people above you but in spiritually healthy manors and get inspired by their success. Look down and appreciate what you have in your life so you can be open to happiness and contentment. Never to forget your temporary nature of visit because the kicker is that no matter how high or how low you are on this ladder you will fall off the ladder because of your individual mortality. Yet the ladder and the people above or below would go on as if the ladder is a ladder of horizon which has no end.
Now whether it is a river or a ladder, you as a CEO have the responsibility to live your life according to the bitter reality of mortality. If you choose the calm as a destination do so but not at all cost and remember it is hard to leave behind, what you have been working so hard for all your life.