Author Archives: grnthei

Smell the Sweetness

Leave a reply

Volume 4, Issue 22

Annie was moving fast. She always moved fast. She did everything fast. She even laughed fast, and then quickly moved on to the next thing.

She whisked through the garden doing the necessary watering without noticing the sweet fragrance of new-mown grass and wildflowers. The softly scented breeze on her bare arms itself felt delicious and somehow combined into one thing with the scent. Faintly and unheard, a small inner voice related the moment to the song about a kiss you could build a dream on. The perfumed wind and immobile meditation could have been a winged heart dream but all this was literally beneath attention as Annie had things to do and if asked she would have said all her concentration was on getting the job done. There was some truth in that. She was intent on getting the tasks behind her, but not because there was good stuff ahead that she was eager to get to. And there was nothing like a state of concentration going on in her head.

Like so many of us, Annie’s mind was a mess. It was not focused. Her current movements were not based on a carefully-thought-out plan with transparent priorities. She was just keeping up with the have-to-do’s — the pervasive tone of life in the Accelerolithic Era. Distracted state precludes Flow state. There’s too much noisy messy input, with seemingly not enough time to process it.

Annie could be an artist. She is good with her hands and could envision a piece and create it. Doing that got her into the Flow state where she did her best work — her gift to the world.

Making money at her art seemed like an idle fantasy judging from the toughness of the world, her surroundings and friends and the lives they all led. There was great beauty in her surroundings but the mood created by the difficulty of making enough money to live pleasurably without constant fear of money problems made that beauty literally invisible.

If Annie were hypnotized and asked patiently for a long time about why she is always moving so fast, eventually she would come to realize something she does not know: it is because she is always unconsciously striving to make money. She feels without knowing it that she will make more money by doing everything as fast as she can. She does odd jobs for friends and acquaintances, like working in a dress shop, washing cars, walking dogs, and landscaping, so there is some logic in that unconscious thought. However, in reality the fast motion causes a slowdown in finished product due to the need to patch up things not done properly, which also eventually causes her to not get as much work from her employers as she would if everything were always done without things being left in the wrong places or half-done.

One layer deeper she might realize that the quest to make money was not really because she wanted to buy specific things so much as to please her partner and also to have other people be proud of her or realize that she is more capable than the way they have treated her.

Annie went to the mountaintop one day and although as the sun passed its zenith and the breeze began to be cold, she remained bare-armed and slipped into that waking dream where she was uplifted out of her Acceleritis and into the Flow state at what You Are The Universe calls “Soul-Level Two” — the bliss state, ananda. She was not moving fast. She was not under the dominance of any have-to-do compulsions. Her mind and body and every aspect of her were all lined up in the Game. There was no rush. She could see everything around her, hear everything, smell it all, enjoying the moment itself with no force causing her to lose freedom, break the fast on motion, in any direction.

This is the place to live at every moment. It is its own reward. Because we then give our finest performances at any beloved Game, we get paid the most money for it. We cannot get there by giving up as unrealistic the inner drive to do a specific thing we love to do, and settling into a mortgaged life of second-choice work that is steady and dependable. Like the hero or heroine in a movie, in real life we must pursue our highest calling, have the daring to do that extraordinarily risky seeming thing.

Then we will have the ability to concentrate, the prerequisite for Flow state. We will smell the sweetness of Life. And because the Universe is us, if we actually do what we are uniquely designed to do so that we provide true value to others, as if by magic the dreams will come true in the end.

“Do what you like to do. You’re going to be doing it for a long time.”

—George Burns, while puffing cigar

Best to all,

Bill

Follow my regular blog contribution at Jack Myers Media Network: "In Terms of ROI." It is in the free section of the website at  Bill Harvey at MediaBizBloggers.com.

You Are The Universe: Imagine That is now available. Read an excerpt and watch my videos where I talk about the book.

Do What You’re Inspired to Do

Leave a reply

At Any Given Moment

Volume 4, Issue 21

Our moment of history may be called “The Accelerolithic Era” by those living thousands of years from now who study records of our period (even if they’re Martians). Since written records began (and I theorize because of written language) our information pressure per day has been exponentially accelerating. I call the resulting condition of humanity “Acceleritis”. Perhaps some remote indigenous people have not yet succumbed to this syndrome — I hope so for their sakes.

One of the components of Acceleritis is that we never have enough time to get done all the things we feel we ought to do.

This is a pandemic shock reaction to the effects of ever-mounting stimuli that set up “anti-closures” in our mind. These “anti-closures” (“sanskaras” in Sanskrit) are circuits that have taken an interest in some stimulus but now have unasked questions about that stimulus or the things immediately associated with the stimulus. (For a more Technical and Theoretical Description, see below.)

Every time you note interest in something, like the things your eyes land upon, this is what is happening in your brain, and we are definitely unaware of at least 99% of it.

Because of an apparently innate drive for closure, and the seeming impossibility of ever reaching closure on everything the mind desires closure on, we are uneasy at most times but have gotten used to it.

The feeling of always being behind speeds up our actions to the point of increasing errors requiring fixing, thus slowing us down and making us feel even more behind with no apparent hope of ever catching up.

We also repress the sense of needing closure, thus purposely ignoring hints from the subconscious asking us to contemplate things we have done that we regret, people we have not forgiven, and philosophical questions that once fascinated us and are central to life. We push stuff back down into that repressed area, which enlarges the unconscious at the expense of the conscious.

Some or all drug addiction may be traceable to this phenomenon.

Don’t Overthink It

During your work day or at play, you are often not sure what to do first. Do what most inspires you at that moment. Why? Because that way the chances are higher that you’re doing it in the Flow state, which never occurs when you are doing something because you should do it. I call that “doing it to get it out of the way”.  Flow state only occurs when you are enjoying what you are doing, and doing it solely or mainly for its enjoyment.

If you’re in the grip of Acceleritis and held down below the Observer state, you’ll not know what inspires you more to do next, X or Y or Z. The solution here is to  just let your body go and watch what it does. The body often makes decisions before the mind is consciously aware of making the decision. It’s the same decision. It’s the reflection of both the mind and body, both of those phenomena being aspects of the One Consciousness.

Don’t Be Email/Text/Tweet/Social Media Driven

It has become all too easy in the Accelerolithic Era to become driven by incoming email, texts, Tweets, Facebook and Instagram posts — meaning you don’t decide what to do next, you react to the ubiquitous digital input stream. This goes on all day and you become a willing slave to this digital input stream.

It’s helpful to let people know the times each day you’ve set aside to catch up with emails and texts and whatever else is queueing up.

Meditation

Meditation — the mind observing itself — is the most efficient way to allow assimilation and closure of the most salient “anti-closures” bugging your mind subconsciously at any given point in time.

Like trying to remember a name, meditation does not work by “trying to do it”, it works by erasing everything going on inside and continuing to erase as thoughts/feelings/images/hunches arise. You’re allowed to jot down notes for later, using trigger words that will bring back the whole thought-train, and then resume the emptying out.

Here’s a quick YouTube video on the subject: Erase.

Best to all,

Bill

More Technical Theoretical Description

On the formation of “anti-closures”:

  1. These new pathways initially must be along established neurons. There they modify connectivity with other neurons by subtle chemical changes at the synapses caused by the mental state cascading from the reception of the stimulus.
  2. Longer term, new neuron growth is hypothesized stemming from the same causative event. Such growth helps the circuit continue to exist and occasionally “speak up” in the senate of the mind when the mental subject comes near the thoughts (or sub-thoughts) suggested by the stimulus.​

Follow my regular blog contribution at Jack Myers Media Network: "In Terms of ROI." It is in the free section of the website at  Bill Harvey at MediaBizBloggers.com.

You Are The Universe: Imagine That is now available. Read an excerpt and watch my videos where I talk about the book.

Happy Anniversary World

Leave a reply

Volume 4, Issue 20

Today is our 12th wedding anniversary. On the satellite radio Matt Monro sings Tony Newley’s song, On a Wonderful Day like Today, “May I take this occasion to say that the whole human race should go down on its knees, show that we’re grateful for mornings like these…”

Zohreh the cat steps on my bare feet and curls her tail around my calf, affectionate gestures to show how grateful and eager she is to receive her breakfast. Four identical little birds catch my eye with their geometric formation to remind me to hang their feeder.

Last night as an anniversary present to each other we attended Stan Satlin’s and Joel Martin’s musical tribute to Nelson Mandela on what would have been Mandela’s 96th birthday at the Riverside Church in Manhattan. Powerful African drums reverberated in my chest as we entered the great sanctuary. Reverend Dr. James A. Forbes, Jr. recounted a visit to the church in which Dr. Martin Luther King, with great respect, introduced Nelson Mandela shortly after his release from 27 years in jail. Mandela’s peace-inspired writings had created an unstoppable tide for the end of apartheid which caused his release and then Presidency of post-apartheid South Africa. The touching event featuring Stan’s and Joel’s music, the voices of a horde of talented singers and musicians, and many moving personal remembrances, brought tears of joy and triumph for me and many others. The meaning of the event, entitled  “Footsteps of Mandela”, is that we are each to hear the inner voice from above the way he did and carry out our own Missions in the same unifying spirit.

I had heard Stan’s song “Keeper of the Song” before but never expressed the way it was last night, as a sacred hymn, by a chorus of amazing singers. I prevailed on Stan and Joel to rush me a copy of last night’s performance of that song. And alas it is not here in time for this post. As soon as it is available I will share it. In the meantime here is another recording of Keeper of the Song.
Keeper of the Song

Thirteen years ago Lalita awoke one morning at the ashram where she serves with a voice within her telling her that today she would meet the man with whom she would spend the rest of her life, and bade her to go to New Paltz for that meeting. Driving through a mounting snowstorm she arrived at the location specified by the voice and met me.

Hubble's Colliding Galaxies
courtesy of Hubble

At the time I had no idea she had dedicated her life to a spiritual Mission and that her ashram is located at the former site of the hotel where I spent every summer of the first 16 years of my life. As we parted from an initial meeting, I had snapshot flashes of the two futures that emanated from the moment, one in which we would be together. To me it was just a moment but apparently to Lalita it was longer and she later reported that it appeared I had lapsed into a narcoleptic trance.

In Mind Magic I wrote “When two individuals fall in love it is as if two fragments of the universal consciousness have remembered that they are one.”

To the extent of their love,
they will cease to seek individual goals,
and will begin to seek mutual goals.
Two consciousnesses seeking mutual goals

are in the process of gradually
becoming aware of themself
as one consciousness.

Once the goals are merged,
the perceptions and memories
are in a position to follow.

Know that the purpose of love
is to reunite the universal consciousness.

Our wedding ceremony was presided over by the late Rabbi Chaim Gelberman and combined Jewish and Vedic elements, leading me to classify it to friends as an Oy Vedic ceremony. The Rabbi reminded us that the Temple in Jerusalem was built not just for Jews but for all religions since Abraham’s Covenant was with the One God of all.

I’m now reading Harvey Kraft’s brilliant book The Buddha from Babylon in which he reveals a little-known connection between Judaism and the spiritual teachings of India. Abraham was a shaman and religious leader of the Yadu (“root for Yahudi, i.e. Jewish”), one of the five Indo-Aryan tribes mentioned in the Rig Veda, before migrating west following the Epic Drought. His name may be the source of the words Brahma (the Creator God) and Brahmin (man of God).

Abraham is estimated to have been in Babylonia after the Drought around 1800 BCE and the Rig Veda dates back no earlier than 1750 BCE according to Wikipedia and other Internet sources so on the face of it Harvey Kraft could be right.

I’m having an amazing day and I hope you are too.

My best to all,

Bill

Follow my regular blog contribution at Jack Myers Media Network: "In Terms of ROI." It is in the free section of the website at  Bill Harvey at MediaBizBloggers.com.

You Are The Universe: Imagine That is now available. Read an excerpt and watch my videos where I talk about the book.

The Spirit of Friendship

Leave a reply

Volume 4, Issue 19

And the Future of Facebook

It started as a way for male college students to see the faces of the coeds so as to choose which ones to ask out on dates. Today it is as big as television in the lives of many people.

In my newsletter of things to come, when I was making my wild-eyed media predictions a long time ago (which all came true in one way or another), I thought Facebook would come through webcams first, and of course I never used the term Facebook. I saw it as “each person having their own television station” and cross-device promotion expert Richard Fusco despite his fondness for radio saw it that way too. That was the closest my mind could get to a picture of the interactivity and democratization I knew would be coming. Of course, my mind was constrained by the things I knew best, such as television.

When Facebook came out as a stock for public investment, the results were disappointing because despite enormous audience usage there was no credible revenue model. The early Internet pioneers were mostly anti-advertising and/or had ridiculously high estimates of what advertisers would pay. Google was determined never to allow advertising. They were all smart enough to pivot and learn the advertising ground rules fast once the handwriting was on the wall.

Back in the post-IPO early days I suggested to a friend highly placed at Facebook that Facebook advertising should not be advertising at all, but branded content. Brands would insert content that fit within Facebook’s mood, not selling their product but sponsoring entertainment and/or informative/useful content that users would like and be grateful for, translating to sales and loyalty for the brand. I showed my friend the 28 studies I had done proving this point. He said it was interesting but they already had a full plate of ideas they were testing.

Stan Silverman, one of the most effective direct marketers today, pointed out around the same time that regular ads would not be as effective in Facebook, since when people used Facebook it was not for shopping or thinking about products, but instead feeling good in the warmth of communicating with friends or just seeing what they were up to lately. Nonetheless “regular ads” is what transpired in Facebook.

Something else is happening to Facebook today. The way content is organized is changing. Facebook must by now realize that users are not at all happy about this. Posts from friends they were particularly following no longer appeared on their main page (Home or News Feed) but had to be found on a new page that had to be stumbled upon. This content feed (called Pages Feed) appears to be where the algorithms put content that has some soft-sell advertising-like purpose but is not paying Facebook anything for ads. One can imagine the meeting at Facebook in which it was decided to dis-incentivize these “freeloaders” and force them into paying for ads by shoving them in the back of the Facebook so to speak.

At that meeting someone might have warned that users don’t like changes unless they themselves have asked for them. Jonathan Steuer, whose renaissance mind springs instantly to the bottom line, reminds us that Microsoft has made much-despised changes at the pleasure of its software developers without considering the inconvenience to users of such changes. Jonathan has been loyal to Apple since the beginning and across all devices the Apple interface has been steady as a rock.

It remains to be seen whether Facebook will make a success of its current ad policy or evolve a new one. If it can show ROI of course the game is won Business-to-Business (BTB), although fans might not like the ad-driven changes. A true win/win would be to maintain the mood and spirit of the original Facebook, return quickly to the beloved format before too much time passes, show the world that this is a company whose leaders can admit mistakes because they are real people like the rest of us. That’s the spirit of the place. It’s a great spirit — the spirit of friendship. It could be a wonderful — even the premier — environment for brands bonding with consumers.

And it could lead the way into a future where advertising is more a matter of friendly brand content than the bombarding remnants of operant conditioning theory. I hope this prediction comes true.

Best to all,

Bill 

Follow my regular blog contribution at Jack Myers Media Network: "In Terms of ROI." It is in the free section of the website at  Bill Harvey at MediaBizBloggers.com.

You Are The Universe: Imagine That is now available. Read an excerpt and watch my videos where I talk about the book.