Meditation

It’s an odd thing to ponder, but have you ever wondered about the foundational way you conduct your life? For most people it consists of this: A persistent asking of the same question, over and over. That question is:

“What do I want?”

Small

The situations in which we ask this question come in the small, medium and large categories. The small would include things like:

“Let’s see, it’s 3 o’clock and I’m dragging. What do I want? A Starbucks venti latte and a chocolate croissant is just what the doctor ordered.”

“It’s Saturday morning and I have nothing to do. Do I want to go shopping, take a walk, or read? A trip to the mall sounds good.”

“Just home from a tough day at work. What do I want: An IPA, a fat glass of chardonnay or a vodka with fresh squeezed grapefruit? Ding, ding, ding! Vodka.”

Medium

In the medium category we might ask:

“Do I want to continue dating this guy? It’s been three months and I’m not really feeling it.”

“Do I want the four bedroom, three bath house or the two bedroom, two bath that’s closer to downtown?”

Large

Then, of course, we have the large.

“What do I want out of life? Marriage, kids and a career? Should I just focus on career so I can make the most money and have the best life?”

“Do I want to be a lawyer? A doctor? A businessman? What would make me happiest?”

Most of us ask questions from all three categories, all day long. Every day. Our lives constantly ping-pong from one “What do I want?” to the next.

And it makes sense, people asking what they want all the time. How the hell else are we supposed to live our lives?

But there’s a problem. A massive one.

It doesn’t work.

How do we know this? Because most of humanity lives the “What do I want?” life, and most of humanity is several French fries short of a Happy Meal most of the time.

Why it doesn’t work

The logical next question becomes: Why doesn’t going after what we want work? The answer starts with why we’re asking this question in the first place. Most people would say that it’s normal to ask what they want. They’re just pursuing things they want. What’s wrong with that?

It’s not that there’s anything wrong with it. It’s just that the place from which that question arises is one of lack. It comes from “I am not okay right now. But I’ll be okay if I — have a beer, go get sushi, go shopping, become a doctor, get married and have kids…”

This “What do I want?” life is a constant, and unfortunately futile, search for happiness. “I’m not okay, but I will be okay if I just get this, this, this, and this.” As most of us know, it doesn’t work.

It can in the short term. Three days after buying that Audi A4, you’re cruising around with a big smile, thinking, “Mmm, nothing like that new car smell!” Two weeks later you’re driving to work and don’t even give it a fleeting thought — you’re too busy ruminating about the new guy they just hired and how he might leapfrog ahead of you on the job ladder.

Who’s asking the question?

Next, we need to explore the entity inside us that is constantly asking, “What do I want?” The answer?

Our egos.

What’s that? It’s the voice in our heads that never shuts up. That is critical of our, and everybody else’s, every move. It consists of all the accumulated emotional baggage we’ve stored, beginning in our first years of life. It’s the “not who I am” part of us that most people think “is who I am.”

The ego operates from a place of fear and lack. So when it constantly asks, “What do I want?” it is just trying to sustain and fortify itself. It’s not out to serve our best interests. It’s out to serve its interests.

What I’d ask if I were you

We’re at the point now where, if I was reading this, my question would be, “Thanks, Mr. Know-it-all. If constantly trying to fulfill our wants doesn’t work, what the hell does work?”

There is a life path that does work. And by “work” I mean a life that leads to a sustained feeling of peace inside.

For the answer, let’s turn to basic logic. If the ego is the entity responsible for making us feel the need to want all the time because it always feels in a place of lack, what would be the rational course of action?

Let go of the ego.

That really is it. When we let go of the ego, bit by bit, piece of baggage by piece of baggage, we start feeling less needful of all these wants.We start feeling okay just living in the moment. And the reason we’re able to be present in the moment is precisely because we’ve begun to eliminate the entity that constantly draws us away from the moment — our egos.

How do let go of our egos? I’ve written several articles attacking this subject from myriad angles, including this one, this one and this one. Suffice to say the work involves letting go of ourselves. How? When something triggers us, instead of chasing it down the ego rabbit hole, we stop, relax, lean away, breathe and let it go.

How to let go of the ego

We also meditate and practice mindfulness because they improve our ability to impartially observe our egos. And that makes it a heckuva lot easier to stop, relax, lean away, breathe and let the ego go.

The work involved is worth putting at the top of our life pyramid. Because dissolving our egos and facilitating the present-oriented life that that allows will make every area on the pyramid sitting below — career, relationships, athletic endeavors…everything — better.

The takeaway

Imagine a life where you walked around all day feeling peaceful inside…for no real reason. Not feeling the constant pull of wanting this and wanting that.

It’s doable. Like anything worthwhile, and nothing is more worthwhile than achieving peace of mind, it takes work. We, those around us and the world at large is better off when we choose to do that work.

I had the privilege of working on the writing staff for the fourth season of The West Wing, one of the best television shows of all time. It is one of only three shows to win the Emmy for Best Drama Series four years in a row, joining Hill Street Blues and Madmen in achieving that distinction.

Although there were myriad moments that year when I had to pinch myself to make sure I wasn’t dreaming, one of those moments stood out over the rest. It occurred in the darkened office of my boss, Aaron Sorkin, where the entire writing staff had assembled. First, the backstory.

From college to Capitol Hill to downtown D.C.

After graduating from Princeton in 1987 I moved to Washington, D.C., where I worked on Capitol Hill for two congressmen. Two years later I left the Hill to become a lobbyist.

I’d always envied these people who would come in and pitch me on some legislative matter then leave and go on to the next meeting. Then go out to lunch. Maybe head back to the office. Do some more Hill meetings. All this while I was tied down at my desk all day.

It seemed like fun. Not to mention they made at least twice as much money as I did. So I made the jump.

Fun, fun, fun til my soul took the T-Bird away

Turns out I was right. Lobbying was fun. But after several years I realized it was too much fun. Expensive lunches, playing golf with legislative assistants, taking Senate office staffs out for drinks after work. Fun, fun, fun. Oh, and my pay increased tenfold in about four years.

So, what’s not to like? you’re probably asking. Let’s just say that my senses enjoyed this life very much, but you know what didn’t?

My soul.

As I recounted in this piece, I began thinking of an exit plan from lobbying. One option involved the creative route. I’d always considered myself a creative nut job. I was always the class clown and was even voted Best Sense of Humor in seventh grade, to this day the greatest honor ever bestowed on me!

Two of my closest friends had been working as writers in Hollywood since college. So I wrote a couple screenplays over a few years while running my not-very-labor-intensive lobbying firm.

Gerkie’s Choice

Things came to a head in the latter half of 2000. The choice was simple: Do I lobby for the rest of my life, make a bunch of money, live in a big house, become a low handicap golfer…and watch my soul slowly disintegrate? Or do I move to Hollywood and start all over, at age 36, with the hope that my inner crazy guy creates drama that moves millions of people?

I chose the latter. And truth be told, the decision wasn’t that difficult. My heart just wasn’t in the DC lobbying world.

So, in December of 2000 I sold my house, packed up my stuff and started driving. South through Virginia, North and South Carolina, then East through Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana, Texas, New Mexico, Arizona and, finally, California. The high(low)light of the trip was watching Al Gore concede the 2000 election on December 13, 2000, from my crummy motel room in beautiful Willcox, Arizona.

I soon found a small apartment near the beach in Santa Monica and got to work. Work? Yes. When you’re a neophyte writer you write. As much as you can.

Writing my fanny off

Write what? Spec scripts of current shows. Translation: You write episodes of shows, back then it was The Practice, ER, The Sopranos and, yes, The West Wing and a few others. That’s how agents and people who hire writers for shows determine whether you can write.

I wrote a West Wing script that caught the eye of a big-time agent at Creative Artists Agency, the fattest of the fat cat agencies in Hollywood. He sloughed me off to his former assistant and newly minted agent, mid-20s Mick Sullivan. [Mid 40s Mick now represents Sean Penn and Anne Hathaway, among other A-list stars. I gave him his start…or so my ego tells me!]

Calling in the big guns

When the writer hiring season rolled around in April of 2002, I shifted into high gear. I had former Senate Majority Leader George Mitchell, my friend and tennis partner of many years, call Sorkin and tell him I knew my way around Washington. Then I had two other good friends who were consultants for the show, Gene Sperling and Frank Luntz, put in a good word.

And I got it! A job on The West Wing writing staff. Not only my favorite show, but the best show on television. It took nearly a year and a half, but I’d landed my dream job. I was beyond ecstatic.

We started the first week of June, 2002. Those first six months, June until December, I racked my brain every day trying to come up with good stories. I pitched a ton of ideas. Some of them made it into the scripts, but nothing earth-shattering.

Fighting it out in The West Wing trenches

It was frustrating. The writers on the staff competed our asses off to convince Aaron that our ideas were the best. By the way, this is how virtually EVERY show on television works: Underlings pitching their bosses ideas, day in and day out, getting some thumbs up and a lot of thumbs down.

In December, I finally got a thumbs up. And not just any old thumb. A big one.

The story I came up with had to do with the threat of genocide in a fictional African country the show had already created in a previous season. I created the same scenario that existed in Rwanda in 1994 when 800,000 innocent people were slaughtered. Bill Clinton says that his inaction in Rwanda was the biggest regret of his presidency.

But President Clinton didn’t learn of the brutality going on in Rwanda until about two weeks in. Many have said that it was too late by then to have saved most of those who were killed.

Bartlet’s Choice

The twist I added was that President Bartlet (Martin Sheen’s character) received intelligence that a genocide was imminent. In a matter of days. So he could stop it.

But stopping the genocide would require sending American troops into harm’s way. Estimates were that approximately 200 American soldiers would be killed in the mission. A mission that was 100 percent humanitarian; i.e., there was no oil in Kundu or anything of strategic value to the United States.

The relative value of a human life

This set up a fantastic dramatic construct, which was: What is the relative value of an American life versus one in a poor country like Kundu? If 200 Americans die to save 800,000 Kundunese, that’s one American for every 4,000 African lives saved. Is that worth it to us? Would it have to be 10,000 Africans for one American? 100,000?

These were the questions President Bartlet, and only Bartlet, could answer. Which is how I came up with the idea in the first place. Any great dramatic story puts the main character, the protagonist, to the hardest test. I asked myself what the toughest thing was that a U.S. president faces. Answer: Sending American troops into harm’s way. If they die, it’s on you.

Bringing Sperling on board

I brought in my good friend Gene Sperling to help develop the idea before pitching it to Aaron. Gene is a talented guy who was respected by everybody on the staff, most importantly, Aaron.

Incidentally, Gene also has this unique, never-been-done-before career trajectory: He was Bill Clinton’s top economic advisor in the real West Wing, then a consultant for several seasons for the fictional West Wing, then returned to the real West Wing to be President Obama’s top economic advisor. How cool is that?

The wind up and the pitch

The moment of truth arrived one night at The West Wing Christmas party at the Pacific Design Center when Aaron asked us to pitch the idea. He listened for about a minute then said, “Great. Let’s do it.” And that was it. Eureka!

But that’s not THE moment this piece is about. That came about six weeks later. Six weeks of working my ass off on this story for Aaron. I was on the hot seat week after week.

Almost every story we did started and ended in one episode. This Kundu story was the main story in FOUR straight episodes. I don’t think I’ve ever worked so hard.

Wednesday morning final cut viewing

We finally shot the first of those four episodes and then gathered in Aaron’s office to watch the final cut that was going to air that night. As this was episode thirteen, we’d already done this twelve times. In each of those twelve viewings, we’d turn out the lights and then watch the 44 minute episode. Then the lights would turn on, everybody would say, “Great job, Aaron.” And we’d all get up and get back to work.

Not so with episode thirteen. I won’t recount the whole episode, but the gist is that it set up that things were looking bad in Kundu. The pressure builds for America (Bartlet) to move in and stop the slaughter that is about to happen.

The horror begins

Then the killing starts. The episode ends with Josh (Brad Whitford) and Charlie (Dule Hill who plays Bartlet’s personal aide and is African-American) watching the news as they talk about what America should do.

Then Josh’s face goes white. On the news is real footage from Rwanda showing a dead child on the ground. He can’t bear it. He leans over and turns the television off. And with that, smash to black. End of episode.

All ten of us in Aaron’s office were gobsmacked. Blown away. The room was silent.

Finally, after what seemed like a minute, all Aaron could muster was, “Great job, guys.”

At that, everybody slowly and silently got up and began dispersing. I’ll never forget one of my colleagues, who went on to have a highly successful writing career, coming up to me and saying, “You must be so proud.”

The moment hits me

After leaving Aaron’s office, I hustled down the stairs. Entered my office. Locked the door. And immediately burst into tears.

Why? Think about it. Two years earlier I’d left a secure life in Washington to take a chance on my creative skills.

Now, not only was I working on the best show on television, but I had just created, out of thin air, a story that absolutely blew away everyone on our staff. That was ten people. But that night, roughly 14 million people watched that episode. About the relative value of a human life. Something real, important and dramatic.

And that was it. The most meaningful, impactful, memorable moment from my year working on The West Wing.

The takeaway

So how the hell can this story help you in any way, shape or form?

USE IT!

For inspiration. For fuel.

If you’re in a dead-end career and you’ve always dreamed of opening a flower shop, fricking do it!

Maybe someday you’ll find yourself tearing up after seeing the gaping smile on your customer’s face as she gazes at the breathtakingly beautiful dozen yellow tulips you just handed her.

Mahatma Gandhi was a civil rights activist best known for his nonviolent approach to securing India’s independence from British colonial rule in 1947. His work ethic was legendary.

Which is where his dedicated meditation practice came in. Gandhi meditated every day to help himself stay calm, composed and focused.

This is Gandhi’s quote about meditation that became famous:

“I have so much to accomplish today that I must meditate for two hours instead of one.”

I love that! What does it mean? It means that the extra hour Gandhi lost through meditating longer was more than made up for by the increased productivity it yielded.

Meditation and productivity

What sort of productivity does meditation create? The first is obvious: Meditation strengthens focus. So if Gandhi had 25 letters to write some morning (correspondence was a substantial part of his workload), his ability to stay present on the task (letter) at hand was invaluable.

Meditation also gives us more energy. This is hard for me to explain scientifically, but my layman’s anecdotal evidence would be that I find it exhausting and enervating when my mind is racing like a stock car around the Daytona Speedway. When our minds are calm, our energy flows better and more efficiently.

Seinfeld was a meditator

The great comedian Jerry Seinfeld offers another example of the power of meditation. His show, Seinfeld, was a smash success for nine seasons. As the star and co-writer of the show, Jerry was inundated with work 24/7.

How did he work so hard for nine years without falling apart? He credits meditation, saying there’s no way he could’ve done Seinfeld for so long without it.

Here’s how he did it. For nine straight years, when everybody else took their lunch break, Jerry went into his office and meditated for twenty minutes. He’d eat his lunch when everybody started working again.

What did that do for him? He said it was literally as if he were a cellphone and the meditation was a charger. It gave him a huge burst of energy that propelled him through the rest of the day.

My brilliant trainer and meditation

Finally, there’s the example of my brilliant and talented trainer, Brett Flaherty. Brett is 100% all-in on taking care of himself. He obviously works out hard, as evidenced by his near-perfect body that carries not an ounce of fat.

He’s also a fanatic about nutrition. He eats no processed foods, little to no sugar, lots of plants and makes sure to get plenty of protein in his diet.

Meditation is the third leg of his health triumvirate. He’s been practicing every day for decades.

So here he is, a guy who works out like a demon and possesses strict eating habits. A few years ago, one of his clients asked him this question:

“If you could only keep one of working out, eating right or meditating, which one would you choose?”

Brett told me it took him a nanosecond to answer the question. “Meditation, for sure.” He said that the calm, clear-headedness that meditation produces is indispensable for him. I couldn’t agree more.

The takeaway

I know I sound like a broken record to those of you who read my articles. But spreading meditation far and wide is my thing.

Why? I’ve seen all the good it has done for me and so many others. I am certain that if most of the inhabitants of our planet meditated regularly our world would be transformed.

It’s not that hard. It just needs to be done. For not that much time per day.

If you’re looking for a place to start, go to davidgerken.net and try my free, simple meditation program. You, those close to you and the world will be better off for it.

Manifestation is a thing these days. People visualize, affirm through speaking and/or writing the things they’d like to have in their lives. That could mean a new girlfriend, a new job, a new Porsche, whatever.

Well, how about manifesting what is by all accounts one of the most influential spiritual books ever written? That book is The Power of Nowby Eckhart Tolle and this article is about the fascinating story of how Eckhart manifested it into existence.

Access the present moment by not identifying with your thoughts

For those of you who haven’t read or heard about it, The Power of Now is about the power of living in the present moment. I think what really struck a chord with so many millions of readers around the world was the ‘how’ of accessing and remaining in the present moment, a difficult feat for most people. And that was by NOT identifying with our thoughts. A two-sentence summation of this classic book is impossible so I recommend reading it if you haven’t.

So, how did Eckhart manifest this book into the world? Let’s start from the start. Eckhart grew up mostly in Germany and Spain. By his own telling, his childhood was anything but idyllic. His parents fought constantly, he was short and scrawny, had few friends and was bullied.

Eckhart’s story

The one area that gave him some sense of egoic worth was his academic prowess. He graduated from the University of London then got a scholarship in 1977 to do postgraduate research at Cambridge. He dropped out of Cambridge shortly after enrolling.

He was 29 at the time and suffering from depression. Events came to a head one night when he woke up early in the morning feeling so terrible that he pondered suicide. This brought on a thought that would change his life forever. It was this:

“I cannot live with myself any longer.”

Eckhart recounts what happened next.

“Then suddenly I became aware of what a peculiar thought it was.‘Am I one or two? If I cannot live with myself, there must be two of me: the ‘I’ and the ‘self’ that ‘I’ cannot live with.’ ‘Maybe,’ I thought, ‘only one of them is real.’”

When he awoke the next morning Eckhart was light as a feather. The sound of a bird chirping, the light coming through the window, mundane objects in his apartment — everything was a precious emanation of love and beauty. He didn’t understand until years later what had happened: His egoic self had collapsed, leaving nothing but conscious presence.

Nirvana on a park bench

Eckhart spent the next two years sitting on park benches in London, watching the world go by in a state of near-constant bliss.

After his “park bench” phase, Eckhart spent the better part of fifteen years counseling people one-on-one and in groups in and around London. As part of his work, Eckhart would write down notes in a journal after his teaching sessions. It was material that came to him in the moment when his clients asked him certain questions and he didn’t want to forget it. After years of accumulating these notes, he realized these notes could serve as the basis for a book.

Eckhart is moved to manifest

One day, out of nowhere, Eckhart was moved to write something. He’s not sure where it came from. It just came. It was the manifestation of this book.

On a random piece of paper he wrote:

“There is a book that will be written that will change the lives of millions of people and bring consciousness to the planet. It will be translated into multiple languages.”

He also wrote down that he would give talks all over the world to thousands of people and that he would receive financial abundance. Eckhart was near-penniless his entire adult life.

He said this manifestation emanated half from wanting it to happen and half from knowing that it already had happened/would happen.

Shortly thereafter, Eckhart moved to Glastonbury in southwest England. He lost that prescient paper in the move.

Three years passed, during which he said he’d forgotten about that paper.

Then sometime in the early 1990s it occurred to Eckhart that he could help many more people than the small number he was seeing. So one day he went to a small church in Glastonbury. It was empty inside. He’d never asked the Universe for anything before, but this time he did. It was one thing. One word.

Acceleration.

That’s it. Acceleration. Things were moving too slowly. He’d spent close to fifteen years doing spiritual counseling for relatively small numbers of people and knew he could do more. So he asked the universe for just that.

The move to Vancouver

Not long after he had a mysterious impulse to move to the West coast of North America. This led to him selling everything and moving to Vancouver. Upon arriving in Vancouver, he gathered all those notes and set to work writing The Power of Now. The rest is history.

The postscript is that a few years after the book came out and Oprah had recommended it and he’d made a ton of money, he was rummaging through some old papers when he came across the lost manifestation paper. He’d forgotten all about it. When he read through it he was astonished: Everything he’d written all those years before had come to pass.

The takeaway

The lesson here is self-evident. If you want to manifest something, write it down as if it has already happened. Eckhart’s is far from the only successful example of this.

And don’t be shy about asking the Universe/God/The Creator for help in fulfilling what you want to manifest. Eckhart did and many millions of people are in a better place because of it.

Thank God for that.

I’ve written many times that Mickey Singer is my favorite spiritual teacher. In fact, I wrote an article on exactly why that is so (here’s the link).

As such, his life story is important to me, particularly how he came to be the higher being that he is. That story is well-chronicled in his bestselling book The Surrender Experiment.

Mickey’s lifelong experiment

The gist of the book is that in his mid 20’s Mickey decided to initiate a lifelong experiment: He would surrender to whatever life brought his way. Put another way, he would NOT resist what life put before him. If you want to find out how the experiment turned out, get the book and read it. It’s a short, easy, entertaining and captivating read.

This piece centers on pages 7–10 where Mickey tells the story of what propelled him onto the spiritual path. It was a chance, seemingly unimportant event that became his “lightbulb” moment. Here’s how he described it:

“What happened was so subtle, so faint, that it could easily have passed by without being noticed. It was not with a shout but with a whisper that my life was thrown into utter turmoil and transformation.”

Here’s what happened. In the fall of 1970 Mickey was a 22-year-old graduate student in economics at the University of Florida in Gainesville. He’d developed a close friendship with his wife’s brother, Ronnie. On that fateful day, Mickey and Ronnie were chatting in Mickey’s living room in Gainesville, about nothing in particular, when an uncomfortable silence arose.

A few seconds that changed Mickey’s life

What happened in those next few seconds changed Mickey’s life forever. He noticed that he was uncomfortable with this silence and that his mind was frantically searching for something to talk about. These were the options he considered:

“The weather’s been awesome, hasn’t it?

Did you hear what Nixon did the other day?

Do you want to get something to eat?”

But he didn’t say any of those things. Instead, he asked Ronnie:

“Have you ever noticed that there’s this voice talking inside your head?”

Ronnie, a successful lawyer in Chicago, looked perplexed for a moment, but then a lightbulb lit up in him, too. He said,

“Yes! Mine never shuts up!”

And there it was. That simple incident changed the trajectory of Mickey’s life.

Noticing the voice was the key

Why? Because he became fascinated with that “voice” in his head. What was it? Why wouldn’t it ever shut the hell up? And, most important, how could he shut that voice up?

After a classmate heard him drone on about the voice in the head, he recommended Mickey read The Three Pillars of Zenby Philip Kapleau. That led, in short order, to Mickey diving headfirst into the meditation ocean. And off he went.

So what was the key thing that happened that day in his Gainesville living room? It wasn’t the voice in his head jabbering on and looking for something to fill the uncomfortable silence. So what was it, then?

It was the fact that he noticed that voice jabbering.

And therein lies the rub…for all of humanity. Because everyone, and I mean EVERYONE, has that silent voice that yaps on and on, day in and day out. The problem is that people believe that that voice is who they are and not what it is…an annoying voice that ISN’T who we are. It’s the product of our insecure, fearful, defensive, complaining egos.

Notice the voice, don’t be it

And what we, and the rest of humanity need to do is what Mickey did: Lean away and notice the voice. Observe it. Listen to it. Just don’t be it.

Mickey’s recommendation, which I love, is that we don’t get involved with the voice. It’s going to talk. But that doesn’t mean we have to listen to it. Or get involved with all of its drama. We just observe it and go about our business.

Strengthening the noticer is everything

What I wrote in those last few sentences is easier said than done. In fact, it requires a lifetime of work. What does that work involve? Mostly getting quiet inside, through practices like meditation and mindfulness.

When we do that, we gradually strengthen what I call the “noticer.” We could also call it our awareness or consciousness.

Another way of looking at it is that these practices facilitate the separation of our consciousness/awareness from that egoic voice in the head. In most earthlings, that voice in the head enshrouds the conscious awareness so strongly that, again, we think that’s all there is. Getting that consciousness out from under the thumb of the egoic mind constitutes the main work of the spiritual seeker.

The takeaway

So, what does this mean for you? Mickey Singer, one of the great spiritual teachers alive today, began his journey by noticing the voice in his head rather than being that voice. Learn from that.

Learn what? That practicing the noticing and observing of our wacky egoic minds is indispensable for spiritual growth.

We don’t accomplish this by diving in and trying to stop our minds from yapping 24/7. Mickey tried that for several years, by meditating many hours a day. It didn’t work. Why? Because we don’t stop our minds from thinking by trying to stop our minds from thinking. We do it by patiently and persistently observing that chattering voice.

Meditate!

Finally, and for the umpteenth time, I’ll recommend what I have found to be the best practice for strengthening our ability to notice our minds. That, of course, is meditation. If you’re looking for a place to start, go to davidgerken.net and try my free, simple, easy meditation program.

Good luck on the journey.

I wrote an article recently about Neem Karoli Baba, Ram Dass’s guru, and his teaching that we are all one (here’s the link). He’d often say to his devotees, usually apropos of nothing, “sub ek,” which in Hindi means “all one.”

But he said something else, too. It was a direct and simple teaching on what his devotees’ main function was in the world. He would say:

“Love everyone, serve everyone and remember God.”

That’s it. That really was his main teaching. To see how powerful an impact this had on Ram Dass, look no further than the name of his foundation — the Love Serve Remember Foundation. (Check it out here.)

You can live your life by those words

So, what are we to make of that? As the title states, I think one could live according to this motto and forget everything else.

And by everything else, I mean all the myriad other paths out there. We can focus our lives on getting quiet inside, by practicing meditation, mindfulness, yoga and chanting, et al.

Or we can dive into the teaching of the Vedas and the Gita and the Upanishads and the Bible and on down the line.

The monkey god livestream

Just last night I watched a livestream of Krishna Das, one of the relatively few living devotees of Maharajii, as Neem Karoli Baba was known by followers. The talk focused on Hanuman, a monkey god who was devoted to Ram, one of the main Hindu gods. Maharajii had several temples built in Northern India devoted to Hanuman. And this Hanuman god by all accounts seems to have been a wonderful deity.

But that leads to a central point here: Do we really need anything more than just ‘love, serve, remember?’ I sometimes feel like all the extras, like god worship and all the rest, divert people’s attention from the main show: Being good to people.

Needless Christianity complexity

Nowhere is this truer than in Christianity with its multiple denominations and disagreements over dogma. How about just ‘love thy neighbor as thyself’ and forget the rest? Wouldn’t it be best to put all of our focus on the ‘being good to people’ thing and not get bogged down in the weeds of all that ancient minutia?

Now if I’m you, I’m asking: Fine, we should be good to everybody, but won’t we be better at that the more we do our practices? Good question. My answer?

YES!

And that leads me to the third element in the love, serve, remember triumvirate: Remember God. I’ve always been leery of the ‘G’ word because of all the confusion, complexity and controversy it elicits. But now I get why Maharajii included it, or at least why I think he did.

The God inside you

It’s because what Maharajii really means is ‘remember the God inside you.’ Why is that distinction so important? Because realizing the God inside us makes us far better able to love everyone and serve everyone.

And what strengthens our ability to realize the God within us? Meditation. Mindfulness. Getting quiet enough inside that our egos step aside and give us access to that God-like presence in us…so we can love everyone and serve everyone.

My tendency to get bogged down

How does all this help me? I can get bogged down in what I’m working on/focusing on. Non-attachment? Nonresistance? Being present?

Well, all I really need is to practice getting quiet inside. And then as I’m going about my day, all I need to do is remember ‘love everyone, serve everyone.’ My practices are helping me remember God. And so I just go out and try to love and serve.

How does this manifest for me? In small ways and large. One thing that has been especially effective has been, when I’m talking with someone who is annoying me or setting me off in some way, I’ve trained myself to go right to saying in my head, “Love everyone, serve everyone.” Which includes that person right in front of me. This immediately puts me in a place of compassion and calm. Try this. It works.

Dealing with suffering friends

A more significant manifestation came up recently with some friends of ours who are going through an extremely tough time. Some people head for the hills when they encounter suffering in others. We have been moving toward these people.

Truthfully, it’s been challenging. Why? Because I was born with an inner architecture that can be too empathetic. In other words, others’ suffering becomes my suffering. Which isn’t good for them because I can love and serve them better when I’m not feeling terrible.

So that’s where my work is. Strengthen my connection to the God inside me. All that practicing has definitely fortified that connection. With more practice, it will get even stronger.

With that strength comes great power. Power that, when it’s all said and done, really is there to serve one purpose: To love everyone and serve everyone.

Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to go further fortify that connection by meditating…

I came across a Ram Dass writing this morning that absolutely sang to me. It’s about thinking of ourselves as parts of a flower:

“Just imagine a flower and think about the center of the flower and then all the petals that come out from the center and think of the center of the flower as absolutely still, and think of all of the petals as moving, and energy, and change, but the center is still.”

Love that. So analogous to who we are. How?

We all possess that still center. In fact, that still center is the essence of every one of us. As we go about our lives that still presence is omnipresent.

Stillness in the foreground and background

But as Eckhart Tolle teaches, the degree to which that still presence is at the forefront varies depending on what’s going on. When we’re meditating or praying in a quiet church, it’s at the forefront. When we’re trying to make dinner and three of our kids are running around the house screaming at each other, that still presence is more in the background.

What about those flower petals? Ram Dass sees them as the movement, energy and change taking place around the central stillness.

I view those petals as being like clouds in the sky, constantly moving across the sky. But the sky is always there. Omnipresent. Always still.

And the petals also represent the dynamic of constant change that characterize life. All life.

The impermanent nature of life

It’s best captured by the Buddhist concept of impermanence. Things never stay the same. Not even from moment to moment.

I see it so clearly with my three young kids. They are constantly evolving. New words. New behaviors. New physical attributes.

Like the petals, which sway this way and that way. And maybe get too much sun and not enough water some day or two or three or twenty-three so their color changes or they dry out.

My body feels fine one morning then I sit for three hours of writing and my back gets stiff. My calves tighten up. My body never feels completely the same two days in a row. Constantly changing.

The unchanging center of the flower

But my essence, my “center of the flower,” stays the same. It’s unchanging. It’s my spirit. My soul. My atman as the Hindus call it. It’s that tiny slice of God, the universe, the original source, whatever you want to call it, that lies deep within every one of us.

And like the flower, it’s perfect. It doesn’t need to be changed or perfected in any way. Because it’s perfect already.

All it needs is to be realized. To be identified as the essence of who we are.

How do we do that? We let go of all the egoic/samskaric baggage we’ve accumulated over our lifetime. The inner garbage that constantly demands that we place attention on it instead of that still center part of the flower. That stuff that is so powerful that most of the seven billion souls on this planet believe that that is who they are.

The takeaway

Well, it’s not who you are. You’re that still center of the flower. And the most important work of our lives involves the work in realizing that.

Career changes these days are more common than ever. The decentralization the internet has wrought coupled with a societal push to pursue our dreams has resulted in the demise of the 40 year career at General Electric topped off with a gold watch. Amen to this trend and the squillions of tortured souls it has saved.

But if you’re in a career that isn’t floating your spiritual boat, you still have to navigate both your exit and entry from and to your old and new path. As someone who has done this twice, I feel like I can add some value to the conversation. I’ll do this by recounting both of my experiences.

CAREER CHANGE #1 — FROM LOBBYIST TO HOLLYWOOD WRITER

After graduating from Princeton, I packed my bags and headed to Washington, D.C. I’d interned for Senator George Mitchell of Maine the summer between my junior and senior years and had a blast. So I decided to give it a full-time go.

After a few years of toiling in the Capitol Hill trenches for two congressmen, I fell into the lobbying business. I made great money for several years, but my heart was never in it.

Powerful tennis friends

Why? Well, that saying about ‘it’s not what you know, it’s who you know’ is truer of lobbying than any profession. In my case, I’d gotten to be good friends, in my mid-20s, with several powerful senators because, as the former captain of the Princeton tennis team, they had a blast getting me out on the court.

Don’t get me wrong. That was really cool. I’ve already written about one of those experiences when Senator J. Bennett Johnston took me to the White House court to play doubles with President George H.W. Bush. (Here’s the link to that article.)

Voting to kick Saddam out of Kuwait

There was also the time that I played doubles at the indoor senate court with three senators, including my former boss, Majority Leader Mitchell. They huddled together in the locker room about the vote that very night on authorizing the elder President Bush to use military force to remove Saddam Hussein’s forces from Kuwait. The vote was tight and Mitchell needed his two tennis colleagues to vote yes. And there I was, a 26-year-old nincompoop fly on the wall, witnessing history being made in front of my eyes.

But the point for me was that I had nothing to do with any of it. I was a guy making a lot of money because some powerful politicians liked to play tennis with me. Slowly but surely, my soul deflated, like a balloon with a tiny leak.

Inaugural ball fun sparks an idea

Then something momentous happened one night early in 1997 after an incredibly fun night at the Inaugural balls celebrating President Clinton’s second term. I partied that night with a group that included a comedian. A good one. This dude was hilarious.

But guess who got the most laughs in our group that night…by far? Yours truly. I was on.

I’d been wondering what the heck I could do to get out of lobbying. So I went into the office over the weekend, sat at the conference table with my yellow legal pad and wrote at the top, “Creative Stuff.”

Cracking up my family

Since the age of six, when my parents and older siblings would howl with laughter at my impersonations, I’d always fancied that I had creative talent. So, inspired by my comedic night with the comedian, I decided to give it some thought.

First, I tried to come up with some jokes. I got nowhere.

Then I tried coming up with movie ideas. Knowing all these powerful people sparked an idea. They all work so hard to move up the ladder. City councilman, state assemblyman, congressman, senator…Sen. Mitchell reached the top of the Senate. A select few reach the Oval Office.

So, my idea was: What’s the next step up for someone who is president? They always want and need that next thing. My answer? They’d want absolute power.

Mr. Smith tries to take over Washington

Long story short, I came up with a movie about how a president of the United States maneuvers to take over as a dictator. It was quite fictional back then, but now? Yikes. I won’t go there.

What did I do with this wacky idea? I pitched it to my incredibly close friend of many years who had been a writer in Hollywood since we graduated college. He loved it. So we worked on it. For a year and a half.

It got great reception when we finally went out with it. Alas, it didn’t sell. But in that year and a half I learned a ton about dramatic writing from a talented, proven writer.

So, what then? I spent the next year writing my own screenplay.

Loading up the car and moving to Beverly

And then…it was time to you-know-what or get off the pot. I was either going to be a dabbling dilettante writing from DC or I was going to load up the truck and move to Beverly. Hills, that is. (A little Beverly Hillbilliesriff there for you.)

Anyway, that’s what I did. I moved to Santa Monica. Went from a decent house in DC to a tiny apartment in Tinseltown. And I started over. Worked hard. Wrote as much as I could. Then…

After a year and a half, I got a job on the writing staff of the hit show The West Wing. Bing, bang, boom, I was now ensconced in my new career as a television writer.

CAREER CHANGE #2 — TV WRITER TO SPIRITUAL TEACHER/WRITER

After many years of ups and downs in the entertainment “biz,” I decided it was time to get out. The jobs were getting tougher and tougher to come by and I knew that, with two young kids, I couldn’t rely on a viable Hollywood writing career for the long haul.

So what did I do? The same thing I did in DC. I looked for something new and interesting to thrust myself into.

That thing happened to be meditation and mindfulness, which I’d been practicing for around five years. I was drawn to not only practicing this stuff but also learning about it, reading all the books, taking the courses and listening to the great teachers.

From screenplay to meditation book

This time, the first thing I did wasn’t to write a movie. It was to write a book. I took all that I’d learned in those first years of practicing and learning about the spiritual path and put it in a book. My twist was that I came at it from a lighter, more humorous angle and toned down on the heavy “woo woo” thing that turns off so many regular folks out there.

But I wrote the book while still continuing on in the writing biz. Then, instead of packing up and moving to Hollywood, I packed up and moved from Hollywood to Newport Beach, where I’d grown up.

Starting over…again

And, again, I started over. I shopped the book around, created a website and started writing articles for Medium. By the way, I’d never heard of Medium, but was told it was a great place to build an audience by bestselling author and Medium stalwart Ryan Holiday who did some consulting for me.

This was about three years ago. I added teaching online meditation and mindfulness classes in the middle of 2020. And…that’s where I am at present. Ensconced in my career as a writer and teacher of all things spiritual.

Am I a zillionaire author and teacher who gets interviewed by Oprah Winfrey on Super Soul Sunday? No. But I’m exerting a ton of effort into something I deeply believe in and am happy as a clam.

[For the longer version of my Hollywood odyssey and transition into spiritual work check out this previous article.]

Now let’s turn to that four-step strategy that I followed.

STEP 1: Decide you want to change careers.

If you’re miserable doing what you’re doing, be good to yourself and decide you want to do something else.

CRITICAL POINT: This doesn’t mean you have to quit what you’re doing. This would probably freak you out and paralyze you from moving on to something else.

STEP 2: Find something you think could be your next career.

CRITICAL POINT: Don’t think that whatever you come up with has to be your next career. Again, this will only paralyze you. I didn’t know that writing in Hollywood would be some perfect career move; same for the move into the spiritual space. I’m fortunate in that both have felt right, but you never know until you try.

STEP 3: Immerse yourself in that area you think may be your next career while continuing in your current one.

Go for it. I spent a ton of time writing those screenplays before heading out to Hollywood. And I loved it, by the way. I also enjoyed writing my meditation book.

Obviously, everyone’s circumstances are different. If you’re a single mom, investment banker working ninety-hour weeks, it might be tough to find that extra time. But there’s always a way.

STEP 4: If you immerse yourself in something and it feels right, take the plunge.

Yes, that means pack up the car and move to Hollywood, or whatever it takes for you to go the whole hog on your next venture. The key to this is obviously timing. You will be the only one to know when the time is right to cut ties with your former career and dive into the ocean on the next one.

The elephant in the room here is that, of course, it takes strength and courage to jump into the ocean of a new career. But a couple things to keep in mind.

First, if it doesn’t work out, you move onto something else. You land like a cat. And you keep going until you find something that feels right to you.

Second, I always think back to a Jerry Seinfeld interview I saw years ago. After he graduated from college and took the plunge into a comedy career, he said of that decision:

“I made a bet on myself. And I think I won.”

Do it! Bet on yourself.

Finally, there are these words from Steve Jobs’ famous 2005 commencement speech at Stanford:

“You’ve got to find what you love. And that is as true for your work as it is for your lovers. Your work is going to fill a large part of your life, and the only way to be truly satisfied is to do what you believe is great work. And the only way to do great work is to love what you do. If you haven’t found it yet, keep looking. Don’t settle. As with all matters of the heart, you’ll know when you find it. And, like any great relationship, it just gets better and better as the years roll on. So keep looking until you find it. Don’t settle.”

The takeaway

While it may seem like a big deal to change careers, try not to overthink it. To sum up:

1. Decide you want a new career.

2. Find something you may want to do next.

3. Immerse yourself in that world.

4. If and when it feels right, dive in.

Go for it. You, everyone around you and the world will be better off because of it.

Don’t settle.

I’ve written extensively these past few years about many spiritual heavyweights. Ram Dass, Ramana Maharshi, Lao Tzu, Rumi and many others. In doing so, I’ve come to realize that most of them fall into one of two categories. The vast majority are those whose teachings resonate with me and fortify me on my spiritual journey.

Then there’s another, smaller group whose main contribution is simply their bearing. It’s not so much what they teach as it is the power of their presence. For me, Eckhart Tolle is precisely that, which is why he’s my favorite spiritual person.

I’ve subscribed to Eckhart’s online site for over ten years. And it’s been worth every penny. Again, not so much for his teachings, but simply experiencing his presence.

Eckhart as meditation preparation

My main “use” for Eckhart’s talks is to listen to them for around fifteen minutes right before meditating in the morning. Experiencing his presence smooths my transition into attaining presence in my meditation sessions.

Yes, I loved The Power of Now. And yes, I value his basic teaching that we are not our thoughts, but rather the deep, spacious presence that is aware of those thoughts.

But I find that listening to and watching Eckhart is a spiritual practice in itself. People like Eckhart, and there aren’t many, who are so conscious — i.e., they project almost no ego — have the ability to tap into that deep essence awareness that all of us possess…but that is mostly buried by our egoic baggage.

Why Eckhart makes me feel better

So every time I listen to Eckhart or, more accurately, experience him, I just feel better. Calmer. It’s as if his awakened self talks to my awakened self. And that feels good. I would think many others feel the same way.

Truth be told, every one of his talks sound the same. There’s little variety in his subject matter.

But it doesn’t matter to me because, again, it’s about his consciousness, not his teachings. Bottom line: I just love the guy.

Eckhart is like Ram Dass’s guru

He’s like a modern-day guru in that people learn by simply experiencing him. Much like Ram Dass’s relationship with his guru, Neem Karoli Baba, who apparently taught very little, but whose mere presence was enough to literally transform people’s lives. (More on him in an upcoming piece.)

As for teachers whose teachings have resonated most with me, it’s a long list, including Ram Dass, Lao Tzu and many others. But the Grand Poobah for me is Mickey Singer.

Why? Before getting to that, it’s worth summing what I believe to be the macro teaching of all these traditions. I know it’s insane to even attempt this, but here’s my crack at it:

We are not our minds. We are that god-like, deep, beautiful spirit within that is obscured by our busy minds, just as clouds obscure our view of the sky.

How do we still our minds, remove those clouds and merge with the sky/beautiful entity inside us?We get quiet inside. By practicing meditation, mindfulness and any number of spiritual techniques that facilitate our ability to keep our attention on the present moment.

Here’s where the rubber meets the road, because most teachers stop there. Mickey doesn’t.

He goes one, indispensable step further. What is that step?

It’s about letting go of our samskaras

Mickey would call it letting go of our samskaras. For the sake of ease, I’ll define the Sanskrit word samskara as egoic baggage. Samskaras are all of the experiences we’ve had in life that we held onto and didn’t let go of. Mickey posits that it is those accumulated samskaras that block the natural, upward flow of our energy (shakti in Sanskrit) resulting in us feeling more than a couple French fries short of a Happy Meal most of the time.

The key, as Mickey stresses, is that we need to let go of these samskaras. How? We recognize them when they come up, then relax, watch them and allow them to release.

Here’s an example. Let’s say when you were a kid your father repeatedly told you that you were dumb. Instead of letting that go you, not surprisingly, held onto that and now in your 40s that samskara is firmly embedded inside you.

“You’re such a moron!”

You get home from the grocery store one night and you’ve forgotten to buy the lettuce your wife requested. She, already in a bad mood because her boss cussed her out that day, loses it: “God damn it! Now we can’t have a salad tonight! You’re such a moron!”

Now, nobody likes to be called a moron. But because of your past, this cuts you to your core. You absolutely lose your shit on your wife, scream at her then charge out the door, get into your car and spend the evening at your favorite watering hole.

Using Mickey’s technique

But if you were following Mickey’s practice, right after your wife let the ‘moron’ bomb fly and you felt that powerful urge to dive in and let her have it, you’d immediately stop and do your utmost to relax. Everywhere. Especially in the head and chest areas. Then you’d place your awareness on that awful feeling her remark has elicited in your gut (that’s the samskara)…and you’d simply watch it…until it passes. That is Mickey’s teaching for letting go of our samskaras/egos.

And what happens if we don’t let go of our samskaras? They stay there. And continue to inhibit the natural, upward flow of our energy.

Crucially, no matter how many hours of meditation and all the rest that we practice, unless we let go of our samskaras, i.e., let go of ourselves, we’ll never feel truly liberated and at peace.

Eckhart tells the story of the American who goes to India and spends many years in a monastery, meditating several hours a day. Then one day he heads to Delhi to iron out a visa problem. After many hours waiting in interminably long lines the guy explodes and starts screaming at the clerk about how incompetent the whole operation is. Those hundreds of hours of meditation notwithstanding, he’s just another traveler on the spiritual path who hasn’t let go of his samskaras.

Letting go is essential

Do you see why this is so important? Letting go of ourselves the sine qua non (without which there is nothing) of spiritual work. We can do everything under the sun, practice all the spiritual bells and whistles that have ever been created. But if we don’t let go our egos, conscious awakening will elude us.

I’m not saying here that Mickey is the only teacher who talks about letting go of ourselves. Ram Dass emphasized letting go of our attachments, which could also be construed as samskaras. Others approach the letting go concept from myriad angles.

But Mickey is the only one, at least that I’ve come across, who tackles the letting go thing head on. AND, in his course Living From a Place of Surrender, which he says represents the summation of his teachings, he places letting go our samskaras as the central teaching of the whole course.

By the way, I highly recommend buying Mickey’s course. It was transformative for me and countless others.

The takeaway

So that’s why I love Eckhart but love Mickey’s teachings. Which is all well and good, but what does it mean for you?

I hope it will result in you doing two things. First, find spiritual figures whose mere presence moves you. For me, that’s Eckhart. Then incorporate simply watching and listening to them as part of your spiritual practice. Don’t think, try to understand or conceptualize what they’re saying or teaching. Just be with them.

Second, I hope that my epistle about Mickey and his teaching on letting go motivates you to dive in and take it seriously. That you direct significant emphasis and effort to letting go of yourself/samskaras/ego.

Best of luck on the journey.

Joseph Campbell captured the attention of the world with his captivating explorations of the myths humans have created over the millennia. His notoriety exploded after his wide-ranging interviews with Bill Moyers on PBS, recorded in 1987 shortly before his death.

So why is Joseph Campbell so popular? Why does he resonate with such a vast audience?

My view is that it was only partly about his studies of mythology and mostly to do with his views about how to live life. I’ll expound on that with these three quotes of his.

“Follow your bliss and don’t be afraid, doors will open where you didn’t know they were going to be.”

Campbell’s dictum that we should ‘follow our bliss’ is what he is most known for. He discovered this concept of bliss in the Upanishads, the sacred Sanskrit texts that form the basis of much of Hindu philosophy.

One reason his bliss idea resonates so much with so many is simple: People get it. They understand that finding that thing in life that sings to us, grabbing onto it and riding it all the way to our funeral, is the best way to live a life.

Two obstacles to bliss

But most people encounter one of two obstacles on this. One is that they can’t find their bliss. Many younger people especially proclaim they have no clue what they love to do.

Look no further than Campbell’s life for the solution to this conundrum. In short, he followed his nose. He didn’t realize in high school that he wanted to devote his life to the study of mythology. Far from it.

He spent the five years from 25–30 reading for nine hours a day in a rented shack. For decades his interests centered around literature, the subject he was first hired to teach at Sarah Lawrence College. He just kept following his nose until it eventually led him to focusing on comparative mythology.

Afraid to take the plunge

The second challenge is that people know what they love to do, but are afraid to dive in and go for it. Maybe your parents are both doctors and have always wanted you, little junior, to follow in their footsteps. But you’ve always been drawn to the arts — acting, dancing, writing… — so you feel torn in the deepest part of your being. You go to medical school and you’re miserable.

This leads to the second Campbell nugget:

“We must be willing to let go of the life we planned so as to have the life that is waiting for us.”

In most cases, the life ‘we planned’ means the life that others planned for us. Our parents, our peers or society at large. “Go to med school!” “Get a real job!” “Make a lot of money!”

The hero’s journey

This actually does relate to Campbell’s main contribution to mythology which is his work on the hero’s journey. Early in that journey, in countless cultures spanning millennia, the initiate receives a ‘call to adventure.’ This adventure is inevitably scary and the hero must overcome his fear and accept the call.

The call to drop out of medical school and move to Hollywood to pursue your acting career is no less scary than a 14 year old native American boy having to survive two weeks alone in the forest with nothing but his wits. But that is precisely what Campbell is exhorting all of we moderns to do.

Finally, there is this, my favorite of Campbell’s ideas.

“People say that what we’re all seeking is a meaning for life. I don’t think that’s what we’re really seeking. I think that what we’re seeking is an experience of being alive, so that our life experiences on the purely physical plane will have resonances with our own innermost being and reality, so that we actually feel the rapture of being alive.”

This one has always resonated more with me than even the bliss thing, which I also love. It’s about that energy we feel when we’re completely present. And it does relate to the first quote in that people have the best chance of feeling that ‘experience of being alive’ when they follow their bliss.

Who doesn’t feel that experience of being alive? Unfortunately, too many millions of people. It’s those who give up on pursuing their inner path or, even more tragic, those who don’t even know that that inner path exists.

Campbell is the best example of accepting the call

Who’s someone who did exude that experience of being alive? Joseph Campbell. In spades. When you see him talk about mythology, the guy is jumping out of his suit he’s so excited.

And that is why I think so many people are drawn to him, and others like him who so obviously love what they are doing in life. His enthusiasm for mythology was palpable. Infectious. That’s why I’m convinced that a big part of his legacy will be the example he set for following one’s bliss.

The takeaway

The moral of Joseph Campbell’s story is to follow your nose. Pursue what interests you. It probably won’t come in some epiphany when you’re twelve years old. It’ll unfold over time, as it did in Campbell’s case.

And when the call to adventure comes, screw up the courage to accept that call and enter the scary forest. Because as Campbell said, when you do that, ‘doors will open where you didn’t know they were going to be.’