Maya Noise

Very happy about Obama re-election. If this joy ride didn’t happen for real, I’m sure it did in spirit.

This app was rejected and suspended by Apple and Google citing “Apps that present excessively objectionable or crude content will be rejected.” Apart from the provocative name, Geometric Porn, the app is nothing more a series of geometric shapes moving about on the screen. A robot wouldn’t know what the hell all the fuss is about.

It reminds me of the joke about the psychiatrist administering the Rorschach inkblot test to a prospective patient.  He shows the first blot to the man and asks him what it resembles.

“That’s two poodles having sex,” replies the man.

To the second inkblot, he says, “That’s a naked woman leaning out a window, telling all the men who go by to come in and have sex with her.”

The psychiatrist shows him the third inkblot.

“That’s a pair of crotchless underpants,” says the man.

Unable to withstand this any longer, the psychiatrist blurts out, ”You have a dirty mind!”

“Look who’s talking!” cries the man, “You’re the one showing me all the dirty pictures.”

Geometric Porn App Preview from Luciano Foglia on Vimeo.

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How To Train Yourself To Be Happy

There’s a popular myth that if you repeat an activity for 21 days it will become a habit. Scientific proof for this is thin but I’ve found it true in my own experience so I don’t care. That’s why I was delighted to come across this video by Bruce Lipton because, among other things, he outlines a very plausible way to give yourself the habit of being happy. I also think it’s a nice adjunct to Sam Harris’s video on free will I wrote about last and fills out the picture a little more.

Bruce Lipton is a biologist and cells are kind of his thing. As a seven year old, looking through his first microscope, he thought cells were little people. He went on to get bigger and bigger microscopes, a raft of impressive qualifications, teaching positions in some of the most prestigious institutions around the world and in the end came full circle to describing cells as mini people once more, he just uses bigger words now.

Like Sam Harris’s video this one is long (55 mins) so I’ll outline the highlights.

• Genetically identical cells will develop differently depending on the environment they are in, some will grow into bone, some into muscle etc. So genes alone don’t determine outcome. It is genes plus environment which determine outcome.
• Our mind’s perception of the world changes our biology, the chemistry of our body, which in turn changes our cells.
• We run our lives through our conscious mind only 5% of the time.
• The other 95% of the time our subconscious mind runs our life.
• Subconscious beliefs are formed in the first 6 years of life.
• The subconscious mind learns through habit, not insight.
• Through repeated diligent awareness you can change the habits of your subconscious mind.
• Survival of the fittest is incorrect, we evolved because our cells came into community.
• Our body is comprised of 50 trillion cells living in community with each other.
• Every human being is a cell in the larger super organism called humanity.
• The nocebo effect is the evil twin of the placebo effect.
• Cancer can develop because of a familial belief in the propensity to get cancer. Adopted children developing cancer in a cancer family.

Apparently it’s been measured and about 70% of our thoughts are negative or redundant. Being a long time meditator I was used to hearing my mind go on about all its worries and negativities. I saw it as mind chatter and was more interested in the silence than what it was chattering about. The notion that what I think about is just a habit is very handy to know and refreshingly impersonal. Rather than trying to smash those pesky negative thoughts and be more positive, it’s more a case of chosing the thoughts I want to be thinking and getting myself out of the habit of thinking about things I’d rather not be thinking about.

Most of the work is done in just identifying the thoughts I’d like to change as they arise – being aware in the moment, which is basically what meditation is anyway.

I haven’t been changing my thinking for long, a few weeks now, but I’m definitely noticing changes in me. I feel my nature coming through more which is vey joyous.

I came across this talk by Sam Harris the other day. Once I got past the schmaltzy introduction and Sam’s smarty-pants style of delivery, I found it refreshing and encouraging. Refreshing because I wasn’t expecting something that rang with truth from Sam. Not that I’d ever heard of him before but within minutes it was obvious that he was from the atheists-in-your-face crew who love Richard Dawkins and hate Deepak Chopra. Okay hate is probably too strong a word, let’s say patronise with extreme prejudice.  Sam’s talk was encouraging because it pulsed with the sort of practical compassion I find very moving.

It’s a long video (1hr 18mins) so I’ll highlight some of the main points.

“Thoughts and intentions simply arise in the mind. If you can’t control your next thought and you don’t know what it’s going to be until it arises, where is your freedom of will?”

Your genes and environment cause you to make the choices you do – not you.

“You can’t take credit for your talents, but it matters that you use them. You can’t really be blamed for your weaknesses but it matters that you correct them.”

As a corollary, about six months ago I was in the middle of meditating when something arose in me.  I keep a pad and paper close to hand when I meditate because usually the sorts of things that arise in me are to do with putting the cat out or an email I simply MUST send; the sorts of things that my mind will latch onto and will keep “arising,” so rather than make the focus of my meditation dropping these thoughts, I write them down and get back to the mystery.

What arose in me this day was different and when I watched Sam’s video I was immediately reminded of it.  Here’s what I wrote.

I am not my money.

I am not my debts.

I am not my work.

I am not where I live.

I am not my wife.

I am not my child.

I am not my friends.

I am not my recognition.

I am not the things I create.

I am not my achievements.

I am not my talents.

I am not my body.

I am not my life.

I am not my pain.

I am not my joy.

I am not my past.

I am not my future.

I am not my experience.

The bit that Sam leaves out, the most important bit and the hardest to talk about is the presence these thoughts arise into.

I’m next in line and apprehensive. She is a young widow. For seven years her husband had been fighting brain tumours. He came to me for treatment three months ago and responded well initially. Now I’m at his funeral waiting to express my condolences. The chapel is sunny. The grief is thick.

Common wisdom would say I failed him. Good sense would tell me this funeral is the last place I should be. Next thing I know she’s throwing her arms around me, sobbing, “Thank you so much John.” Before I can register what’s happened I’m being hugged by his mother, she is also thanking me – then his father.

On some level these people get what it took me years to figure out as a therapist; that what we call healing isn’t about getting better, it’s about something else.

When it came to being a therapist I was no slouch. I’d had the dramatic recoveries, the crutches that were hobbled in on, carried out under the happy arm, the surgeries that were canceled, the specialists that were flummoxed. I’d set up a well respected school, taught internationally, been featured in magazines, on the radio, the lot.

There was no doubt I was successful yet there were some people who just didn’t get better, and they were the ones that stuck in my mind. Why did some people get better and some didn’t?

Beyond the physical and emotional reasons for illness there was something deeper going on. It seemed like each person was living out an elaborate story uniquely significant to them. All the circumstances and events in their lives were an intricate part of this story. They were working something out through the living of their story, but what it was they were working out was a mystery, and I think that’s the way it’s supposed to be.

Not knowing what you’re working out seems to be part of the deal. Like not wanting to know the end of a movie because it will ruin the enjoyment of watching the movie.

Physical or emotional disharmony can lead to sickness, and so can being out of harmony with your story. What is called healing is a process of getting in harmony with your story and whatever it was you are working out through it.

In hindsight I can say the young man’s story ended with his death but at the time I didn’t know that, I’d seen it go the other way with people many times. My role was to support him to come into harmony with his story in whatever way he wanted, and in the end he achieved that.

I know he was in harmony with his story when he died because I worked with him days before his death. The connection in craniosacral therapy begins physically but goes deep; right to the depths of the being if the person being treated wants it because that’s where the healing happens. It’s not caused by anything external. Certainly not by me. No one heals anyone else. If we’re lucky we get to help someone in the process of healing themselves. It requires a lot of humility, respect for the other persons story, and a spirit of supportive non-interference. His death was part of his healing process. In terms of harmony it was no different from someone who got better.

That can be a lonely perspective to have, particularly as a therapist, because the world is very results oriented especially when it comes to health. On that bright September morning I was glad his family shared it with me.

I’m sitting with my eyes closed in a school hall in Dublin. Forty people I met only yesterday surround me. John Denver strums over the sound system and we’re encouraged to sing along.

This is the 80′s.

This is personal development.

“Sweet, sweet surrender. Live, live without fear. Like a fish in the ocean. Like a bird in the air.”

After 36 hours of emotional peeling I’m tender as a new born deer. Tears flop down my face as I cry-sing along to what I think is the most beautiful song I’ve ever heard in my life. Oh yes I want to surrender. I want to be free like that bird. I want to swim like that fish. What have I been so afraid of, so worried about? In that glowy moment it’s so clear that the universe is a benevolent force that just wants me to be happy and will take care of me, if only I will surrender, sweetly.

Fast forward to the other night. I wake up with a disturbing pain in my chest. I think I’m having a heart attack. Is this my time? I try to relax, to surrender. As I do I wonder who decides when it’s time? Not me obviously, I’d rather stick around for a while longer. It must be the universe, the benevolent old universe taking care of me if only I will surrender sweetly. Like the fish in the water. Like the. . .

Hang on a minute! The universe is in the process of killing me. Surrendering right now would be a really bad idea.
I get out of bed, and as I stand up the biggest burp in history explodes out of my throat like one of those trumpets heralding the end of time. When it finishes the pain in my chest is gone. Mental note; in future, no beer and pizza before bedtime. I sit down warm and fuzzy having just witnessed a Domino’s miracle.

Drifting off to sleep I wonder about surrender. Going with the flow is such a lovely sentiment; it’s full of relief and warmth and ease. The flow I’m going with is, well, call it the universe, call it life, call it God, call it whatever you like; it’s basically this vast mysterious thing you can’t see or touch, but you can feel in your whole being, well I can at any rate. I can feel it because it moves, in obvious ways like the wind and the sea and the clouds, but more subtly in the passage of lives, mine and everyone else’s. Like John Denver’s fish we’re swimming in a great unseen river that surrounds us and flows through us. I’m part of the river and the living of my life is part of it too.
And it’s not just splashing about either, the movement of life seems to have purpose, particularly in hindsight; everything comes together so elegantly, much more so than if I had tried to organise it.

I know this because most of the difficulties I’ve had in my life came about as a result of stamping my foot and insisting things go my way. It took me years to figure out that if I can tune into the movement of life and go with it, rather than fight against it, my life is so much easier. But more than that I feel a deep sense of joy when I’m in tune with life. Not the sort of joy that has me running down the street hugging complete strangers, we’re not in the 80′s anymore, but a deep satisfying joy that comes from feeling in harmony.

Of course once I’d figured out about surrender it wasn’t long before my subconscious got involved.
It wasn’t pretty.
I did outrageous things convincing myself, “it just feels right,” which was true at the time but had more to do with my unconscious feelings than feeling the movement of life and being in tune with it.

When I hadn’t a clue I’d say, “the universe will give me a sign.” and then I’d wait for some random event that seemed to point towards whatever it was I wanted to do.

The notion of a benevolent universe was equally co-opted. I’d blunder into something with disaster written all over it telling anyone who’d listen, “If it’s meant to be, it will happen.” in hindsight I’m sure there were people in the sidelines muttering, “If it’s meant to be, it will be a fucking miracle.”

Eventually I figured out what was going on and realised that the only way to tell for certain if something was the right thing was in hindsight. Nowadays I don’t use the universe as an excuse. I make my best guess knowing full well I haven’t a clue if what I attempt is going to work out or not. I do what I want with no apologies, because as far as I can see the universe is doing what it wants too.
Even though I didn’t die the other night, it looks like it will happen at some point in the future. One day I’ll face the ultimate surrender because one day the universe will kill me like it kills everything else.

“I looked for refuge in nature as many spiritual teachings used nature as an example of divinity in action. The birds of the field, the lotus blossom and so on. It didn’t help. When I looked into nature it seemed cruel and violent. Everything was eating everything else. Cute little furry creatures were gobbled up with shocking detachment. Disneyland it wasn’t. Nothing was safe.” from Maya Noise.

John Denver’s fish and the bird probably got gobbled up by a bigger fish and a bigger bird minutes after the song ended. From the outside, benevolent isn’t the first word that comes to mind to describe the universe, impersonal is more like it. I know it’s probably seeing some bigger picture that I can’t and whether I live or die fits together elegantly like everything else but I don’t know about that. I just know what I want because unlike the universe I’m very personal. What I want may not matter to the bigger movement of life but it fucking matters to me. And it’s supposed to. The fractal, holographic, all-is-one, one-is-all, model of existence sounds right to me. The whole of life is contained within me and I am a tiny part of the whole of life. What I want, life wants. What life wants, well, that depends…

I walk the fine line between wishful thinking and arrogant obstinacy. I’ll go with the flow for as long as it doesn’t try to kill me and if it does I’ll fight tooth and nail.

As usual I’m writing about myself because I don’t like to assume it’s the same for you. What’s your experience? Do you like to go with the flow? How far would you take it? Would you let it kill you?

Once upon a time, in renaissance Italy, a master craftsman named Paddy Da Vinci was top banana. He came to Florence from Ireland at the invitation of his famous cousin Leonardo and he quickly became the go-to guy for the artistic community there. Paint mixing, canvas making, picture framing, fresco supplies, discount marble, Paddy did the lot, with bells on.
All the great artists of the time used him.

(Photo – Jennifer Martinez)

One day cousin Leo came to visit Paddy at his workshop. He put a small painting of a young woman on the easel and flopped in a chair, very dejected.

“What the feck is wrong with you?” Paddy asked.

Leonardo told him that the picture was broken and he wanted Paddy to fix it.

“No better man.” says Paddy.

He examined the picture closely. The only thing he could find wrong was a small chip in the gold leaf of the frame which he quickly set about fixing. An hour later he presented the picture to Leonardo with a flourish. That’s what they did back then. Flourish.
Leonardo wasn’t happy. Not even slightly. When Paddy asked him what was wrong, Leonardo said the picture was still broken.
Still broken?

Paddy’s professional pride was wounded. He’d examined that picture thoroughly, had found what was, in his highly trained and expert opinion, the only flaw in the painting and fixed it and now he was being told his own trade by, an artist of all people. It was too much. Paddy let fly with a stream of insults that would have melted your ear wax. Leo gave as good as he got, calling Paddy’s lineage into question, barnyard animals were mentioned, Oedipal copulations outlined.

Eventually, a bit over it all, Paddy said, “If you’re such a feckin’ genius why don’t you just tell me what’s wrong with it.”

“It’s her mouth.” Leo replied.

“Her mouth?”

“Yes, there’s something wrong with her mouth. Her smile is not right.”

“Her smile.”

“Yes, now can you stop fecking about and just fix it, please.”

Paddy laughed. The same thing had happened the previous year when Leonardo was painting The Last Supper. He’d summoned Paddy all in a flap, concerned that nobody would figure out all the hidden messages he was putting in the picture about the holy grail, and Mary Magdalene, and had he made her too masculine?

Paddy took the little painting off the easel and handed it back to Leonardo.

“I can’t fix this feckin’ painting,” he told him, “No one can. No one except you because you’re the only one who knows what you’re trying to express.”

Leonardo took the painting. He didn’t argue because in his heart he knew Paddy was right. He thanked him and apologised saying he wasn’t thinking straight because Lisa’s non stop complaining was doing his head in.

“Who the hell is Lisa?” Paddy asked.

“She’s the woman in painting.”

“Right.”

“She’s paying me a ton of money but she’s such a sour puss it’s really hard to make her look even slightly happy in the painting.”

“That’s great Leo. Look, I’ve got Michelangelo coming over at two, so can you like, you know, clear off.”

“Okay Paddy, but I’m going to have the last laugh with her. I’m going to call the painting something like, That Feckin’ Moaner Lisa.”

Paddy laughed, “You might be a genius Leo, but you’re some feckin’ tulip.”

And with that Leonardo went off into the pages of history and Paddy went off to the nearest pub.

Whether it’s Paddy the craftsman, Paddy the doctor, Paddy the political, Paddy the therapist, or Paddy the guru, the idea of the all knowing expert is a velvet notion to say the least.

It’s patiently obvious that Leo asking Paddy to fix a problem only Leo could fix, was not the way to go. It can be much harder to know that no one else is better able to live my life as the best expression of who I am than me.

By the same token no one else is better able to live your life as the best expression of who you are than you.

It’s fine to ask for feedback and suggestions, wise even, but it only works if I ask for the feedback and suggestions knowing that when it comes to my life, I am the creative genius. Without that knowing I’m open to the wrong kind of influence. If Paddy had been a different kind of person he might have given Leo all sorts of advice that could have sent him off in the wrong direction and the Mona Lisa would never have happened, at least not as we know it.

The difficulty with this knowing I’m talking about is recognising my life as a work of art. It’s hard to notice because for one thing my life is so big, it goes on for years, and for another it’s not finished. My life is more like a movie than a painting and depending on what part of the movie I’m in it will have a different vibe. Am I in the happy part, the sad part or the getting fit montage.

What you and I get to see are a series of apparent problems but really they’re no different to Leonardo trying to get the Mona Lisa’s mouth right.

The nice thing is if I’m feeling a bit lost then knowing I’m the creative genius behind this work of art can help me get a sense of what is being expressed. In any situation I can stand back like an artist and ask myself, what would this situation convey to others? This helps me get a bit of distance from the situation by imagining what it looks like from the outside.

Then I can ask myself, what does it convey to me? If I’m really quiet I can hear the shadowy voices of my unconscious rising up to answer this question.

It’s an empowering perspective because it means if I get sick, for example, instead of throwing myself on he Doctor or Therapist’s couch and demanding to be “fixed”, I can focus on what is being conveyed by the sickness.

If I’m strapped for cash instead of running abound like a headless chicken trying to shuffle money from one credit card to another in the hope that friction alone will cause the money to expand, I can wonder about what the lack and the fevered attempts to avoid it could mean.

If I find myself taking extra long bathroom brakes at work I can wonder what my intimidating boss is about and why I’m so afraid of them.

If I find myself having meaningless sex with someone while snorting coke and taking swigs from a bottle of Jack, I might conclude, like Dewey Cox that, “This is a dark fucking period.”

Seeing your life as a work of art is an approach that may not work for everyone but it works for me.

Try it yourself, if you look at your current situation as a passage in a great work of art what does it convey?

*Remember, sharing this article with your friends and on your facebook wall will bring you great wealth and happiness and make you more attractive to the opposite sex.

Just sayin’.

All you need is a satellite to see it.

I was grumbling around google maps a couple of weeks ago looking for the regional office of a car hire firm in Australia.  My wife had asked me to locate these offices as the company were hiring and she wanted a map embedded on her website to help possible migrants see just where the hell they might be migrating to.

I found the office in Broome and was about to move on to the next location when, out of boredom more than anything else, I switched the map to ‘satellite’ view.  I don’t like to use the phrase, ‘I couldn’t believe my eyes,’ but I genuinely had a couple of moments where I couldn’t make sense of what I was seeing.

If you’ve spent any time on google maps you’ll know that it’s generally not that appealing to look at, it’s either checkerboard cities or wide open spaces of not much, so when the image of this azure tree framed in verdant relief appeared beside the town of Broome it just didn’t fit. I zoomed in and out a few times just to be sure it wasn’t some glitch with the map but there it remained; this magnificent image.

I talk about the finger prints of God in Maya Noise and how I see them all over the place.  Well here was another example, on google maps of all places.

Here it is for you to see for yourself.

View Larger Map

It’s a blowy Monday in Dublin and I’m feeling self-conscious. I breezed in on my bicycle, now I’m holding it like a security blanket. I’m trying to look like I belong but I don’t know anyone here and could be mistaken for just another onlooker, of which there are many.

I remember I’ve brought my camera with me. I snap away purposefully.

The little tents look out of place on the concrete forecourt, like something a child, determined to go camping in the back garden, would put together. There are handmade posters taped about the place too. Not Disney princesses or Winnie the pooh, but drawings of evil bankers and strangled economies and Irish flags.

The Occupy movement came to Dublin at the weekend and I’ve come down to take part but so far I’m having trouble getting into the swing of things. I don’t really know what I thought it would be like, more civil rights chic and less Glastonbury campsite I suppose.

In my book, Maya Noise, I describe how I got enlightened in 1996 and how part of that realisation was about taking responsibility for everything in my reality regardless of whether I knew how to change it or not. That included politics and business, both of which didn’t have much realness or heart or beauty, not compared to laughter, or sunshine, or dust swirls and the like. So I left politics and business on the periphery and focused on the good.

Then the social media phenomenon came along and seeped through the membrane between my reality and the next person’s so real communication, unfiltered and unmolded could happen.

And now here I am with a bunch of people I don’t know personally but because they’re here I know share a common recognition that things need to change. This is not just trendy crowd surfing. I’ve done my research. I’ve read and read and read, and the more I’ve read, the more there is to read and, probably like many people, I’ve come to the conclusion that all my research hasn’t changed my gut feeling that I sum up in simple phrases like, “It’s just not right.”

Take the situation here in Ireland, I don’t know all the facts and I’m not an economist, but I don’t have to be to know that there’s something very wrong with our banks behaving criminally and getting away with it and then being bailed out by the Government and your average Irish person having to shoulder the burden. That’s just not right.

And I’m not saying your average Irish person wasn’t complicit in the Celtic tiger biting them in their own arse. When I returned to live in Ireland five years ago it was full of self-admiring amateur property developers, many of whom are on the dole now. I think your average Irish person would now admit that their aspirations to own an investment property in Estonia were a little excessive. It’s not talked about much now, like a drunken table top dance at a wedding, there’s a general feeling of, “I’m not proud of it, but hey, I was drunk.”

And while your average Irish person got drunk on the wave of money washing through the country, what was going on below the surface went unnoticed. When the tide finally went out they were left on the jagged rocks of a shockingly corrupt banking system that the government has been ineffectual to do anything about. There have been two elections in the last five years here but nothing has changed. Unemployment is high, negative equity is even higher with many people trapped in homes that were thrown up in the boom years and are now worth a quarter of the huge mortgage they are left to be pay. No bailouts for them. Meanwhile the good old boys of our banking elite play hide and go seek with their millions, all the while hysterically demanding bailouts for their institutions in order to “save the county from financial catastrophe.” And they get them! Like I said, it’s just wrong.

My fellow protestors have started chanting. One person leads the refrain and the crowd repeat it in a sort of human megaphone.

“We’re having a meeting…”

“WE’RE HAVING A MEETING…”

“At two o’clock.”

“AT TWO O’CLOCK.”

“If anyone would like to volunteer…”

“IF ANYONE WOULD LIKE TO VOLUNTEER…”

It reminds me a bit too much of Catholic mass so I take it as my cue to leave. I haven’t been here that long but I will return again often. I will add my photos to the stream. I will “Like,” and tweet, and share, and promote, and generally take my place with the millions of other strangers who I would probably disagree with about many things except one; that things can be better, kinder, softer, more caring and more loving.

If this article resonates with you please share it with your friends, real and virtual.

I realized a long time ago that most of the unhappiness in my life was in my head. Worrying about things that had happened or might happen, feeling pain about lost loves or future slights. All the sort of stuff that most spiritual teachings talk about as taking me out of the moment, out of the now. To combat this I used action to erode my unhappiness and generally stop worrying.

The deal was simple. If I started worrying about how much money I had in my bank account, for example, I could do one of two things. I could either stop whatever I was doing and go and look in my bank account, or I could stop thinking/worrying about it.

It meant I got out of bed a lot at the beginning. My mind loved to wait till I’d found the most comfortable spot and I was just at the soft edges of sleep before it started to wonder if I’d left the back door open or if I’d enough petrol in the car or if I’d paid the gas bill. The deal was always the same.
‘Stop thinking about it or get up and check.’

After a while my mind gave up. It got sick of tromping out to the car in the cold night to check how much petrol I had or going to the nearest ATM to check how much money was in my bank account, this was after all in the last century, you know, before online banking.

In the end it was easier to stop thinking/worrying because I knew I would take action if I didn’t. My old spiritual master Barry Long used to say, “action purifies,” I don’t know if I was more pure but I worried less and I was less unhappy, which was good, right?

That would be the end of the story except the deal didn’t stop there. It expanded. Once I stopped living in my head so much about gas bills and back doors, the deal expanded into current affairs and world issues. If I started worrying about the latest war or starving injustice the deal kicked in.

‘Am I going to do anything about it?’ I’d ask myself.
‘Yes,’ I’d reply, ‘I’m going to think of a way the situation could be resolved.’
‘Yes, but am I going to take any action about it?’ I’d ask again.
‘Well…no.’ I’d reluctantly admit.
‘Then let’s stop thinking about it.’

This caused ructions inside me. “Compassion Capping,” “Suppression of Creativity,” “Enforced Callousness,” These were some of the placards in the internal demonstrations that followed this expansion. And when they didn’t work the old faithful, “People Mightn’t Like Me.” was dragged out but it was all tosh really because I couldn’t escape the fact that I knew I had no intention of taking any action about all this stuff I was thinking about. I was just filling up my head-space with thoughts about it. So dropping all that extra chatter brought me more into…well…wherever I was. Which meant I was really in the moment, really in the “Now.” Good, right?

And that would be the end of the story except the deal didn’t stop there either. It kept expanding to include other people. Whenever I found myself thinking I knew what other people should do it would kick in.

‘Do I live in their bodies? Do I know what the world looks like from their perspective?’ I’d ask myself
‘No, but I can imagine. It’s called being empathic.’ I’d reply.
‘I can call it what I like, but it’s the same as wondering how much is in my bank account, except for one big difference. With other people I have no way of checking. There is no action I can take. I can’t physically see the world from their perspective. I only look out of my eyes, feel through my skin, hear through my ears. I only know my perspective and I have no way of knowing for definite if their perspective is the same as mine. To do that would be an assumption. So firstly, let’s stop assuming that other people are having the same experience I am.’
‘Okay.’
‘And secondly, if I don’t know what experience other people are having then I definitely don’t know what they should be doing in their lives. So let’s stop thinking about that too.’

Knowing this inserted a very large pause in my dealings with people. I truly didn’t know how it was for other people so I stopped talking like I did. My language, once peppered with the third person, began to get more honest. “People, this…” and “We, that…” and “You, the other…” all fell away. As did ultimate truths, because now I knew that the only thing I ultimately knew about was my perspective. All of which was good, right?

Well…not so much. It kind of ruined me as a conversationalist. Being more honest and only talking about what I actually knew about, made me come off sounding a bit…well…self obsessed.

Take this article, for example. I’ve spent the whole time talking about myself. I know I’m doing that out of respect for you, that I don’t presume you’re having the same experience I am or that what’s right for me is right for you, but you may not see it like that.

And as for ultimate truths, well, compare these two statements, “Existence is an illusion.” and “Existence is an illusion, for me.” The second one, while more accurate, sounds pretty lame in comparison. I can see why people don’t use it. It would be hard to gather a crowd around you with that kind of talk.

The other downside is that I became painfully aware how few people communicate like this. Even in more enlightened publications where the average writer is a little more thoughtful, a little more respectful, everyone is telling me how it is and what I should do about it. And by “it” I mean everything from my sex life, to my health, to what the ultimate truth is. The third person is out in force and used with full certainty.

‘Calm down,’ I think to myself, ‘it’s just a way of speaking. It’s okay to slip into, “you should do this,” and, “you should do that.” It’s cumbersome, and a bit lame, to keep reiterating that this is just their perspective.’

But I can’t buy it. I think it’s very important to keep reiterating that it’s just your perspective. If everyone added the phrase, “or at least that’s the way it looks to me.” to the end of every ultimate truth sentence it would change the world…or at least that’s the way it looks to me.

Try it for yourself. Pick your favourite inspirational passage, your most cherished manifesto or truth and add that phrase to the end of every sentence where the author isn’t talking about his or her own perspective.

“It is better to be violent, if there is violence in our hearts, than to put on the cloak of nonviolence to cover impotence”…or at least that’s the way it looks to me. ~ Mahatma Gandhi

“Anyone can deal with victory. Only the mighty can bear defeat”…or at least that’s the way it looks to me. ~ Adolf Hitler

It can be quite an eye-opener. For me, it highlights how much I want to believe in ultimate truths because I come away from the exercise feeling a little deflated. ‘Aw, that was just that guy/gal’s perspective. That means I still have to figure it out for myself.’

Try it on your way of speaking too. Pick a conversation. Whenever you hear yourself talking in the third person or delivering an ultimate truth, add the phrase, “or at least that’s the way it looks to me” at the end. Your conversation may be a little flat but it will introduce a gentleness into it too. A bit of space for the other person’s perspective and their process. Good, right?

I think if everyone adopted this more honest approach to communication it will eventually lead to world peace… or at least that’s the way it looks to me.

What do you think? How does it look to you?

This video is a great dramatisation of what goes on inside.  Don’t watch if strong language or adult themes bother you.

“On the inside I am fragmentary in nature. There are lots of different parts of me in there and in any given situation it’s a matter of which part of me is holding the mike and working the controls.”from Maya Noise.

Tommy Thallett was inspired to write this song when he read Maya Noise.  The sound quality in the video is not great so he sent me a more polished version of it which you can listen to here.

Tommy-mayanoise.mp3

Here are the words of Tommy’s song.

the water keeps rising up
and the walls are caving in
the fence is getting rusty
and the sun is setting on everything

i can feel the details
with every passing breath
and the way your skin felt
when we made love i wont soon forget

because we are young not dead
our bodies are decaying
distorting all the things we’ve said
we get lost in language
and silence stirs us side
and i want so badly to believe that the human spirit never dies.

and i am gaining consciousness
with every tiny cloud
the answers are in front of me
but i can’t make them out.

your body is a vessel
and i’ll take you out to explore
my options are limited
but i’m always looking for more.

because we are young not dead
our bodies are decaying
distorting all the things we’ve said
we get lost in language
and silence stirs us side
and i want so badly to believe that the human spirit never dies.

I felt like I knew Amy Winehouse a little bit but of course I didn’t.  I saw her on the TV and I read bits and pieces about her but other than that I had no experience of her.  The poignant sadness I feel about her death comes from . . . well . . . my imagination.  I imagine what her last hours were like.  I imagine what her friends and family must be feeling.  I imagine these different scenarios and they make me feel sad.

It’s different for Kelly Osbourne, she wrote, “i cant even breath right my now im crying so hard i just lost 1 of my best friends.”  She’s not imagining anything, her grief is palpable because she’s actually lost her friend Amy.  I’ve lost friends, I know what it feels like.

I was shocked to the point of nausea by the murders in Oslo.  I had such a strong reaction yet I don’t know any of the people who were murdered.  I wasn’t there so I didn’t witness any of the violence either.  All my emotions about it originate from my imagination too.  I imagine what it is like for the families of the people who were murdered.  I imagine what it must have been like to be stuck on that island with a gunman murdering your friends and coming for you.  I imagine what I would have done in that situation.

Anders Behring Breivik, the man who murdered all those people in Oslo probably had a nice life, but he imagined he was under attack from Muslims.  His imagination generated emotions in him too and he believed in what he imagined so much that he killed people because of it.

You and I of course would never do that.  We just imagine that we know people we don’t, and feel sadness and horror for events we didn’t witness.  And that’s fine once we know what we’re doing; imagining.  It’s fine once we don’t start to believe the feelings we feel are the same as they would be if we actually had lost a friend like Kelly Osbourne did or had witnessed a mass murder.

It’s fine once it doesn’t stop us enjoying what is in front of us to enjoy right now, the sun if it’s shining, our loved ones if we have any, our health if we’ve got it, the air we are breathing and the smile on our face if we have one.

Zsolt Bugarszki is a lecturer on mental health at the University of Budapest.  He interviewed me for his blog.

“Where did you draw your inspiration for your second book – ‘Maya Noise’?
Inspiration?”

It was more to do with sleep. I wasn’t getting much at the beginning of 2010. Instead I was being kept awake by insights I’d had decades before. It’s not like they were new and I just-had-to-write-them-down. It’s not like I thought humanity needed to hear my truth or any rubbish like that. Humanity was doing just fine as far as I could see and anyway humanity was just an idea. I’d never met a humanity. I just met people, usually one at a time. I didn’t think I knew what was right for them and I didn’t think anyone else did either, the only person who knows what’s right for you, is you, so there was even less point to writing.

It had been different with my first book, Why Do We Get Sick? Why Do We Get Better?, that had developed from hundreds of conversations I’d had with patients. Conversations I had seen people benefit from. Organising those conversations into a book was a natural progression. There was no natural progression to this current pressure to write but the sleep issue persisted. I’d get into bed after a long day of treating people in my craniosacral practice and two hours later I’d be staring at the ceiling wide awake with these insights pressing me to write them down.

Part of craniosacral work involves deep meditation so after ten nights of broken sleep I was at serious risk of falling asleep on top of a patient. Not a good look. In the end I made a deal with myself that I’d start writing but I wouldn’t show it to anyone. That did the trick and I got some sleep.

Initially what I wrote was a bit . . . well . . . smarty pants. It read like the diary of the little boy in The Emperors New Clothes except instead of saying, “You’re nude dude!” I was saying, “Look at all the assumptions! Look at all the assumptions! There are big holes in reality and they’re papered over with assumptions!”

Those smarty pants writings would probably still be in my top drawer if I hadn’t made the mistake of reading them to my wife one day. She listened quietly throughout and when I finished she pinned me to the spot. Instead of telling me something like I was a strange cookie, but she still loved me, like I expected her to, she said something worse, “Nearly but not quite.”

It did my head in. “What?”

She said, “It’s very good, and it’s important, and I can see why you’re writing it, but it’s not quite there yet.”

She was using the carrot and the stick, together!! I knew she was encouraging me, but to what? I tormented the poor woman for the next couple of days trying to get her to elaborate but she couldn’t.

After a couple MORE nights of troubled sleep I woke up early one morning like a light had been turned on inside me. I started to write what turned out to be the first chapter of the finished book. The writing style was very different to everything I’d written previously and the content was very personal, disturbingly so. I subsequently read somewhere that all good art takes big risks and exposes the artist in ways that are uncomfortable. This was certainly the case for me, I felt very exposed when I read the finished chapter to my wife. If I got, “nearly but not quite” again I knew I was screwed because I didn’t have anything else to give it, I’d left it all on the page. Thankfully she didn’t, she said it was “spot on” and the book continued from there.

“How do you rate the ‘sexually explicit content’ in your book as part of the overall of the entire book?”

If life is like a box of chocolates then sex is the chocolate. It takes different shapes and envelopes all the various flavours. Everyone seems obsessed with sex in one way or another. It’s all over the media, in our music, our magazines, our movies, our books, on the TV, it’s everywhere. And while men and women relate to it differently, men are mostly interested in having sex, women are mostly interested in looking sexy, the mutual interest is undeniable.

Life is a mystical experience and part of that mystery is sex, so writing a book about a mystical life without talking about sex would be like making a box of chocolates without the chocolate, which is fine if you life Jelly Babies, but I don’t so I cover it all; the sucking, the fucking, the lust, the fantasy, the guilt, the pleasure, the porn and the abuse. It’s life’s rich tapestry under the blue glow of the CSI dark light revealing all the bodily fluids and pixie dust.

I know they never talk about pixie dust on CSI but it’s there in sex too. Why would everyone be so interested in it if it wasn’t. What other non chemically induced activity gives us access to hidden parts of ourselves like sex. It transports us to a deeper reality and breaks up our rigidity by making us crazy. Just like it’s impossible to keep your eyes open when you sneeze, it’s impossible to keep the mask of sophistication on when you’re
cumming and that kind of disclosure is very spiritual.

So as far as rating the ‘sexually explicit content’ goes, I’d give it 10 out of 10, no, make that 11 out of 10.

“Are any of the characters and personalities in this book conceptualized around the people you personally know?”

Everyone in the book is a real person. I name some directly like my former spiritual master Barry Long, or the woman I got enlightened with, Catherine Ingram. The rest are people from different parts of my life. For most I’ve changed the names and some of the details of their lives to maintain their privacy. For example, towards the end of the book I talk about a former patient called Doreen who had chronic fatigue syndrome and went on to became a samba dancer. She was a real person but her name wasn’t Doreen and she wasn’t a samba dancer but other than that the story is real.

“After enlightenment, how did it change your everyday life?”

It wasn’t what I had expected at all. I wasn’t wiser or happier or able to do any of the cool things I’d read enlightened people could do. All the changes were internal. Before I got enlightened I was searching for something that would ʻfixʼ me, something that would remove what I sensed was a fundamental flaw in me. Not that I would have admitted it. If asked I would have said I liked myself. If pushed I would have said I was perfect just the way I was.

I wanted to believe it but in my heart I didn’t. In my heart of hearts I believed there was a better shinier version of me that I could be living and that I should be living and that if I got enlightened I would be living. The problem was that at my core I didn’t trust myself to get there. I didnʼt think I had it in me. I was impaled on the hook of the perfect version of myself. When I realised at the deepest level of my being that the fundamental flaw was an idea and not real, I became enlightened. I took myself off that hook and it disappeared from inside me and never returned.

The effect was like a seismic shift in the ocean floor of my being, it was unnoticeable at first. The tsunami didn’t hit for a couple of months and by the end of it my marriage was over, I’d lost my child and I’d shifted continents, literally, I was living in Australia.

So, yes, it had a big impact on my everyday life, just not in the way I expected.

“As a book writer, what kind of advice would you give to anyone who wants to overcome writers’ block?”

Show up. Woody Allen says 90% of success is showing up and I think he’s right. Writer’s block is no fun so whenever it happens I do what most intelligent people do, I do something else, something that’s a bit more fun, I check my emails or I look on facebook or twitter, all of which are fine, the trick is to keep returning to the writing.

Because I keep showing up at the writing, the writing gets done. It still isn’t fun and it often feels like I’m bashing my head against a wall, but each time I hit the wall a few more words fall out of my head and bit by bit the wall collapses – once I keep showing up.

My other tip for getting through writers block is alcohol. Here’s what to do. Fill a bowl with red wine and soak the tips of your fingers in the wine before you start writing. When you are ready to begin, towel your fingers off and drink the bowl of wine. Repeat the process until the writers block is gone. The finger-dipping part is optional.

Booze is a risky proposition but if used consciously can fill the dreaded blank page and get your momentum going.

There was a famous Taoist artist who made a point of drinking a lot of alcohol before he started to paint. Once he was blind drunk he would stagger towards the canvas and start painting wildly with chaotic splashes of colour and movement. He’d use his hands and fingers as brushes or he’d fill his mouth with wine and spray the canvas with it. He’d bump into the colour jars knocking them over and then use the odd mixtures to paint with. He regularly trashed his studio.

The next morning he would tidy his studio and begin work on the paintings he had started the night before. He would bring all his skill and training to bear and in a very controlled and systematic way give his wild inspirations of the previous night full expression.

Sometimes what is needed to get through the writers block is dynamite. The trick is to drink the dynamite sparingly.

I took this photo a couple of months ago after 5 pints of beer.  I was on my way to the local shop to buy some cigars.   As I flopped along I couldn’t help but notice how beautiful the moon was, how exquisitely it lit up the blossoms on the cherry tree, and how the street light balanced this with orange highlights.

It was a moment of beauty that would have been easy to miss, but once noticed brought out all the beauty of the night. I thought to myself, “Well of course everything looks beautiful, you’re drunk!”.

I kept going but the beauty didn’t stop.   When I got to the shop the guys who worked there had this great camaraderie and they all seemed to love their funky late night job.   I felt like I was in the best feel-good movie ever!   I could almost hear the soundtrack.   I had nothing but warm feelings for my fellow man.   I would have greeted anyone as a friend.   I thought to myself, “Well of course you would, you’re drunk!”

This kind of thinking was ruining the vibe and a fight broke out inside me.   One part of me thought being drunk was actually allowing me to be closer to how I truly am on the inside – free, loving, easy.   If I was sober I would have had my defences up.   I would have been cautious and ready for trouble.

Another part of me thought that if I wasn’t careful bad things could happen.   It was able to cite experiences I’d had that backed up this opinion, lots of bad things that had happened to me.   The evidence for caution was so strong that it was starting to kill my beer buzz until the first part of me remembered that by and large, when I’m drunk, nothing bad usually happens to me, so all this caution was unnecessary.

Then there was the honesty that came with drunkenness, the things I say that ordinarily I wouldn’t; whether it’s inappropriate flirtation or spontaneous soul baring, these are the declarations that would never happen without booze.  In the cold light of morning they are often regretted but does that mean they don’t have value? I don’t think so.  Sometimes the boozey rant is the only way to say something.

Of course the tricky thing with booze is it excludes the cautious parts of me.  They fade into the background.   And when they’re not there the sense of relief is immense.  The goodwill just wells up.  All is as it should be.   It’s so good that it could only get better by having another drink.   And with caution in the background I can’t think of a reason not to.   I was only planning on having one beer, just to take the edge off, but now I definitely think another pint is a capital idea.  And so it goes until I find myself walking to the shop and taking photos in the dark.

From my experience of treating people I know how devastating alcohol can be, the same with drugs, but nevertheless I like the way I feel when I’m drunk.   I can see why people become alcoholics or drug addicts.   Living can be very difficult and grinding and being able to access my true nature on demand is very attractive.  I can of course access it without alcohol but not on demand, not when I really need it.   It’s not like I can sit on the couch at the end of a hard day and make the soul fatigue melt away the same way a glass of wine can or the way a beer  or two can make a room full of strangers easier to deal with.

Booze is a shortcut to my true self with a built in tendency for excess.

Do you have the same kind of experiences when you get drunk?
Why do you drink?
Why don’t you?

This is a great little poem and video about being alone. Well done to Tanya Davis, the poet in the video.

You can find out more about Tanya at www.tanyadavis.ca

Katherine Riggs got in touch the other day.  She is a cranio sacral therapist working in London and is developing a course aimed at people who want to connect with their creative potential more fully. As part of her research she developed a questionnaire to find out how other people experience their own creativity, what preconceptions they have about creative pursuits, where they draw inspiration and what blocks them. The question ‘What is creativity?’ being the overarching principle.

She sent the questionnaire to me with the guideline that, ‘the first answer that pops in your mind – no matter how ridiculous – is the right answer’.

Completing the questionnaire made my squeeze into words a way of being I hadn’t expressed before.  I think a year ago, before I wrote this book my answers would have been different.

Anyway here it is, and my answers for your perusal.
How would you have answered differently?
Let me know at the bottom of the page.

Creativity Questionnaire

• Do you consider yourself to be a creative person?

Yes.

• How do you know?

I know by a combination of what I create and how I solve problems.  Also I am often told I am creative by other people.

• To what extent do you feel a need or desire to be creative?

I don’t think I ever feel a need to be creative, I just find myself creating. Whether it is arranging napkins or writing a piece of music or painting a picture it just kind of goes on.

• What words describe how it feels when you are involved in a creative activity?

Dynamically tense, happy, frustrated, inspired, free.

• Do you work in a creative field? If so, to what extent does this fullfill your creative drive? If not, would you like to work in a more creative job?

Yes, I work in a creative field. Expressing my creativity is always a balance between what I envision and the means at my disposal.

• What is creativity?

Creativity is where I take my perspective and I express it in my external reality.

• Where does it come from?

On a good day it comes from the deepest part of me.

• Are we born with creative potential or is it a talent that only some possess?

I only know about me and yes I was born with creative potential. I think it requires a certain amount of self esteem to think my perspective is worth expressing. My observation of people who don’t express their creativity is that at some time in their lives they decided they weren’t creative. [If I was designing a course aimed at individuals who wish to connect more fully with their creative potential this is where I would focus. From my experience of treating people with creative inhibitions it nearly always comes down to a traumatic incident where the person decided that being creative was too dangerous.   The book, 'Drawing on the right side of your brain.' has some great exercises for highlighting this.]

• Creativity is _______% inspiration & _________% perspiration.

• Creativity is 100% inspiration & 100% perspiration.

• Complete the sentence:

Artists are – like the tour guides for reality. They draw my attention to things I might not have noticed. They give me a window into how they see things.
An artist always – moves me.
An artist never –  conforms.

• I could be a (more) successful artist/writer/musician etc if only ___________________.

I feel like I am completely successful as an artist. Whether people like my creative expression or not is not something I control.

• Was there a time in the past when you felt more or less creative than you do now?

No.

• Have you ever experienced a creative block? What was that like?

Sometimes the gaps take longer to fill in but I have found that continually returning to the creative project ensures it’s completion. I agree with Woody Allen when he said that, “90% of success is showing up.”

• What, if anything, made it better?

Knowing I will come up with something.

• Free association: please write the first thing that pops in your head?

Artist – freedom
Writer – luxuriant
Musician – spontaneous
Actor – powerful
Painter – flowing
Architect – form
Sculptor – extractor
Composer – divinely driven
Poet – precious

• If you have a creative talent to what extent, if at all, do you have an obligation to use it?

I don’t think of it of it as an obligation. It is part of who I am. Like singing in the shower, I don’t feel obliged to sing, I just do it.

• Being a creative person enhances my life by:

Revealing parts of myself I was unaware of until I saw them expressed.  It also fills my life with things I have created. It is very satisfying for me to create something.

• Being a creative person negatively affects my life by:

I don’t think it has affected my life negatively.

• Criticism. Who criticised your creative pursuits?

Family, friends and strangers.

• In what way?

I was related to as ‘slow’ in school.  I was accused of being, “away with the fairies.” or “off in my own world.” often.  There was a general pressure to conform, to stop being different.

• Remembering this criticism, how do you feel right now?

Like I do when I rub a scar on my body.   It has healed but the memory of the pain lingers.

• Do you spend as much time as you would like on your creative pursuits? If not, why?

Yes.

• Do you spend too much time on your creative pursuits? How do you know?

No. I don’t see how I could. I make time for eating and sleeping and my family and friends but these are all part of my creativity expressing itself.

• Do others think of you as a creative person? Why or why not?

Yes. Lots of people have told me.

Here we go again in what I hope is the final round of editing for the finished book.

I found an editor in Spain of all places.  I had wanted to work with someone closer to me here in Dublin.  Not my next door neighbor or anything like that but someone I could meet and go through the red pen marks with.  This way it will be with ‘tracking changes’ on microsoft word.  Maybe it will be better.

Her name is Keidi Keating and her website is The Word Queen.  She got in touch with me through Twitter when I made a couple of requests for anyone knowing a good literary editor.  I liked her style and unlike the previous editor she has a feel for what the book is about.

Now on to the final book cover design with Ger Kenny at GKDesign.

The days of sitting back and having a publisher do all this stuff for you are disappearing fast.  Nowadays you really do have to paddle your own canoe.

{That’s Keidi behind me on the trike.  Ger is in the cabin working on the book cover and Mrs D is in there too on the phone organising the finance to keep the whole show on the road.}

After much sole searching I still couldn’t find what I stepped in.
Zing! Did you see what I did there?  I made it sound like one thing, then I …..
Ah feck off!
I’m a bit twitchy because I finally changed the name of the book.  I knew I had to because the book I started out to write, the book about assumptions, became something else, it became a book about enlightenment and gurus and abuse and evil and sex and communication and psychic entities and death and God.   And there is a bit in there about assumptions and reality too.

Worst of all it became about me.  It turned into the book I had avoided writing for 17 years. Too personal, too intimate and too raw, even after all this time.  But that’s the way it turned out and resist it as I might it didn’t make any difference.

The Maya part refers to the Hindu idea that reality is an illusion and that illusion is called Maya.  I thought it summed the whole book up pretty well but just in case there was any confusion with the Mayan civilisation and their prediction that there is going to be a big change in 2012, which is a trendy topic right now,  I added the sub heading of ‘Sounds from the illusion.’

Maya Noise – Sounds from the illusion. The name is in the spirit of a Mandala, you know those elaborate sand drawings the Tibetan monks spend weeks making and then chuck in a river, graphically demonstrating that nothing is permanent in existence.

I put a lot of work into this book and it has been far from easy to write.  It is full of what I think are the most important things in my life.  I think it is a very important book but a book in existence nonetheless and there is more to life than existence.

Lastly, when you say Maya Noise quickly it sounds like Mayonaise which I like to eat, lots.