Nothing real can be threatened.
Nothing unreal exists.
Herein lies the peace of God.
(A Course in Miracles)
The other day I asked in the Spiritual Networks community the question whether there is a dark force at work that wants to keep us from God, or whether our perceived God-separation is just based on our own illusions. The majority of the spiritual travelers thought that there was a dark force at play, but the thoughtful commentary made me realize that the answer to this question doesn't really matter that much.
You probably remember Jesus's story of how he resisted three temptations in the desert. He experienced a dark force and just ignored it. Buddha experienced the battle between good and evil as well and just kept meditating until the theater dissolved into nothingness. The philosophy of the Tao traveler is to interact with life. Our premise is that peace and love is always ours to choose no matter what. We don't engage in the battle of good and evil either.
Whether the ego is deliberately leading us astray or not, each time when we feel separated from God, a battle between "good" and "bad" will be brewing; whenever we perceive that we are "here", but want to be "there", a voice will pop up reminding us that we are fooling ourselves. Say, we discover that we are greedy, competitive or horny, but look for God's peace and love instead. The moment you feel disconnected from the Way, a dialogue will be raging inside.
Just step out of it! You can can avoid the yin and yang of spirituality every step of the Way. If greedy thoughts pop up, let's ask whether there are some authentic desires that we don't grant ourselves. If they are, work on those instead. When competition enters our mind, let's contemplate the cooperative solution. And if lust overcomes us, we can always ask whether love is nearby. Step out of the battle between good and evil. Peace is always yours to choose; that's the promise of your Creator.
Showing posts with label cooperation. Show all posts
Showing posts with label cooperation. Show all posts
Tuesday, August 26, 2014
Tuesday, November 5, 2013
The Power of the Ego Versus the Power of God
I observed a strange curiosity in my bookshelf the other day. I saw how two books in red were standing on either side of the Course in Miracles which is in deep blue. I actually had sorted the books by size so the color coordination was nothing but a coincidence. Suddenly I observed that the title of both red books were about power. How ironic, I thought to myself, the Course in Miracles is about discovering the Kingdom of God when you say "no" to personal power. So these three books attracted each others like magnets, force and counter-force perfectly aligned.
There is something ironic about the color combination too. One of the two books has an interesting fact on the power of the color red (Ian Robertson's "The Winner Effect. How Power Affects Your Brain"). Based on observations from the 2004 Olympic Games: players with a red outfit won 62 percent of the time, while those with a blue outfit won 38 percent of the time. Red is the color of passion and aggression, while deep blue is the power of serenity. Well, in olympic games aggression definitely gets you results. But remember that these games were invented by us to measure the strength of ego. In "real" life, I would claim, the power of serenity, love and cooperation will get you much further. But don't take my word for it, give God's laws a try and see if you can repeat the miracles that ACIM talks about. My hunch is you will be amazed.
There is something ironic about the color combination too. One of the two books has an interesting fact on the power of the color red (Ian Robertson's "The Winner Effect. How Power Affects Your Brain"). Based on observations from the 2004 Olympic Games: players with a red outfit won 62 percent of the time, while those with a blue outfit won 38 percent of the time. Red is the color of passion and aggression, while deep blue is the power of serenity. Well, in olympic games aggression definitely gets you results. But remember that these games were invented by us to measure the strength of ego. In "real" life, I would claim, the power of serenity, love and cooperation will get you much further. But don't take my word for it, give God's laws a try and see if you can repeat the miracles that ACIM talks about. My hunch is you will be amazed.
Saturday, July 7, 2012
The Adventure of Bonnie and Clyde
There are only two ways to live your life. One is as though nothing is a miracle, the other is as though everything is a miracle.
Albert Einstein
Economics has the model of the the perfectly rational and selfish individual. It actually has been a pretty good working assumption explaining what is going on in businesses, societies and politics. Yet many of us feel there must be more to life than that. You probably have already created your island of love, trust and cooperation, but you probably also can think of the areas in your life where you face a 'dog-eat-dog' environment. Try to extend this island of peace, trust and corporation in every area of your life. The Tao will show you the way, but remember to take small steps until you truly have the confidence that it can be done. Remember, it is you who has to throw a lot of psychological baggage over board and your daily interaction give the opportunity to do it.
We live in a multiple equilibrium world: believe that you can live in love and in peace wherever you go and you will experience it; believe you are operating in a dog-eat-dog world and you will always attract the shady characters who are happy to play with you. It is your choice, it is that simple. I want to illustrate the idea with the model that the economic community uses to illustrate selfish behavior, the Prisoner's Dilemma. Somehow, the story goes, we live in a world with lack of communication and in this world people will end up choosing non-cooperative behavior that in the end hurt everyone.
Take the famous gangsters, Bonnie and Clyde, when they were caught early in their out-law career and the district attorney had little evidence to use against the two, so she tried the classic game-theoretic interrogation technique that she had learned at law school. Clyde was told that Bonnie was being interrogated by one of her colleagues. Both would be convicted for 5 years if they both confessed, but if Bonnie confessed while Clyde remained silent, she would go free, while he would be locked up for 10 years instead. She of course figured that given these circumstances they would both confess and would both lose out in the process, but to her surprise Clyde laughed in her face and said "This woman has taken a bullet to save me. Execute me on the spot, I will never betray my soul sister!"
You may say my example is childish and that trusting others has backfired for you personally in a professional setting. I think the cooperative solution is out there for you if you dare to pursue it. Just try it in small things and see what happens. What exactly do you have to lose? After all, has scheming really ever got you anywhere? You are not asked to sacrifice anything. Try and explore until you have found for yourself this niche of trust, corporation and love in whatever you do. At one of the retirement parties at our firm, one of my colleagues said, " I have been so productive here because I felt I never had to watch my back." If she could create this working environment in the competitive financial industry, why shouldn't you succeed wherever you are working right now?A little effort is probably required to find this niche, a few missteps will probably occur but believe me, the cooperative outcome is well worth the price.
Albert Einstein
Economics has the model of the the perfectly rational and selfish individual. It actually has been a pretty good working assumption explaining what is going on in businesses, societies and politics. Yet many of us feel there must be more to life than that. You probably have already created your island of love, trust and cooperation, but you probably also can think of the areas in your life where you face a 'dog-eat-dog' environment. Try to extend this island of peace, trust and corporation in every area of your life. The Tao will show you the way, but remember to take small steps until you truly have the confidence that it can be done. Remember, it is you who has to throw a lot of psychological baggage over board and your daily interaction give the opportunity to do it.
We live in a multiple equilibrium world: believe that you can live in love and in peace wherever you go and you will experience it; believe you are operating in a dog-eat-dog world and you will always attract the shady characters who are happy to play with you. It is your choice, it is that simple. I want to illustrate the idea with the model that the economic community uses to illustrate selfish behavior, the Prisoner's Dilemma. Somehow, the story goes, we live in a world with lack of communication and in this world people will end up choosing non-cooperative behavior that in the end hurt everyone.
Take the famous gangsters, Bonnie and Clyde, when they were caught early in their out-law career and the district attorney had little evidence to use against the two, so she tried the classic game-theoretic interrogation technique that she had learned at law school. Clyde was told that Bonnie was being interrogated by one of her colleagues. Both would be convicted for 5 years if they both confessed, but if Bonnie confessed while Clyde remained silent, she would go free, while he would be locked up for 10 years instead. She of course figured that given these circumstances they would both confess and would both lose out in the process, but to her surprise Clyde laughed in her face and said "This woman has taken a bullet to save me. Execute me on the spot, I will never betray my soul sister!"
You may say my example is childish and that trusting others has backfired for you personally in a professional setting. I think the cooperative solution is out there for you if you dare to pursue it. Just try it in small things and see what happens. What exactly do you have to lose? After all, has scheming really ever got you anywhere? You are not asked to sacrifice anything. Try and explore until you have found for yourself this niche of trust, corporation and love in whatever you do. At one of the retirement parties at our firm, one of my colleagues said, " I have been so productive here because I felt I never had to watch my back." If she could create this working environment in the competitive financial industry, why shouldn't you succeed wherever you are working right now?A little effort is probably required to find this niche, a few missteps will probably occur but believe me, the cooperative outcome is well worth the price.
Wednesday, July 4, 2012
Competition Versus Cooperation
The willpower of power is the willpower of conflict, the alternating dualism of "yes ...no, yes ...no", which are the two aspects of desire. But the willpower of wisdom has nothing to do with such competitiveness; in fact it behaves in quite the opposite way. It manners are perfect; it is never rude, because it feels no revulsion. It never says "No" and is never offensive. The willpower of wisdom is the willpower of a single motive of acceptance - yes, yes, yes.
E. Graham Howe
I was once in charge of an offsite, a team spirit building exercise, and I decided that we would go and play mini-golf according to the Ryder Cup rules. The Ryder Cup is a golf tournament that is played between the best European and American golfers. And even though golf is a highly individual sport as we all know, when you put the players into teams with alternating shots or by choosing the best shot of each player, suddenly a team spirit develops and for the players who gel with each other, the team effort can be much more than the sum of the individual players.
The Tao master knows something about cooperation. The Tao teaches you how to cooperate with life and with other people. Sure, competitive folks will show up along the Way as well, they too will be incorporated in the magnificent play of the Tao. You let them do whatever they need to do but you never fear their force because in life cooperation gets you a lot further than individual competitive efforts. My favorite example in this direction was the Ryder Cup during a time when Tiger Woods and Phil Mickelson were Number 1 and Number 2 in the golf rankings and both were beaten handily as a team by the much more cooperative European players.
E. Graham Howe
I was once in charge of an offsite, a team spirit building exercise, and I decided that we would go and play mini-golf according to the Ryder Cup rules. The Ryder Cup is a golf tournament that is played between the best European and American golfers. And even though golf is a highly individual sport as we all know, when you put the players into teams with alternating shots or by choosing the best shot of each player, suddenly a team spirit develops and for the players who gel with each other, the team effort can be much more than the sum of the individual players.
The Tao master knows something about cooperation. The Tao teaches you how to cooperate with life and with other people. Sure, competitive folks will show up along the Way as well, they too will be incorporated in the magnificent play of the Tao. You let them do whatever they need to do but you never fear their force because in life cooperation gets you a lot further than individual competitive efforts. My favorite example in this direction was the Ryder Cup during a time when Tiger Woods and Phil Mickelson were Number 1 and Number 2 in the golf rankings and both were beaten handily as a team by the much more cooperative European players.
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