Dec 13, 2022
After this episode, our “Stop Making Yourself Miserable Podcast” will be taking a Holiday/Winter hiatus. We will begin again sometime in late January.
As I have mentioned in a few previous episodes, I am busy working on The Higher Mind Training, and in particular, I am adapting it for use in a halfway house for people suffering with alcohol and drug addiction. The training for this facility should be in place by late-February.
As I am working on it, I am looking through some of the notes that I have made over the years, and I have found a few phrases that I have written that I would like to share with you at this time. Like a lot of other people who are involved with writing, I always keep a file opened where I can drop in random thoughts that occur to me as I am working. They don’t necessarily relate to anything in particular. If something occurs to me that I feel I should keep, I just write it down and put it away, possibly for later use and possibly not.
So, before we take our hiatus, here are a few of those random thoughts for your consideration See if they do anything for you.
The first one is, “Follow the heart, not the herd.” In this, I was pondering how powerful the herd mentality factor is for us. I remember watching a documentary that featured a holocaust survivor. He told a story about something that happened to him during the early days of Hitler’s rise to power in Germany.
An enormous rally was going to be held with 100,000 Nazi loyalists. They had gathered up about a hundred Jews and seated them near the podium so Hitler could vilify them and spew hatred on them during his speech to the crowd. They were instructed to remain in their seats throughout the entire proceeding and they would be taken out at the end.
At one point, the gate to the stadium opened and Hitler came riding into the stadium in an opened car. Instantaneously, everyone rose, giving the Nazi Salute and started chanting, “Heil Hitler.” The survivor then said that the energy of the crowd was so powerful that it took every bit of will power that he had within him not to stand up, give the Nazi salute and join the crowd in chanting “Heil Hitler.” I never forgot that story because I had spent my entire childhood at basketball games along with 10,000 fans and I was all too familiar with the power of a crowd.
For some reason, for the most part, we humans basically like to be just like everyone else. But as the Nazi rally story illustrated, the feeling of safety in numbers is often what it seems to be.
Around the same time, I had written myself a note that pretty much speaks for itself: “Get your information from the horse’s mouth, not from the horse’s ass.” As the Gershwin brothers wrote, “Nice work if you can get it.”
Then, in a completely different framework I noted, “A quick look can reveal a treasure.” This is especially true if you ever get the opportunity to be in the presence of someone who has attained a truly elevated state of consciousness. A lot of times they don’t need to say a word to lift you up a little, or a lot. Just a look will do it.
Two things I had jotted down about moving along the journey of life. The first one was, “To do anything, you have to do something.” Sometimes it can be very small, but everything takes effort and even if it’s just something small, something big often starts from something small. But small or large, the step of taking action has to happen.
Still, it often takes persistence. You just have to keep going, so I had written, “In the long run, it’s a long walk.” Guts or glory, up down or sideways, you just have to stick with it.
Along those lines, here’s an anonymous quote that I’ve always admired called, “Press On.”
Nothing in the world can take the place of persistence, it starts. Talent will not. Nothing is more common than unsuccessful people with talent. Genius will not. Unrewarded genius is almost a proverb. Education will not. The world is full of educated derelicts. Persistence and determination alone are omnipotent.
And when it comes to going through inner obstacles that we might encounter, I was focusing on the idea of inner growth and the thought occurred to me that “It’s not so much a matter of going through it that counts. It’s more a matter of growing through it.”
But along with growth comes the necessity of practice and I noted, “The practical becomes impractical if it’s not practiced.
So, to wrap things up, I wish you a very happy and healthy Holiday Season, and I am going to leave you with two of my favorite quotes from two of my most treasured influences.
When it comes to giving Parmahansa Yogananda gave us this advice, “Spread rays of hope in the hearts of the poor and forsaken. Kindle courage in the hearts of the despondent. And light a new strength in the hearts of those who think they are failures.” Now, that’s quite a high bar for giving, but for me, it certainly seems like something to aspire to.
And Prem Rawat, who is a master of the art of expressing a profound truth in a rather understated way once said, “Within you resides the essence of every single scripture ever written.” That one always gets me.
So, this will be the end of this episode and the beginning of our holiday/winter hiatus. We’ll pick it up again in late January. As always, keep your eyes mind and hearts opened, and let’s get together in the next one.