Q: If somebody asked you, what’s one change I can make right now that will change my life the fastest, what can I do? What would you say?
At the top of the list of changes that can impact your life immediately is to have no contact with media of any kind. Outside of work, use no technology. That means no TV. No Internet. No computers, tablets, or cell phones. No emails. No texts. Put a stop to all of that outside of work or school.
To be clear, when I say remove all media, that means the only thing that would be allowed would be reading spiritual books or books on nature. That’s it. Not even reading books on human nature. Because we need to get out of ourselves. We need to make it not about us. We need to make it about starting to reorient back to the All-That-Is.
If people did that, they’d instantly have up to 30% or 40% more waking time available to figure out how they will walk the path to the All That Is.
And still, there would be time to be creative and spend time outside. There would be time to fix things that need to be fixed. There would be the decompression from the stress of what technology brings, including the triggering of depression from news and social media, or some ADHD-related behaviors.
It’s a well-documented scientific fact that when you spend time in nature, you have to calm down. When you calm down and slow down, there’s nothing distracting you or pulling you away. You’re not thinking, “I want to go play my game or there’s a TV show I want to watch or I’m caught up in the political drama.” None of that exists.
Make the only screen you watch be the world outside. Observe birds. Notice this plant or animal. This will begin the process of clearing our senses. In that cleansing, they will open wider. But really what’s happening is that we’re becoming aware of how much information they have been giving us that we’ve been ignoring or not paying attention to.
Once you start paying attention, it pulls you into a natural state of meditation. In that natural state of meditation, there’s an awareness. This is where the Inner Teacher shows up. There’s an awareness of that communication that something else is communicating with me. I’m aware that that tree is communicating with me. It’s communicating in its beingness. In sharing that Beingness, you will come to know what that beingness is. From there, it can all open up very quickly.
So, if there was only one change, it would not be to start with meditation. Even that’s too much for most people because it’s not removing the root of the problem. It’s like putting a Band-Aid on a bad gash that needs multiple stitches. The very first step is to stop all media exposure.
Q: I think most people would say that by asking them to unplug, you are not allowing them to make a living.
For now, this is for when you’re not at work. When you are at work, use the bare minimum that you need to do your work. Don’t go to news sites. Don’t surf the web or social media. Don’t be looking for ways to distract and self-soothe from the tension. Only use it in the most minimal form that you can use it.
What you’ll quickly see is what a powerful addiction this has all become. Asking people to unplug is the hardest thing you can ask them to do. It scares people because they don’t know what else to do. We’re all so used to being passively entertained that we don’t know how to entertain ourselves anymore. We’ve forgotten our innate skills of creativity, and our ability to focus. But, as with all innate skills, these are not lost, they’ve just gone dormant
What unplugging does is help us to push the rubble off our buried selves so that we can come up for spiritual air, to rediscover our true selves and our talents. Once we rediscover these again, they start taking on a life of their own. There’s a power in them separate from us. And that power is very healing.
Still, the tendency is going to be to rush back and mainline all the media stuff again. And that’s what we have to guard against.
So those are the steps to the fastest way to make the biggest changes.
Some people think well, I’ll just I’ll go to the East and go find a guru. And the guru is basically going to tell you to do the same thing. Because the answer is essentially the same. Everybody is just pointing at it from different directions. Every pointer can get you there.
But then people want to argue over the pointers. This pointer is right. No, that pointer is right. I’m thinking of the classic example of pointing to the moon. I don’t want you looking at my finger. I want you looking at what my finger is pointing at. I don’t want to hear that you think I need a manicure, or my finger is crooked or whatever distraction you’re going to come up with to argue over. My finger isn’t it. Look at what it’s pointing at. When you don’t make it about discussion and arguments about the pointer, but you truly stay focused on the thing that’s being pointed at, you will intuitively get to it more quickly.
That’s why I feel getting people reconnected with their senses is key. Because, for the average person, it is the fastest way to immediate direct experience. It’s a tool absolutely everybody has. There’s no language barrier. There’s no intellectual barrier. There’s no belief barrier. Everybody has the ability to pay attention. And once they start paying attention and they get to experience these Aha experiences, then they’re on their way. That’s it. My job’s done.
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