First of all, there is the largest surface geothermal pool I’ve ever seen … I mean, there is a sizeable pool of water that is 180° at the surface! Of course, it is fenced off, but it is an amazing site, near the Breitenbush River. The BB community generates its own electricity from the BB River and, along with everything else, it uses some of this power to push hot water through a huge network of radiators, providing comfy heat to all of the 60 or so cabins, as well as the cooperative community that runs the place and the big lodge, office, etc. This is really being “off the grid!” No wireless, no internet either (which is kind of a nice vacation in a way).

There are lots of hot tubs and even a steamroom that sits on top of the steaming creek that flows out of the big hot pool I mentioned. Best steambath ever! Being an inveterate hippie, I also like the fact that all the soaking pools and steambath, etc. are “clothing optional.” Skinnydipping is such a psychologically healthy (and probably one of the less sexual) things you can do — a mild remedy for body-shame, no matter what kind of shape you are in, once you overcome your ingrained self-consciousness. (As Gay Hendricks recommends in his book Conscious Living, “I am committed to loving my body.”)

If you get the chance next winter, be sure to attend Rick and Jeff’s “Winter Astrology Conference” — only 2 hours from Portland (see Breitenbush.com). This place is toasty warm and R&J are an incredible team. Not only will you learn a lot about astrology, but you will get an in-person forecast for the coming year … great stuff. As Wendy from Vancouver BC emailed me, “The weekend was nothing short of magical and yet paradoxically full of practical learning that I can integrate daily.”

See you in the hot tubs!

In her book “The Future of Love,” Daphne writes and teaches that, during the past century of personal growth along psychological lines, people have been trying to use relationships for emotional need fulfillment. Now that many of us have done a fair amount of “emotional work” — often wreaking havoc on traditional forms of relationship — we are being called by Spirit to view relationships differently. It is time for relationships to become less personality-based and more soul-based, which means different forms, different priorities, and a different experience of Love.

It’s hard to let go of our desire to get our emotional needs met by a partner … it’s such an attractive fantasy, but it doesn’t really work. It puts too much pressure on one relationship. A soul-based approach to relationship has a different objective. Rather than looking to the other to meet our personal needs, we look to the relationship as an adventure of love and ask “How can I expand my ability to be kind and generous, not only to a partner, but to myself and all beings.” A much wider perspective … and much more under our control.

We cannot control the past. We cannot control other people (not even a spouse . The one things we can control have to do with the “inner game” — our attitude and our expectations. Perhaps the more I look to how I can be more loving, focusing on radiating love (including for myself), instead of getting my needs met by another person, I will attract a partnership that better serves our long-term well-being and happiness.

The traditional example is of herders sharing a common pasture, on which they are each entitled to let their cows graze. It is in each herder’s self-interest to put additional cows he acquires onto the land, even if the carrying capacity of the common is exceeded and it is temporarily or permanently damaged for everyone as a result. This herder receives all of the benefits from an additional cow, while the damage to the commons is shared by the entire group. If all herders make this individually rational economic decision, the commons will be depleted or even destroyed to the detriment of all.

It always amazes me how ignorant we humans (especially americans) remain of this Law of the Commons! One would think that our political representatives, at least, should have a clue about how this works (rather than knee-jerk demonizing “socialism” in even its mildest forms). But now, of course, our congressman are too largely bought and sold by their corporate masters — who not only do not have a clue, but don’t want one!

To be conscious and responsible around the stewardship of our commons — our natural resources — might slow down the ‘inexpensive’ exploitation of nature, and that could affect quarterly earnings! And as long as the taxpayers will bear the costs – and we do bear all the costs of damage to our collective environment or health in the form of taxation or deficits — what is the incentive for corporations, totally focused on short-term profits, to care? None!

We live in an economic system that is continually despoiling the commons for the outsized gain of the few corporate masters who run the show. We need to wake up and insist that our representatives understand the Tragedy of the Commons and their responsibility to avoid it. Our pattern of extolling individual rights, including the rights of corporations, at the expense of the commons, can come to no good end for any of us, including the oligarchs.

Nature will come swooping down on flying dynosaurs and kick our mechanical butts!

About the Book

Paul O’Brien’s life has greatly benefited from divination tools, which led him to start Tarot.com and write this book to explain how divination actually works. Get the most daily value out of tools like Astrology, Tarot and his beloved I-Ching — and do it all on your own! Divination is a book that needed to be written so that all of us can understand the profound positive impact these spiritual tools can truly have on our lives.

Divination the book reveals Paul’s concept of Heart’s Desires — a higher order of desire deep inside you that lets you know what you are supposed to really be doing in your life. These are not desires in the sense of appetites or fantasies, your Heart’s Desire is all about who you are and your highest destiny in this lifetime. The secret to fulfilling these important drives revolves around intuitive decision-making, thinking outside the box and making the right moves at the right time — all skills that divination tools develop, as the book explains.

Divination explains how the classical divination systems like Tarot, Astrology, Numerology and the I-Ching can be used to create much greater happiness and success through skillful action, clearer thinking and better decisions. Furthermore, Divination shows how it is possible for the first time in history for an individual — such as yourself — to be able to use these sophisticated spiritual systems without any outside help!

Paul’s engaging book explores the history of the divination systems, the true story of the important role of divination in the Bible and fascinating true tales of the use of divination systems in modern life! Learn exactly how divination systems work, how they can be used as a form of meditation and the most skillful ways you can use them. Divination is the definitive work on the subject. It shows how divination tools are much more than fortune-telling; how they help you make decisions that logic can’t handle, reduce stress around life’s changes and develop better relationships, too.

After reading this ground-breaking book, you will have much more skill in using the sacred tools of divination. Once you understand how they can empower you, your life will never be the same. You will notice positive outcomes more often, as you learn to make better choices in your life, and take the right actions with much better timing.

Click here to order and review other readers’ comments.

I am using the free I Ching reading feature on tarot.com — http://www.tarot.com/oracle. I decided to ask the Oracle about our dismal economy, so I type into the screen was “Best way to relate to depressed economy?”

While I am shaking the coins (placing my mouse over them on the screen), I begin a guided meditation with my eyes closed, letting the breath be deep and slow, sitting upright with  hands in prayer position. My prayer: “I surrender to the Truth. May divine wisdom flow through this I Ching reading to increase our clarity, adjust our attitude, and guide our way.”

The results were uncanny:The Present Hexagram that I cast was #39, Temporary Obstacles, with changing lines 4 and 6, which takes us into the Future Hexagram #33, Retreat.

This reading (below) speaks for itself, and with incredible clarity. Temporary obstacles leading to a retreat. Pretty straightforward. And the two changing lines offer two clear alternatives — one positive, one not as pleasant.

What I take from this reading is that this is a time to accept things the way they are and retreat in the face of what are in reality “temporary obstacles.”

Keep your head about you, focus on small details and, as the first changing line #4 clearly advises, be sure to line up as much support as you can before making any bold moves.

This is not a time to just ‘try harder’ at whatever you are used to doing, but to button down the hatches a little bit, to ride out the storm, always trying to remember that this recession is a “temporary obstacle,” which will turn into an up cycle in time.

There may be little you can do but ride out this wave’s trough cycle, just trying to stay on your surf board, focusing more on inner balance than great outward results. Another perfect reminder from our ancient sacred oracle, the I Ching!

For the full text of  hexagrams and changing lines that were cast in this I Ching reading, see below. (Text excerpted from the I Ching that I originally produced 31 years ago.)

Your Present Hexagram: #39 Temporary Obstacles

Have temporary obstacles been blocking your way? In the course of trying to reach a goal or to fulfill a personal ambition, obstructions inevitably present themselves. This is not always a bad thing. Obstacles, difficulties and even setbacks that are eventually overcome often turn into assets. Without irritating grains of sand, oysters would never make pearls.

The obstacles pointed to here are not permanent, yet they are in the way. As when a large boulder falls in the road, the best course of action is usually to go around it, rather than to try to move it out of the way. Temporary obstacles must be seen for what they are — temporary — and should not be allowed to take on too much significance.

A positive aspect of even the most difficult obstacle is that it may cause a person to turn inward, and gain greater depth and character. While the ignorant bemoan their fate and seek to blame their problems on others, the wise seek the cause of the problem within themselves. Through this type of introspection, obstacles become a means for personal growth and self-discovery.

Without air resistance, no plane would ever fly.

If you are facing temporary obstacles, try not to be overly concerned. Obstacles are a part of achieving every goal and furthering every undertaking. Setbacks and reverses can affect morale, but keeping up your self-confidence in the face of challenges is part of a successful solution to many of life’s problems. Obstacles of short duration are best handled with a yielding attitude. Go around the rock, don’t put your shoulder to it.

Your Changing Lines

The first changing line is line 4

When confronting a boulder in the road, many hands make light work if it must be moved. Many obstacles cannot be removed single-handedly. Do not venture out to confront such a serious obstacle until the proper support is with you. Enlist some help. To push before your support is in place would bring misfortune.

The second changing line is line 6

When a difficult situation degenerates into a real mess, only bold, forthright action can bring success. This line points to the situation of a person facing a major obstacle to forward progress — and something blocking him behind as well. There is no way forward, no going back. The situation is complex and there appears to be no way out.

When this happens, you must re-enter the fray. Do your best not to worry too much about the results. Look for help from above — from others in positions of authority and power. If you can find such support, success becomes probable. In the end, of course, you can never escape your fate.

Your Future Hexagram:  #33 Retreat

All worthy goals meet resistance of some kind. When negative forces predominate, a well-timed retreat is a good way to stay on the path to ultimate success. Tibetans know this.

Strategic retreat is not to be confused with escape or surrender. Successful retreat demands quick and nimble movement — taking up a new position before you are damaged by the current situation. You are not admitting defeat by temporarily retreating, but simply increasing your options, and preserving your resources. Sometimes it is necessary to slow down, let go or move back in order to develop countermoves for the future. Timing is critical, as is how well you position yourself after realignment. Considerations of personal security are critical.

Periods of withdrawal or retreat call for cool-headedness. It is necessary to keep your wits about you. Attend to small details while allowing yourself time to contemplate the whole picture. Be creative; not all progress follows a straight line. Self-confidence is also essential; small setbacks can easily become defeats if we allow ourselves to become mired in self-doubt or self-pity.

Waves of progress are, by their nature, short-lived. Learn to attune yourself to the up-and-down cycles of life. When the wave is behind you, ride it in; when it’s not, lie low. Don’t fool yourself into thinking that you can ‘fix’ any situation whenever you feel like it. Some things are bigger than you are. Hold your pride in check and you will be better prepared to find creative openings.

How much time and energy do we waste mulling over or resisting things that we cannot change — which includes everything that happened in the past (even a few moments ago)? We cannot change the past, we cannot change other people. Sometimes we can influence what they do, more often not so much. So what can we change? What can we focus on going forward in 2010?

We can change our habits, that’s what — including the habitual ways we react to things that we cannot change — like the behavior and speech of other people, for instance. In his book, The Four Agreements, Don Miguel Ruiz titled a chapter “Don’t Take Anything Personally.” I love the whole book, but especially that chapter.

What people say — even what they say about us –  tells us more about them than about us. I know this is a cliche, but it is true. Looked at this way, it is very revealing whenever someone offers some unsolicited criticism or, worse, an insult. It becomes more interesting to me — and less offending — to the extent that I remind myself it is primarily giving me information about what they are still resisting within themselves! (Of course, there’s also often a grain of truth in what they’re saying .

Over my relatively long life, I have learned not to care much what other people think of me, because I realize that for the most part they are just projecting their own stuff (i.e. crap  onto the screen that is available to them when I am around, which is me. If it “hurts my feelings,” that is just me reflexively taking they’re opinion to heart and, by doing so, hurting myself. I have observed that most hurt feelings are caused by misunderstandings that result from the over-interpretation of, and taking to heart, someone else’s projection! From this understanding, it is clear that nobody can really “hurt your feelings” … only you can do that … good news!

Now, how can I break this habit of being attached to what I think other people think? Emotional reactions arise so damn quickly! How do I intervene? How can I interject a flash of consciousness in order to remember that I am in the process of starting to over-interpret something that was a projection to begin with? It’s not easy being so attentive!

Ken Keyes wrote that taking offense creates more overall suffering in the world than the giving of offense. If I don’t take offense, then for sure at least I am not going to suffer! But I also do not create any karma if I don’t take that offense to heart. I don’t set a wheel of reaction/counter-reaction into motion, like turning a negative prayer wheel. If, on the other hand, I automatically react (i.e. over-react) emotionally to projections (including new projections made by myself), my ego will probably create more offense (via angry argument, condemnatory revenge, gossip, whatever).

Hey, Don Miguel … for the new year, I commit to getting better at not taking things personally! My own lack of awareness — the cause of all my automatic projecting — is something I can influence and change.

Just out of curiosity, what kinds of habits will you be focusing on in the new year?  Here’s wishing all of you a peaceful and successful 2010!

Not all victimness is self-made, and even though I focused on “victim consciousness,” I did not state that there are no true victims. Obviously, children can be abused or worse — and through no bad decisions of their own (maybe it’s their ‘bad karma’, payback for something they did in a past life, but that’s not our judgment to make).

At some point, each of us could be considered the ‘victim’ of our childhood upbringing, with all its shortcomings. For instance, if you learned from a narcissistic mother that you must be perfect in order to win a few crumbs of love, such a ‘core belief’ will handicap your life, giving you a greater challenge in giving and receiving love.

I personally like to think of this sort of victimness as ‘karmic,’ because I choose to believe that there is some sort of cosmic justice at work in the universe (and I think we choose all our beliefs). In any case, the good news is that such handicaps can be overcome … and perhaps get to ‘burn off’ some karma in the process!

We do have the power to become more conscious of who we are and learn to make better decisions, which will increase our success and happiness and steadily improve everything. I don’t think of self-improvement as a project so much as a way of life, a learning attitude.

But the point today is that there are real victims in life, including people we know or learn about through the media. So … what can we do? How much can we realistically do for them? What is the best attitude for us to develop?

Certainly, it is not one of blaming people for being victims. Blame is too easy and a nasty habit. It may make our egos feel slightly superior, but that pleasure comes with a steep price, for such egocentricity only produces bad karma for ourselves. The far more skillful choice is to practice compassion. But what is compassion? And how do we practice it?

In Buddhism, love is divided into three forms: loving kindness, sympathetic joy and compassion. Loving kindness is the driving force behind friendship and all forms of positive relating. Sympathetic joy is probably the rarest one of the three; it consists of feeling joyful about the good fortune of someone else! (In some Thai villages, they have the interesting custom of ringing the village bell and chanting something like “Good for you” whenever some major good comes to a household … sure beats envy!) Compassion, finally, is about being empathetic and helpful to those who are suffering, and governs all forms of charity and charitable work.

Does practicing compassion mean that we try to help everybody who seems to be in need of help? Some people try, but that’s a tall order! Obviously, one person cannot take care of everybody, not even everybody around them. So, the question becomes: Where and how do we draw the line? For one thing, how much time or money do we have to give?

Several years ago I lived in India for a year, where the suffering of throngs of people is highly visible. Every day I was in the city I would be constantly confronted by begging lepers, babies with mangled limbs, etc. It was extreme culture shock to say the least, just to live near a large Indian city. It put me face to face with overwhelming suffering, but what was I to do?

There was no way I could afford to give money to every beggar I came across (or, more accurately, who accosted me) and still take care of myself. On the other hand, realizing the spiritual importance of compassion, I didn’t want to become hardened to the suffering of humanity. My solution was to set myself a ‘compassion budget.’

Back in 1981, I didn’t have much in savings when I was that long-term volunteer for the Indra Devi Foundation in southern India. Nevertheless, I decided that I would hand out 10 rupees/day. That was my monetary solution for that place and that time, it gave me a way to give some money as well as my time.

This is the season when many of us are accustomed to think about what we can give. The time between Christmas and New Years is a wonderful week to take a little time to reflect on your relationship to the world, and consider what your Compassion Budget is going to be for next year. After all, with rising unemployment, bankruptcies and foreclosures, there are a lot of people who have been victimized by a system that’s been set up to highly reward greed.

Of course, as with all love, compassion starts at home, beginning with and for yourself. What are you willing to do to be more creative and free yourself from your own victimness tendencies? Or, focusing on attitude, what could you be more grateful for?

In terms of money, perhaps it feels like there is not enough available right now for you to create charity as a budget item.  But if not 10% of what you bring in, perhaps you could make it 5% or even 1%. Or considering that time is more valuable than money, perhaps you can volunteer. There is always something you can do to empathize with and help others to exercise your heart’s compassion muscle. It feels good!

Most victim stories, however, are mostly just that — just stories … tales that serve as an excuse, or a subconscious strategy of pretending to be powerless … when really we had the power to create the problems through a series of bad decisions we made and possibly continue to make. These victimness temptations represent a personal development opportunity.

What are the payoffs for feeling like a victim? Well, for starters, you get to feel that you are right (about being wronged). Nobody wants to argue with a victim, because that would seem mean. Secondly, to the extent that you argue for being a victim, you gain a terrific excuse for not making progress towards the realization of your personal priorities. And, in addition, taking the victim stance entitles you to sympathy from others.

What should you do if you realize that you are stuck in your own victim story? First, look inside yourself to see if you can analyze exactly what your personal victim stories are. In particular, figure out how you are getting “payoffs” — hidden benefits like those mentioned above.

All too often, victim stories are a con game played by our ego in order to justify efforts to stay in control — of ourselves, of others, of a situation. Since the ego’s function is primarily to protect us, it makes total sense that it feels a need to be in control. The only problem is the ego He tends to go too far, sometimes even to the extent of inventing reasons for its empowerment over our decision-making.

This is the human predicament and challenge — to have a healthy ego that can defend us when necessary, but also to regulate it wisely from a higher, spiritual vantage point. In short, taking refuge in victims stories  is a weak person’s form of not managing themselves very well.

It is important that we learn how to manage our egos, so that we do not get stuck  in the trap of self-righteous victimhood, where we fool ourselves into believing that there is nothing we can do to improve our situation, while blame it on others or fate, etc.

Sometimes it is hard to resist the siren call of victimhood, because it feels good, a little bit good  anyway… and sometimes we need some reassurance that our predicaments are not all our fault, and that we are not alone. Sympathy is not a terrible drug, but getting sympathy from others provides very temporary relief. Isn’t it better to face up to stories that we tell ourselves, feel the pain of this psychic surgery, and come out the other side free from habitual self-limiting thoughts?

Spinner dolphins are an endangered species, although they may be coming back due to slightly more sane tuna fishing methods. They like to jump completely out of the water and do fast acrobatic spins before doing a belly or back flop into the water. One possible reason is that males spin to attract females. Spinning may also be play. Individuals have been spotted completing at least 14 spinning jumps in quick succession. Just to make an impression, I tried to spin … not so good.

One has to swim quite far to reach the dolphins way out in the choppy bay. I’m a decent swimmer, but the biggest challenge is tiptoeing over 100 yards of razor sharp volcanic rock — in order to jump into the surf from same sharp rocks without getting hurt — with flippers on! Coming back in, riding up a wave surge to slide onto one small ledge in those sharp rocks is a nice little trick too.

The process of getting in and out of the water in that volcanic bay had sounded dangerous to me for years — and it is — but the waves were not too high and it was not as difficult as I had feared. It is, however, daunting enough to keep the average tourist at bay. Is this why the dolphins choose this  bay as a place to hang out in the morning? Do they understand this? I like to think so, and that my going through with this treacherous little adventure constitutes an initiation into their wild dolphin society!

Oh, it is very exciting to be near them (”not allowed to touch marine mammals,” Dolphin Dan — who I met in the middle of the bay — tells me). But would that I could find some greater closeness with my dizzying new friends! Whenever I get really close  — within a foot on several occasions — the temptation to reach out is strong if a little scary. These graceful creatures are basically my size. Oh, it’s all fine and legal if they touch you — but I get neither kiss nor nuzzle (let alone a little sonar blast . My inner teenage girl wants to connect with my own leaping spinner … after all, Dolphin Dan reportedly has HIS own special dolphin friend!

Now that they let me swim with them, I am dreaming that there could be a special dolphin for me too … a beautiful one who will beckon me and tease me and come to me, like a mermaid. (I’ve got my eye on a cute one I saw both days!) They’re supposed to have a brain as big as ours … I wonder how smart they really are? I haven’t seen them hunt, but they seem to have a fun lifestyle. They are very social (and, according to Wikipedia, known to successfully mate with other species . A least they are smart enough to keep a little distance from our species (except for that darn Dan .

Everyone likes to think that their feelings are trustworthy, but is it really true? To what extent is it a good idea to trust our feelings? I suspect it is much less often than we’d like to think.

Of course, it all depends on what kind of feelings we are talking about. Certainly, we cannot trust decisions we make when we are feeling fearful or anxious — neither should we when we are infatuated and flush with wishful thinking. One non-obvious rule of thumb that I’ve learned for myself — the stronger the feeling, the less trustworthy it is!

There is one kind of feeling that we CAN trust when it comes to making decisions, however. Ironically, it is the one that is hardest to notice. It is often called that “gut feeling” — aka intuition. It’s much more subtle and quiet than fear or lust, for instance, and almost impossible to perceive when these stronger feelings are in play. (Which is why humans are so terrible at making good decisions!)

Many people experience intuition as a feeling, but there are other ways that it can show up. How does the experience of intuition happen for you?

I was hoping that this book would help me understand how I might better use my Facebook page, but it goes much, much deeper than that. This book provides a magnificent explanation of how central and important our connections to others have always been, going back to the tribal. In addition, the authors posit that our need to be so connected in part explains our need for such a big brain.

It’s fascinating to understand how our tastes, our habits and our decisions are influenced by people we’ve never met, but this book explains how that works — how if a friend of a friend starts drinking or stops smoking that can affect you. They’ve proven it with amazing analysis of extensive social network data. Such is the power of social networks. My favorite quote that the book cites is by Erik Hoffer, which goes “When people are given the freedom to do as they choose, they usually imitate each other.” Ain’t that the truth!

This book is going to help me be more mindful of this living “super-organism” — the social network — how it supports me and how I can use it to support myself and others altruistically.

Do you have any ideas on how a divination site like Tarot.com — where millions of people access divination systems every week — could provide more connections for people? What might that look like?

Instead (hugely helped by US loans to dictators that bankrupted the place), it is becoming more like India. Crumbline infrastructure, run-down neighborhoods (even this best one), high commercial vacancies, serious levels of street crime even in the best neighborhood (i.e. where I am staying in a ‘luxury condo’ for $110/night … the dollar is strong here … and having a little washing machine does make traveling light so much more pleasant . But nothing works very well. No good systems, including things like electronically posted gate information and times at the airport. ATM’s can run out of cash for days. And security is everywhere. You must even be buzzed in to a restaurant, because the doors (to everything including shops) are locked even when they are open for business (fear of looting, I’m told). Unemployment is high, the peso is down, and even though they are warm and lovely, the people seem to be economically dispirited. Not much gets done and things run down a little more every day.

Every American should come here and see where we could be headed if we don’t pull together under honest leadership and good governance, the foundations of civilization.

I will have been here for 2 weeks, and I have been enjoying life in Buenos Aires. I hired a lovely spanish tutor/tour guide named ‘Mercedes’ from day 1, and ‘yo estoy aprendiendo espanol muy rapido’. I love the latin people and have had a great time socially. My business here is primarily to support the Indra Devi Foundation, ‘Mataji’ Indra Devi having been my primary spiritual teacher (I lived with her in India for one year) in this lifetime (she died here in BA at 103). I’ve given four or five talks at her various yoga centers.

Mataji was known as “the first lady of yoga” and she loved the latin people (as do I). Even though she was 90 years old, she was big down here. Everybody knows her. My work here has been hugely gratifying, for me to contribute a little bit … and how reinforcing it has been for me to be intimately reminded of what I learned from Mataji — especially her linkage of love and non-attachment. (Her foundation here is at www.fundacion-indra-devi.org).

I just got back from a one day round trip flight to Iguazu Falls … considered more spectacular than Niagara. I’ve yet to see Niagara, but you might want to look at this place on the internet … it is a natural wonder of the world. Gotta run now …

Tell us anything you know about Argentina!

She  brought yoga to Hollywood around 1950 and among her famous clients were several prominent actress, including Gloria Swanson. At her age of 81 I met Mataji at a meditation retreat center in California, little knowing that this old woman would turn out to be one of my own greatest teachers — not only for yoga (at which I suck) but for spiritual training. Through the grace of divine providence, I was soon  to spend one year as her personal assistant in India (1981/82).

Here in Argentina, I am visiting the centers that she founded in the late 1980’s (6 of them) and which bear her name to this day (she passed on at age 103 in 2002). I was invited here to tell of my experiences with this great saint. To sum it up, I just quote her primary formula — one which she repeated in almost every one of the thousands of discourses she gave in her life — that is, the relationship between love and non-attachment.

Most of us associate love with a feeling that includes loads of attachment. But not Mataji. She taught the eternal truth that true love is without selfish attachment. I like to put it like this: “If I love you, it to the extent that I support your ability to love yourself, to have what YOU want” (i.e. not in how you give what I may want from you).

Some people refer to this as “unconditional love” … I just call it rooting with all your heart for good to come to the other, whether that good has anything to do with me or not. Mataji taught me this as a young man — not only via her words, but in the way I saw her live it out day by day. As they say, this woman truly “walked her talk.”

In the eyes of the world, she gave up so much — a life of luxury and fame as an actress. But in her mind, she simply let the superficial things fall away in favor of a higher love. May we all be able to do the same when the time for change comes!

Everybody has had significant teachers or mentors in their lives, or experiences of love with non-attachment. Please … tell us about one of yours!

Sanders give us the background for our tendency for escapism, wherein we would usually rather imbibe the shadow images of film (via movies and tv) more than we care to FEEL our bodies, our feelings, all of our senses. As a result, he says we have become largely disembodied creatures, losing what he refers to as a “haptic” sense of life (I love learning new words .

“Unsuspecting Souls: The Disappearance of the Human Being” is the history of how humanity lost its bearings — how we had an identity-crisis, if you will — in and throughout the 19th century. It is an extremely readable and fascinating history of the period, as well as an examination of how the trends that took hold then are still plaguing us now. We have been steadily losing our souls — i.e. that which defines us as ‘human’ — and the process has only been accelerating since 1800, especially since the dawn of moving pictures.

This is the story of the rise of science (and opposing it, fundamentalist strains of religion clinging to the church’s “divine order” of things), the industrial revolution with all of its dehumanizing effects, plus a cornucopia of time and labor-saving inventions — including the clock, rapid transportation, telephone, camera, motion pictures, amusement parks and automatic weapons. Worst of all, we had the experience of violent mass carnage of an extent the world had never seen, taking place right here on American soil, via the Civil War in which the equivalent of what would be 6 million Americans today slaughtered each other.

Meanwhile, the literature of the period reflected the de-souling of human beings, with almost every major author producing works that featured ghosts, the “undead,” man-made monsters, etc. as well as popular strains of “spiritualism” arising to promote contact with spirits unseen via seances, psychics, etc. Adding to the hallucinating quality of the period was the synthesis in the west of opium, heroin, cocaine, nitrous oxide, ether — all of which were extolled by the leading minds of the time as gateways for mystical experiences and the meaning of life — promoted by the same authors and Sigmund Freud himself.

It is a fascinating period, rendered all the more intriguing by the author’s meticulously researched details, presented in the form of true and almost unbelievable vignettes, that reads like an adventure story. What a catalyzing time was this!

This is not a book that can easily be boiled down. It is a profound work that deals with what are essentially spiritual issues. Who (or what) are we? What is the difference between being alive and “having a life” (and how is the concept of “having a life” a natural byproduct of becoming a “human resource,” a cog in a soul-crushing machine)? When does human life begin? How can we conquer death by prolonging life (our ongoing preoccupation, as opposed to returning to a celebration of the natural ‘human’ aspects of life)? What does it mean to be alive? What does it mean to be human? Listen to my Pathways interview to hear our fascinating discussion on these topics!