dont-believe-everything-you-think-why-your-thinking-is-the-beginning-end-of-suffering.pdf

 © 2022 Joseph Nguyen ISBN: 979-8-428-60490-0 Imprint: Independently published All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including pho...

 © 2022 Joseph Nguyen ISBN: 979-8-428-60490-0 Imprint: Independently published All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law. For permission requests, contact [email protected] First printing edition 2022 in United States  For Kenna, an angel on earth who taught me what unconditional love truly is and how it can change the world TABLE OF CONTENTS Acknowledgement1 Introduction: What You Will Discover In This Book & How To Get The Most Out Of Reading It Chapter 1: The Journey to Finding the Root Cause of Suffering Chapter 2: The Root Cause of All Suffering Chapter 3: Why Do We Even Think? Chapter 4: Thoughts vs. Thinking Chapter 5: If We Can Only Feel What We're Thinking, Don't We Need to Think Positively to Feel That Way? Chapter 6: How the Human Experience is Created - The Three Principles Chapter 7: If Thinking Is the Root Cause of Our Suffering, How Do We Stop Thinking? Chapter 8: How Can We Possibly Thrive In the World Without Thinking? Chapter 9: If We Stop Thinking, What Do We Do About Our Goals, Dreams & Ambitions? Chapter 10: Unconditional Love & Creation Chapter 11: What Do You Do Next after Experiencing Peace, Joy, Love & Fulfillment In the Present? Chapter 12: Nothing Is Either Good or Bad Chapter 13: How Do You Know What to Do without Thinking? Chapter 14: How to Follow Your Intuition Chapter 15: Creating Space for Miracles Chapter 16: What Happens When You Begin Living in Non-Thinking (Potential Obstacles) Chapter 17: Now What? Summary Of Non-Thinking A Guide to Stop Thinking How You Will Know If You’re In A State Of Non-Thinking A Guide To Creating A Non-Thinking Environment Framework For Removing Thinking Triggers Framework For Creating A Non-Thinking Environment Framework For Implementing Non-Thinking Into Your Work A Guide To Overcoming Destructive Habits/Behaviors  Acknowledgement Thank you, Sydney Banks, for sharing the principles you have discovered with the world. It is because of you that I have been able to find the truth within myself and now have the same privilege of sharing it with the world. Thank you to my teachers and mentors, Joe Bailey, and Michael Neill, for sharing the Three Principles with me, which have changed my life forever. You have my eternal gratitude for your generosity and heart of service that keeps on giving. Thank you for all you do and will continue to do for others. Thank you to all my dear friends and family (Mom, Dad, Anthony, James, Christian, Bryan, and many more) for helping me discover my own divinity and for encouraging me to write this book. Without any of you, this book would not be in existence. Please know that because of you, the impact you have on me and anyone who will ever come across this book is infinite and will continue to change the lives of generations yet to be born. Thank you, Kenna, for being one of the loveliest, effervescent souls I have ever experienced and for showing me what true unconditional love is. I am perpetually humbled by your beautiful presence and can never thank you enough for the gift of your never-ending love for me and everyone you meet. Introduction  What You Will Discover In This Book & How To Get The Most Out Of Reading It This book was written to help you find everything you've been searching for and the answers to all the questions you've had your entire life. I understand this is a very bold statement, but you will shortly see why I have complete confidence in saying this. What I know to be the truth from the depths of my soul is that you will not be the same person as you were after you read this book. The only constant is change. Growth is an inevitable process of life, and it will be impossible for you not to change after reading this book. “We cannot change what we are not aware of, and once we are aware, we cannot help but change.” - Sheryl Sanberg No matter who you are, where you're from, what your background is, what you've done and haven't done, what status or wealth you do or don't have, Martian or not, you can find total peace, unconditional love, complete fulfillment, and an abundance of joy in your life. I promise that you are not the exception, even though it may seem like it. Love knows no boundaries. An open mind and a willing heart are all you need to receive every answer you've been looking for. And yes, there are extremely practical implications and byproducts of understanding what is inside of this book, which many of my coaching clients have experienced, such as: a 2-5x increase in income, exponential growth in their businesses, deeper and more harmonious relationships, overcoming lifelong addictions, the spontaneous disappearance of destructive habits, an increase in health, vitality, and overall energy. Miracles like these occur every day for many who understand the principles within this book. And this is just the tip of the iceberg. If I were to just list some of the improvements and results people have gotten from this understanding, more than half of this book would just be stories of such miracles that happen daily. I am reluctant to mention any of these "external" results because it is not the point of this book. These physical manifestations are the byproduct of this inside-out understanding of how our experiences of life work. In actuality, we only want these external results like money and significance because we want to experience certain feelings inside such as love, joy, peace, and fulfillment. The feeling is really what we want in our lives, not the physical things, but the trap is that we believe the physical things will give us those feelings. The secret lies within the feeling. This book will help guide you to understand how to uncover the truth you already know inside and discover these feelings you've been looking for your entire life. Now let's get into the guide of how to go through this book. Don’t read this book for information, read it for insight. Insight (or wisdom) can only be found within. That is why it is called insight (in-side). To find everything you're looking for in life, you must look inside yourself and discover the wisdom that already exists within you. All the answers lie deep within your soul. This book is merely a guide to help you look in the right place. I truly admire anyone who still has the hope that what they're looking for is still out there. This means you have hope. Without hope, we have nothing, so the fact that you're here, reading this now, is a testament to your faith, courage, and strength. I know with one hundred percent certainty that you will find what you're looking for if you continue down the path you're on with the hope you have in your heart. I want to make it clear that this book is not the only book that contains truth. The truth lies within everyone and in everything. You must look beyond the form (the physical) to see and experience the truth (the spiritual). The words in this book are not truth. They point TO the truth. Look beyond words to see the truth for yourself. Truth cannot be intellectualized; it can only be experienced. The truth lies within a feeling, which is why it cannot be formulated into a word. If you want to find truth, look beyond the words, and look for a feeling. Many who discover the truth will describe the feeling as one of complete peace, unconditional love, and an overwhelming amount of joy. People also describe it as the most familiar unfamiliar feeling. It feels like you're finally home. Look for that feeling, and everything will be revealed to you. In this book, I will not say anything that you don't already know deep inside your soul. This is why it will be a familiar unfamiliar feeling when you experience the truth. Don’t try to use your intellect to figure it out — you won’t. As soon as you intellectualize it, you've missed it. The truth does not come from memorizing a sentence or two. A child can do that, but they will not understand the truth. The truth comes in the form of a feeling. From that feeling will come the wisdom and truth you’re looking for, which will set you free. That's what we're all ultimately seeking, isn't it? What I will unveil to you in this book will seem simple. It will seem almost too simple, and your brain (ego) will try to fight it or attempt to make it more complex. It will think that it can’t be this simple. When that time comes, I want you to remember that the truth is always simple. What is complex can always be broken down into its smaller counterparts. The truth cannot be broken down into smaller constituents, which is what makes it truth. This is why truth is always simple. If you want to find the truth, look for simplicity. Approach this book with an open mind and a heart of pure intention to know the truth and you'll receive everything you've been searching for. Before we move on, I want to take a moment to express my deepest gratitude for you being here and sharing your time and attention with me. Those are some of the most valuable life forces you could give to another, so thank you for that gift to me, which you are also giving to yourself. Never forget your own divinity because it is only through our divinity that we have our humanity. With Love & Light, Joseph  Chapter 1 The Journey to Finding the Root Cause of Suffering "People have a hard time letting go of their suffering. Out of a fear of the unknown, they prefer suffering that is familiar.” ― Thich Nhat Hanh There is an important distinction to make when speaking about suffering. When I mention suffering in this book, I'm referring to psychological and emotional suffering. There is a way in which, no matter what happens in your life, you do not have to suffer emotionally and psychologically. I am not saying that what we go through is all in our heads or made up. Terrible and unfortunate events happen to people every single day. What I'm saying is that although we experience a lot of pain in our lives, suffering is optional. In other words, pain is unavoidable, but how we react to the events and circumstances that happen in our lives is up to us, and that will dictate whether we suffer or not. Buddhists say that anytime we experience a negative event in our lives, two arrows fly our way. Being physically struck by an arrow is painful. Being struck by a second emotional arrow is even more painful (suffering). The Buddha explained, “In life, we can’t always control the first arrow. However, the second arrow is our reaction to the first. The second arrow is optional.” When I first heard of this quote from Buddha a few years back, I was confounded because although I understood what he meant, I didn't know how I could apply this in my own life. If anyone were given the clear choice of suffering and not suffering, I don't think anyone in their right mind would choose to suffer. How can I just choose not to suffer? If it were as easy as that I don't think anyone would be suffering anymore. It wasn't until years later that I came across a new understanding of where suffering comes from that I was able to stop it at its source. As I began my journey of self-improvement, I came across a myriad of different teachings, studies, and methods to help people overcome their problems. I read dozens, if not hundreds of books, studied psychology, went to therapists, listened to many different thought leaders, tried changing my habits, waking up at 4am, changing my diet, becoming more structured and disciplined, shadow work, studying personality types, meditating daily, going on spiritual retreats, following spiritual masters, and researching different ancient religions. If you name it, I've probably tried it. I was desperate to find an answer because I wanted to know how to stop suffering in my own life as well as help others do the same. Although some of these things did help me improve incrementally, it didn’t stop my suffering. I still always felt extremely anxious, fearful, unfulfilled, irritated, angry, frustrated, and heavy every day. Even after doing all of that, I still didn't discover the answer and, if I'm being honest, I was even more lost than before I started on this quest. I felt purposeless, hopeless, and directionless. I didn't know what to do anymore, where to look, or who to talk to. It wasn't until I was in my darkest hour that a glimmer of hope began to lead me to the light. All of the sudden, after years and years of searching, I stumbled upon one of my first mentors that taught me how to become a coach and he revealed to me the answer of how I can alleviate my own suffering. The answer I discovered was in the understanding of how our minds work and how the human experience is created.  Chapter 2 The Root Cause of All Suffering “One who looks around him is intelligent, one who looks within him is wise.” ― Matshona Dhliwayo We live in a world of thought, not reality. Sydney Banks once said, “Thought is not reality; yet it is through thought that our realities are created.” Each of us lives through our own perceptions of the world, which are vastly different from the person right next to us. An example of this is that you could be sitting in a coffee shop having a quarter-life existential crisis, completely stressed out of your mind about how you have no idea what you’re doing with your life when it seems like everyone else has theirs together, while the person next to you is happily enjoying their freshly brewed drink while peacefully people watching. You both are in the same exact coffee shop, smelling the same aroma, surrounded by the same strangers, but how the world looks to both of you couldn't be more different. Many of us go through the exact same events or are in the same location at the same time yet are having completely different experiences of the world. Here's another example of how we live in a world of thought and not reality. If you walk up to 100 different people and ask each of them what money means to them, how many different answers do you think you'll get? Close to 100 different answers! Money is technically the same thing, but it means something different to each person. Money could mean time, freedom, opportunity, security, peace of mind, or it could mean evil, greed, and the reason why people commit crimes. For now, I'm not going to get into which one is right or wrong (hint: there is no right or wrong answer, but that's for a different chapter). Another illustration of this concept is as follows: If you survey 100 different people and ask each of them what they think of our current president, how many different answers do you think you'll get? Even though it is the same exact person we're talking about, we will get 100 different answers because most people live in their own thoughts and perceptions of the world. The meaning (or thinking) we give an event is what determines how we ultimately feel about it. That meaning or thinking is the filter through which we see life from then on — because of this, we live through a perception of reality, not in reality itself. Reality is that the event happened, with no meaning, thinking, or interpretation of it. Any meaning or thinking we give the event is on us and that is how our perception of reality is created. This is how our experience of life is created from the inside out. It's not about the events that happen in our lives, but our interpretation of them, which causes us to feel good or bad about something. This is how people in third world countries can be happier than people in first world countries and people in first world countries can be more miserable than people in third world countries. Our feelings do not come from external events, but from our own thinking about the events. Therefore, we can only ever feel what we are thinking. Let's hypothetically say that you really hate your job, and it causes you an enormous amount of stress, anxiety, and frustration. It pains you to even set foot in the building where you work and just thinking about your job makes you furious. When you're thinking about your job, you're just sitting there on a sofa with your family watching a TV show together, but you are fuming at the thought of your job. Everyone else is having a good time, except you. In this moment, everyone else in your family is having a different experience of life than you, even though the same event is happening. Just the thought of work created a whole different perception of reality, even though you're not physically at work. If it were true that external events cause us to feel the way we feel inside, then you should be a happy camper in your living room, watching a funny TV show with your family every single time you do this activity — but that's not the case. Now, you may be saying that you're only feeling this way because an external event, your job, is causing you to feel stressed and anxious. To that I'll ask the question, is it absolutely true that every single person feels the exact same way about the job they're working in? Two different people can be doing the exact same job but will have completely different experiences of that job. It can be the most amazing experience and a dream job for one person but be another person's worst nightmare and living hell. The only difference between one person and the other is how they think about their job, which determines how they ultimately feel about it. Now let's go back to the original scenario of you hypothetically hating your job. Remember how much stress, anxiety, and frustration it causes you when you think about it? Let's do a quick thought experiment about that by answering the question below: Who would you be without that thought that you hated your job? Take 1 minute to see what comes up for you and don't move on until you do that. If you don't overthink it and truly let the answers surface from within you, without that thought, you will most likely feel and be happy, peaceful, free, and light. Without our usual thinking about a particular event or thing, our experience of it completely alters. This is how we live in a world of thought, not reality, and how our perception of reality is created from the inside out, through our own thinking. With this new understanding, you've just uncovered the cause of all our human psychological suffering... The root cause of our suffering is our own thinking. Now before you throw this book across the room and light it on fire, I'm not saying that this is all in our heads and that it isn't real. Our perception of reality is very real. We will feel what we think, and our feelings are real. That is completely undeniable. However, our thinking will look like an inevitable, unchangeable reality to us until we begin seeing how our reality is created. If we know that we can only ever feel what we are thinking, then we know that we can change our feelings by changing our thinking. Thus, we can change our experience of life by knowing that it comes from our own thinking. And if that is true, then we are ever only one thought away from experiencing something different and transforming our entire lives at any moment — through a state of no thought. In short, the moment we stop thinking is when our happiness begins. A Young Monk & the Empty Boat (A Zen Story About How Thinking is the Cause of Our Own Suffering) A long time ago, a young Zen monk was living in a small monastery that was located in a forest which was near a small lake. The monastery was occupied by a few senior monks while the rest were newcomers and still had much to learn. The monks had many obligations in the monastery, but one of the most important ones was their daily routine where they had to sit down, close their eyes, and meditate in silence for hours at a time. After each meditation, they had to report their progress to their mentor. The young monk had difficulty staying focused during his meditation practice for a variety of reasons, which made him very mad. After the young monk reported his progress, or better said, lack of it, to his mentor, the elder monk asked the young monk a simple question that had a hidden lesson, “Do you know what is really making you angry?” The young monk replied, “Well, usually as soon as I close my eyes and begin to meditate, there is someone moving around, and I can’t focus. I get agitated that someone is disturbing me even though they know that I’m meditating. How can they not be more considerate? And then when I close my eyes again and try to focus, a cat or a small animal might brush past and disturb me again. By this point, even when the wind blows and the tree branches make noise, I get angry. If that is not enough, the birds keep on chirping, and I can’t seem to find any peace in this place.” The elder monk simply pointed out to his pupil, “I see that you become angrier with each interruption you encounter. This is exactly the opposite of what is the point of your task when meditating. You should find a way not to get angry with people, or animals, or any other thing around you that disturbs you during your task.” After their consultation, the young monk went out of the monastery and looked around to find a place that would be quieter so that he could meditate peacefully. He found such a place at the shore of the lake that is nearby. He brought his mat, sat down, and started meditating. But soon a flock of birds splashed down in the lake near where the monk was meditating. Hearing their noise, the monk opened his eyes to see what was going on. Although the bank of the lake was quieter than the monastery, there were still things that would disturb his peace and he again got angry. Even though he didn’t find the peace he was looking for, he kept returning to the lake. Then one day, the monk saw a boat tied at the end of a small pier. And right then an idea hit him, “Why don’t I take the boat, row it down to the middle of the lake and meditate there? In the middle of the lake, there will be nothing to disturb me!” He rowed the boat to the middle of the lake and started meditating. As he had expected, there was nothing in the middle of the lake to disturb him and he was able to meditate the whole day. At the end of the day, he returned to the monastery. This continued for a couple of days and the monk was thrilled that he had finally found a place to meditate in peace. He hadn’t felt angry and could continue the meditation practice in a calm manner. On the third day, the monk sat in the boat, rowed to the middle of the lake, and started meditating again. A few minutes later, he heard some splashing of water and felt that the boat was rocking. He started getting upset that even in the middle of the lake there was someone or something disturbing him. When he opened his eyes, he saw a boat heading straight towards him. He shouted, “Steer your boat away, or else you will hit my boat.” But the other boat kept coming straight at him and was just a few feet away. He yelled again but nothing changed and so the incoming boat hit the monk’s boat. Now he was furious. He screamed, “Who are you, and why have you hit my boat in the middle of this vast lake?” There was no answer. This made the young monk even angrier. He stood up to see who was in the other boat and to his surprise, he found that there was no one in the boat. The boat had probably drifted along in the breeze and had bumped into the monk’s boat. The monk found his anger dissipating. It was just an empty boat! There was no one to get angry at! At that moment he remembered his mentors’ question, “Do you know what is really making you angry?” And then wondered, “It’s not other people, situations, or circumstances. It’s not the empty boat, but my reaction to it that causes my anger. All the people or situations that make me upset and angry are just like the empty boat. They don’t have the power to make me angry without my own reaction.” The monk then rowed the boat back to the shore. He returned to the monastery and started meditating along with the other monks. There were still noises and disturbances around, but the monk treated them as the “empty boat” and continued to meditate peacefully. When the elder monk saw the difference, he simply said to the young monk, “I see that you have found what is really making you angry and overcome that.”  Chapter 3 Why Do We Even Think? “I think and think and think, I've thought myself out of happiness one million times, but never once into it.” — Jonathan Safran Foer We as humans have evolved to develop a sophisticated ability to rationalize, analyze, and think because it simply helped us survive. Our minds do an incredible job to keep us alive, but it does not help us thrive. It is concerned solely with our safety and survival, but not our fulfillment or joy. The mind’s job is to alert us of potential dangers in our environment that may threaten our lives. It does its job so well that not only will it scan our immediate surroundings for threats, but it will even reference our backlog of past experiences to create hypothetical scenarios and predict what it thinks could be future potential dangers based on our memories. None of this is wrong by any means. The mind is simply doing what it was designed to do. When we don’t understand that its only duty is to help us survive, then we will get angry and frustrated with it. All conflict is derived from an innocent misunderstanding. Our mind’s duty is to keep us alive. Our consciousness’s duty is to help us feel fulfilled. Your soul is the reason why you’re even on this journey in the first place — to find peace, love, and joy for yourself. Your mind has done an amazing job at what it was made to do, but now you may relieve it of its job because we no longer live in the wild where death could be right around the corner in a bush. If we keep using our minds, we will constantly stay in a state of fight or flight, anxiety, fear, frustration, depression, anger, resentment, and all negative emotions because the mind thinks everything is a threat to our very existence. If you want to be free, happy, peaceful, and full of love, then you will need to let go of listening only to your mind and go beyond it by tuning into something much greater that will help you not just to survive, but to thrive.  Chapter 4 Thoughts vs. Thinking “Stop thinking and end your problems.” ― Lao Tzu Thoughts are the energetic, mental raw materials from which we use to create everything in the world. We can’t experience anything without thought. It’s important to know that thoughts are a noun and aren’t something that we do, but something we have. A thought takes no effort or force on our end, and it is something that just happens. We also cannot control what thoughts pop into our minds. The source of thoughts comes from something that is beyond our minds — the Universe, if you will. Thinking, on the other hand, is the act of thinking about our thoughts. This takes a significant amount of energy, effort, and willpower (which is a finite resource). Thinking is actively engaging with the thoughts in your mind. You don’t have to engage with each thought in your mind, but when you do, that is thinking. Thinking is the root cause of all our psychological suffering. Now you might be wondering, where do positive thoughts fit into the picture? Positive thoughts, or thoughts that feel good, are not a result of thinking. They are, instead, generated by our natural state of peace, love, and joy. They are a byproduct of a state of being, not a state of thinking. We will go into depth about this in the next chapter. For now, let’s do a quick thought experiment. I’ll ask you a question and all you need to do is to be aware of what you’re experiencing, and we’ll review what happened after. What is the dream amount of money you want to be making a year? Pause here and wait for an answer to surface. Give yourself about 30-60 seconds to think about your answer of how much money you want to be making in a year. Don’t move on to the next step until you’ve had a decently sized train of thought about how much you want to make. Now take that amount and multiply that by 5. What do you think about this new dream goal for your income when we multiplied it by 5? Take at least another 30-60 seconds to become aware of how you’re feeling when you think about that and see what other thinking comes up for you as you feel your emotions. Don’t move on until you’ve done the above. Okay, let’s bring it back in and review what happened. After I asked the first question of what is the dream amount of money you want to be making per year, within a few seconds an answer popped up in your mind. That is a thought. Notice how quickly and effortlessly that came to you. After an answer popped into your mind, I asked you to think about your answer. What happened once I asked you to think about your answer? If you’re like most people, you probably went on a wild rollercoaster once you began thinking about the thought. You might have been thinking how there’s no way you can make that much, no one in your family is making that much money, you don’t know how to make that much, it’s stupid to want that much money or that it makes you greedy. Notice how you felt when you were thinking about those thoughts. Most likely it didn’t feel that great, but that is okay, and I’ll show you what you can do about it soon. This is a prime example of thoughts versus thinking. If I ask you a question, you will 100% have a thought that pops into your mind. Thoughts are not inherently bad. Remember that they are the energetic mental raw materials from which we create in the world. The moment we think about our thoughts is when we begin to get taken on an emotional rollercoaster. When we think about our thoughts, we begin to judge and criticize the thoughts and experience all sorts of internal emotional turmoil. When I asked you how much you wanted to make, you had a thought about the amount. That thought was neutral and didn’t cause any emotional toil. In fact, you might have felt expansive and excited. It was only when you began thinking about that thought of how much you wanted to make which is what caused the self-doubt, unworthiness, anxiety, anger, guilt, or any other emotion you may have experienced. This is what I mean by thinking is the root of all of our suffering. Having the initial thought of how much you wanted to make didn’t cause any suffering until you began thinking about the thought of how much you wanted to make. It is not necessary to think about our thoughts or to judge them. It does us no good to do so. We may think that thinking is helping us, but all it’s really doing is causing us to feel all of these negative, unwanted emotions and making us create reasons as to why we can’t do it or why we shouldn’t want it. The only thing that was useful and helpful was the initial thought that popped into your mind when I first asked how much you wanted to make. All of the thinking that happened after was destructive and unhelpful. Thoughts create. Thinking destroys. The reason thinking destroys is because as soon as we begin to think about the thoughts, we cast our own limiting beliefs, judgements, criticisms, programming, and conditioning onto the thought, thinking of infinite reasons as to why we can’t do it and why we can’t have it. Without thinking, we prevent all negative programming and judgements from tarnishing the initial thought of what you want to create. If I asked you what are some ways you could make the amount of money you want, if you sat there long enough, you’ll experience the same phenomenon of having random thoughts pop into your head of ways you could make it happen. These are thoughts of creation. Thoughts are inherently infinite, expansive, and energetically positive. You’ll know you are having thoughts from the divine when you feel positive emotions, feel lighter, and alive. As soon as you begin thinking about those thoughts of the ways you can make the money you want, you’ll immediately feel heavy, restricted, limited, along with a whole onslaught of negative emotions. This is how you’ll know if you’re thinking. I use my feelings as an internal radar that tells me whether I’m getting direct downloads of thoughts from the Universe or if I’m in my head thinking about my thoughts. You can only ever feel what you’re thinking, so feelings and emotions are like an intuitive internal dashboard which tells me if I’m thinking too much or not. If I’m having a lot of negative emotions, I know that I’m thinking too much. This is another example of how we’re naturally built for success. Below is a chart that compares Thinking vs. Thoughts to help you identify which one is which within your mind:  Thoughts vs. Thinking Chart Attribute Thought Thinking Source Universe Ego Weight Light Heavy Energy Expansive Restrictive Nature Infinite Limited Quality Creative Destructive Charge Positive Negative Essence Divine Mortal Feeling Alive Stressful Emotion Love Fear Belief Infinite Possibilities Confining Sense Wholeness Separateness Effort Effortless Laborious  Chapter 5 If We Can Only Feel What We're Thinking, Don't We Need to Think Positively to Feel That Way? “We are ever only one thought away from peace, love, and joy — which come from a state of no thought.” — Dicken Bettinger There is a caveat that I haven't mentioned yet to the principle that we can only feel what we're thinking. The more accurate way of describing it is that we can only ever feel negative emotions when we are thinking. The goal isn't necessarily to completely stop feeling negative emotions. Some of the negative emotions can be helpful, such as feeling fearful when deciding to walk down a dark alley alone with no one else in sight. These negative emotions are only helpful to us in terms of survival, but if we don't constantly encounter life or death situations, negative emotions are more unhelpful than helpful for most of us. We're going to be moving forward with the context that we're not struggling for physical survival, so we'll be using the context that negative emotions are not necessary most of the time. When I mention that we can only ever feel what we're thinking, most people assume that we must think positive to feel positive emotions. Instead of convincing you if this is true or not, let's do another thought experiment so you can experience the truth for yourself. Recall a time when you felt the most joy and love you've ever felt in your life and feel the feelings that you felt at that time as much as you can for at least 30 seconds. What kinds of thoughts were going through your mind at that peak moment when you felt the most joy and love? (I'm not asking what you were doing at the time, but what thoughts were going through your head at that exact moment.) For many people that answer this, they realize that they didn't have any thoughts during that exact moment. For others, they say that the thought was that they were so grateful or happy. For those that answered that they had the thought that they were grateful, did you feel that joy and love before you had that thought or after? Take 10-15 seconds to answer that question before moving on. What insights and epiphanies did you have? What's crazy is that most people didn't have any thoughts going through their mind when they felt the happiest and the most amount of love in their lives. For those that had the thought that they were grateful, they felt that way before having that thought. If they had that thought, it happened after they felt the feelings, so the thought could not have produced the feeling. This brings us to another truth: you do not have to have thoughts or think to feel positive emotions. The beautiful part about truth is that it needs no justification because it can be experienced right here right now. It doesn't need to be proven or rationalized to you and you experienced this truth firsthand by the experiment we just did. Here's why we don't need to have thoughts or think to feel positive emotions like joy and love. Our natural state of being IS joy, love, ecstasy, freedom, and gratitude. This may be hard to believe because if it's natural, why don't we feel that way all the time? I'll answer this in a bit. If we want to see the natural state of anything, one of the best ways is to look at nature and the state of it in its infancy (before it is affected and conditioned by its environment). For example, let's look at the natural state of a baby. What is a baby's natural and default state (assuming the baby wasn't abused, neglected, or had any physical issues)? Are babies naturally stressed, anxious, fearful, and self-conscious? Or are they naturally in a state of bliss, happiness, and love? Our natural state of being is joy, love, and peace. Therefore, any thinking that we do will only take us away from those natural states of being, which is why whenever we feel extremely stressed, we are having a LOT of thinking going on. The strength of the negative emotion we feel is in direct proportion to how much thinking we are doing in the moment. On the other hand, the intensity of the positive emotion we feel is inversely proportional to the amount of thinking we are doing in the moment. In other words, the less thinking we have going on, the stronger the positive emotion we feel in the present. To see the truth in this, recall a few other memories you had when you were extremely stressed and anxious and see how much thinking was going on at the time. Take about 1-2 minutes to do this. Then recall a few memories where you were at your happiest or felt the most joy and love and see how much thinking you had going on at that time. Take another 1-2 minutes to do this before moving on to really experience and internalize the truth of what you see. An analogy that my coach taught me that helped crystallize this concept was to imagine our mind has a speedometer (like in a car), but instead of miles per hour, it is thoughts per minute. The more thinking we have going on, the higher the “thought-o-meter” goes, and if we have enough thinking going on, it'll go into the red zone. This is when we feel extremely stressed, burned out, frustrated, and angry. It is not the content of our thinking that causes us stress, but that we are thinking, period. The amount of thinking we have going on is directly correlated to the magnitude of stress and negative emotions we are experiencing at any given moment. When you're experiencing a lot of frustration, stress, anxiety, or any negative emotions, just know that it is because you're thinking, and the intensity of those emotions is directly correlated to how much thinking is going on. Therefore, it's not WHAT we're thinking about that is causing us suffering, but THAT we are thinking. To summarize, we do not have to try to "think positive" to experience love, joy, bliss, and any positive emotions we want because it is our natural state to feel those emotions. The only times we don't naturally feel these emotions is when we begin to think about the thoughts we're having, thus blocking the direct connection to Infinite Intelligence and we feel stressed, anxious, depressed, and fearful. It is not about the content of our thinking, but that we're thinking, which is the root cause of our suffering. The intensity of the negative emotions is directly correlated to the amount of thinking we have going on in the present. The less thinking we have, the more space we create for positive emotions to naturally surface.  Chapter 6 How the Human Experience is Created - The Three Principles “If the only thing people learned was not to be afraid of their experience, that alone would change the world.” — Sydney Banks At its fundamental level, the human experience is created by these three principles: Universal Mind, Consciousness, and Thought. These three principles work together to allow us to experience everything we do in life and if one of the three is missing, we wouldn't be able to experience anything. These principles were first discovered by Sydney Banks and now I have the humbling privilege to share them with you. Understanding these three principles enables us to know how we can alleviate ourselves from our suffering, but also allows us to create from Source. Universal Mind Universal Mind is the Intelligence behind all living things. It is the life force and energy that is in all things. It is how an acorn knows how to grow into a tree, how the planets know how to stay in orbit, and how our bodies know how to heal itself when we get a cut. It's how our bodies know how to self-regulate and keep us alive without us having to manually do everything like breathing and beating our heart. The Intelligence that knows how to do all of this and is in all things is called the Universal Mind. Many people call this God, Infinite Intelligence, the Quantum Field, Source, and other names. This is where Thoughts come from as well as everything else in the Universe. All things are connected by Universal Mind. There is no separation between anything, and any time there seems to be separation between things, it is merely an illusion of our thinking. When we are connected to Universal Mind, we feel whole, fulfilled, filled with love, joy, peace, and inspiration. It is only when we begin thinking (believing the illusion or ego) that we block this flow of Universal Mind and begin to feel separated, frustrated, lonely, angry, resentful, sad, depressed, and fearful. Universal Consciousness Universal Consciousness is the collective consciousness of all things. It is what allows us to be aware that we exist and aware of our thoughts. Without Universal Consciousness, we wouldn't be able to experience anything. Our five senses would have no use because there's nothing to be aware of. This is what brings things to life and makes them perceivable to us. Universal Thought Universal Thought is the raw material of the Universe from which we can create from. It is our ability to think and create form from the energy of the Universal Mind. It's the object we can perceive through Consciousness. Without Thought, we would have nothing to be aware of. Thought is like the DVD that contains all the information for us to be able to watch the movie on the TV. The TV and DVD player is like Consciousness — it allows us to have a mechanism to bring the information on the DVD to life for us to be able to watch and experience the movie. The electricity that's needed to power the DVD player and TV is like Universal Mind in the sense that it is the invisible energy/force that connects and powers all things. It is the Source from which everything can work and function.  Chapter 7 If Thinking Is the Root Cause of Our Suffering, How Do We Stop Thinking? “A crowded mind leaves no space for a peaceful heart.” — Christine Evangelou Heaven and Hell: A Zen Parable A tough, brawny samurai once approached a Zen master who was deep in meditation. Impatient and discourteous, the samurai demanded in his husky voice so accustomed to forceful yelling, “Tell me the nature of heaven and hell.” The Zen master opened his eyes, looked the samurai in the face, and replied with a certain scorn, “Why should I answer to a shabby, disgusting, despondent slob like you? A worm like you, do you think I should tell you anything? I can’t stand you. Get out of my sight. I have no time for silly questions.” The samurai could not bear these insults. Consumed by rage, he drew his sword and raised it to sever the master’s head at once. Looking straight into the samurai’s eyes, the Zen master tenderly declared, “That’s hell.” The samurai froze. He immediately understood that anger had him in its grip. His mind had just created his own hell — one filled with resentment, hatred, self-defense, and fury. He realized that he was so deep in his torment that he was ready to kill somebody. The samurai’s eyes filled with tears. Setting his sword aside, he put his palms together and obsequiously bowed in gratitude for this insight. The Zen master gently acknowledged with a delicate smile, “And that’s heaven.” It's not possible to just entirely stop thinking, but what we can do is reduce the time we spend thinking so that it gets smaller and smaller each day that passes. Eventually we can get to the point where we spend most of our day not caught up in our thinking and live in a blissful state most of the time. When we say that we want to stop thinking, many people assume that we are trying to stop all thoughts in general. This isn't what we're trying to do. Now that you know the difference between thoughts and thinking, we are working on allowing thoughts to come and flow through us while we minimize the thinking about those thoughts that emerge. The most interesting and almost paradoxical thing about stopping our thinking is that we don't have to do anything to minimize it other than to be aware of it. By us becoming aware that we are thinking and that it is the root cause of all our suffering, it automatically makes us conscious to that fact and we become detached to it, allowing it to settle and pass. This takes almost no effort and is done through pure presence in the moment. Here’s an analogy from one of my mentors that illustrates this concept: Imagine I give you a bowl of cloudy, dirty, murky water. If I asked you, how you would make the water clear, how would you do it? Take 15 seconds to see what answers you come up with before moving on. Most people say something along the lines of filtering the water or even boiling it. What most people don't realize is that if we let the bowl of dirty water sit for a period of time, we can see that the dirt begins to settle on its own in the water and after a while, the water becomes clear on its own. This is how our minds also work. If we let our thinking sit without disturbing it by trying to "filter" or "boil" it, the thinking will settle down on its own and our minds will become free from thinking. The natural state of water is clear, and the natural state of our minds is also clear, if we do not disturb it. If life begins to feel unclear, disorganized, stressful and you're not sure what to do next, you now know that it's only because your thinking is stirring up the dirt, making your mind cloudy and difficult to see ahead. You can use this as an indicator to help you realize that you're thinking way too much. Once we become aware of the fact that we are only feeling what we're thinking and that thinking is the root cause of our unpleasant experience, we see it for what it truly is. Then we allow it to settle by giving it space, and slowly we will see how we begin to have a clear mind again. You can also compare thinking to quicksand. The more that we fight our thinking, the more it amplifies the negative emotions and the worse it gets. The same is true for quicksand. If we’re in quicksand, the way out isn’t to fight it. If we panic and frantically try to fight it, it only makes things worse by tightening the grip it has on us and pulling us under faster. The only way out is to stop struggling and allowing the natural buoyancy of your body to take over to bring you back up to the surface with ease. The only way to break free from our thinking is to let go and trust that our natural inner wisdom will guide us back to clarity and peace like it always has. If you find yourself fluctuating between thinking and non-thinking, know that it is completely okay and quite normal. There is no way that we can remain in a state of non-thinking every second of every day and if we try to make that a goal, we will cause ourselves to suffer by forcing ourselves back into thinking again. We are spiritual, infinite beings having a physical, finite experience. Because of this, we are literally a living gateway between the human and the divine, so we will naturally oscillate between the two states of feeling anxious/stressed and joyful/peaceful. We cannot control or prevent the oscillation between thinking and non-thinking, but we can minimize the time spent in thinking and thus creating more moments where we do feel joyful, peaceful, passionate, and full of love. Although not being able to control when we begin to think can seem like we are cursed with an inevitable fate, it is not something to worry about because we can always return to the state of non-thinking. It is just a part of our beautiful human experience. What can give us true peace is knowing that we always have this state of pure peace, love, and fulfillment underneath any thinking that we may ever have at any given moment. That beautiful state we always want is something we can never lose, but only forget. But just because we can forget it doesn't mean it's not there. Just like when it becomes night and the sun sets, we know that the sun is always there, we just can't see it. If we thought when the sun sets that it may never come back, then understandably we will have a lot of anxious and fearful thoughts. The same is true for our state of being. We are ever really one moment away from remembering that we always have that infinite well of clarity, love, joy, peace, and fulfillment. We will forget sometimes, but when we do remember and realize that we are caught up in our thinking when we experience negative emotions, that alone will allow us to return back home to our natural beautiful state. All we have to do is remember it, know that this is just our thinking, and have peace knowing that the sun is not gone forever and that it will rise again soon enough. Having that understanding will allow us to also appreciate the nighttime for its existence and role in the Universe. From that we can see how it is meant to be a part of our human experience and begin to cherish its beauty as much as the sun.  Chapter 8 How Can We Possibly Thrive In the World Without Thinking? “Anxiety is thought without control. Flow is control without thought.” — James Clear Here’s a question that will guide you to an insight about this question: What thoughts are going through your head when you're doing your absolute best work where you're fully captivated and entranced by what you're doing in the moment? Take about 15 seconds to wait for an answer to pop up before moving on. If you still haven't had the insight or epiphany from the answer, here's another question that may point you in the right direction: When you are loving what you do so much and are completely engrossed in it that you lose all sense of time and space (aka when you're in a state of complete flow), what thoughts are going through your mind as you're in the state of flow in the moment? Pause here and wait for the answer to arise (give it about 30-60 seconds for the insight to come in). When you are doing your best work and are in a total state of flow, where there is no separation between you or the work you are doing, you are having no thoughts in the moment. And if you are having thoughts, it's just flowing right through you without you having to think about it. In other words, the state of peak performance for humans can be described as the state of non-thinking. It may seem crazy, but we do our best work when we aren't thinking, and you just proved it with your own experience. Here's another example that will help illuminate the truth of this topic. When professional or even Olympic athletes are competing, do you think they are thinking and overanalyzing every single thing that's happening during the game? What thoughts or thinking do you think is going on during the competition for them? The highest performing athletes will describe when they are in their peak state that they are in "the zone". This "zone" is the state of flow or the state of non-thinking. In Japanese culture, they have a beautiful word to describe this phenomenon: mushin. Here is the definition from Shotokantimes: “Mushin is achieved when [the] mind is free of random thoughts, free of anger, free of fear, and particularly free of ego. It applies during combat, and or other facets of life. When mushin is achieved during combat there is an absence of loose or rambling thoughts. It leaves the practitioner free to act and react without hesitation. He reacts according to all of the study and training that has brought the karateka to this point. Relying on, not what you think should be your next move, but on what your trained, instinctive, subconscious reaction directs you to do.” After practice, thinking hinders the performance of athletes and the same is true for everyone. We only hesitate, are reluctant, have doubts, insecurities, and fears only when we begin thinking and over-analyzing. We function and perform our best and embody our full potential the moment we enter a state of non-thinking. Without thinking, we are free from limitations of the ego and are able to create the most incredible things in the world. I am not asking you to adopt this belief, but to try it and experience it for yourself so that you gain the insight to make it your own.  Chapter 9 If We Stop Thinking, What Do We Do About Our Goals, Dreams & Ambitions? “There are no limitations to the mind except those we acknowledge.” — Napoleon Hill I think, therefore I suffer. When I finally understood that thinking was the root cause of all of my suffering, I was jumping up and down, exhilarated, relieved and grateful for discovering the true reason for everything negative I've experienced in my life. This ecstasy was short-lived though because soon after the exuberance settled, the next thoughts popped into my mind: If thinking is the root cause of all my suffering and I just stop thinking, how do I live my life now? What about all of my goals, dreams, and ambitions? Do I stop wanting things in life? Will I just devolve into a couch potato and not do anything with my life anymore? In case you were wondering, yes, I am telepathic and yes, I can read your mind. Just kidding, but if you are wondering how I wrote the exact or very similar questions and know what thoughts you most likely have right now, it's because I am human also, contrary to popular belief. All of us are going through similar journeys of awakening to our True Selves, so rest assured that many people are having the exact same thoughts you are having right now as you come to see your true magnificence. Now back to the question of what we do about our goals, dreams, and ambitions if we stop thinking. As I pondered on these questions, an incredible amount of fear and anxiety began to surface because I thought that I would have to give all of it up and become a monk in the middle of the mountains. I was definitely not ready to do that. As much as I wish I were that enlightened and detached from my life, I genuinely enjoyed being in the world, experiencing the fullness of life with other people, even if a large portion of my life was filled with suffering. Here's what I've discovered about what to do with our goals and dreams with this new understanding. As we've mentioned in previous chapters, there's a difference between thoughts versus thinking. The source of thoughts and the source of thinking are different, and the source is what will dictate whether it causes suffering or not. Similarly, where our goals and dreams come from will determine whether we feel great about pursuing them or not. Like everything in this world, there is nothing inherently good or bad, only our thinking makes it so. Goals, dreams, and ambitions are not good or bad, so it's not really an either-or situation, but more about where those goals are coming from. There are two sources of goals: goals created out of inspiration and goals created out of desperation. When goals are created out of desperation, we feel a large sense of scarcity and urgency. It feels heavy, like a burden, we may even feel daunted by the colossal task we've just committed ourselves to, imposter syndrome and self-doubt begin to manifest, and we always feel like we never have enough time for anything. We go about our life frantically, desperately searching for answers and ways that we can accomplish our goal faster, always looking externally, never feeling enough or that we can ever get enough. Worst of all, if we happen to accomplish our goal, within a few hours or days afterwards, all of those same feelings of lack begin to resurface. We begin not feeling content with what we have done, unable to savor our accomplishments and because what we did never feels like it’s enough, we feel that same way about ourselves. Not knowing what else to do, we look around for guidance externally to see what others are doing and see they're continuing to do the same thing. Thus, we go ahead and proceed to set another goal out of desperation in an attempt to escape all of the negative feelings gnawing away at our soul. When we dig a little deeper into these types of goals we set, they are all typically “means goals” and not “end goals”. In other words, the goals we set in this state of desperation are all a means to an end. There's always a reason we want to accomplish the goal and it's always for something else. For example, we want to create a multi-million-dollar business because we want financial freedom, or we want to quit our job so that we can escape the stress and anxiety that comes from it. We feel like we HAVE to do these things instead of WANT to. Goals created from desperation are typically "realistic" and created from analyzing our past and what we think to be "plausible" in the moment. It feels very confining and limiting. Although these types of goals and dreams may excite us in the moment, as soon as we begin to try to create it, we feel a lack, and we are desperate to bring the dream to life. Paradoxically, if we do end up achieving a goal created out of desperation, we end up feeling even more empty than we did before it. The next "logical" thing we tend to do is to set an even bigger goal out of even greater desperation to hopefully make us feel whole inside. This is how most of us set our goals and how we live our lives. I'm also not saying this to criticize or judge at all, but to reveal the reality of it. The only reason why I was able to describe it in painful and excruciating detail was because that was my life. Here's the good news: it's not your fault that you set goals that way if you are and there's a way out. It's through creating goals and dreams out of inspiration instead of desperation. When we create goals out of inspiration versus desperation, it is a completely different story. In this state, we are creating because we feel deeply moved, inspired, and expansive. It feels like a calling rather than an obligation. It is like there's a powerful force of life coming from within us, wanting to be expressed through us to be made manifested into the physical world. This is why painters paint, why dancers dance, why writers write and why singers sing, even if they never get paid or make a living from it. We feel pulled by a force to create something. We gravitate towards it. We feel compelled to do it. When we feel like this, we are creating from a place of abundance instead of lack. Most surprising of all is that in this state, we are creating not for any reason at all, other than because we simply want to. We don't create because we feel like we HAVE to. We create because we simply want to and there's no other reason. We aren't creating these goals so that we can do something else or use it as a means to get something else we want. This creating comes from a place of wholeness and abundance. It's an overflowing of love and joy for life. This is the reason why most of us want or have kids. It's not so that we can milk our kids for their money once they're old enough to work and hopefully use them as a retirement plan. We want to have kids because we want to share the abundance of what we have with them, and it comes from a place of sharing what we have lots of versus trying to get something out of them. This feeling of deep inspiration is incredibly difficult to describe because it does not come from this world. It really doesn't come from us, but through us from something greater than us. I like to call this feeling divine inspiration because the ideas and vision we have of what we want to create seem to be far bigger than we could have possibly imagined or come up with ourselves. Since divine inspiration doesn't come from us but from something greater, it doesn't analyze or rely on past data or what you or anyone in the world has already accomplished. Divine inspiration is what happens when groundbreaking creations and inventions are created that seemed to be impossible not too long ago. It knows no boundaries, limits, or constraints. It is an incredibly expansive force that energizes and lifts us, making us feel like we're "high" on life. In this state, we feel whole, complete, filled with unconditional love, joy, and peace. We don't analyze, compare, criticize, judge, or rationalize anything, but instead we truly live, love, share, give, create, grow, and nourish. It really is one of the greatest feelings we can experience, and it is truly a gift that we can experience the divine as humans (and it's because we're from the same source). Everyone has experienced this deep feeling and desire to create something marvelous in the world that's out of pure inspiration and not desperation. Before moving on to the next paragraph, I encourage you to test this theory. Pause here and spend a few minutes thinking about times in your life where you felt an overwhelming feeling and desire to create something magnificent because you felt deeply inspired and called to. It doesn't matter if you actually created it or not, but just think of a time where you felt that feeling to create out of inspiration. Isn't that just one of the most amazing feelings in the entire world? Most of us feel this divine inspiration, but then suppress it as soon as we begin thinking about doing it. We begin to think ourselves into doubt, rationalize why we can't do it, tell ourselves that it is unrealistic, how we should focus on more important things, and that we're not good enough to do it. As soon as we begin to think about the thought of us wanting to create, it completely shuts off the source of that inspiration and we go back to living life as usual. When we cut off that source, we also cut off the feelings of abundance, exuberance, ecstasy, joy, pure unconditional love, and go back to the feelings of doubt, anxiety, frustration, sadness, and feel confined, stuck, and frustrated with our lives. We can only ever follow one calling at a time, either inspiration or desperation in the present moment. The two cannot coexist at the same time, but we can fluctuate between the two depending on how much thinking is going on. When we stop thinking, we don't stop having goals and dreams, we actually fall back into our true nature and begin to create goals and dreams out of inspiration versus desperation. We begin to allow thoughts from the Universe to come into our mind that lead us to divine inspiration to create something that has never been created before in the world. When we follow divine inspiration, we feel alive, whole, joy, love, peace, and fulfillment. So how can we tell when a goal or dream is created out of inspiration or desperation? A simple way to know if a goal or dream is created out of inspiration is to remember the distinction between thoughts and thinking. Goals and dreams that come in the form of thought are created out of inspiration. Goals and dreams that come from thinking are created out of desperation. Typically, when we think, we'll analyze, judge, criticize, rationalize, and use our past to try to create our new goals, but this form of creating goals feels extremely restricting and limiting. We don't typically feel good when creating these types of goals and when we're pursuing them, we do not feel great either, since it's all out of desperation. Another way to identify the two is to sense how you feel energetically. Goals and dreams created out of desperation will feel very heavy, draining, confining, and empty. We tend to feel a lot of scarcity, fear, and stress, like we HAVE to do it or that we are obligated to. With these types of goals, it seems like if we do not accomplish it, that there will be dire consequences, hence the high pressure and stakes (I'm sure you can see now how this can create the feeling of desperation). Moreover, we feel like we're trying to accomplish these goals to escape our current situation and get out of something. Our goals created in this state are typically means goals, meaning that we want to achieve these goals so that we can do something else afterwards, such as having the goal to quit our job. Most likely you'll have this goal because you want to go do something you actually enjoy, but you can see how the goal of quitting your job is just a means goal for you to go do something else. Or having a goal of making $1 million is typically set because you want to have financial freedom and go travel the world. These goals are always a means to an end and not the end itself. There's always a reason that we want to accomplish these goals and it makes us feel very empty inside. I want to emphasize that none of these goals are inherently bad or that we shouldn't have goals of wanting to make money or quitting our jobs. If those goals are created from inspiration, that is completely different. It just depends on the source of the goals and not necessarily the goal itself. This is an important distinction to make, otherwise you'll spend most of your time debating and stressing yourself out over if this is the right goal for you or not. There is no right or wrong goal, only goals created from inspiration or desperation. It just depends on how you want to feel inside and when you're aware of these two types of goals and how they manifest, then you'll be able to feel blissful as you go about creating amazing things in your life. On the other hand, goals and dreams created out of inspiration (which comes from thought) feel very light, energizing, uplifting, and expansive. We tend to feel excited, joyful, and most importantly, inspired. We don't feel like we HAVE to create it, but that we WANT to. Instead of feeling like you NEED to do this, you feel inspired to. There is virtually no pressure because we're not trying to get out of something or escape our current situation by accomplishing this goal. There is no scarcity or urgency because we don't feel like we're creating from a place of lack, but instead from a place of abundance and we just want to share it with the world. Since it's coming from inspiration, we are not doing it to get something out of it so that we can do something else. It's not a means goal, but simply an end in and of itself. There is no "reason" we need to create it. We are not creating so that we can feel whole, but we are creating because we feel whole and want to give from that place, not expecting anything from it. I'm sure you can see the stark difference between the two now and that you can tell which type your goals currently fall under. If most of your goals fall under the category of desperation, don't worry because most people have goals created from desperation, including myself before I knew a better way. So how do we create goals and dreams out of inspiration versus desperation? Creating goals and dreams from divine inspiration isn't something you have to try to do. We naturally have thoughts of infinite inspiration all the time. If you look at children, they naturally have the wildest dreams and imaginations of what they want to do. It almost doesn't even register in their minds that they can't do something most of the time. The only difference between us and children is that we have learned to shut down all these thoughts of inspiration which contain our dreams, hopes, and goals that we truly want to see manifested in the world. Our minds are filled more with reasons of why we can't than thoughts of what we want to create. We innately have an infinite flow of inspiration that comes through us, but we block that flow as soon as we begin thinking about the thoughts we have, which causes self-doubt, self-sabotage, and anxiety. Think of the flow of inspiration to create like a river. The river always flows until man puts something there to block it, like a dam. Then when the dam is there, we ask why there are so many fish dying, animals disappearing, and forests dwindling, when all we need to do was return the river back to its natural state and everything will be working perfectly fine, the way nature intended it to. This is the same for our minds and our goals. We always dream, have big goals, and know what to do at all times when we're tapped into our inner wisdom and inner intelligence, free from thinking. If we simply do not think about our thoughts, any sort of thoughts about dreams, goals, and desires that naturally arise are all from the divine and that is how you "create" goals out of inspiration versus desperation. A question that greatly helps me to settle the thinking and tap into the limitless well of possibilities of what I could create is: "If I had infinite money, already traveled the world, had no fear, and didn't receive any recognition for what I do, what would I do or what would I create?" Whenever we ask questions, answers always arise. It is impossible for our brains to hear a question and not come up with a response. So when you ask yourself this question, whatever begins to come up for you without any manual thinking will be from the divine and from inspiration versus desperation. The way the question is worded is extremely important because it removes most of the thinking, fear, criticism, and external reasons of why you would want to do something, so it focuses your answer on what you truly want to create (usually it's for no reason other than you just wanting to create it because it's fun), without any influences from the material world. Try asking the question and seeing what comes up for you! You'll be surprised at what surfaces, but don't get caught up with your thinking when those true dreams of yours begin to be revealed to you. To a mind without the limits of thinking, anything is possible.  Chapter 10 Unconditional Love & Creation “The greatest power that mankind could ever achieve is the power of unconditional love. This is when people love with no limitations, conditions or boundaries.” — Tony Green Unconditional Love I learned about unconditional love from my extraordinary girlfriend, Makenna. For most of my life, I always questioned everything. I had to know the reason behind why things were the way they were, otherwise, I would go crazy. I couldn't just experience life knowing the meaning and reasoning behind everything. Naturally, as anyone would in a relationship after dating her for about a year at the time, I asked Makenna why she loved me. She innocently replied that she didn't know why, she just knew she did. Then she asked me why I loved her and I listed off dozens of different reasons why. It ranged from her beautiful smile to her adorable laugh, how pure her heart is, how much she loves her family, how intelligent she is, and the list goes on almost indefinitely. We've been dating for 6 years now and every few months after that first time I asked, I would ask her why she loved me and even up until this point, she still says the same thing, "I don't know, I just know that I love you — a lot." This slightly bothered me for so long because I didn't understand why she didn't know why she loved me. I could list off 50 reasons of why I loved her, but she couldn't list a few. Even still throughout the years, I loved her so much I didn't really mind that she didn't know. I just accepted it and continued to love her anyway because I couldn't help myself. It wasn't until a few months ago that it dawned on me as to why she couldn't think of reasons of why she loved me. I began to question the reasons that I had for why I loved Makenna. Then I had an epiphany that changed my life forever. I asked myself, did I love her because of her laugh or because she loves helping other people? What happens if she doesn't laugh one day or doesn't help someone that day? Do I stop loving her if she doesn't do the things that I said were the reasons that I love her? I realized that if I create reasons for why I love her, then it makes my love for her conditional to those specific traits or actions and if she doesn't do them, then I don't love her. This is, of course, not true. In that moment, I had the awe-inspiring insight that Makenna couldn't list off reasons of why she loved me because her love for me was unconditional. There were no reasons for why she loved me because if she had reasons, it would mean she only loved me if I were exuding those traits or doing those things she had in her mind. Her love for me is not based on my mood or what I did, her love for me goes beyond all “reasons” and does not come from a place of reciprocity. She does not love me because I love her, nor is she loving me because of what I can do for her. She is experiencing so much love within herself that it’s an outpour of an abundance of love that she is gifting me unconditionally. Attempting to articulate the feeling of this and where it comes from is probably the hardest thing I've ever done in my life because I’m attempting to describe the indescribable. From this experience, I learned to make my love for Makenna unconditional by not placing reasons or conditions for when I would love her (because if I did that, by default I place conditions on when I would not love her). There is just so much love in me now because I've experienced it that there is simply an outpour of unconditional love where I can't help but love her no matter what. This unconditional love doesn't come from external reasons, but comes from within from the infinite source we all came from. We are all connected to this pure, unconditional love, which is God, the Universe, or whichever name you choose to use. The only thing that gets in the way of this is our own thinking, which separates and cuts us off from that unconditional love. Unconditional Creation Unconditional creation is the purest form of creation there is. When something is created from unconditional love, we can't help but to stand there and admire it in awe. Unconditional creation is always innovative, unique, new, captivating, bold, different, revolutionary in its own way. Very few people operate in this space because we always put conditions around what we do or make. For example, whenever we are working to achieve a goal of making more money, we might go and try to create income for ourselves. This is conditional creation because no one wants money just to have money. Most people want money for something else or to be able to use it for another thing they want. This, by nature, makes what they are creating, conditional. They are only creating this because they want something else out of it. When we create something for something else, typically we do not enjoy the process of creating, because it is always just a means to an end, never an end in itself. This is why we always feel like we're chasing, grinding, hustling, trying, and feeling constantly stressed and overwhelmed. Even after we accomplish our goal, we'll only enjoy it for those few seconds and then we're off to another goal we have to chase because we never actually got what we were looking for. What we're ultimately looking for are feelings. We want more money to get a sense of security and peace. We want to spend time with our family because it makes us feel so much love and joy. We want to do what we love because it gives us a sense of fulfillment inside. These are all ultimately feelings that we are trying to get, but we keep thinking that the goal or object we want will give us those feelings. This idea is inherently flawed because our feelings can only ever be generated from within us, not from external things. External things can prompt us to create the feelings, but ultimately it is us that produces those feelings from within ourselves. What's paradoxical (like everything in the duality of life), is that when we create something without conditions or reasons, we actually immediately feel all of the positive feelings we want. Unconditional creation is creating something without it being for another purpose, but purely to create it because we just want to create it. It's not for money, fame, love, or anything else. We create it simply because we want to create it. This is creation from abundance. When we create from this state, we already feel whole inside and all of the love we want to feel is what we're feeling in the moment. We can only pursue unconditional creation if we are in the state of non-thinking. Our brains will make us think that it is pointless to do something just simply because we want to, but that is the secret. As soon as we do things for no other reason, we step into the realm of living our life unconditionally. This is when we experience flow, oneness, and a direct connection to the Universe/God.  Chapter 11 What Do You Do Next after Experiencing Peace, Joy, Love & Fulfillment In the Present? "Don't think. It complicates things. Just feel, and if it feels like home then follow its path.” — R.M. Drake. If you’ve been applying the principles in the book, you’ve most likely been able to find peace through non-thinking. If not, I highly encourage you to remember that all of our negative feelings come from our thinking. All you have to do is become aware of that fact, which will settle the thinking just like the debris settling in dirty water. Once you see that it is just your thinking and that there’s nothing to be afraid of, then you will experience true peace in your life in the present. Once you have been able to experience peace, you might be unsure as to what to do next. At this point in time, you may be experiencing worry, anxiety, and doubt. Many of my clients, including myself, began to wonder if they lost their edge and drive to do anything in the world. Don't worry, this is all normal and part of the process of awakening. You've already learned the hardest part, which is to practice non-thinking and preventing your negative thinking from controlling your life. The reason why we feel worried, anxiety, and doubt after we’ve experienced peace is because we have just let go of everything we thought we knew in the world. What actually happened was the death of the personal ego. A natural consequence is that once the personal ego is threatened, it will do everything in its power to regain control over your life again. The ego is something that we can’t quite get rid of forever, which is why even after you experience peace, there may be feelings of doubt, worry, and anxiety coming up. It is in this moment that the ego (thinking) will come back up to attempt to reclaim your throne. But worry not because you’ve already learned how you can quickly dismantle your ego (your thinking) by remembering that your thinking is the only cause of your negative feelings. The point is to not try to prevent your thinking from ever entering your mind, but to shorten the time that it takes for you to remember that it is just your thinking that’s causing the negative emotions. It’s impossible to prevent thinking from happening because it’s so engrained in us. For example, it’s in our human nature that when we suddenly see that we’re about to step on a venomous snake on our path, we will freak out. But when you realize that it’s just a piece of rope, you see through the illusion, knowing that your thinking is what caused you to become afraid and you resume your peaceful walk on the beautiful trail. We can’t prevent that initial reaction, but we can always remember the truth and return to our natural state of peace — and that’s all that matters. Another reason that we may feel anxiety, worry, and doubt once we experience peace is because we were using a colossal amount of energy when we were thinking all of the time. Most people spend the majority of their day in a state of stress (thinking), which consumes enormous amounts of energy. When we stop thinking, this energy you used to use to think is now “freed up”, but it hasn’t been directed anywhere yet and what happens is we return to our old patterns of putting that energy back into thinking because that is how we were conditioned. What we can do in this case is to channel the newfound energy into our goals of inspiration. This is the cure and intervention of preventing this energy from going back into overthinking. For this to work, make sure that you’ve spent some time creating your goals out of inspiration (versus desperation) and having it top of mind so that you can channel all of your energy towards it once you experience this phenomenon. If you have only goals of desperation in your mind, then directing energy towards it will only perpetuate the thinking and negative feelings. What tends to help many people in this stage is to also have an “activation ritual”. An activation ritual is a morning routine that helps them get into a state of non-thinking and flow. It helps you build momentum in a positive direction immediately when you wake up so that it’s easier to stay in that state of non- thinking for the rest of the day. An object in motion will stay in motion. I never understood why spiritual masters and all great leaders have a morning routine until I understood the power of non-thinking and momentum. Here’s the good news: now that all of your energy isn't tied up into thinking anymore, you can now use this freed-up energy and channel it into creating new goals from inspiration to fuel and propel you into your new life full of peace, joy, and love.  Chapter 12 Nothing Is Either Good or Bad "There is nothing either good or bad but thinking makes it so." — William Shakespeare Here's an analogy that helps put this into perspective. On a piano, there are 88 keys. When we look at a piano, we don't point out specific keys for no reason and say that that key is "wrong". We only think a specific key is "wrong", if we think someone is playing a specific song and hits a key that isn't in the song. Inherently, the piano has no wrong keys though. There are only keys and notes that sound more or less pleasant when played consecutively. Just like how there are no wrong keys on the piano, there are no "wrong" decisions in life. There’s only thinking that give us pleasant or not so pleasant feelings. When we put things into a bucket of right or wrong, good or bad, this creates duality and conditions in our lives, which determines how we feel. For instance, if we believe that that opposing political parties are wrong or bad, this can cause animosity within us and make us feel a concoction of negative emotions. If, on the other hand, we see different political parties in the same way as there are different keys on the piano and how there are no inherently "wrong" parties, then we open ourselves up to experience love, joy, and peace in the moment. We begin to see alternative perspectives that we haven't seen before and have an opportunity to deepen our understanding of the true nature of life. It's like if we are hiking on a mountain and stop at specific points to look at the beautiful view. There are no "wrong" spots that we can stop at, stand in, and take in the magnificence of nature, but by being open to all possible spots we can stand in, we can see the view from different vantage points we haven't seen from before. Instead of looking for right or wrong, good or bad in the world, look for truth. Instead of trying to prove we are right and they are wrong, or how they're better and we're worse, look for the truth in what's in front of you. I would only caution this by saying that many people believe what they think is the truth. For the most part, without this deeper understanding of life, most of what we think is not truth, even though it may seem like it. True truth is not subjective. If it is "true" for one person, but not for another, then it is not universal truth. Look for what is universally true for every single conscious human being on the planet, no matter who they are, where they're from, and what their background is. That is the true truth and that is where you'll find everything you've been searching for. Remember that the only place you can find this is deep within your being, so don't try to go looking for it outside of you. If you're confronted with something that may stir up negative emotions, go within yourself to find the source of universal truth deep within your soul. If you try to look for the answers outside or try to dig into external reasons for the root of why you feel this way, you will be looking for the rest of eternity and will never find it. Negative emotions are an indication of misunderstanding. When we are gripped by negative emotions, it means that we believe what we are thinking. It is in this moment that we simply forgot where our experience comes from and that our thinking is the cause of our negative emotions. All you have to do is remember that thinking is the root cause of how we’re feeling. Once this is brought into your awareness, don’t fight the thinking. Just become aware that it is your thinking that’s causing the ill feelings, welcome it with love, and it will slowly dissipate before your eyes. Not too long after, you’ll return to your natural state of peace, love, and joy.  Chapter 13 How Do You Know What to Do without Thinking? “The intuitive mind is a sacred gift, and the rational mind is a faithful servant. We have created a society that honors the servant and has forgotten the gift.” — Albert Einstein In the previous chapter, we discussed how there is no right or wrong in this world. This chapter will build on the last to deepen our understanding and illuminate how to know what to do without thinking. Although there are no right or wrong decisions we can make, just like how there are no wrong keys on a piano, there are decisions or "keys" that are more pleasant than others depending on the context. Knowing that there is no right or wrong relieves us from quite a bit a pressure to "choose the right one". When we make decisions, we want to rely on non-thinking. When we try to think, analyze, create pros and cons lists, and ask everyone (including our pets) for advice, it causes anxiety and frustration until we make the decision. Most of the time, we already know deep down what to do in any specific situation. This is often referred to as your gut feeling, intuition, or inner wisdom. What we do is try to confirm our intuition with the external world and this is where most of the negative emotions begin to surface, wreaking havoc on our mental state because of everyone’s opinions. Only you can know what you want to do. No one else can tell you this. There will be mentors and coaches that can guide you to help you along the way, but the best ones will tell you to listen to your intuition and look within yourself for the answer (the truth is only ever within you). This is why many of us experience the phenomenon of regret when we knew deep down what we should have done based on our gut feeling, but we ignored it and listened to someone else's advice or opinion. Your intuition will always lead you to where you need to go and what you should do at any moment in time. It's like a real-time inner GPS that will tell you when to take a detour and which path you should take if there is a blockage in the road to your destination. It's guaranteed that our inner GPS will guide us to exactly where we want to go, but what’s not guaranteed is how or which path it will put us on to take us there. There are infinite circumstances that can happen on the journey to the destination, but you can rest assured your GPS will get you there. Important Note: Society will almost never confirm our intuition until it's mainstream already. For this reason, if you try to look outside for confirmation on what you know to be true for you, you'll almost always get backlash and differing opinions on what next steps you should take. Avoid looking externally for answers. Follow your intuition, your gut feeling, your inner wisdom, and the Universe/God. When you do this, you will begin to see miracles occurring in your life that you never could have expected or even dreamed of. Those who have the faith and courage to do this, will discover the true joy, peace, and love they have been looking for while enjoying the miracle of life. So how do we know what to do without thinking? The truth is most of us know what to do, but we are just afraid to do it. For instance, if we want to lose weight, most of us know exactly what we need to do. The formula to losing weight isn’t rocket science or written in hieroglyphics. Most of us know that all we need to do is burn more calories than we consume, workout and eat healthy foods and we’ll lose weight. For anything in life, you most likely already know deep down what to do, but are afraid of doing it or don’t believe that you are good enough to do it. The first step is realizing that you already know what to do, you just think you don’t because of fear or self-doubt. If you don’t have any fear or self-doubt about the situation and still see that you don’t know what to do, then the next step is to trust your inner wisdom (Infinite Intelligence) that it will give you the answers you need. We have the ability to access an infinite number of thoughts, so there’s definitely no shortage of ideas on what you can do in any given moment. The only thing that is stopping us from accessing this abundance of knowledge is our own thinking. Henry Ford once said, “Whether you think that you can or can’t, you’re right.” If we walk around our lives thinking we can’t, then we immediately block ourselves from the limitless possibilities of what we can do in any given moment in time. But when we release the brake in our mind and realize that it’s just our thinking holding us back, we automatically return to our natural state of abundance and unlimited possibilities and in that moment, we can receive any answer we need on what to do. In short, know that you already know and if you don’t know, know that you can know what you need to know. If you know that you can always know, then what you need to know will always come to you. Trust in your own intuition and inner wisdom. It has always and will always be there for you when you need it as long as you trust that it will.  Chapter 14 How to Follow Your Intuition “Have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary.” — Steve Jobs In a previous chapter, we talked about how we don’t need to think in order to thrive in the world and that the way we do thrive is to remove the thinking we have going on. The state of flow is a state of pure oneness and a direct connection to everything around us. Because there is no separation when we are in that state, we can also say that it is a state where we are in direct connection and alignment with God/Universe/Infinite Intelligence. What thinking does is sever this connection we have with the divine, causing us to feel stress, frustration, anger, resentment, depression, and all of these negative emotions many of us feel on a daily basis. This is why some religions describe Hell as the complete separation from God. From now on for simplicity’s sake, I’ll be using the term non-thinking instead of flow, but they really are synonymous when I use them in this book. This state of non-thinking also means a direct connection to Infinite Intelligence. Many will attribute the state of non-thinking or flow with a particular activity that we love to do and that’s the only time we can be in flow. This is far from the truth. We can be in a state of non-thinking at any point in time. The only time we can really be in a state of non-thinking is in the present moment. We can only see reality in the present moment and when we are actively thinking, it means we are either in the past or future (which don’t exist). Only in the present moment can the truth be found. This is why all of the spiritual masters and leaders always teach to meditate, pray, and to be in the present moment. In the Bible, when Moses asks God her name, She replies with “I am.” God didn’t say that She was or will be (because they don’t exist), but simply with “I am.” God, truth, the Universe, freedom, peace, joy, and love (these terms are all synonymous) can only be found, and therefore experienced, in the present. When you’re following your intuition, it means you are trusting yourself and having faith that you always have the inner wisdom necessary to help guide you through everything in life. This is a state of non-thinking or flow. Let’s explore how we can make this concept practical and bring it into our everyday lives. What does following your intuition and inner wisdom look like and how can we do it? When you’re following your intuition, you’re completely tapped into something greater than your personal self. You’re in a state of non-thinking (flow) and direct connection with God. In this state, you always know what you need to do without thinking and are guided by Infinite Intelligence. It almost seems like we’re not doing anything when we’re in this zone because we lose our sense of personal self and become one with life. When we’re in this state, miracles occur such as business deals coming out of nowhere, people showing up at the right place at the right time, money comes in exactly when we need it, connections that we were looking for spontaneously fall upon our laps, and life seems almost magical. Time seems to warp and bend around us and it’s because there is no sense of it. We proceed to then accomplish more within a few days than others do within a month. Abundance, love, joy, peace, harmony, and gratitude are inevitable and inseparable feelings that are experienced in this state. Every single person has experienced instances where they have felt like this before. Although many have experienced this phenomenon, very few are able to maintain it for extended periods of time. The main reason is because most relapse back into thinking and believe that they have to “figure it out” themselves. It is when we begin thinking that we lose this power of creating miracle-like events and circumstances. The truth is that we don’t have to have it all figured out, nor do we even have to figure it all out. How can our limited minds possibly understand and try to manipulate the entire world to our desires? It is only when we think we know more than God that we run into problems. The great news is that we don’t have to know more than Her nor do we have to even think. All we have to do is trust in our own intuition and have faith that our inner wisdom will show us the way that is best for us. When you ask people who are the most abundant, joyful, and successful how they made it, they will usually attribute their success to some sort of higher power or luck. These people have trusted in something greater than themselves and thus attribute it to that instead of attributing their success to sheer willpower and brute force. There’s so much in life that is completely out of our control and we can really only control a very small portion of it. This is not to say that we give up because we can’t control our lives, it’s quite the opposite. When we realize that we don’t have to control and try to force everything to happen our way, we become free from suffering, pain, and frustration and begin to fall into this state of non- thinking where things just all happen for us instead of to us. We begin to see that everything was perfectly placed in our lives to help us become the exact person we are now and that if anything were changed, we would not have what we do now. There are millions of small circumstances and events that have to have been meticulously orchestrated for us to be where we are now. To plan that would be impossible and futile, yet here we are. This is the miracle of life. To go back on a point we just made about us not having to control things in our lives, there’s a caveat I want to highlight. It is true that we cannot control everything that happens in our lives, but what we can control is whether we think or not (which is the root cause of all of our problems and negative emotions). We can decide to change our experience of life whenever we want and how we feel at any moment. This is how we can choose to be happy — by choosing to let go of our thinking. Isn’t that what ultimately matters at the end of the day? It’s not about what we have, but how we feel inside that is the true measure of success, joy, and fulfillment. The other point I wanted to bring up is that although we can’t control a lot of things, what we can have a say in is what we want in our lives, but not necessarily the how. For instance, we have the gift of imagination (acce