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Time and Money Freedom

There are two aspects of freedom which are somewhat different from those I discussed last time.

These two are frequently referred to in the network marketing and personal development circles as ‘Time and Money Freedom’.

But what does that mean?

I regard them as ‘second level’ freedoms because they’re based on artificial concepts.

‘Time’ and ‘Money’ are simply ‘yardsticks’ put in place to measure what we do with and in our lives.

It’s always about ‘how much’ time and money we have available to do what we wish to do within the freedom of self-determination.

Time and money are also controls we place on ourselves in an attempt to manage our lives and by doing this we limit our overall freedom.

We as people have decided we cannot be ‘free of time’ or ‘free of money’ – if we could it would lead to a completely different society to the one we live in now – more like that of some so-called ‘primitive’ tribes who don’t recognise either of these ideas.

When people talk about ‘time and money freedom’ they mean finding a way of life where there is always more than enough money coming in to meet their needs and wants, and always time for us to do whatever we wish, whenever we wish, regardless of how long it may take.

What usually happens however is that to generate the income we think we need, we sacrifice our ‘time freedom’ to get it, or vice versa!

Various ways around this conundrum are proposed, usually by changing the way we generate the money.

Offers abound for ‘business opportunities’ such as affiliate marketing, network marketing (also known as MLM) or creating online shops, and for training programmes in developing ‘multiple streams of income’ (MSIs) which ‘generate money while you sleep’ and so forth.

Some of these really do work but what they don’t tell you is the investment of time, and money, required to make them work, really work, is much higher than they usually indicate.

Despite having multiple streams of passive income, you often end up in the same state. It takes a decade or more of hard work and long hours to get to the situation they describe at the beginning.

Is there a way around this?

Can you and I really achieve ‘time and money freedom’?

Yes, we can.

If . . .

If we stop using money and time as yardsticks to measure everything we do in our lives.

That sounds simple, and in a way it is, but it requires us to take a completely different approach to life, something which others won’t understand.

They’ll think we’re crazy and try and stop us, they’ll try to ‘save us from ourselves’ if we decide to stop worshipping the ‘false gods’ of time and money and allowing them to rule or lives.

I said it’s simple, but it’s not easy.

We have to ‘let go’.

My friend and mentor Peter Thomson has a saying –

“Everything has an equal and opposite measurement”

He’s absolutely right, but –

It depends how we do the measuring.

We can include time and money in the criteria, but the key measure is more personal.

Whatever it is you’re measuring – how does it (or did it) make you feel?

You can do this on a simple Good to Bad 1 to 10 scale or use something more detailed like the Hawkins scale of consciousness (17 levels from Miserable to Perfect)

What ‘value’ (not monetary) did it create in your life?

To what extent did whatever it was ‘serve’ you?

Not ‘how much money did it make?’ or ‘how much time did it take?’

That second question is interesting – we feel ‘time’ is being taken away from us rather than we are ‘using it up’ like we feel about money.

There is nothing wrong, in fact it’s a good idea, to look at how we might be able to generate more income or spend less time generating income by changing our method of operation, but time and money must not be the main or only criteria by which we measure.

We need to stop using them as a yardstick and look inside instead.

Next time I’m going to talk about ‘success’, the ‘pursuit’ of it and what we really mean by it.

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I Feel Free

What is ‘Freedom’?

There are many different kinds and understanding of ‘freedom’ – but what is it fundamentally?

Freedom relates to most of what we, as humans, do, and how we live our lives but when it comes down to it in this ‘unfree world’, you and I are quite constrained in the ‘degrees of freedom’ we enjoy.

Most of our cherished freedoms are restrained or restricted.

Freedom of Speech – well, not really – we are ‘not allowed’ always to say what we feel – to anyone – because of ‘political correctness’ and so forth or for ‘fear of giving offence’.

There are certain subjects we can only discuss with like minded people and some not at all.

This seems in recent years to have created a new – ‘freedom to be offended’ by what others say or do, along with what seems to have become a ‘right’ to be offended – by pretty much anything in the case of some people!

Freedom of Movement – heavily restricted at the moment. You and I are just not free to go wherever we wish whenever we wish for reasons which not all of us are convinced of.

Freedom of Association – again this is currently constrained by for the same reasons as our ability to travel, even if that’s to see our friends at a pub or restaurant.

The next is ‘Freedom of Self-Determination’ or in other words the freedom to choose who we wish to be, what we wish to do and how we wish to do it, and again there are many constraints and boundaries around this. Many things prevent us from doing, being or having what we would really like.

Then there’s ‘Freedom of Thought’ and you may think this is unconstrained – you and I can think what we like, but even this isn’t quite the case.

Viktor Frankl in ‘Man’s Search for Meaning’ explained how in the concentration camps everything was taken from the inmates other than their power to think for themselves, other than their own human spirit. But that was not the case for everyone.

Some people were so ‘broken’ by the removal of all other freedoms, they even gave that up. Now you could say it was their choice, but not really, and many people have given up ‘thinking for themselves’ in the world today.

Why?

The human mind is highly suggestible. All day every day we are bombarded with messages telling us how we should be thinking and what we should be thinking about.

It comes in so-called ‘news’ and political comment. It comes through all forms of advertising much of which is increasingly manipulative, and it comes in ‘popular drama’ otherwise known as ‘soap operas’ which portray a specific morality, not necessarily through the plot but through how the characters relate to one another and how they live.

Our freedom, yours and mine, is constantly being encroached upon, moulded and manipulated into having us conform to what others wish the world to be like.

More to the point they are attempting, by ‘influencing’ others, to make the world conform to their idea of freedom – “if only everyone else would conform to my ideas then I’d be free”

The thing is though, it isn’t like that.

You and I cannot achieve any form of freedom if it depends on what others do or think.

True freedom can only be achieved through our own thoughts and actions.

But how is that possible in this ‘unfree’ world?

The answer is in whatever it is that makes us, individually and personally, feel ‘free’ and first we must understand this is about ‘be-ing’ and not doing or having.

We can measure our own freedom by the intensity of joy, happiness or peace we feel in ourselves and of course this may derive from the doing and having, but we aren’t ‘free’ just because we do or have something – it’s the ‘result’ that brings the joy.

We cannot achieve ‘total’ freedom staying within the constrained third dimensional environment that supports our lives. Total freedom comes from transcending it which means although we are still in a cage, our Soul and spirit are free.

Freedom is about all the things and feelings which make us happy and the more we guard against manipulation from outside the more of those there will be.

And the reverse is true, we cannot become in any way free if it depends on what others do, so freedom for ourselves only comes when we stop attempting to impose our idea of freedom on others.

Freedom is about what you and I feel in ourselves.

Feel Free

I’ve not spoken about ‘time and money freedom’, more on those next time.

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One is All

I’m going to bring this brief introduction to Life Mastery to a close with a couple of final pieces in the puzzle.

The first comes from Henry David Thoreau’s essay ‘Walden’ published in 1854 where he states:

(I’ve left this in the masculine as written, the past cannot be changed)

“If one advances confidently in the direction of his dreams, and endeavours to live the life which he has imagined, he will meet with a success unexpected in common hours. He will put some things behind, will pass an invisible boundary; new, universal, and more liberal laws will begin to establish themselves around and within him; or the old laws be expanded, and interpreted in his favour in a more liberal sense, and he will live with the license of a higher order of beings.”

I have ‘unpacked’ this statement in a previous insight but there are three key points:

The first word is ‘If’ – this only happens IF you ‘advance confidently’.

The second explanation is for the words ‘common hours’. In ‘modern’ English you could rephrase this as ‘unexpected success’ but it’s a bit more, being unexpected in the ‘normal way of thinking’ we’re used to.

Third, there’s the ‘invisible boundary’ and the key word here is ‘invisible’ because you and I don’t necessarily recognise it as we cross it. It becomes apparent that ‘things have changed’ and we have ‘moved on’ to a ‘higher order of being’ or a different understanding of life which is where Joe Vitale is taking us in ‘Zero Limits’.

The second piece of the puzzle is from Bob Proctor who says:

“There is a single mental move you can make which, in a millisecond, will solve enormous problems for you. It has the potential to improve almost any personal or business situation you will ever encounter … and it could literally propel you down the path to incredible success. We have a name for this magic mental activity … it is called DECISION.”

Perhaps this should have come first because the ‘If’ depends on the decision, but the thing is – we have to decide and then take action.

I’ve quoted it second because it represents the ‘How’ to Thoreau’s ‘Why’.

We embark on the journey to the boundary only after we make the decision to do so. We know by making this choice things are going to be different.

We also know that all but 2% of the people on the planet make this choice.

The other 98% are comfortable (for now) where they are, even though they may not be happy or feel free in their comfort zone, they are there and anything outside it causes them fear, one way or another.

I’ve titled this insight ‘One is All’ which expands on last week’s ‘One is One’.

There is a common misinterpretation of the idea ‘there is only one of us’. Some philosophers have taken this to mean ‘we are all one’ or ‘we are all equal’ or all ‘the same’ and proposed societal organisations, which although they sound logical and ‘fair’ cannot (as has been proven) work in reality,

We are an infinite number of individuations of ‘the One’, or as Dr Hew Len calls it ‘The Divine’, and the whole point if this is we are all ‘different’ – having different ‘life experiences’ – otherwise what would be the logic of  ‘Source’ dividing into an infinite number of identical clones?

We are not all ‘equal’ or ‘the same’ although at the same time we are all ‘One’ and I admit, that does take a little ‘thinking about’!

From Walsch’s point of view the Universe consists of infinite individuations of a single entity, all having separate experiences and eventually returning to Source or Divinity.

Thus, the Universe starts with ‘one’ encompasses ‘all’ and returns to ‘one’. The singularity, which is the source of, and is, the Universe, is both One, or ‘Zero’ in Vitale’s terms, and All at the same time.

Being at Zero, the ultimate state of Grace, is to be all and nothing at the same time.

Next time I’m going to explore Freedom, what it really means to be free, and its relationship with Life Mastery.

It may not be quite what you might think.

I’m also going to introduce my new monthly publication ‘The Freedom Letter’ your guide to personal freedom in the world today.

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One is One

I’ve referred before to Neale Donald Walsch’s statement “There is only One of Us” and explained every ’individual’ person, or Soul, is an ‘individuation’ of the Universe, or ‘higher power’ or God or The Divine whatever name you wish to give it.

That’s all very well, but how does it ‘work’?

I think the question is answered in another of my ‘key books’ – ‘Zero Limits’ by Dr. Joe Vitale and Dr. Ihaleakala Hew Len the Hawaiian psychotherapist and proponent of the practice of Ho’oponopono.

It would take far too long to go into all the details of what Ho’oponopono is and how it works but it may help to translate its meaning which is ‘to cause perfection’.

To put things very simply Dr Len uses the technique to ‘clean’, some might prefer the word ‘clear’, toxins and ‘imperfections’ from himself and the patients he works with.

In this sense toxins mainly refers to toxic thoughts or memories which may have arisen during someone’s lifetime or during past lives or arrived through the chain of ancestry.

In a sense it encompasses the modalities of Soul Realignment, Family Constellation and RTT but it deals with ‘the self’ at a much more basic level.

This is where Len lines up with Walsch.

In Ho’oponopono the ‘self’ is a function of ‘The Divine’ and he sees the self as having four levels: The Divine, the superconscious, the conscious and the subconscious which others might describe as the higher power or Source, the Soul or spirit, the conscious (human) mind and the subconscious or 5th dimensional mind wherein all is stored.

The ancient Hawaiian belief is we are at all times ‘one’ with our past selves, our current self and the others around us, our ancestors and the divine spirit, which some may call God.

More modern religions have the idea we should aspire to be ‘at one’ with God and to do so atone for ‘our sins’ and the ethic of Ho’oponopono is not far from this except to say we are already at one with the Divine and rather than ‘doing penance’ all we need to do is ‘clean’ on the thoughts. beliefs and ‘memories’ leading to whatever we may perceive may be ‘wrong’ in our own or others existence.

It’s taken me quite a while and a long journey to get my head around this concept.

It’s all very well understanding there is only one of us but when you add the realisation this is for all time and indeed there is no time the idea that every’one’ who ever existed, exists and is ‘yet to exist’ is all just one entity in one time and space, a lot of things fall into place.

Like many other spiritual practices, which in effect are all the same, Ho’oponopono leads to a state of ‘enlightenment’ which Dr Len refers to as ‘Zero’ or being ‘at Zero’.

Unlike other practices it doesn’t involve a great deal of ritual or long periods of meditation and can be done simultaneously with everyday activities. It works on a granular level, dealing with one ‘issue’ or topic at a time.

This technique of ‘Causing Perfection’ can be applied to manifestation as well as to the removal of limitations including illnesses and toxic situations.

The thing is this is all done through the understanding of there only being ‘one’ entity – we are all part of the same ‘one’ – which includes everything which exists on the planet and off it.

Learning how to use Ho’oponopono takes some months and a few big shifts in our understanding of ‘the way things are’.

Once we understand, we realise they aren’t and there are far more possibilities than we’d previously understood.

I’ve been talking about the foundation of Life Mastery and next time I’m going to wrap up with a few final pieces of the puzzle that might set you (us) on the way to individual and collective freedom which is what Life Mastery is all about.

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The Secret of Creation

“Everything is created twice” is a phrase often quoted by Mary Morrissey.

It’s also been attributed to Steven Covey and Robin Sharma among others, but it goes back a long way.

When I first heard this, I was somewhat confused. I wasn’t sure what it meant.

Until I heard the whole phrase –

“Everything is created twice, first in the mind and then in reality”

This is quoted in many ways but that doesn’t matter. Like most of the ‘wise sayings’ of today’s personal development community it goes way back into the mists of time.

Well before ‘the Bible and Shakespeare’ in which it also features.

The thing is, ‘creation’ who or whatever you believe might have done the creating, doesn’t just happen and neither is there such an entity as a ‘creator’.

I’ve explained before there are only two things in the Universe, Energy and Space which are co-dependent, without one there would be no need for the other.

If there was just space, then there wouldn’t ‘be’ anything, not even space and if there was no space then energy would have nowhere to ‘be’ and just perhaps exist as a one-dimensional singularity which is not really ‘being’

Everything is energy – so how does creation happen?

Some have argued everything is an ‘illusion’ and there is no creation, there is ‘nothing’ – you and I are just figments of our own imagination but as we don’t exist then why would we have an ‘imagination’?

The argument goes on, somewhat pointlessly, I think.

Let’s accept that what we are ‘is’, it exists, and is not a illusion – rather formations of energy with different frequencies, vibrations and wavelengths differentiating one from another.

This brings me to the third book in my fundamental reading for Life Mastery and it answers the question ‘where does everything come from?’.

The title is somewhat misleading, but we have to take it in the context of the time it was written in 1910 at the beginning of the 20th Century.

The world was a different place then, especially in the USA and Wallace D Wattles’ book ‘The Science of Getting Rich’ was not about the accumulation of wealth, more about the process of creation.

Wattles says –

“There is a thinking stuff from which all things are made, and which, in its original state, permeates, penetrates, and fills the interspaces of the universe.

A thought, in this substance, produces the thing that is imaged by the thought.

Man can form things in his thought, and by impressing his thought upon formless substance, can cause the thing he thinks about to be created.”

This was placed in the context of ‘science’ or a method or process rather than what we probably now understand as ‘science’, and the purpose of ‘getting rich’ means far more than just ‘money’.

‘Getting rich’ is really about mastering your life, as was Napoleon Hill’s ‘Think and Grow Rich’ published some 27 years later.

Wattles in my opinion was one of the first to pull together in a ‘modern’ context, rather than a biblical one, the concept of the Laws of the Universe popularised in the early 21st century particularly in ‘The Secret’ by Rhonda Byrne.

Her ‘secret’ is Wattles’ ‘science’ and Wattles ‘science’ draws from earlier work in the mid 19th century from Emerson, Alcott, Thoreau and others engaged in the ‘Concord Conversations’ and the foundation of ‘Transcendentalism’.

Bringing the ‘science’ into a more practical sphere, it’s obvious when you think about it isn’t it?

When you or I wish to create something, even if that’s just a cup of coffee, it doesn’t just happen. We think about it first – and then we bring together the ‘stuff’ we need to make it.

Remembering that all that ‘stuff’, the water, the kettle, the electricity, the cup, the milk and the coffee itself was ‘thought about’ by someone before it was brought into the form in which we use it.

Everything is created twice, first in the mind and then in reality.

It doesn’t matter how it’s going to be brought about in reality, the act of ‘thinking’ about it will make it happen, one way or another.

And even if you or I don’t do it, someone else will.

But be warned, be careful what you think about, you never know how it will manifest itself!

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The Ultimate Theme Park

I talked last time about Neale Donald Walsch’s books ‘Conversations with God’ and said I would cover what he says about ‘the purpose of life’ and ‘why we are here’ – questions oft asked by most people.

But first I’ll continue a little about what is meant by ‘individuation’ and there being only ‘one’ of us.

A common misunderstanding about this is how most people believe the concept of ‘society’ to be the realisation of the ‘one’ of us.

It’s not.

‘Society’ doesn’t exist. It’s a concept, like ‘time’ and ‘money’ which (supposedly) helps us to understand how the world works, and is also, like money and time, an instrument of control.

You and I are supposed to conform to society, to go along with what everyone else in ‘society’ does or believes.

‘Society’ believes ‘government’ is a good idea, it protects society and has society’s best interest at heart.

I don’t think so.

Society chooses a form of government and gives its ‘collective authority’ to the individuals it chooses.

Sounds like a good plan, but it hasn’t worked that well over the centuries, has it?.

The ‘one of us’ is not a collective, not a community – it’s more like each of ‘us’ being a molecule of water in an ocean – individuated ‘parts’ of the one.

But why? What’s the purpose of this individuation? Why are we here?

Well, you and I are not here to ‘learn a lesson’.

We’re not here to ‘make a difference’

We’re not here to atone for some ‘original sin’

We’re not here to ‘earn our way into Paradise’

Unless . . .

Unless one of those was the experience we chose before we came here.

Walsch explains that, as immortal souls, or as Mary Morrissey puts it, ‘infinite beings experiencing a physical existence’, we are here for a purpose, which is to have, rather than gain, an experience, or series of experiences.

As if we’re visiting a theme park. We choose the rides we wish to go on, we take part in and ‘enjoy’ those experiences, and then we leave to ‘go home’ to the ‘one’ – to the celestial ocean from which we came.

In Star Trek Deep Space Nine, there are beings called ‘shape shifters’ or ‘changelings’ or The Founders, who can assume any form, but come from and return to a gelatinous ‘lake’ called the ‘Great Link’ of which they become ‘One’.

I’d be surprised if that idea wasn’t based on Walsch’s writings.

There is of course a ‘catch’.

Which is, when we arrive for each visit, when we’ve chosen what we wish to be (human or otherwise) and who our parents will be, the moment we arrive or reincarnate our memory is wiped.

We ‘forget’ all about our previous experiences and what we really are.

Part of the ‘experience of life’ is to discover what we came for and sometimes it can take quite a while.

But there are ‘fragments’ that remain.

Have you ever been somewhere and felt a strong affinity for the place? Have you a particular talent, music, or art for example?

Of course, we have to learn and discover things all over again but there is that inexplicable ‘familiarity’ isn’t there?

You can do ‘past life regression’ or Soul Realignment therapy to help find out or at least put things into perspective and maybe eliminate the effects of any bad choices in previous lives or ways of behaving you’ve carried over but ‘the purpose of life’ is simply to experience it.

Why?

Walsch speculates on this but concludes the answer is, much as your parents might have said when you were very young, ‘because’.

Because ‘the One’ , the Divine, ‘Source’, God’, the ‘Higher Power’, ‘Spirit’ wants more experiences.

More experience of what is possible, more experience of what we, as three dimensional beings, call ‘reality’, although it’s all an illusion, just energy in space.

In the fourth book ‘Awaken the Species’, Walsch goes into this with the idea of the development of HEBs or Highly Evolved Beings.

Experience perhaps then, leads to this evolution, but I don’t expect to find out for sure  until I reach the 7th dimension, beyond those we inhabit as ‘living beings’.

Maybe then, when I’m thinking about which theme park to visit next, it will all become clear.

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Conversations with God

If you’ve been following my insights over the past couple of years, you’ll have seen references to Neale Donald Walsch’s book trilogy plus one entitled ‘Conversations with God’.

Whether you believe in a God or not is immaterial, but you may have noticed most (if not all) religions are founded on various Prophets’ ‘conversations with God’; Moses, Jesus and Mohammed to name a few, and many other Saints, Prophets and ‘Holy’ men and women (such as Jeanne d’Arc) have also described these encounters.

Walsch, in the form of a ‘conversation’ continuing throughout the four books explains how this works going into deeper layers of detail in the progression from Book One to Book Four which is subtitled ‘Awaken the Species’

This last book incidentally reminded me of the scenario put forward by Arthur C Clarke in his book ‘Childhood’s End’ – a theme used by several science fiction writers over the years.

When you embark on your ‘Life Mastery’ journey, when you start to build the ‘foundation’ for mastering your life; you’ll find the principles described by Walsch as part of what I call the ‘Fundamentals’ of Life Mastery.

I’ve used the phrase in the past (which comes from the books) “There is only one of us” and this is a key concept to get hold of.

‘There is only one Universe’ is a difficult idea for people to accept, as has been the statement ‘There is only one God’. I think it’s the word ‘only ‘interjected in the statement that causes the confusion. It’s the same issue people have with the word ‘unique’.

For some reason most people have a problem with the idea there is just ‘one’ of anything. Given the way we are taught to perceive the world and how it is supposed to work, ‘singularity’ is difficult for most people.

But if there is only ‘one’ of us, then what about you?

Do you exist as a separate entity or are you part of ‘me’?

Part of the ‘one’ of ‘us’?

Walsch has a well thought through explanation for this, which relates to the ‘big bang’ theory, of a universe created by God out of God. God is the universe and the universe and every part of it is God.

I’m using the word God here because it’s easy, I could use ‘Source’, ‘the Force’, a ‘higher power’, any other name for God you care to choose (Jehovah, Allah, Zeus or any of the ‘chief’ gods of different pagan religions) there is only one, and it’s the same entity or concept.

God, or Source, or Spirit or whatever is not a separate entity of any kind.

God is everything and everything is God. All religious texts say that somewhere.

Walsch explains this with the idea of ‘individuation’.

You and I (and everything else) are ‘individuated’ fragments of the universe, fragments of God.

You and I are each unique and there are an infinite number of ‘us’ – all forming part of the singular ‘one’ of ‘us’.

It’s interesting how people have a similar problem grasping the idea of ‘infinite’, as they do ‘unique’ but that’s another story

As Mary Morrissey puts it, you and I are infinite beings existing in or inhabiting a finite physical being, a sort of symbiotic relationship with our temporary three-dimensional self.

This explanation of the ‘human condition’ is supported by a number of other ‘teachers’ such as Bob Proctor and Joe Vitale and to me it makes a lot of sense which is why I place it as one of the fundamentals in understanding how to master our lives.

There is much, much more in Walsch’s books and extensive guidance and explanation of what life is and the purpose of our being here

A lot more on the ‘why’ of life, which of course is key to understanding how to master it. I will delve into that next time.

Meanwhile I do strongly recommend you read (or re-read) at least Book One.

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Finding Freedom

One of the things I get asked quite a lot is “Can you recommend a book I should read”?

That’s a difficult question, the answer is “It depends”

It depends on where you are in your life and what you’re looking for.

Back in the day when I first started my ‘personal development journey’ the books on personal development or ‘self  help’ as it was called were always at the back of the bookshop in a poorly lit area next to the section on ‘Occult’.

I remember climbing several flights of stairs in the famous Foyles bookshop in Charing Cross Road to see what they, as the foremost booksellers in London, had on sale.

I have a lot of books, and I’ve read most of them. There are a few I stopped reading after a few chapters as they just didn’t resonate with me, and some that I didn’t read for a long while after I acquired them.

The trouble with ‘reading books’ is that many people think that just by ‘reading a book’ they will somehow absorb the content and automatically turn it into knowledge and understanding to enhance their lives.

It doesn’t work like that – that’s what’s called ‘shelf development’ – the only result is you need more shelves.

My tagline is ‘turning ideas into results’

Books will give us ideas tut then you and I have to do something to make use of those ideas and turn them into the results which will cause us to take actions and develop in a way which will change our lives.

It’s what ‘Personal Development’ means and as a Transformational Coach, Mentor and Therapist I help you do that.

I’m going to talk about some of the books which have helped my own personal development journey starting with the book I’m reading at the moment.

How I Found Freedom in an Unfree World (recommended to me by Jason Jackman, one of my mentors) was written by Harry Browne in the 1970s. He has made several references to global events of the time which may give some people the impression it’s not relevant to ‘now’ – but it is, possibly even more so that it was then.

The essence of this book is how we understand personal freedom. It’s about freedom in relationships, freedom in work and business, freedom within societies, states and cultures and every other situation.

Browne’s thesis proposes freedom is to be in a continuing personal situation where everything you feel and believe makes you happy

But he also makes it clear this desired state of happiness can only be achieved through your own direct action and your own personal choices.

You and I have to think really clearly about what we mean by our personal freedom in these contexts because there’s a lot of pressure on us to conform to other people’s ideas, or the state’s ideas on what personal freedom means. The book is very clear and explicit on this.

Second, Browne explains why and how freedom can only really be fully achieved through our own direct actions and not depend on indirect actions which are when we are relying on or expecting others to do something (or not do something) that will bring us happiness and allow us to be free.

It doesn’t work like that because, Browne explains, others will only do whatever it may be that enhances their own happiness and freedom.

If of course you believe you will be happy when you put others first or help to help them to be happy, then so be it, but is it really true or is it something you’ve been conditioned into believing.

True freedom however is a state of personal independence – the ‘world’ can only be truly free when every person is individually free.

The book describes many ‘traps’ you can I can unwittingly fall into which restrict or even remove our personal freedom.

Browne examines all these questions in the light of his own experience and for me it has given rise to many insights and explanations about how I have felt and what I have done in the past.

Freedom is ne of the fundamentals of Life Mastery and this book goes a long way to helping us understand what freedom really is and how best we can achieve it.

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Forty Two

Over the next few weeks, I’m going to take you through a few of the fundamentals of Life Mastery to explain a little more about wat I do and where I’m coming from. First, if you wish to master you life, you need to know what you want it to be . . .

Forty-Two is a magic number. If you research it, you’ll find all sorts of meanings ascribed to it, some simple and some very, very complex

I found it has been used as ‘code’ in some computer programming for ‘unknown’ or ‘whatever you want to put here’ or ‘whatever you want it to mean’.

The number has a particular ‘energy’ of its own and has been used in many contexts.

Famously, Douglas Adams in his ‘Hitch Hikers Guide to the Galaxy’ series, used it as the answer to ‘The Ultimate Question of Life the Universe and Everything’ asked of the mega computer ‘Deep Thought’ which had been created by pan-galactic beings for the purpose of answering this question.

Incidentally, I just read that in real life someone has built a computer called ‘Deepmind’ to attempt to uncover the meaning of life or how it works – and it’s not even April 1st!

Although Adams never clearly stated ‘42’ meant ‘whatever you want it to be’ he did imply it by reference to its use in software development.

‘42’ was also used earlier by John Cleese in one of his Video Arts business training films in a similar way.

As far as I am concerned I’m using ‘42’ to mean ‘whatever you want it to be’ – in other words the meaning of my life is whatever I want it to be’ – as is the meaning of yours.

But there are two aspects to this.

The first is do you know what you want you want it to be, what you want in your life, how you would love to live your life, and all the aspects of that?

Or

If you do know what you want it to be, do you know how you’re going to turn that into reality?

Do you know the path you’re going to follow and the steps you’re going to take – or is that another ‘42’ – ‘whatever I want or decide to do’?

Most people just settle for 42 without being really clear on ‘what they want it to be’ and certainly not clear at all on the ‘how’ of achieving it.

Often, they just follow someone else’s 42 and live however they think they are supposed to live.

It’s not even 42 – they have n idea what they want their life to be. They may have one or two goals or dreams and may achieve one or two, but they have no coherent plan of their life as a whole, they just follow.

As Adams would have put it when describing the Earth – ‘mostly harmless’ – and not really relevant to or involved in the magnificence of life at all.

Life Mastery is all about knowing and understanding your 42.

It’s about discovering your Way of Life and understanding how to follow your own path to the life you would love to live – the key aspects of 42 – Why, What and How, with When, Where and Who as support.

Do you know your 42?

I can help you find it.

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Practical Philosophy

So, we start the second five years of my weekly message. As I said it will be a bit different.

Instead of the random insights written a few days before each Wednesday (although there may still be some of them) what I write will be based on the structure of my Life Mastery – Now! webspace. (lifemasterynow.net)

Also, the email I send out will be a video rather than the text, but this can be found on my personal website bencoker.net – along with the other 260 insights started in 2015.

There will also be other series based loosely’ on ‘business’ and on what I ‘do for a living’, namely aspects of coaching and therapy.

This week though, I’m going to tell you a little about me and ‘what makes me tick’

I describe myself as a ‘Practical Philosopher’ – but what do I mean? And what s ‘philosophy’ exactly – isn’t it just arguing the finer points of some not very meaningful esoteric topic?

Philosophers, going back to the Ancient Greeks and beyond do tend to talk a lot, and write a lot – and they also come up with some really good ideas.

Philosophers are essentially ‘ideas men and women’ because when it comes to putting any of their great ideas into practice that’s someone else’s job, they don’t really do anything much.

Yes, I may be being unfair to one or two, but just a few.

Being a ‘Practical Philosopher’ is all about, as it says in my tag line, ‘Turning Ideas into Results’.

It’s also about creating the ideas in the first place, and I’m not just talking about my ideas here – I help you turn your ideas into results and to create them.

“Everything is created twice, first in the mind and then in reality” – this quote has been attributed to Steven Covey, Robin Sharma, and I heard it from Mary Morrissey, but it goes back much further than that, beyond the Bible and beyond Buddha.

Take the chair you’re sitting on, before it was created as a three dimensional chair, someone had to design it or in other words create it in their mind – and the same goes for everything else.

Practical Philosophy and Turning Ideas into Results encapsulate just that.

I also describe myself as a ‘Professor of Life Mastery’ – what do I mean by that?

I’m not a ‘professor’ or head of department at any educational institution, just as a ‘captain of industry’ doesn’t hold a rank in any army or navy.

To ‘profess’ is to put forward your views and beliefs – as a ‘professor of life mastery’ I am simply stating that I believe in what I am doing. Not that I have all the answers, or I know everything there is to know. I am still learning. ‘Professing’ is perhaps about going forward, whereas ‘confessing is about looking back.

I am passionate about what I do and over the next few weeks I’ll be explaining further, today I’m just setting the scene. The index page of lifemasterynow.net will give you a sneak preview of some of what is to come.

Thanks for your interest and thanks for listening.

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