Happy Tuesday to You!
My day flew by yesterday. Never a shortage of tasks to be completed!
I got a little tai-chi in with the sun peaking through the clouds now and then to say “Hello!”, which is always nice.
I had a lovely deadlifting session and was comfortably pulling sets of 4 with 365 off the step box, which I coupled with high cable single arm rowing and reptilian crawling.
I’m so grateful I know how to listen to my body, as it seems willing to stay young when I do.
After work, I began putting in a new stone pathway into my rock garden. It’s pretty amazing how much exercise you can get with a shovel and a pile of stones!
After it got dark, I continued studying an amazing little book that is a blessing to everyone who feels they are challenged by money issues. The book is appropriately titled “MONEY”, by Arnold Patent.
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It’s a beautiful, succinct book with healing exercises in it. I can’t recommend it enough.
THE TEACHINGS of The MASTER WARRIOR
I recently had the great pleasure of meeting a man that truly exemplifies and embodies the principles that make the Master Warrior. His name is Dr. Arnold P. Nerenberg, and he is author of a beautiful little, easy reading book titled, The Teachings of The Master Warrior.
Here is a quick peek of Arnold talking about the Master Warrior from his Youtube channel:
httpv://youtu.be/aHi_psfuSEk
Arnold has been a successful powerlifter for much of his life and is considered the strongest (drug free) man in the world for his weight and age. He is now about 70 years of age, but is still going strong.
On page 11 of his book, Dr. Nerenberg writes:
“How do we push beyond our limits?
By believing in the possibility of growth.”
Here in two sentences, we get right to the pulse of the beast of insecurity that lives inside us until we learn to heal and convert our fears and insecurities into awareness.
Most of what we are insecure about or afraid of (as I show in PPS Success Mastery Lesson 2. Self Mastery) emanates from our parental and social programming.
Arnold Patent informs us that if something appears in our life, it’s because we created it. He, like I, express that (GOD) Unconditional Love is ALL ABUNDANT and is consciousness.
Patent beautifully explains that we create challenges in our life because we are afraid of, or don’t think we deserve a life of abundance.
Though the abundance of Unconditional Love is our natural state, we take on human form to explore life in limitation, but that is not our natural state.
All true champions will tell you that their challenges, their trials are what made them authentic.
There is a responsibility with being a champion of any type, be it a champion quilt maker, dog trainer, gambler, athlete, or otherwise.
When we progress in our own development, we naturally become more self-secure and confident in ourselves.
With this growth, our inner-light shines more brightly.
Our inner-light doesn’t shine more brightly because we’ve found some magical pill or miracle food that makes the inner-flame burn hotter and brighter.
It shines more luminously because each phase of our growth removes our own resistance to expression our love and potential.
If you ask someone who is insecure, “can you do this?”, they may say “yes” on the outside, but they are shaking their head “no” on the inside.
This, Arnold Mindell calls double messaging. Whenever we double message, we divide our consciousness, and therefore, our focus and our energy.
We are giving life to opposing beliefs or realities and naturally, our flow is diminished accordingly.
When I was a young man working as a faller in logging camps, I use to marvel at how a tree 200 feet tall could withstand such huge pressure from strong winds.
I noticed as I was bucking large trees into sections so they could be loaded on logging trucks effectively, that there were places where the wood was often twisted, hardened, and often knotted.
These areas represented the trees reaction to its environmental stressors, such as wind, rain and snow.
Though these parts are often not ideal for making certain types of lumber, they are often so beautiful that loggers and craftsmen would cut them out and make beautiful tables out of them.
When we look at a tree like this, we can see that the amazing beauty, strength, endurance and stature of the tree came by way of overcoming its own challenges in its own life.
If the tree did not learn and grow from such challenges, it would never survive the challenges that naturally come each winter.
If we see ourselves as seeds of the Tree Of Life, we can see that we begin as little saplings. Then we progressively grow and mature over time and with experience.
We see that our challenges ultimately make us truly wise and beautiful, provided we remain open to and aware of the gift that challenges offer us in our own growth.
I really recommend Arnold Nerenburg’s book.
It is an easy, enlightening read and can be thought of as a manual for personal development. This book is written such that even elementary school children could greatly benefit from it. Enjoy!
WAR of the WORLDVIEWS – Science vs. Spirituality by Deepak Chopra and Leonard Mlodinow
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I’ve just listened to the unabridged audio version of this book and really enjoyed it.(another one of Vidya’s great finds!)
I’m very grateful for Deepak Chopra’s willingness to take some of the greatest minds of science head-on, and this book exemplifies that Deepak is truly a Spiritual Warrior, in the most gracious exemplification of that expression.
In this book/audio, Mlodinow works tirelessly to defend the atheist/scientist point of view with regard to issues of God and religion.
“Materialist” is the word that comes to mind to describe his view; there can’t be a mind without a brain!
Deepak on the other hand, expresses the limitations of science, as well as the dangers inherent in the world when our knowledge and use of science and its powers of destruction far outrun our spiritual development.
Deepak neatly packages Mlodinow with challenges to his “if it’s not proven by science it either doesn’t exist or isn’t important or even real” points of view.
Yet, Mlodinow persistently uses smoke screens manufactured out of evidence that is often sidestepping Deepak’s challenges.
They are cordial with each other, and Deepak is his usual patient self.
Mlodinow, like Richard Dawkins (apparently one of his idols), unfairly lumps Deepak’s views and expressions of “spirituality” in with a long slew of references to dogmatic religious silliness, which he uses to cloud the issues of spirituality which Deepak is encouraging.
For example, he refers to the creationists claims of the earth only being 4-6 thousand years old and the whole gamut of related issues that programmed religious people have that fly in the face of science.
Yet, NONE of these are actually integral to what Deepak teaches at all. It is as though he used the opportunity to debate such a big name, with a big following to continue Richard Dawkins (atheist) legacy.
For those of you that either love science or metaphysics, this program is loaded with very interesting information on everything from genetics, to material science, to astronomy, to ancient sutras and modern spiritual offerings that are congruent with scientific discoveries in quantum physics.
If I had my own comment to add as a closing to this debate, I’d ask Mlodinow, “has science advancements helped us to:
1. Be more loving with each other?
2. Be more aware of, and respectful of the earth “objectively”?
3. Be more ethical or moral with each other?
4. Learn to live any better with regard to mental/emotional/spiritual development and world harmony than when we didn’t have science and modern schooling systems and were taught by tribal elders?
From extensive research into these issues, I can personally assure you that my answer is “NO” on all accounts.
We are watching people die like flies in many fields of endeavor, from medicine, to food processing, to agrochemicals and the likes, all the while, most of what ails us is scientifically validated.
Scientists are now the modern prostitutes. I agree with Deepak that we must seek to balance science with spirituality before we “scientifically destroy ourselves and the planet”!
“KOSMIC STAR CHAMBER”
This amazing photo was taken by my friend Shane McDermott. Shane was in the first group to complete CHEK Level 4 training many years ago and comes from my home town of Courtenay, B.C., Canada.
Shane is not only a highly skilled therapist who has helped countless people find well-being in their life, he has also studied the integral training methods of Ken Wilber and incorporated them into his life and practices.
Shane has a deep love of nature and nature photography, and as you can see, his photography is world class!
I feel so blessed whenever he sends me some of his photos. They are so amazingly captivating. I feel like I’m right there with him in the moment.
If you’d like to learn more about his beautiful photography, or his courses in nature photography, or about Shane, feel free to visit his web site or contact him directly: shanemcdermottphotography@gmail.com.
You won’t be disappointed either way! Right on his home page, you can see some absolutely stunning photos of Shane’s. Amazing! That’s all I can say!
Thanks for sharing your love with me and the world Shane.
All of us can become Masters should we apply ourselves.
I hope you’ve enjoyed the blog today and I’ll look forward to sharing more with you all tomorrow.
Love and chi,
Paul Chek
PS: We still have a spot or two open for zen in the Garden on Friday, Feb 10 if you’d like to join an amazing group of people for some creative play and natural healing with me in my zen rock garden. Please register at www.PPSsuccess.com
