It is easy in the world to live after the world’s opinions;
It is easy in solitude to live after our own;
But the Great Man is he who in the midst of the crowd keeps with perfect sweetness the independence of solitude.
~Ralph Waldo Emerson
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Meredith 
Happiness, Relationships, Enlightenment 
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On my journey, I came to realize that giving unsolicited advice had the opposite effect I intended. I’ve been working on myself for 4 years now and I’d like to think that I have gotten somewhere, or rather I have returned to a place of inner peace I once knew. And over this time I have acquired lots of bits of information to make my life harmonious with the world. Naturally I want to share this info with those close to me, and with the world actually. I mean my life is so happy and amazing, wouldn’t everybody want this? The answer to everybody’s problems are so simple and I have them. Then I try to share them with somebody not on or even near a path of enlightenment and it backfires. They rip me apart for even offering this advice. So where did I go wrong? Well, my Uncle once told me never to give unsolicited advice. That is a tough thing to handle when you think you have all the answers. I live by some simple rules that make things run happy and smooth, but the advice rule has been hard to follow. I mean you see somebody struggling with a problem that is making them miserable and you know all they have to do is this one thing and all will be happy.
But the fact is, this thing will solve my problems because they are my truths at this moment in time. I could not have taken that advice 5 years ago because I was not in the proper place in time. I suppose there are many paths to enlightenment, one is not the correct one and the others are not wrong. So I need to bite my tongue, maybe chew it off, I don’t know. This is hard to do. One thing my wife does is to ask people if they want some advice. This doesn’t always work, because people just say “yes” to be polite. But I guess they feel less angry at you since they did in fact give you permission. So my wife had a “talk” with me the other day about this. I’ve been giving her unsolicited advice a lot lately. For some reason, since she is on a path like mine, I thought it was ok. But I found out, it’s never, ever, ever ok to give unsolicited advice. So now, I am asking permission to do so if I feel the need. Or, as an alternative, I can give a scenario that happened to me that demonstrates what to do. That way you are not shoulding on them, you know, you should do this, you should do that. When you should on somebody, they naturally rebel. Nobody wants to be told how to live their life. That is unless they look up to that somebody, then they may ask for advice. I know when somebody has something that I desire, I often ask them how they got it. I mean, what better way to find out.
All of this advice stuff has had me rethinking this whole blog. Am I giving unsolicited advice to the world? Or are they asking for it by coming to my site? Maybe that is why I haven’t posted much lately. So you found my site somehow. What are you thinking? Am I giving unsolicited advice here? Or did you ask for it? Let me know… 
(No Ratings Yet) Loading ... Greg Hankerson Happiness, Relationships, Enlightenment 20 Comments »
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What is it and When is it Happening?
Four times a year people all over the world take part in this didgeridoo sound healing meditation wherever they are. The didgeridoo meditation happens on the equinoxes and solstices at local sunset times. It is like a wave of healing sound following the sunset around the globe four times a year.
The meditation starts in New Zealand (since they are the first large land after the date line); soon after participants in Australia, Taiwan, Japan and other Asian countries join in; the wave will then be carried on by participants in Arab countries, Israel, Africa and Europe with Americans, Canadians, Middle and South Americans complete the world wide circle.
The next one will be on 21 March 2007. Wherever you are on this beautiful planet on 21 March 2007, please allow for one hour starting at your local sunset time. If you cannot set that hour apart, be with us in spirit as much as you can during that hour.
The Structure of the Didgeridoo Meditation
The structure of the one hour meditation is very simple:45 minutes of meditative didgeridoo music followed by 15 minutes of silence. The 15 minutes of silence please allow being totally silent. And this is only a suggestion: you may want to do a totally energetic didgeridoo dance instead of meditative music or play didgeridoo for two hours without a break. You may make or listen to any kind of music and then allow some silence afterwards.
Who can Participate?
Everyone is invited to participate. You do not need to be able to play a didgeridoo at all. You can just drum or play flute or guitar or any other musical instrument. You may sing, chant, hum, or simply listen to didgeridoo or other music. You may also do any combination of these. The next meditation will be on 21 March 2007. The meditation starts at your local sunset time and lasts for one hour.
It would be best if you can do this meditation somewhere in a beautiful spot in nature with friends. But anywhere is fine, you can even do this meditation alone in the car or the bus listening to your Walkman and then just sitting in silence.
What really matters is the intent to make peace with yourself and everyone else on this beautiful planet as well as sending a wave of awareness for our environment around the globe.
Please pass this information along to anyone who might be interested in participating and for more information check out the Worldwide Didj Meditation.
(No Ratings Yet) Loading ... Meredith Enlightenment, Giving Back 2 Comments »
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The Sun shines just as brightly upon the polluted, dirty river strewn with garbage as it does on the crystal clear blue waters of the Caribbean seas. The sun shines just as brightly upon the toxic wasteland, as it does on the pristine snow covered Alps. The Sun is not selective upon where it shines. It shines down equally upon everyone, and everything, everywhere…regardless of form or physical body.
So should Unconditional Love be. We cannot be selective about whom we love. We cannot claim to unconditionally love one human being, without loving them all. You cannot unconditionally love with one cheek, then hate with the other. It just doesn’t work that way. We can be attracted to some people more than others. We can want to spend more time with some people, than others. But we cannot love and hate at the same time. And that includes ourselves. Until we fully accept, claim and Unconditionally love every part of our own being, we cannot Unconditionally love another.
We have to learn to look beyond the physical form of others, down to their core and accept them and love them as humans. I honestly do not think there is very much Unconditional Love in the world at this time. That has to change.
(No Ratings Yet) Loading ... Meredith Relationships, Enlightenment 10 Comments »
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Our life is shaped by our mind; we become what we think. Suffering follows an evil thought as the wheels of a cart follow the oxen that draws it. Our life is shaped by our mind; we become what we think. Joy follows a pure thought like a shadow that never leaves. - Buddha
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Wouldn’t it be better if we just let go, and let people be who they are? Then we’d be able to see them as they are — with all their beauty and goodness in which we take joy, and with all their faults which we can also see in ourselves.
I was blog surfing the other day and came upon a blog where someone wrote about how they followed these particular blogs and read them and they were so wonderful to read that they added them to their blogroll. And then the person left a comment on a few of their so called favorite blogs and the blog authors did not respond to their comments - ever. So her entire post was spewing on and on about how rude it was, and now she hated them and would take them off her blog roll and never read them again. I thought about the insanity of those statements because when/if I offer a comment on a blog it is simply to offer a comment or opinion, not with the intent to receive a response from the author. And if they do respond, it is a nice bonus, which adds to the discussion but completely unnecessary in my opinion. I was about to offer my own two cents worth, but decided that would probably not be very wellreceived.
But isn’t that just like us? We have such great expectations of other people. We expect if we leave a comment, to have it responded to, from somebody that we don’t even know. We expect if we give someone a gift, to be thanked. We expect if we do someone a favor, that they be just as willing to do us a favor when called upon. We expect when we are waiting in traffic to turn left, that the other drivers should just stop and let us go because that is what We would do in those same circumstances.
We expect these things because that is how WE would react. But each person acts and reacts how he/she does. Not how we do. Once we realize and accept this, our rate of disappointment and annoyance decreases incredibly.
We should be doing things for the sheer joy of doing them. Not to be thanked. Not to be acknowledged. Not for any type of external recognition, or reward. We should be doing acts of kindness out of pure unconditional love. When we act out of this pure love, there is no thanks necessary because that feeling itself is more than any word or gesture from another could provide.
I think this is especially true with our inner circle…family, close friends, spouses, romantic partners, etc. I think most types of conflicts within these relationships arise out of unmet expectations.
So the next time you are upset because someone didn’t do, or say, or react a certain way, try to step back and smile and think to yourself that you did what you did, not for the external reward, but for the intrinsic satisfaction that it brought you. And their thanks or acknowledgement, while a plus, is unnecessary because you acted out of pure love. And you will find peace in knowing that you simply accepted them as they are, not expected them to be how you want.
(1 votes, average: 5 out of 5) Loading ... Meredith Relationships 7 Comments »
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The grass is not always greener on the other side of the fence. Fences have nothing to do with it. The grass is greenest where it is watered. When crossing over fences, carry water with you and tend the grass wherever you may be. - Robert Fulghum
(No Ratings Yet) Loading ... Greg Hankerson Happiness, Enlightenment 3 Comments »
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So I’m at Costco yesterday buying bulk tampons and milk, when I heard a kid crying his heart out. I stopped what I was doing to watch him run by me and I thought to myself, that’s awesome. Something didn’t go his way, so he cries and is immediately over the whole thing within minutes. He’s not repressing it, he’s not holding a grudge for the rest of his life, he just let the baggage go and moved on. That is what is so wonderful about children, they express themselves perfectly. But as they get older they are told not to cry in public, or wherever, and so they begin the process of supression or repression or whatever you want to call it. In otherwords, they have baggage. Soon the baggage grows so big they can’t move forward anymore, kinda like Meredith’s post about “The Journey“.
So why is it common practice for us to shush kids when they want to express themselves? Maybe people care more about how they look, then how they or others feel? I don’t have the answer. Most people tend to think when a kid is crying something is wrong, but it’s part of a process most of us forgot. But it’s funny, my wife noticed the little kid too and she was 30 feet away from me sitting down. She brought it up to me how wonderful it was to see him cry and I said to her, that’s funny, because this moment has inspired me to write a post. And here I am…
(2 votes, average: 3.5 out of 5) Loading ... Greg Hankerson Happiness, Depression, Relationships, Enlightenment 3 Comments »
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