Hold Your Breath or Embrace the Process: The Bhakti and Moksha Feast of Rama, Rhada, and Ramprasad

John Kuczmarski

11/16/05

Professor Coleman

Hinduism

Hold Your Breath or Embrace the Process:  The Bhakti and Moksha Feast of Rama, Rhada, and Ramprasad

In March of 2002, “vengeful Hindu mobs burned Muslim homes” and ended up killing over three hundred people in Gujarat, India (Dugger 1).  In 2002 Muslims launched a terrorist attack on a Hindu train traveling to Ayodha; Hindus responded with retaliatory riots.  These Muslim attacks on the Hindu train, however, were retaliatory in themselves; because Muslims were responding the demolition of a “16^th century mosque that was razed by Hindus in 1992” (Dugger 1).   This ping-pong game of back-and-forth retaliatory destruction has become detrimental to both religions by destroying the presence of safety as well as sanctified temples and buildings.  Is it possible that such violent outbursts could be prevented with a greater emphasis on dharma and, more specifically, bhakti in the Hinduism faith?

The etymology of bhakti is derived from the word “bhaj”, meaning to share, or to be devoted, to love” (Eck 103).  In other words, it is the devotional sharing of love to a God, or “the heart’s attitude toward devotion and love toward the lord” (Eck 103).  The Bhagavad Gita and the Ramayana have their differences; the Bhagavad Gita is commonly considered to be more of a Machiavellian-like text, emphasizing power and schisms, while the Ramayana emphasizes dharma, duty, virtue and family.  Even though they were written over two millennia ago, both these texts play a monumental role in defining the mythology, stories, history, and lessons of bhakti today.

The key message of bhaktiyoga in the Bhagavad Gita is that one must practice the devotion and the love without expecting or having attachment to the fruits of honoring Krishna.  Lord Krishna reminds us that “no effort in this world is lost or wasted; a fragment of sacred duty saves you from great fear” (Miller 35).  If interpreted as a reference to bhakti, this would mean that the very intention of performing the sacred duty of bhakti, , even if it is a mere “fragment”, would liberate one from their fears.  This liberation from doubt and uncertainty through the act of bhakti is precisely what happens to Rhada in his love for Krishna, which will be discussed later.

In the Fifth teaching of the Bhagavad Gita, Arjuna asks Krishna if actions are better than discipline and Lord Krishna responds, “renunciation and discipline in action both effect good beyond measure; but of the two, discipline in action surpasses renunciation of action” (Miller 57).  Because “renunciation is difficult to attain without discipline,” discipline is vital to the process of acquiring renunciation, and without discipline, eliminating one’s hates and problems via renunciation would be impossible (58).  This type of discipline is strongly associated with the devotional discipline of bhakti. According to Krishna, discipline – whether it be discipline of bhakti or dharma – becomes a tool that arms the practitioner, so they can “subdue the self, master his senses, unite himself with the self of all creatures” (Miller 58).  Bhakti can dissolve ego, give control of the senses, and make one recognize universality.  Both discipline and renunciation, when combined with bhakti, have tremendous significance in shaping the relationship between God and man in the Bhagavad Gita.

At the end of the Ramayana, it was bhakti that made the face of even the most demonic foe, Ravana, become “aglow with a new quality” (Narayan 159).  By the time Rama fires the Brahmasthra weapon, Ravana’s layers of “dross, the anger, conceit, cruelty, lust and egotism, which had encrusted his real self” had already been chipped and chiseled away by Rama’s arrows (Narayan 159).  After the brittle coating of debauchery and the cracked crust of deceit had been destroyed, Ravana’s “personality came through in its pristine form – of one who was devout and capable of tremendous attainments” (Narayan 159).  These incredible attainments and devotional-bhakti were concealed behind the external, grimy crust of malevolence, but the intense devotion had always been there. Because of his patience and insight, Rama was able to see through Ravana’s deceitful malign and recognize his wickedness simply as a sham.  Rama saw that deep down, beneath those vile layers, he was a bhakta.  Rama was able to have compassion for Ravana and have faith that even those most immoral enemy would be good because Rama, being the ideal king, husband, and man, possessed patience and faith for every human.  It’s extremely fortunate that Rama did reach out with his compassion and hang in there because Ravana, the person who maliciously captured Sita, had cultivated bhakti from meditating on Rama and from that devotion, he, indeed, did prove to be good: “his face shone with serenity and peace” (159).  Once again, devotion transformed malign into clarity in the Ramayana.  

The mythology and lessons of the Ramayana Bhagavad Gita tell us all about the interpretations and usages of bhakti, but one still needs to understand how bhakti is an evolving concept in Hinduism.  Juergensmeyer discusses how bhakti was one of the variables that has constantly evolved within the Hinduism faith.  He discusses that the devotional-love movements of bhakti were pioneered by “North Indian poet-saints of the fifteenth to seventeenth centuries and by South Indian bards who lived centuries before” (Juergensmeyer 82).  Bhakti-devotion to a deity is seen in many different forms, and is something that has adapted and changed throughout time. One of the most interesting portrayals bhakti-devotion is in Radha’s relationship with Krishna, and Ramprasad’s with Kali.  

While Ramprasad and Rhada both experience suffering associated from being separated from their respective gods, they each have incredibly distinct and unique interpretations of this experience of samsara, and, consequentially, vastly different perspectives of moksha.  In the poetry of “Praise of Krishna”, it is obvious that Radha, like Ramprasad, suffers.  Radha is clearly plagued by snakes, darkness, night, and the times when his “feet were muddy and burning where thorns had scratched them” (Dimock 21).  However, unlike Ramprasad, Radha recognizes the suffering of samsara as a stepping-stone, and is part of the process, to moksha.  It is evident that Radha has this awareness that samsara continues into moksha, when he says,  “but I had the hope of seeing [Krishna], none of it mattered, and now my terror seems far away” (Dimock 21).  Radha’s fear literally dissolves as his love and trust in Krishna becomes salvation itself.  People say that “hope makes a good breakfast but a bad supper,” but here, hope has resilience and it endures.  His hope not only pulls and motivates Radha through the suffering of the material word, but his faith actually liberates him so that “all [his] anger is gone” (Dimock 50).  In a sense, his bhakti  to Krishna delivers him to the “far shore of this sea of conflict” (Dimock 46).  

With Rhada’s love and bhakti for Krishna, he doesn’t even have to hold his breath.  Instead, he simply transcends suffering altogether by embracing the process and discovering liberation through suffering, and then reunites with Krishna in the trysting place.  Radha’s interpretation of the juxtaposition of moksha and samsara insinuates a transiency; samsara is part of the process of liberation.  He believes that suffering, if interpreted correctly, can actually become moksha – being almost liberation “disguised as pain or suffering”.  This does not imply that all pain or suffering is fallacious or non-existent, but that, with the right interpretational twist, a person can transcend that real suffering and transform it into a freedom.

Ramprasad, and his relationship with the Mother, Kali, however, is not as lucid as Radha’s, and he is deluded by Maya, while being overwhelmed with an emotional angst throughout the poetry of Grace and Mercy in her Wild Hair.  Ramprasad says, 

“About maya this is the strangest of all – those trapped in it scurry every which way.  Those free of it rest contented.  ‘I’m this. This is mine.’ Idiot thoughts. O mind, you imagined all that stuff was real and carelelessly entangled the heart!” (Nathan 38).

Clearly, Ramprasad recognizes and is affected by these illusions that entangle him in tormenting problems.

Throughout the poems, the reader is positioned at a unique vantage point to witness Ramprasad being affected by these illusions.  From this “omniscient crow’s nest”, the reader, endowed with an outside perspective, can observe can observe Ramprasad being deluded by maya, even though he may not know he is experiencing an illusion.  An example of an unclear, deluded moment was when Ramprasad says, “I’m sweating like the slave of an evil spirit” (Nathan 12).  Later, he says, “Mind – no one’s anything to anyone” (Nathan 13).  These are not exactly lucid thoughts.  Instead, they seem to be quite obfuscated – thoughts reminiscent of being deluded by illusion.

Additionally, Ramprasad’s poetry is strongly emotional as opposed to being divine.  In some parts of the poem it appears to be just a common, everyday conversation between a bickering, needy adolescent and his occasionally nude mother.  There is an interesting inconsistency between the grand reverence of Kali by all the other gods and the simplicity and plainness of Ramprasad’s request for Kali’s affection.  To the Gods, Kali’s very “name is the only freedom,” but Ramprasad, at times, simply just thinks of her as a mother (Nathan 6).  While Ramprasad recognizes Kali’s divinity and omniscience, he clearly is more interested in simple love and affection, or at the least, recognition from his mother.

Ramprasad has the power to vindicate himself because he, in part, has created his own imprisonment.  The bulk of his imprisonment is based on his inability to be at peace with mind, Maya, and material possessions.  Ramprasad has allowed his mind to deplete his essence: “mind, you gambled and lost everything so how do I move now?” (Nathan 22).  Furthermore, in his discussion of Maya, he asks, “who am I? Who is mine? Who else is real?” showing that his inability to relinquish Maya has demolished his identity.  Finally, he is consumed by material possessions when he talks about beauty living “in a pleasure house” and being “lured” into the world” (Nathan 8).  Ramprasad experiences bouts of disparity and lack of clarity, but he also can be incredible wise and illuminated at times, too.

Amongst being partially deluded at times, one can witness him flickering in and out of awareness with crystal-clear alacrity.  Towards the end of the poems, he eliminates the “wine of desire” and “begging door to door” (Nathan 47).  Clearly, the curtains of moksha open for split second, and Ramprasad mitigates some of the habits that entangle him in suffering.  He is, at times, no doubt deluded by mind and illusions, but he experiences incredible awareness and displays the capacity to truly free himself.  During those times of illumination, he knows what to do and executes it with incredible tenacity.  He is aware of the deception of illusions and even says, “I’m not going to be fooled anymore” (Nathan 47).  Additionally, he’s aware and is “light of the passions that almost sank me in the poisoned well” (Nathan 47).   Ramprasad makes his relationship with Kali extremely bleak and full of despair, but he is aware of his possession of knowledge and knows how to truly utilize his mind to liberate him “into the saving waters” (Nathan 65).  

The poetry of Kali is not about Ramprasad’s trials and tribulations, but rather his respect of Kali and struggle to free himself from being overly self-conscious.  When Ramprasad describes his mother running around naked, he is at first, offended: “Why are you naked again?  Good grief, haven’t you any shame…don’t you have any clothes” (Nathan 40).  But even though he may have initially taking offense, Ramprasad is captivated by Kali's ability to obliterate being overly self-conscious.  In her nakedness she has a tremendous presence of self-confidence that makes her “necklace gleam,” so that “even Shiva fears [Kali] when [she’s] like this” (Nathan 40). While Ramprasad often awe-struck with admiration for Kali’s demolition of inhibition and doubt, he is not jealous.  Ramprasad still considers Kali to be close to him, and simply has maternal respect for the deity. 

Rhada recognizes the contingency of samsara into moksha, while Ramprasad detrimentally sees both concepts as separate entities.  Rhada, unlike Ramprasad, would see the samsara of “being born in 8 million forms” as part of the liberation process (Nathan 8).  However, Ramprasad does have moments of illumination and respect for Kali, even though he primarily interprets interactions with Kali as snares of entrapment or the prolongation of suffering. Ramprasad looks at the prolongation of distance between he and Kali as suffering, but Rhada deals with the prolongation as something that will make the union with Krishna, all the more spectacular and freeing.  This is kind of similar to the concept of fasting.  One can interpret fasting the “Ramprasad-way” -- as suffering, starvation, and torment -- or the “Rhada way”-- as something that makes the final feast so much more enjoyable because of the building anticipation.  The latter method allows one to not only enjoy, but to respect the fasting process (or the duration of time away from God), and through that appreciation, generate liberation.

In his discussion of new patterns in Hindu traditions involving bhakti, Ted Solomon talks about a shift in the methodology of Brahmin practitioners.  Solomon writes, “Orthodox Brahmins traditionally committed to the paths of ritual observance and of knowledge are turning to the path of devotion” (Solomon 32).  Even the most converntional Brahmins, typically gravitating to the knowledge-based path, are realizing the significance for the poignant path of love and devotion.  They do not abandon their traditions nor discard knowledge, but embrace a more wholistic pursuit involving the essentiality of bhakti.  Embracing more paths of bhakti, as opposed to solely paths of knowledge impact culture as well: “modern cultural performances, such as concerts, ballet, and dance-drama, ‘gain their deepest significance for Indians and expressions of devotion’” (Solomon 32).  So even today, the practice of bhakti is shifting and undergoing altercations within the different varnas, just as it was shifting around the 1600s with the North Indian poet-saints.  Hopefully, with greater attention to the scriptures and the detailed duty of dharma and compassion derived from bhakti, there will cease to be episodes of violence like the 1992 riots.  Furthermore, instead of a neutral position, simply one of cessation of violence, hopefully more people will practice bhakti and embrace the ideals of Rama and the appreciations of Rhada to not simply find liberation, but to have faith, despite outward appearances, in the intrinsic goodness all people.

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Works Cited

Dimock, Edward C. & Levertov, Denise.  In Praise of Krishna.  London: U of Chicago P, 

1967.

Poetry of Radha and Krishna.

Dugger, Celia.  “Hindu Rioters Kill 60 Muslims in India”. The New York Times.  March 

1, 2002.

Discussion of violence and riots in India between Hindus and Muslims.

Eck, Diana. Darsan: Seeing the Divine Image in India.  3^rd ed.  New York:  Columbia U P, 

1998.

Interesting interpretations of seeing the divine deity image, darsan.

Juergensmeyer, Mark. The New Cold War? : Religious Nationalism Confronts the 

Secular State. Comparative Studies in Religion and Society; 5.  Berkeley, Berkeley U P, 1994.

Discussion of violence in religious political groups and the role of bhakti in developing Hinduism.

Miller, Barbara. The Bhagavad Gita. Trans. Barbara Miller.  New York: Bantam, 1986.

The Full text of the Gita.

Narayan, R. K. The Ramayana. Trans. R. K. Narayan.  New York: Penguin Books, 1972.

The translation of the Ramayana.

Nathan, Leonard & Seely, Clinton. Grace and Mercy in her Wild Hair. Prescott: Homh 

Press, 1999.

Ramprasad’s relationship with Kali in poetry.

Solomon, Ted.  “Early Vaisnava Bhakti and Its Autochthonous Heritage.” History of 

Religions. Chicago.  Chicago U P, 1970. p. 32-38

Interesting discussion of new images of bhakti in Brahmin culture.

Is Everything for Romance? Even with Successful Careers

just woke up, just water, wore black (Great), no food, no coffee before, energizing awesome convo. good. I saw a darren brown and david tennant clip (for darren's tv show) and I relized that they went out into public to have a woman draw a picture and david was supposed to have predicted what she'd draw, but the interesting thing was how it almost seemed like david and darren were competing for the woman's attention to impress her! LOL these two HUGE awesome dudes and names (darren brown and david tennant) with huge massively successful careers, were almost primarily focused on this woman's attention. I mean i have a ton of respet for david, but my reverence for darren (he's just so gnalry) is off the charts, so seeing both these two extraordinary guys doing very unextraordiariny stuff (trying to impress a woman and have
vulnerability in that -- or maybe that is extraoridinary too!! ;D) was an eye-opener.

I mean Tennant is THE Dr. Who! How much more cool and successful and impressive is that from a sci-fi POV. And Darren....well that guy's just unfathomably cool and he represents the apex of all the skills in which I have been and currently training. So DB just operates on this unimaginably awesoem level of success. But so here were these two amazingly successful people whom I have massive respect for, doing something very common and normal -- kind of "flirting with a woman"!! :D These guys were just doing what any normal guy would do -- flirting with this woman! I mean I guess I figured at some level of success I erroneously thought you wouldn't have to worry about those htings (flirting, courtship, etc) but while I'm sure those guys don't worry about them, they still DO them. Romance is alive for every person regardless of their level of success. In many ways I htink romance is kind of the common denominator that makes someone's career or their image etc, operate from a baseline: yeah we are all human, we all have human emotions. Cool! But it was something to which I could relate. I could only look up to their careers -- wow, db's nlp skills insane! etc -- but when I saw them flirting with this woman, I was like "Hey!! Hey! Hey, I'm on the same level with them in that regard at least!!" :D

Realized that whatever level of success, romance and intimacy is still something that's very alive for people! And it just seemed these hugely massively successful careers, it's like that success got whittled down to just courtship, trying to impress, having a lot going for the sake of romance. VERY interesting. I guess the main insight was if I look at david and darren's careers, they seem pretty amazingly impenetrable successful, like intangible success like invulnerable success! But then when I saw them almost in this teasing, trying to impress mode, it made their careers a lot more connected and real and something that I could relate to! very cool!

I like to swim upstream and my Future is my Past

I like to swim upstream. What this means? Life is a circular mote flowing downstream. Life's a gigantic circular mote. Most people float and surrender to the currents' of life's river. And the unaware people don't pick up on the fact that it's merely one gigantic circle they keep revolving in. I've surrendered. I've let life's river take me, twirl me around, slosh me into addictions and fixations incredibly dangerous places, and spit me out on the bank of nowhere with Nothing. I've touched my shadow. I've done all the truly challenging, heroic, adventurous stuff in the circular river of life by surrendering. I understand now that surrender is a waste of time. Because life is a circular river. Once you understand the cyclical nature of life, you realize that to truly live you change your relationship with the flow of the current. You can't change the current, but you can change your reactions to it! Focusing on the destination is about as intelligent as focusing on getting your toothpick at the end of a 5-course gourmet meal. To me, I understand life is the meal; life is the journey, not the destination. And I grow by swimming upstream. Swimming upstream does not mean fighting and experiencing toil and randomly jumping into dangerous situations in life; i've already done that. Sporadically jumping into the danger is the surrender. And I've done that so frequently it's become bland; Swimming upstream is just the opposite. It resembles smoothly growing stronger and simpler and simultaneously more aware internally. Swimming upstream is how the intelligent aware people change because they know how you approach the journey, the circular river of life, is all that matters. So while many people "surrender" to the flow of life and preach the wonders of that magnificent "ease", I'm going to be doing what I well and best and that's swimming upstream and that means I'll become a MUCH better swimmer than those who aimlessly surrender (as I have already done).



My future will consist of my past. Reconnecting with my past -- people from my past, events from my past, past memories -- will be moving forward. I've traveled the world. I've reached the end of life. But I did it too quickly. I skipped parts. I still have to finish my high school soccer and swimming and chemistry. There's friends from elementary school I skipped over, relationships from college I sliced by to get to the finish. I have uncompleted work in the past and I've completed all the work in the future. Every time I move forward in life it will be because of successfully completing my work in the past. (Note: This is not everyone's relationship with life. Most people do "new" things to move forward.) Their exist no "new" things for me. Ask someone who knows me well. It's true. There exist no "new" things. I've done everything. The "newness" of life emerges in a shocking and galvanizing adventure from connecting with and completing those exciting joyful fragments of my past! :D The further into the future I've gone with my life, the more diluted and nihilistic my life became. Poignancy and meaning become instantly interjected into my life upon connecting with my past, however. My future is connecting with my past.

I've had rough seas. I'm a good sailor . :D

Epi-Geneticism and Homosexuality.

I'm a HUGE believer in the understanding of epi-geneticism and how your completely aren't bound into your genes. But even if you WERE bound into your genes? WHERE is this "homosexual chromosome"? The entire idea of a "Gay Gene" is the most wretchedly absurd thing I've ever encountered or even heard of in my entire life. You genes only understand replication -- pure, straight-forward reproductive replication. That's the purpose of our genes. Our genes, our most rudimentary architect are designed to keep us alive and replicate themselves. From an evolutionary point of view (which is the ONLY POV that your genes "know" homo-sexuality. There's no possible way anyone's genes could EVER know homosexuality simply because that defies their very intention and nature (that of surviving and replicating).

So what does cause the sensation of homosexuality or the illusion of homosexuality in people? Lower female sexual arousal. Socetial, familial, social, historical incidents that caused a person to associate arousal and sex and attraction on a superficial level to the same sex. But all of those are just superficial mental confusions or temporary experimentations. Deep down (to our genes) we're all heterosexual. Saying that people are gay genetically is like saying "Well, some cars are meant to just jiggle in place and not move." The purpose of a car is to provide transportation, just like the purpose of genes is to provide life and replicate. If a certain contraption doesn't move forward or a bit of cellular technology doesn't create survival and replicate, you can't call those respectively, a car or genetic material.

Now the arguments of the church are ABSURD. IF (and this is a strong IF because we know from above genetic evidence that this is not true) there was some way that someone could be genetically born to be gay, and this is purely hypothetical because we know what not to be true, but hypothetically if someone were genetically gay then outlawing a genetically-defined state would be absolutely absurd and akin to saying to people that they had to collect their sweat and consume it after perspiring.

No More Religious Board Games! Anti-Christianity and Human Herbivore!

Finally, the best article on (anti) Christianity that I needed to read to reaffirm my new intentions, emerging beliefs, and values (Basically I've realized that all religions are just clever cult-worshipping myths. They're just elaborate myths, fables. Jesus isn't any different from the Hare in the tortoise and the hair or Buddha isn't any different from Prometheus (the god of fire from ancient greece). Religions are myths. They are not true. Jesus, Buddha, Allah...they never existed. That however is not condemning hope and faith. Hope and faith are very strong great things and MANY myths teach the lessons of hope, faith, discipline, etc. Religion is merely a myth. It's astonishing how BLIND so many people are in regards to how obvious it is that those figureheads truly did not exist, but they blindly go on believing...people that easily duped (i.e. devout christians) are frankly quite frightening because if they could be deluded into believing that a mythological figure like Jesus had as much evidence for existing as Paul Bunyan (see this great article on that) then...wow.

El Jesus Verdad (lmao!)

Great article. Discusses how all accounts of Jesus existing are hearsay. I think the most award-winning quote from the Great and truthful article was :

We know from history about witchcraft trials and kangaroo courts that hearsay provides neither reliable nor fair statements of evidence. We know that mythology can arise out of no good information whatsoever. We live in a world where many people believe in demons, UFOs, ghosts, or monsters, and an innumerable number of fantasies believed as fact taken from nothing but belief and hearsay. It derives from these reasons why hearsay cannot serves as good evidence, and the same reasoning must go against the claims of a historical Jesus or any other historical person.

They could seriously be deluded to committing seriously destructive acts possibly. I mean it's not "sane" to be that delusional. Additionally, people are alwasy messed up in life when they start speaking of Christianity and religion extensively (like Mel Gibson people gave him hell after his Passion of the Christ movie). Additionally, I was prosetylized pretty severely in Costa Rica a few times. To say the least, it ruined the vacation. I despise the delusional stubborness inherent to many Christians, so coming across the blog article felt SOO validating!!!!!! It felt validating because it made me realize that yes while 2.14 billion people in the world are Christians; 2.14 billion people are misled and delusional; their still exist who see through that illusion, that religion is truly merely a myth! So it felt validating probably in the same way that seeing a pink elephant in your living room that all guests deny exists and finally someone else admits that yes, they do see the pink elephant haha!! Or a more realistic analogy is maybe during a math test, everyone gets a certain answer wrong, and it's because the solution itself was inaccurate, but the teacher denies that the answer is innacurate and then you take the problem to a head of math board or something and they provide the real answer, proving that the book answer was inaccurate and everyone's "wrong answer" was in fact right. The clarity and validation I feel into seeing that someone else truly does "see the light" (and by see the "light", I mean, see the darkness in Christianity ...after all, it killed millions of people in the Crusades), is joyful.

It feels joyful to understand that finally someone else sees what I see (the author of that blog entry!) and that I can and should commence connecting with like-minded people who share similar spiritual beliefs. Just as a marathoner would feel uncomfortable around people who weigh over 300 pounds and have atrotious diets, I feel uncomfortable around Christians. Similarly, whether it be your behavior, diet, beliefs, and/or spirituality, it just feels validating to connect with people who share your similar behaviors, diets, beliefs and/or spirituality and capacity! Cool!!!!

This is major not exactly "changing point" in my life but "emerging point" of a change that's been occurring internally but hasn't had a place and time to emerge. Because for the longest time I'd known these Gross obviousl sources of untruth associated with widely-believed beliefs like Christianity, but was afraid of acknowledging them because:

• of fear of labeled as a demon-worshipper (a common fallacious argument of Christians. That if you don't believe in Christ, then you worship demons. A LUDICROUS argument. I don't believei Christ, or Demons, or Leprechauns, any more than the Pink tooth fairy eating a fig newton; they're all mytholgoical constructs!
• of fear that the cult-like warnings of christianity such as going to hell, not having salvation, being directionless, lost and confused would come true.
  But in Reality!! Confusion, directionless, and hellish condemntion, ironically, I feel is the grand result of Christianity (from personal experience and 'eye witness accounts")! haha
• just the fact that 2.14 BILLION people could be that deluded. This is the one that's scary. But then again. Tons of people do stupid things (like smoke or eat unhealthy food, which is somewhat delusional, too).

G.I. Joe Jesus



Squirrel Buddha

So again A lot of the reasons why I didn't validate my serious disbelief in Christianity was fear, the appeal to fear, appeal to the cudgel fallacious argument tactics that Christianity uses, and just atonishment with how many dumb-founded people there are! But these personal declaration is a MASSIVE vindication and personal exoneration because it means that instead of trying to "mull with" or "change" or try to see, or help, or interact with people who believe in Christianity, I can just know and deeply understand that on a spiritual level I hold completely concretely different believes from them and I will not expect to have a friendship on a spiritual level (on a belief, identity, social, behaviorial, level quite possibly friendship however!), but on a spiritual level, I deem Christianity an inferior spiritual belief simply because it represents a type of person who has not utilized their mind. Anyone who utilizes their mind will see that Christianity is just a myth and they should utilize and apply their mind to discover what ultimately brings them truth.

Kierkegaard writes, "I must find a truth that is true for me'

Very true, Soren! ;D

It makes me feel proud that while I can find a way to respect Christians, and can elicit a way to discover a respect for anyone who has belief and faith in something, I can do all that, but it does make me happy -- geuinely, deeply happy -- to say and know and validate that I hate Christianity. I hate the cult-like customs, myopic delusional methods, the appeals to fear that it utilizes, and most importantly I loathe and condemn Christainity's shadowing of many of the world's truths and leading 1/3 of the people in the world to beleive falsities, lies. I find this strong realization of mine, clear and validating because I know it resonates with my mind, my personal experiences, and it makes it easier to breathe (in life) knowing that I believe that. I think in the past, there was so much pressure (so immersed in the cult of Christianity) that it was difficult to even dissect what you genuinely believed. Nevertheless, I know I am true gentleman, I am not a demon-worshipper, I am not "going to hell", I am not any of those repurcussional traps that Christianity has set up to falsely categorize non-Christians, so I know I am none of those things, and I know that I am confident, and immensely clear, and happy, and I know that I hate Christianity! yippee!!!!!!!

Now that said. I thought it important to note that I don't have much anger at Christianity. Sure, I encountered some very brash, dangerous, and narrow-minded Christians in life, but I've had discussions about this and encountered devout Christians, people who are indiffernet to religion, people who are questioning of it, strict aethists, agnostics, etc all these different types of relationships to religon, and I'm finally realizing that I am not formulating my own view on religion but I already have deeply formulated my view on religion and have just awaited for the validation for my "equation" to emerge, so to speak. And it's thus: quite simply, I think faith, belief, good morals in life are very important; principles are essential! However, my source of those principles are what I consider safe resources, resources that are genuine and scientific and utilize reason, evidence, and are extractions of what works in a variety of areas:

1. Exercise
2. Nature
3. Emerson's Self-Reliance
4. NLP
5. Math
6. Understanding of Human Biology, Anatomy, Chemistry, Physiology
7. My books Validate Your Life, Compassionate Reservoir, and Expressing the Observation

Those are the basic "tenets and tomes" if you will of my personal creed.

There's no question about it, those 7 things, genuinely provide me with and embody IMMENSE clarity, energy, fulfillment, belief, trust, liberation, happiness, and success. I have so much clarity from those 7 things, that I can literally mentally run circles, thousands of circles ;), around Christians and people who have simply chosen to not utilize their mind. (Yes, while I respect Christians for setting up anchors to an idol figurine and associate hope, or faith, or penitence or whatever they want to it, I ultimately consider a devout Christian someone who hasn't fully utilized their cognitive 8-pound muscle that rests in their cranium. However, I do want to be clear on the distinction between :

1. valuing and respecting someone who has engaged the capacity to believe and follow a set of principles and rules (albeit an unintelligent set of believes)
2. someone whom has fully learned to utilize their mind on spiritual level

I'm saying that Christians have 1, but lack 2, meaning that I respect them more than a person who has neither 1 nor 2. However, I'll connect with a person who has both 1 and 2 with MUCH more respect than a Christian, obviously!

I've learned that religion (for me at least) not only does not bring clarity, peace, and happiness, but out of all the times in my life where I've studied and/or practiced a major religion I've experienced the opposite. I've experienced obfuscation, distraught, and distress. For ME Exercise, nature, Math, and Science are the ultimate forms of faith, clarity, fulfillment. I know that as truth. And it feels quite dandy understanding that about myself!!

Steve Pavlina's Brilliant #3 step for graduating from Christianity I resonated with SOooo strongly. Why? Because I'd done part of that. I picked up a Gideon's (isn't it clever that GIDEON is also the acronym for Global Infectious Disease & Epidemiology Network) LOL!! And I started in Genesis and then Exodus, etc. And I was like "Isn't it a little ridiculous that these people (these fictional characters in the Bible) live to be 800, 900 years? In the cult-worshipping-centers...erm I mean Christian Churches you don't hear priests blabbing about your 792nd birthday coming up "like the people in the Bible", right? No, of course not, because what goes on in Churches is part "semi-legitimate" anchoring of good values to words like "Jesus" and such and a lot cult-tactic. Churches leave out the utterly ridiculous stuff that's in the Bible. And the fact that so few Christians have actualy "read their textbook", read the Bible, is a testament, if you will, to their delusional and lost state! :D

"If you’re going to call yourself a Christian, then at the very least, you should read the entire Bible cover to cover. Wouldn’t you agree? After all, it’s touted as the most important work of your entire faith. If you’d rather watch TV than finish reading the Bible, perhaps you aren’t cut out to be a Christian. Don’t worry — my blog will still be here in a few years when you’re done." -- From Steve's Blog

Oh my god I love this guy!! That's BRILLIANT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! :D

Whenever I run into another brainwashed Christian, whose haranguing me for being a religious miscreant or some other absurdity, I now have the option of just labeling him as a delusionally obdurate and clouded person or grilling him on the Bible, the very text that he/she will likely know so little about!!! :D After all, the catch is, that upon reading the Bible cover to cover, any 100-IQ, average-minded individual or more intellient would realize that Christianity is just a mythology and the Bible, simply a long Wayyyy overrated, overtalked about fable (the Bible also serves as the backbone for the cult tactics utilized in Christianity as well!). Damn this is a liberating blog entry and era of vindication in my life! :D

I'm just going to go ahead and respond to a few VERY eloquent, VERY lucid, very reassuring, and joy-inducing paragraphs of validation I read on Steve's awesome site:

Now if you actually attempt this, it’s a safe bet that you’ll be bored to tears.

LMAO!! Exactly!! Genesis and Exodus were seriously some of the most Boring reads possible. And it's clear how the monotony and horrendously boring scripture of hte Bible was purposely meant to make it unbearably difficult to read and long, because a "core text" unread is more easily the source of delusion and brainwashing. And it's this aim, how the Bible was seriously literally engineered for cult, brainwashing, that angers me. But I digress and find salvation and humor in Steve's awesome and authentically true analysis!

The vast majority of the Bible’s content is very, very dull. It’s filled with long-winded genealogies and badly written stories. There’s a lot of aimless wandering in the desert. Very little of the Bible’s content is likely to be relevant or interesting to you. The good parts are few and far between. It’s an ideal cure for insomnia.

LMAO!! So true!! Go steve pavlina blogger friend!!

If you somehow manage to read the whole thing (an act that requires significant persistence), you’ll be left wondering what the big deal is. You’ll probably wish you’d spent that time reading something more interesting or educational.

The Bible is simply not a very interesting or useful book. Aside from the general dullness, it’s also filled with internal contradictions. This is intentional. You aren’t supposed to be able to make sense of it or discover profound truths on every page. The book is designed and marketed as a mystical work, such that you’re beholden to the Church as your interpreter.

Yikes! And that's true. I remember seeing a costa rican friend studying the Bible. The way he studied it, it was almost like he was trying to read a book but had forgotten how to read. He was always flipping pages and circulating ideas, and trying to "figure it out". I think that reaction is normal because there's absolutely NOTHING to figure out! The Bible is the biggest marketing scam on the planet!! Additionally, it's extremely circumventing. DELIBERATELY CIRCUMVENTING I think is the word of the day of the Bible so that it draws you into the church to "figure it out" (but remember there's nothing to figure out, except how to give alms out of your pocketbook into the church) lmoa!! scary and true. Truth is stranger (and scarier) than fiction. For Christians, this truth may hurt at first, but ultimately, understand the religion for what it is , an over-inflated, over-marketted, hyped up mythological marketing cult sham, it will be liberating to know that later on from a personal validity point of view!

Okay...great. So I know all of the above to be True. 100% true. I no longer fear the false cult-repurcussions and appeals to fear of firmly being a non-believer and firmly seeing Christianity as very poorly worded, incredibly hollow, and boring "myth" utilized for brainwashing. Great. But what do I do about the anger of so many people believing that and having been raised with that brainwashing and having done communion and then during my teens having wasted soooooo much time actually partially taking the time to question and maybe on-off believing in christianity?! What do I do about the anger of having been duped into thinking that for so long?? Well, I guess my exoneration from the anger arrives in teh form of the joy I feel in knowing that I'm liberated from the sham of Christianity and validate the future experience and joy of connecting with like-minded intelligent people like Steve Pavlina and others who share like-minded expansive and lucid spiritual vistas!

Steve writes "#4 Assess What You've Gained".

I think that is important especially for overcoming the anger of having been deluded for a good decade into partially believing Christianity. What did I gain from Christianity?? hhmm hhmm hhmm . Actually I don't have to think about it that much. I know very quickly what I gained:

1. Anchoring Awareness. I learned the power of anchors. A preacher can sit up on a pedastal and anchor the emotional states of "belief, hope", "discipline", "salvation from your problems" to a little t-shaped figurine and a five-lettered word beginning J. That's NLP at work, and that, mis amigos, is simply auditory and visual anchoring! The preacher gets people in this state of "respect", most people dress up for church, after all, and then all these anchors get fired off. So from any religion the anchoring done to the purely cognitive idea, the purely cognitive picture representation of a peaceful Buddha, or a compassionate Jesus, or an all-seeing Allah or something ARE great anchors to draw up. But all you're doing is mentally recalling those manufactured images, which is fine, because those peaceful, clear, states are poweful and good to be able to tap into any way that you can.
   
2. How a Cult Operates Awareness. The other thing I gained from Christianity is awareness how a cult operates. This knowledge is useful to 1)prevent getting trapped in a cult again and keeping yourself free with rational-minded intelligent people and 2)
   

Disconnecting from the "all non-christians are evil" mentality is huge. I

"If you study a lot of different belief systems as I have, you’ll learn that no one has a monopoly on your soul. All of these belief systems are man-made and flawed. Some are driven by powerful marketing machines. Whether you subscribe to any of them or not is of little concern to the rest of the universe."

I really like that one: "No one has a monopoly on your soul". So incredibly true and well-phrased! In a way, I did a lot of what Steve did. About 9 years ago, during my Junior year of highschool after I had this immense awakening and calling to lifecoaching, I spent hours and hours day after day for months in a local Barnes and Nobles perusing every religious tome, book, or encyclopedia (yes their are Eastern and Western religion actual encyclopedias). I studied religion simply like learning about the tenets and customs of ancient civilizations. The eight fold path and 4 noble truths of Buddhism, the very cool tonal scale of scientology, the commandments and proverbs of christianity, the 5 pillars of islam, the three deities Brahma, Vishnu, and Shiva, of the polytheistic religion, Hinduism, as well concepts such as Boddhisattva and Maya (illusion). I discovered there's an incredible amount of "junk" woven into religions! Each religion seemed to have this all-powerful, omniscient, omnipresent, omnipotent deity that they just called different names (a Buddha, an Allah, a Jesus, a Kali) that were all basically the same thing and yet each religion vehemently and vicerally heralded their own "nickname" of thise all powerful force as the best and that all other "nicknames" were blasphemy. Additionally, each of these tenets or truths of the religion had a lot of similarities. The 8 fold path and 4 noble truths of Buddhism, for example were almost identical to the 10 commandments of Christianity. I thought, "Man! Did the creators of these religion all meet in a "Create Your Religion" club thousands of years ago, brainstorm similar ideas and all use their own marketing scheme?!" It certainly seemed that way. So I put enormous hours of study (probably close to 150-200 hours) into learning that religions are kind of like a board games! In monolopy or Chutes and Ladders for instance, there's always:

• an end (the Finish Line in Monopoly or Chutes and ladders that you have to get your piece to, or heaven for Christianity, Nirvana (Buddhism), or Moksha, "Exoneration from a cycle of suffering" (Hinduism)
• there's negative consequences for certain actions like "Going to Jail" (monopoly), falling down a Chute (Chutes and Ladders), Sinning or going to Hell (Christianity), Samsara's Cycle of Suffering (Buddhism)
• then there's weird little things that happen in the game: "Like buying houses or hotels" (monopoly), "getting a wild card" in Crazy 8s, Communion in Christianity, experiencing Meditation (Buddhism), Focusing on Rama and Sita (to made-up mythological characters of Hinduism).

One of the reasons why sharing this analysis become so uplifting to me was this exchange I had with a woman I met through one of those cheesy dating services. I had met quite a few women on it and non of them matched up to what we were each looking for. So when I found this one woman and we clicked it was exciting. She had majored in psychology; we were the same age; we were looking for identical qualities NOT in a relationship and IN a relationship (in other words, we both wanted and did not want the exact same things!), physically she was decently attractive, and we had a meaningful exchange. So it seemed like on our levels of capacity (I had a passion for and history of personal study with psychology a lot, too), belief, and maybe even identity, we clicked! It was exciting and it felt romantic. However, then I discovered that she was a Christian and that "her family was strict Christians" which meant that dating a non-Christian was impossible for her and she cut off the relationship like that!! My first reaction was astounded ridicule: Really?! This religion had really infected her so much that she couldnt' see that a potentially could match for experimenting with a meaningful relatinoship wasn't an option? It was just so incredibly illogical! My second reaction was frustration. I was frustrated that we seemed to connect on so many levels except spirituality and her spiritual level "wrote off" all the other parrallels! My third and final reaction was that of relief. I realized that if this woman was as close-minded as not being able to connect

So religions were just a silly board game with funny names and markers and a made-up "finish line" all heavily-marketted as this "spiritual necessity". Was about to take a board game seriously? So seriously that I would actually exclude people who didn't play my board game? In a sense, a Christian convening and associating with only Christians and frowning on non-Christians or Buddhists frowning on non-Buddhists is about as ridiculous as you chastising and looking down on non-Monopoly players or "non-Crazy 8s" or "non-Chutes & Ladders" players!! The whole reality of religion was so moronically peurile and pathetically manipulative and of all "SILLY" -- religion is so righeously absurdly silly -- that taking it seriously wasn't an option for me. I didn't have the qualifications of stupidity to continue to take any of these pre-ordained religions seriously. I wasn't stupid enough to believe in any of these religions! Now, it's VERY important to note that having a personal set of hand-crafted principles, beliefs and tenets is very uplifting and nourishing and something great to use as a guide in life. But hand-crafting your and structuring your own set of beliefs and principles is completely different than subscribing to these pre-packaged overly-spiritualized board games of religion. I think the best analogy is religion is like buying those pre-packaged frozen food meals that include the veggie, the meat, and the desert all in little microwaveable shrink-wrapped trays and eating the EXACT same meal for breakfast. lunch, and dinner for the rest of your life. What I encourage of cultivating your own set of principles and personal beliefs to guide and structure your life, is like gathering up fresh fruits and vegetables, maybe some fish, a bunch of spices, cutting, and cooking your own 3-course meal everytime you need nourishment. The result of cultivating your own set of beliefs and principles is that you get a much more nourishing, fulfilling, uplifting, and more "tasty" life! :D


Anyways. THIS Blog is FANTASTIC. OMG I love it!! From the Article on How humans are more anatomically designed as herbivores to this great article on moving beyond the nuisance of Christianity. It's a fantastic blog. I highly recommend it.

I don't think ANY post on these theme of liberating yourself from religion could be complete without Mentioned Richard Dawkins. Read Richard Dawkins. I just finished his book The God Delusion and hearing such a massively well-scholared intelligent dissection of religion and the commitment to understanding truth restored my faith in humanity and mankind.

Some notes on Dawkins's work.

1. Richawrd Dawkins. (anti-religion YAY!) To cap it all, Adam, the supposed perpetrator of
   the original sin, never existed in the first place: an awkward fact -
   excusably unknown to Paul but presumably known to an omnis-
   cient God (and Jesus, if you believe he was God?) - which
   fundamentally undermines the premise of the whole tortuously
   nasty theory. Oh, but of course, the story of Adam and Eve was
   only ever symbolic, wasn't it? Symbolic? So, in order to impress
   himself, Jesus had himself tortured and executed, in vicarious
   punishment for a symbolic sin committed by a non-existent
   individual? As I said, barking mad, as well as viciously unpleasant.
2. George Carlin (in Richard Dawkins Book God Delusion). "Religion has actually convinced people that there's an invisible
   man - living in the sky - who watches everything you do, every
   minute of every day. And the invisible man has a special list of ten
   things he does not want you to do. And if you do any of these ten
   things, he has a special place, full of fire and smoke and burning
   and torture and anguish, where he will send you to live and suffer
   and burn and choke and scream and cry forever and ever 'til the
   end of time . . . But He loves you!" (lmao. great ridicule).
3. GREAT Atheist Commandments (BEST!!)
1. • Do not do to others what you would not want them to do to
   you.
   • In all things, strive to cause no harm.
   • Treat your fellow human beings, your fellow living things, and
   the world in general with love, honesty, faithfulness and
   respect.
   • Do not overlook evil or shrink from administering justice, but
   always be ready to forgive wrongdoing freely admitted and
   honestly regretted.
   • Live life with a sense of joy and wonder.
   • Always seek to be learning something new.
   • Test all things; always check your ideas against the facts, and
   be ready to discard even a cherished belief if it does not
   conform to them.
   264 THR GOD DELUSION
   • Never seek to censor or cut yourself off from dissent; always
   respect the right of others to disagree with you.
   • Form independent opinions on the basis of your own reason
   and experience; do not allow yourself to be led blindly by
   others.
   • Question everything.
   
4. Dawkins' Atheist commandments GREAT!
   
1. • Enjoy your own sex life (so long as it damages nobody else)
   and leave others to enjoy theirs in private whatever their
   • inclinations, which are none of your business.
   • Do not discriminate or oppress on the basis of sex, race or (as
   far as possible) species.
   • Do not indoctrinate your children. Teach them how to think
   for themselves, how to evaluate evidence, and how to disagree
   with you.
   • Value the future on a timescale longer than your own.
5. Alfred Hitchcock (from Richard Dawkins) "It is said that Alfred Hitchcock, the great cinematic
   specialist in the art of frightening people, was once driving through
   Switzerland when he suddenly pointed out of the car window and
   said, 'That is the most frightening sight I have ever seen.' It was a
   priest in conversation with a little boy, his hand on the boy's
   shoulder. Hitchcock leaned out of the car window and shouted,
   'Run, little boy! Run for your life!' "
6. Richard Dawkins -- "Religion has at one time or another been thought to fill four
   main roles in human life: explanation, exhortation, consolation and
   inspiration." (Science now completely Explains life. Religion provides no moral bearing on how to live; terrible group rapes and outdated commandments in religion. This is great because it shows that religion TRULY is obsolete!! A need for defining our own morality, however, IS VERY necessary and VERY present and that's why personal principles are essential!)....
7. Richard Dawkins -- Consolation, according to the Shorter Oxford Dictionary, is the
   alleviation of sorrow or mental distress. I shall divide consolation
   into two types.
   1. Direct physical consolation. A man stuck for the night on a
   bare mountain may find comfort in a large, warm St Bernard
   dog, not forgetting, of course, the brandy barrel around its
   neck. A weeping child may be consoled by the embrace of
   strong arms wrapped around her and reassuring words
   whispered in her ear.
   2. Consolation by discovery of a previously unappreciated fact,
   or a previously undiscovered way of looking at existing
   facts. A woman whose husband has been killed in war may be
   consoled by the discovery that she is pregnant by him, or that
   he died a hero.
8. (This is VERY interesting because to me, science, math, and the awe and mystery of mathematical precision and scientific technology found installed in Nature, in cellular technology, in science is the most inspiring. Again, this is MASSIVELY validating because for me the only thing religion has brought was the ANTI-THESIS OF CONSOLATION. Religion brought me being prosyletized in costa rica, religion brought me fear of fiery pits, screaming irate peope ranting things about trinities...religion brought discord and has never brought consolation! Why is that so many homeless people are connected with churhces? Because churches attract and manufuacture lost people! Science, in contrast, brought me deep truthful consolation. Science is something I can honestly absorb. I can pour over the "tenets" of the cellular respiration or the "tomes" of euclidian geometry and photosynthesis. Science and math are my source of explanation and consolation, and inspiration. And for exhoration, I combine and use a combination of science, logic, and my own principles! Seeing how much WELL-written (dawkins') material there is on anti-religion and how little well-written material on religion these days, restores my faith in humanity and mankind! :D
   
9. Carl Sagan (Science as truth!) -- "Not explaining science
   seems to me perverse. When you're in love, you want to tell the
   world. This book is a personal statement, reflecting my lifelong love
   affair with science."

Getting And Staying Organized with UMSD

Basically this specific part is messy and infected with a lot of David Allen's GTD muck. Frankly GTD is too bloated of an organizational system; you take on a lot of crap you don't need if you use it. It has some great concepts but as a whole the system sucks. So I'm on the process of writing up details of my own system. For computers, it basically uses all online documents, almost all documents on hard drives are backups. It consolidates consolidates consolidates!! All like files. It gets all your outcome project files in one spot. My system really works, and it goes where GTD failed to go and takes you to place where you end up just jotting stuff down you need to do and doing it instead of all this WF, M-S (when the frickin hell am I ever going to look at a maybe-someday list to see what I maybe someday will do? That list is a bunch of crap), crap it just has a simple todos projects and you don't need seperate folders for project,s that's like kids r' us. I have one online file accessible from my phone, laptop, or desktoop that has things to do and if it's complex, an outline of how to accomplish it all in THE SAME ONE FILE. The file is organized into "computer" "videos" "books" projects because all outside tasks I keep on a ZenBe lists. So yeah, basically what i wrote last year is practically 80% obsolete and the new organizational system is much clearer, sharper, and most important -- SIMPLER!

NLP Associated/Dissociated State

“A state is our way of being in any moment It comes from our physiology.
thinking and emotions, and is greater than the sum of its parts. We
experience states from the inside, but they have external markers that can
be measured from the outside, like a particular frequency of brain waves,
pulse rate, etc. But none of these can tell you what it is like to feel angry
or to be in love. “
Oconnor.
SOOOO TRue. so awesome!!! OMG so helpful.

My baseline state changed in 00 (after meeting the devil worshipper bitch maya). Before I had different energy level, different representational system. My newer state became more chaotic. I held different values; predominant emotion of anger or so! I am blue energy (knowing what’s up with people emotionally, highly emotionally, easily overwhelmed a bit) so definitely good to stay connected with personal history, journals, etc!

GREAT general rule. Experience pleasant memories in associated experience to get the most out of them, and unpleasant memories in dissociated state to avoid bad/unpleasant feelings and to avoid getting overwhelmed. COOL. This is like a protector or integrater. If you’re in life and feel overwhelmed,just pop into dissociated state! If you’re doing something and you realize “hey, this experience rocks!” pop into an associated state to soak it up and get all the good emotions to generate a more uplifted state!

The Human Race as Rogue

The human race is vagrant. It's designed to be vagrant. We originated in Kenya. We've traveled, we've roamed. We're itinerant. Vagrancy shouldn't have a negative connotation. And neither should rogue - someone without a master, without consistent income, without land, without legitimate trade, but is healthy. A rogue can sound like freedom. The human race by nature is evolving rogue.

We're moving more and more into transitioning towards alternative habitation other than earth! ARTICLE . People on Maldives are planning to relocate due to rising sea levels from global warming Already!!!!

The Endeavor LAUNCHED? DAY and successfully will deploy a home-warming kit hehe on the space station, adding an exercise room, bathroom, kitchenette.

Religion, mostly Christianity, if for people who fail to use deduction and logical reasoning. The entire composition of Christianity is circular arguments. Just talk to one of those bumbling jesus-freak fanatics. He dies for my sins and he said so in the bible, therefore I owe it to him". Utter crap. You might as well make the argument: "The sky is purple, it says so in this made-up story book that I'll say is true, therefore I know the sky is purple." Christianity is founded and perpetuated upon perverse and non-existant logic. lol

POP Suite Part 4: Electronic Organization and "Brain Trust" Part 2

If there's one thing I have to say about electronic organization, it's this: close open loops FAST! I've surfed the net many a time and accumulated 8 open windows, and over 30 tabs in less than an hour. That's a lot to sort through. Just develop the habit of executing lightning-fast decisions to quickly archive, capture, delete, discard, dismiss, are do things that catch your interest. In fact, the general rule of thumb should be "nothing should catch your interest for too long!"

Okay, I speak a lot about soft-copy containers. Do that, that's great. I believe you should start extremely low-level so you develop patterns and experience how a structured GTD program could expedite stuff you already do. If you just jump into a program, you'll likely never learn good core GTD practices. However, after working with .txt files for awhile, the program I recommend jumping into is "Things". It's exceptional and amazing; possessing the fluidity of omnifocus but without omnifocus's cluttered, superfluous "junk" options. You'll use just about every feature in the program. The hotkeys for tags and the unstructured fluid concept of tags makes adding tasks seamless and fun. Additionally the fact that each task as a max of only 4 highly useable components (name, tags, notes, due date) makes this app intuitive and simple. No need to go into an in-depth explanation of how it works. A video demo has already been done.

A solid GTD must be simple, intuitive, and not add to clutter in your life! MANY GTD apps actually increase clutter because of the multiple annoying, superfluous, patheticall useles check boxes and extra options for each tasks (Omnifocus does the extra clutter method perfect, so don't use that). Things has the speed and extensibility to get a LOT organized quickly but it still has all the geeky awesome GTD features to shift around tasks automatically and structure them via tags. If you've used mailtags, you'll feel at home with Things, but it's far better than Mailtags. It's definitely an exceptional program where you aren't locked into "contexts" but have the freedom to tag based on context or whatever you choose. While omnifocus is rigid and annoying, Things offers dynamic flexibility with tags. I tried Actiontastic, Omnifocus, and others, and this definitely takes the entire cake. Nothing is better than Devonthink for file structuring and truly limitless database organization of todos, but nothing is better than things for Task management. Together you'll have the most potent gtd system possible. But Actiontastic is great, simple, and intuitive (and free) as well.

But starting off low-tech is best! It may be tedious, but you'll discover patterns and trends of how you structure them enabling you to fully customize a GTD app later on so it works for you instead of you working for it. One example is "watcings", "listenings", and "readings". No GTD app has those categories (yet, I may try to craft one!) and I wouldn't have had awareness that I like to structure things that way without that knowledge gained from doing low-tech GTD. You learn very useful knick-knacks of your own organizational sysytem very quickly from doing low-tech first.

SOFT-COPY CONTAINERS
Note: You'll notice all my references are to mac software. I don't even bother to describe organizational techniques for non-mac software because frankly, if you aren't using a mac already for organization, you'll be so far behind the game, any number of organizational tips couldn't possibly help you. If you want to get and stay organized, get a mac!

First off, one thing I repeatedly see with people is them saving everything. Merlin has a brilliant metaphor on this: "people save every peanut shell they use" after eating the peanut. Utterly absurd. This postmodern approach slaughters the previous modernist approach of just universally saving everything. Categorizing and saving everything like some ancient librarian is so appalling. It's not funny, it's an appaling waste of time and poor efficiency!

With Smart folders that auto-archive and sort everythign for you, put time into scrips or smart folders if you want folders, instead of acting like some ridiculous advocate for the Dewey decimal system!


The Core of Your Capturing System -- 4 Soft-Copy Text Files

~ /DESKTOP/@INBOX/

~/DESKTOP/@IDEAS.TXT

~/DESKTOP/@TASKS.TXT

~/DESKTOP/@YEARIN.TXT

The Other Stuff

~/DESKTOP/@BLOGS.TXT

~/DESKTOP/@PROJECTS.txt

~/DESKTOP/REF (ALIAS WITH ORIGINAL IN
~/REFERENCE)
*~/DESKTOP/MS.TXT

~/DESKTOP/SENDTOPAPER/

~/WORKSPACE1

~/WORKSPACE2

~/WORKSPACE3_BU

~/REFERENCE

~/DESKTOP/B_READ/

~/DESKTOP/B_WATCH/

~/DESKTOP/B_LISTEN/

~/DESKTOP/B_ACQUIRE/

XOR

~/DESKTOP/MEDIA/

~/DESKTOP/MEDIA/A

~/DESKTOP/MEDIA/B

~/DESKTOP/MEDIA/C

~/DESKTOP/MEDIA/ZACQUIRE

The logic behind this:
1. Always use .txt files. Why? Because you can manipulate those and do all kinds of fun stuff with quicksilver such as prepend and append ideas on the fly to them without even opening the file! How do you do that? Launch QS. Queue up the file, hit tab, queue up append text to, hit tab, start typing the text you want to add, hit return. Voila!
2. On the prepending letters and characters to maintain desktop consistency. I use
@
before all files I want to show up ALWAYS on the right hand side of hte desktop. Organize by name and you have the instant consistantly reliable system. "B_" I prepend for files and folders I always want after the "
@
" main files. You can substitue those for whatever variable you please, but the purpose, again, is to maintain consistecy on the desktop so the files "appear" frozen in place and are always accessible when you need them. Think of your desktop workflow like an engine, you can't have random "debris" floating around on the desktop or files mixed around or else the components with crank, clash, and you'll get confused. I can't stress how important it is to maintain maximum consistency on the desktop. Nothing should be stored on it except the above files. In fact, I'd recommend going as far as changing the permissions to the desktop so only root could change or move files on it! (Use chown and chgrp in terminal to do this). That desktop needs to have pristine consistency to it! Another key reminder: ALWAYS remember to ensure programs like Limewire or Safari don't download files to your desktop which destroys desktop consistency. Another huge reason why i'm bing such a massive stickler about desktop consitency is you'll write a lot of scripts that access those files and if they move or change their name, the the scripts will hit an error-bump, and not run.

~/DESKTOP/@PROJECTS.TXT

~/DESKTOP/@IDEAS.TXT

~/DESKTOP/@TASKS.TXT

~/DESKTOP/@YEARIN.TXT

.txt and .rtf

A decidingly big factor. Because a GREAT system is to use quicksilver's "append to file" action so that you can just call aIDEAS or aTASKS and append a bit of text. And then at the end of the day, simply go through and sort all the "todos" or "ideas" you appended!!! Problems with this: Quicksilver doesn't correctly append text to .rtf files and if the file is open it doesn't append text. If there's ways around that, that would be great!

One thing that's still extremely fuzzy is projects and project support. On this area one thing that shines is Omnifocus. The ability to siphon out available (meaning if a task requires Step 1 THEN and only then STep 2, Step 2 would not show up as an avaialble actionable) has it's value. But again, that's trumped by the lack of compatibility of the application. What if I want to update a task and put that on my iPhone instantly? You can 't do that with productivity apps, but you can with these simple text file methods.

So projects and project support. You could collect all projects on a master project's list and then underneath that list, capture the steps and planning to such a project in other places. But before you know all the necessary future steps to a project, you've got do some form of planning, it could just be a quick mental visualizing or a color-coded mind map, but anytime you envision future steps, that prescient planning has to get captured somewhere. The problem with capturing project notes in with Tasks.txt is that the Tasks.txt has to be sacred, only containing tasks that you WILL do. The vitality of keeping that list sanctified creates massive clarity alone. You don't want to clutter that list with non-actionable planning and brainstorming. So all the planning for a task should be listed under the project name under the context and that that project name should just be listed on a Projects.txt.

Treat Projects.txt like you treat Tasks.txt, with sanctified revere. Don't throw projects on that list that you know are not projects. You could optionally create a seperate MProjects context on the
@ Ideas list, but then doing two types of searches (projects and
@Contexts) would stymie the flow of idea to incoming, to ideas.txt to tasks.txt to getting it done. The flow of ideas is left to right and basically if you've moved something from INcoming notes to Ideas.txt and it's survived both of those two filters, it's probably safe to add it to projects.txt or tasks.txt respectively. I got that idea from organizing my kitchen. I had all of this stock bulk food (10 pounds of sugar, plates I never used unless guests came over, extra pasta, etc.) that I only needed to access when what I was eating ran out. So I consolidated all my "storage food" in one area. And only have 1-3 meals at most and 1-2 frequently accessed food items (like cereal) accessible in my "kitchen workspace". Do the same thing with your tasks. Projects and tasks that are unclear or muddied stay in Incoming notes. If they take more form, add them to Ideas.txt and if they become absolutely crisp add them to your tasks component where they will get done, just like anything in my "active space" component of the kitchen "gets eaten"! This way of siphoning the amount of work (or food) so that you only observe bite-sized chunks of it makes you feel less overwhelmed, more lucid, and simply more productive in getting them accomplished.

So you say, "sure I have 5 items on my task.txt list" and it feels good to remove those, and have a clean list, but then I'll just drag over more tasks from ideas.txt. Exactly! But in dragging those over, you can mull over which ones are top priority so that you by actually clearing off you "tasks.txt" list you've done the most relevant tasks. This removes the need for complex prioritzation systems and flagging. Those are idiotic. You're in a gtd app and you spend an hour deciding if your a project on your projets list is low or very low importance? That's unnecessary. And who really always does their highest priority task first and works there way down? All priorities do is provide scope of hte responsibilities and urgency inherent with each task or project. Dragging the highly urgent or necessary tasks from ideast.txt to tasks.txt does just that. This siphoning process of migrating small chunks of high-priority tasks into tasks.txt works great because then whenever you're in "do mode" you just glance at that one file to see all the top-priority, most relevant, most urgent tasks. The problem with prioritization flagging is when you're in "do mode" you still see all these low priority tasks muddled in with higher priority ones and your productivity stalls. The transferring to tasks.txt works because of its simplicity, modularity, and encapsulation of the tasks you want to focus on.

Having such high-threshold filtering protocols for your tasks or projects ensures that 1)you've thoroughly scrutinized all details of a task or project before committing to its inherent actionables and intermediary steps and 2)that you don't clutter your projects and tasks files with junk or things that would lead you astray. Just stamping an idea on a the tasks list should be considered blasphemy in productivity. Ideas go into incoming notes, and then ideas.txt. Unless something has absolute 100% certainty of being accomplished do you add to your projects.txt or tasks.txt. Sticking to that sophisticated level of filtering makes projects.txt and tasks.txt encompass all of your commitments. That's huge. If those files ever get muddied with things you "might want to do" or things that "might be cool" or things that "I'm ruminating about", your crisp, clean two document list of "commitments" will crumble. I don't want to launch off into too much of a philosophical rant here (okay, maybe a part of me does), but commitment embodies a huge concept including obligations, responsibilities, punctuality, and performance. One you "commit" to something -- all those factors -- what am I obligated to do? What responsibilities will I have and others have (waiting fors)? How will I complete said commitment on time and how can most efficiently completely accomplish said commitment -- pop up on the horizon. If you don't commit to something (if it doesn't pop up on your projects or tasks.txt list) all of those commitment factors remain dormant and irrelevant. Additionally, just think of how much more efficiently and how much more of a quality completion you'll have when you only have say 3-5 commitment projects and 5-10 commitment tasks! You'll do them with more focus and completion because you'll understand and absorb them as "commitments", embracing all the inherent responsibility, punctuality, obligatory, and performance factors intertwined with a commitment.

After having countless lists of tasks and todos marred and blemished by quasi-tasks or those "hhmmm...maybe..." projects and the amount of mental clutter that creates, I can't begin to describe the productivity increase and mental liberation of having a well-editted, clear, clean container for all projects and tasks.

First step is to Make a catalog of all the Waiting-Fors
Kinds of Waiting Fors
Yahoo! Answers
Forum Subscriptions and Questions
Specific Email Action-Related Waiting Fors
Important (non-ACtion-Related) emails that you just want or expect A response from

WF

With emails you're waiting on, forums you've posted to, or updates you want, the web, email, and computer work alone creates a huge demand for "waiting fors". This is in addition to, of course, the typical waiting fors of post mail, phone calls, and other means of communication.

Waiting Fors, again, have their own "context" and this is communication. ANY Waiting for you EVER encounter will always occur within a browser, a phone device, a mailbox (electronic or physical), or in person, but that's it. Phone Device Waiting fors go in WF.txt (or in your phone Favorites), but

Bookmarks

In regards to web surfing, there should be two distinct "piles" of sites that you "keep", "archive", "bookmark" or "store and reference" in anyway: frequently-loaded, unfrequently-loaded. For me, personally, when I'm surfing and am time crunched I can collect 10-20 articles, tidbits, items that I'll want to read and checkout for amusement or work when I have time. However, after I read those, will I want to refer to them again? About 90% of the articles I read I won't ever reread. Therefore, it makes sense to store that "one-time read only" collection it's own pile. What definese "pile" for web browsing? This could be anything from bookmark folder in safari or a folder on the desktop, but choose one so you don't have readings scattered all over your browser AND desktop. Optionally, you can prioritze those collected "one-read only" bookmarks in A,B,C priorities (c=skim, b=skim+, a=read thoroughly).

Next the freqeuntly-accessed. These links are ones that you'll frequently refer to. I'd recommend categorizing them into categories based on project or kind. Something like:
Forums
Finances
WebDevelopment
VeryCool (for readings that made the demanding "cut list" of something you might read again)
VeryFunny (same as above buy amusing)
Chess

All of those should be in the Folder FA (Frequently Accessed)
And then you have an UFA (unfrequently accessed) as a dump folder for any bookmarks you'll want to peruse. That's your "inbox" for websites. That's what's so unique about web surfing, you need an "inbox" for any site you want to process! It's true! It's important to develop a method for organizationally processing sites of interest with thoroughness.

Finally, the "everyday links". Simply put those on your bookmark toolbar. For me, they include social-networking sites (facebook), financial bank link, a few forums I frequently visit, and the like.

RSS

With notifiers you could potentially have newsflashes of articles posted up within 5 minutes of current news flashing accross your screen nonstop. While that might be a VERY cool expeirement to see the rapid communication of news, articles, and technology, set 1 or 2 modes for yourself of RSS notifications. 1 Should be for only priority notes or emergencies, 1 could be for all inbox, and then 3 could be for just any update of all feeds you have (which would be nuts)

Downloads

This encompasses a larger category than you'd think. When you think about it. You download files from emails, safari, limewire, and itunes (audio and video purchases as well as free podcast subscriptions). That covers a LOT of inflow of "stuff" and you have to keep track of not only what's currently getting downloaded, what has finished downloading, but additionally items you need to acquire and still have to find the right links to start downloading them. Clearly, downloads presents a large component of computer-based productivity. There exist numerous programs that download and track download files for you, but, again, like other GTD apps, those have modularity limitations. All downloads should be directed to
~ /DESKTOP/INBOX/ or
~/DOWNLOADS. Although it's best to store downloads in inbox for consoidating sake. That can get tricky if, for exampl,e you're downloading 7 huge files that take days and then you all of a sudden have 7 things "stuck" in your inbox. Therefore I'd store all downloads in
~/downlaods. And, although this may be difficult, write a script to automatically transfer finished downloads to your
~/DESKTOP/INBOX/ folder or just manually dump finished downloads in your INBOX/ folder.

Oh and let me assure you. It's almost certain my gtd management system will get tweaked (in the next month, year, or day!). Right now I'm loving the
"Text files+Devonthink+Things" Combo.

POP Suite Part 4: Electronic Organization and "Brain Trust" Part 1

Welcome back to the Productivity and Organizational Progress (POP) Suite. Today we're talking about electronic organization.

We're jumping straight to the nitty gritty here. In today's age, "paper-based organization" is an incredibly small percentage of the organization management we conduct; mostly all of it is electronic.

I think the best first step in structuring and organizing your electronic management first starts with "contexts" of electronic. By "context" in e-management we do not mean "store", "house", "office", etc, but rather applications! Just capture all your contexts for these types of information

Rss Feeds
Email
Web Bookmarks
New Notes
New Tasks
Projects
Reference Files

With the plethora of freeware, shareware, and quality commercial ware it's far too easy to slip into the time-consuming trap of just "application hopping". Where you download a new Gtd app or Rss reader about every month and jump around from app to app and waste a lot of your time migrating and reconfiguring preferences. Not a good usage of time! And worse, application-hopping creates a general sense of disorder and incompleteness. Remember, the backbone of Gtd revolves around having a capturing system that your brain actually trusts (trusts enough to stop repeatedly reminding you to get milk and bread at the grocery store, when you're nowhere near a grocer store). So if you application hop, that cognitive trust will deteriorate. In a way, your brain and your thought-collection system works a lot like credit bureaus and length of history! The longer length of history you have with credit, the better the credit score; the longer length of history with effective idea capturing and processing within a given program, the better the "brain trust" with that system.

There's two approaches to dealing with those above forms of information: one app per media type or a conglomerate program (like devonthink). I've been experimenting with (yes I'm still building up "brain trust")

Rss Feeds -- NetNewsWire (allows archived clippings, online syncing, great management tools)
Email -- mail.app (exceptional)
Web Bookmarks -- (VERY tricky category because of the voluminous amounts od data a short web surf can accumulate; using Devonthink, combined with many safari folders, or simply dragging links to a desktop folder management system all work, but using only one of those works works better than multiple)
New Notes -- text files or a preferred gtd app (1 of the 100s out there)
New Tasks -- "
Projects -- "
Reference Files -- Devonthink and/or finder

Can you think of any other forms of collection data that recquire certain applications?

How about actual "doing aplications" for

Spreadsheets -- numbers.app
Powerpoints -- keynote
Word processing - Neooffice, Pages, or textedit

Invest time into researching hte best app for each type of data context so you trust it and use it and develop lengthy "brain trust".

Remember Some Old Art Projects

Here's a desk I painted my Junior year of Highschool.

And this was the year-long art project of (I think) 4th grade and 6th grade, respectively.

I'd done pinch pots, but The canvas one was an amazingly cool effect (painting over your masterpiece black and then scratching off to reveal color)

So worthwhile and good to have these memorabilia archived!

Productivity & Organizational Progress Suite 1: Intro Part 2

[2)Some solutions people have have just so much absence of logic and lack of practicality imbedded in them it's hilarious.] Cont...

I'm seriously thinking of submitting "Stupidest Productivity Ideas" to some kind of segment for the Jay Leno Show. I hear people rave and talk about how these "productivity systems" work so magically well, when they're really wrought with stupidity and inefficiency. One of my favorites of this category is Google Notebooks.

Laughing at other methods. Here's a "genius" method I've seen people raving over. What is with it with these people? I just start laughing at how much infuriation they create for themselves (and I've experienced it by trying out their system with my own tasks) with such idiotic systems! Here's a brainbuster: loading all your tasks and projects into numerous Google notebooks. Why this works: it doesnt'. Why this doesn't work: Endless reasons, but some important ones are: What do you do when you don't have internet access, genius? All of your tasks and projects are inaccessible. Never a state you should ever want to come across. Secondly, the loading delays: waiting and extra 5 seconds while google loads information for EVERY task I update? I don't think so, mabye if I was an 80 year-old grandmother who liked watching the "colors pop up" on the computer. Productivity needs to be electricity-like fast and google notebooks doesn't cut it. Finally, advertisements. Period. What kind of moron delights in seeing countless advertisements when he's trying to go into a zen-like mode of organization and productivity? There you have it, I dub "google notebooks for productivity" "mind-bogglingly dumb" because of Inaccessibility, Loading delays, and Distracting advertisements.

But it astonishes me how someone could not only deem such a "mind-bogglingly dumb" system not only "efficient" (when it's anything but) but worthy of sharing with others. I couldn't believe when that the author of that productivity post actually thought he was helping people providing obtuse methods.

Frank Addante, A brilliant start-up guru, whom I respect, suggests we learn how to make quick decisions and then as quickly as you effectively and swiftly make the best decisions you can, try to find out if that was a bad, poor, or good or excellent decision! Moving to california was definitely and excellent decision. Using google notebooks was a bad decision and going back to chicago last year was a pretty poor decision, but didn't have much choice in that one, that one was neutral. California uplifting decison.

Now, I'm making such a huge deal out of this because, frankly, I used about a month of my life up dealing with the daily infuriations with the idiotic google notebook method. I find all gmail sluggish, buggy iwth IMAP, and full of plain awful, but flaws. But I just blindly took that person's suggestion and "tried out" that google notebook system.

I think the most moralistic "fable" lesson here is stop listening to the advice and suggestions of others. If it's a suggestion so off-base from your own "doings" it will wreak havoc and not solve anythign and if it's close enough to how you operate then a suggestion to "keep doing what you're doing" is redundant! So advice is pretty pointless. You'll connect with what you need to by gathering more information and knowledge. Knowledge is not so much "power" as it a solution for generating massive clarity.

Also on that note. I'd almost much rather read about all these different systems while just using mine that works than go through the pain and anguish of trying out a system and having it falter.

While my system may not have perfection, it at the very least has perpetual accessibility, instantaneous (zero loading delays) updates, and of course zero advertising distractions. I won't go as far to say that my system is "mind-bogglingly intelligent", but in many respects it embodies everything the "google notebooks" system is not, the anti-google-notebook method, if you will.

Stay tuned for the next installment of the Productivity & Organizational (POP) Progress Suite.