I had a busy, productive day yesterday and I hope you did too.

I missed my tai-chi session in the morning due to the need to meet deadlines, but took it in stride. I got plenty of breathing and practice being present in my workout yesterday.

I did some heavy lunging after warming up with clubbells. Then I did some front squats and Swiss Ball forward ball rolls.

When I got home, I went out into my rock garden in the dark and wet after the rain had just stopped and did a half an hour of so of free-flow movements combining breath work and toning to tune myself up for the evening. A little mindless cop show and off to bed…

We have zen In The Garden starting Friday, so I ordered a new load of rocks to give us some bigger stones to play with.

I also ordered some beautiful flat stones so I can create a beautiful pathway of stone into the garden, which Penny is excited about.

WHAT IS THE KNOWLEDGE OF LOVE?

Rumi answers this question in a beautiful poem:

What is a knowledge of love?
Giving up the desire of the heart.

It is to become blood.
It is to drink heart’s blood.
To wait at the door of fidelity with the dogs.

The lover is the one who sacrifices his life.
For him, there is no difference
Between life and death.

Go ahead, O Muslim, take care of yourself.
Stay healthy and happy.
Struggle to become devout.

Because these martyrs cannot wait to die,
They are in love with annihilation.

You try to stay away from mischance and trouble.
Yet, their fear is to become without trouble.

Put a handkerchief on your hand
At the day of Ashura.
You don’t have the power or strength
To go to Kerbela.

Ref: Mevlana Celaleddin Rumi, Divan-I Kebir, Meter 12, p. 132 Poem 74, Translated by Nevit O. Ergin

Commentary by Paul Chek:

As I often do, I will offer my commentary on what “I feel” Rumi’s message is in this poem.

Please don’t take my comments as literal translations, for there is no such thing as a literal translation of poetry.

My commentary is only a gift to those that are interested in my own authentic feelings as to what Rumi is saying, which are based on many years of metaphysical study as well as extensive study of Rumi’s poetry and teachings.

What’s more important than my commentary is what rises in you when reading his words. Hopefully, my commentary gives you another perspective from which you may gain a broader context within which to interpret your own feelings. My comments will begin after each verse with PC:

What is a knowledge of love?
Giving up the desire of the heart.

PC: Rumi explains what he means by “Giving up the desire of the heart” below when he says:

“You try to stay away from mischance and trouble.
Yet, their fear (PC: The Martyrs) is to become without trouble.”

In essence, he is referring to the “desire of the heart” as “the desire to live”, which is only present in those that fear death; death being a belief of the end of life.

Rumi is saying essentially what the Buddha said when encouraging people to give up (object) desires, for such desires create bondage and are highly linked to our social constructs of rank and order; those that “have lots of money, fame, so-called success exemplify having lots of desires, which creates the illusion of safety, security and happiness.”

Yet, on closer analysis of those that apparently “have”, you typically find that they are even more slave to their “hearts desires” than those that apparently “have not”.

It is to become blood.
It is to drink heart’s blood.
To wait at the door of fidelity with the dogs.

PC: Here, Rumi is answering his own question, “What is a knowledge of Love?”

“It is to become blood.” Blood is the essence of life. Life is the means by which we become conscious of, and worship our “Being”.

“It is to drink heart’s blood.”

Here, if you think of the word “heart” as interchangeable with the word “God”, you will make a step in the right direction; whenever you eat anything, plant or animal, you are “drinking heart’s blood.”

“To wait at the door of fidelity with the dogs”, is a metaphor that implies that just as a dog is obedient to its master, one who has a knowledge of love knows that their own soul is the Master (the God) within.

Such a person waits at the door of fidelity (with the dogs – the ego), and doesn’t take direction from their ego-mind, which operates on the principle of “lack, and exclusion”.

They don’t try to determine what is right or wrong, good or bad, for such decisions can’t be genuinely made by an ego built of ideas largely passed on by others with ideas that also reflect their own misunderstandings of the question, “What is a knowledge of love?”

The lover is the one who sacrifices his life.
For him, there is no difference
Between life and death.

PC: Here Rumi gives a very direct answer to his own question.

We are all expressions of THE ONE. Our ego-construct exists consciously in a world of duality, yet, our soul is the Greater sum of the parts.

Once one has had authentic experiences of Divine Union, it is evident in their actions in life that there is no difference to them between life and death. They don’t make (moral) decisions to try and “avoid” death.

Therefore, their egos are not shadowed by the illusions inherent in the social mind, which acts as a mind virus for the unenlightened.

God has no attachment to this ego-game, obviously, for it creates both time and experience, allowing god to find God, which is the gateway to GOD realization, which is the end of all religious differences and death to the god exemplified in and as the individual ego.

Go ahead, O Muslim, take care of yourself.
Stay healthy and happy.
Struggle to become devout.

PC: Here Rumi is telling people that to struggle to care for yourself and do the things you “think you have to do to be happy” (which for the typical Muslim, Christian, practitioner of Judaism, etc, can only happen within the confines of the dictates of their religious commandments), is but a “struggle to become devout.”

This is akin to doing what the teacher tells you in hopes of getting gold stars and becoming “special”, favored by the teacher… He addresses this behavior below.

Because these martyrs cannot wait to die,
They are in love with annihilation.

PC: Here Rumi is saying that the enlightened have risen above the limited consciousness of division and limitation created by the ego-mind and all it’s programming.

They are conscious of what is beyond social construct and therefore, have no fear of leaving the Matrix! (Red pill, or blue pill?)

You try to stay away from mischance and trouble.
Yet, their fear is to become without trouble.

PC: Here is what I was referring to above. “You try to stay away from mischance and trouble.” Yet, who’s ideas of what mischance and trouble are you enacting as your own?

If you had only the experience of love, without all the dictations of religion, individual and group ethics and (so called) morals imposed upon your child mind, would you really see “mischance and trouble”, or would you see god exploring God as a means of GOD realization?

Creation has no value and could not exist without destruction; could you build a house (creation) without destroying the tree?

Referring to the enlightened martyrs, Rumi says:

Yet, their fear is to become without trouble.

This can’t really be taken literally, as prose. They don’t really have any fears, thus the term “martyr” – one who gives of themselves for a higher cause.

If there were no others in trouble in the world, who would they share their enlightenment with? Who would they gift their love to as a living example?

If there were no sick people, what value would there be in being a (spiritual) physician?

Put a handkerchief on your hand
At the day of Ashura.
You don’t have the power or strength
To go to Kerbela.

PC: Referring to “Ashura”, which the notes to the poem describe as follows:

The tenth day of Muharrem. In 680 A.D. the grandson of the prophet, Iman Tuiseyn was martyred by Yezed. The day of mourning at Kerbela.

Kerbela is a city in Iraq. I’m not sure what putting a handkerchief on your hand may mean in Muslim custom.

I suspect when he says, “You don’t have the power or strength To go to Kerbela.”, he’s implying that those stuck in the dictates of “trying to do good” are unlikely to have the strength to be present with an enlightened man of God while being killed, for they see only death and loss, not the liberation that the martyr experiences as their own enlightened reality.

One of the key underlying messages Rumi is sharing here is that when we try to do good, we are at once giving life and value to the opposite (of good), not good or evil.

In the King James Version (KJV) Bible, one can read (Isaiah 45:7): “I form the light, and create darkness: I make peace, and create evil: I the LORD do all these things.”

If you replace the word “light” with “yang” and darkness with “yin”, and “peace with order and “evil” with chaos, you see that all such experiences are the natural expression of the meeting and marriage of the two elemental forces that create the universe.

Said another way, “yin” is dark and empty any “thing” and yang is full of every “thing” (illuminated within yin).

What we label as good or evil are but labels for the process of relationship by which time and experience are created.

I’m reminded by a statement once made by Paramahansa Yogananda speaking about God during a lecture.

In paraphrase, he said, “When you go to the movies, don’t you like a little shoot-em-up, a little sex, some mystery, some action…?”

Of course you do…and so does God!

So there you have it…The evidence requires no proof!

Love and chi,
Paul Chek

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My day flew by yesterday. Never a shortage of tasks to be completed…

I got a little tai-chi in with the sun peaking through the clouds now and then to say “Hello!”, which is always nice.

I had a lovely deadlifting session and was comfortably pulling sets of 4 with 365 off the step box, which I coupled with high cable single arm rowing and reptilian crawling.

I’m so grateful I know how to listen to my body, as it seems willing to stay young when I do.

After work, I began putting in a new stone pathway into my rock garden. It’s pretty amazing how much exercise you can get with a shovel and a pile of stones!

After it got dark, I continued studying an amazing little book that is a blessing to everyone who feels they are challenged by money issues. The book is appropriately titled “MONEY”, by Arnold Patent.

It’s a beautiful, succinct book with healing exercises in it. I can’t recommend it enough.

THE TEACHINGS of The MASTER WARRIOR

I recently had the great pleasure of meeting a man that truly exemplifies and embodies the principles that make the Master Warrior. His name is Dr. Arnold P. Nerenberg, and he is author of a beautiful little, easy reading book titled, The Teachings of The Master Warrior.

Here is a quick peek of Arnold talking about the Master Warrior from his Youtube channel:

www.youtube.com/watch?v=aHi_psfuSEk

Arnold has been a successful powerlifter for much of his life and is considered the strongest (drug free) man in the world for his weight and age. He is now about 70 years of age, but is still going strong.

On page 11 of his book, Dr. Nerenberg writes:

“How do we push beyond our limits?
By believing in the possibility of growth.”

Here in two sentences, we get right to the pulse of the beast of insecurity that lives inside us until we learn to heal and convert our fears and insecurities into awareness.

Most of what we are insecure about or afraid of (as I show in PPS Success Mastery Lesson 2. Self Mastery) emanates from our parental and social programming.

Arnold Patent informs us that if something appears in our life, it’s because we created it. He, like I, express that (GOD) Unconditional Love is ALL ABUNDANT and is consciousness.

Patent beautifully explains that we create challenges in our life because we are afraid of, or don’t think we deserve a life of abundance.

Though the abundance of Unconditional Love is our natural state, we take on human form to explore life in limitation, but that is not our natural state.

All true champions will tell you that their challenges, their trials are what made them authentic.

There is a responsibility with being a champion of any type, be it a champion quilt maker, dog trainer, gambler, athlete, or otherwise.

When we progress in our own development, we naturally become more self-secure and confident in ourselves.

With this growth, our inner-light shines more brightly.

Our inner-light doesn’t shine more brightly because we’ve found some magical pill or miracle food that makes the inner-flame burn hotter and brighter.

It shines more luminously because each phase of our growth removes our own resistance to expression our love and potential.

If you ask someone who is insecure, “can you do this?”, they may say “yes” on the outside, but they are shaking their head “no” on the inside.

This, Arnold Mindell calls double messaging. Whenever we double message, we divide our consciousness, and therefore, our focus and our energy.

We are giving life to opposing beliefs or realities and naturally, our flow is diminished accordingly.

When I was a young man working as a faller in logging camps, I use to marvel at how a tree 200 feet tall could withstand such huge pressure from strong winds.

I noticed as I was bucking large trees into sections so they could be loaded on logging trucks effectively, that there were places where the wood was often twisted, hardened, and often knotted.

These areas represented the trees reaction to its environmental stressors, such as wind, rain and snow.

Though these parts are often not ideal for making certain types of lumber, they are often so beautiful that loggers and craftsmen would cut them out and make beautiful tables out of them.

When we look at a tree like this, we can see that the amazing beauty, strength, endurance and stature of the tree came by way of overcoming its own challenges in its own life.

If the tree did not learn and grow from such challenges, it would never survive the challenges that naturally come each winter.

If we see ourselves as seeds of the Tree Of Life, we can see that we begin as little saplings. Then we progressively grow and mature over time and with experience.

We see that our challenges ultimately make us truly wise and beautiful, provided we remain open to and aware of the gift that challenges offer us in our own growth.

I really recommend Arnold Nerenburg’s book.

It is an easy, enlightening read and can be thought of as a manual for personal development. This book is written such that even elementary school children could greatly benefit from it. Enjoy!

WAR of the WORLDVIEWS – Science vs. Spirituality by Deepak Chopra and Leonard Mlodinow

I’ve just listened to the unabridged audio version of this book and really enjoyed it.(another one of Vidya’s great finds!)

I’m very grateful for Deepak Chopra’s willingness to take some of the greatest minds of science head-on, and this book exemplifies that Deepak is truly a Spiritual Warrior, in the most gracious exemplification of that expression.

In this book/audio, Mlodinow works tirelessly to defend the atheist/scientist point of view with regard to issues of God and religion.

“Materialist” is the word that comes to mind to describe his view; there can’t be a mind without a brain…

Deepak on  the other hand, expresses the limitations of science, as well as the dangers inherent in the world when our knowledge and use of science and its powers of destruction far outrun our spiritual development.

Deepak neatly packages Mlodinow with challenges to his “if it’s not proven by science it either doesn’t exist or isn’t important or even real” points of view.

Yet, Mlodinow persistently uses smoke screens manufactured out of evidence that is often sidestepping Deepak’s challenges.

They are cordial with each other, and Deepak is his usual patient self.

Mlodinow, like Richard Dawkins (apparently one of his idols), unfairly lumps Deepak’s views and expressions of “spirituality” in with a long slew of references to dogmatic religious silliness, which he uses to cloud the issues of spirituality which Deepak is encouraging.

For example, he refers to the creationists claims of the earth only being 4-6 thousand years old and the whole gamut of related issues that programmed religious people have that fly in the face of science.

Yet, NONE of these are actually integral to what Deepak teaches at all. It is as though he used the opportunity to debate such a big name, with a big following to continue Richard Dawkins (atheist) legacy.

For those of you that either love science or metaphysics, this program is loaded with very interesting information on everything from genetics, to material science, to astronomy, to ancient sutras and modern spiritual offerings that are congruent with scientific discoveries in quantum physics.

If I had my own comment to add as a closing to this debate, I’d ask Mlodinow, “has science advancements helped us to:

1. Be more loving with each other?

2. Be more aware of, and respectful of the earth “objectively”?

3. Be more ethical or moral with each other?

4. Learn to live any better with regard to mental/emotional/spiritual development and world harmony than when we didn’t have science and modern schooling systems and were taught by tribal elders?

From extensive research into these issues, I can personally assure you that my answer is “NO” on all accounts.

We are watching people die like flies in many fields of endeavor, from medicine, to food processing, to agrochemicals and the likes, all the while, most of what ails us is scientifically validated.

Scientists are now the modern prostitutes. I agree with Deepak that we must seek to balance science with spirituality before we “scientifically destroy ourselves and the planet”…

“KOSMIC STAR CHAMBER”

This amazing photo was taken by my friend Shane McDermott. Shane was in the first group to complete CHEK Level 4 training many years ago and comes from my home town of Courtenay, B.C., Canada.

Shane is not only a highly skilled therapist who has helped countless people find well-being in their life, he has also studied the integral training methods of Ken Wilber and incorporated them into his life and practices.

Shane has a deep love of nature and nature photography, and as you can see, his photography is world class!

I feel so blessed whenever he sends me some of his photos. They are so amazingly captivating. I feel like I’m right there with him in the moment.

If you’d like to learn more about his beautiful photography, or his courses in nature photography, or about Shane, feel free to visit his web site or contact him directly: shanemcdermottphotography@gmail.com.

You won’t be disappointed either way! Right on his home page, you can see some absolutely stunning photos of Shane’s. Amazing! That’s all I can say!

Thanks for sharing your love with me and the world Shane.

All of us can become Masters should we apply ourselves.

I hope you’ve enjoyed the blog today and I’ll look forward to sharing more with you all tomorrow.

Love and chi,
Paul Chek

PS: We still have a spot or two open for zen in the Garden on Friday, Feb 10 if you’d like to join an amazing group of people for some creative play and natural healing with me in my zen rock garden. Please register at www.PPSsuccess.com

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I hope you are all still enjoying the blissful afterglow of your weekend. I sure am.

I came into the office early Friday morning to finish some work before heading to Encinitas for a massage with Wes Boyce. After my massage I had a lovely steam.

I then had a meeting with some friends to catch up at the Encinitas coffee shop across the street, after which I headed home to relax and finish some drawing.

Saturday, my friend and fellow traveler on the lecture circuit Misty Tripoli came to visit us for an afternoon of visiting, drawing and relaxing in my garden.

Misty is a well-known and respected dance teacher, who, like myself, lectures all over the world. Penny really loves her methods and style, which is quite a complement because Penny’s knowledge of dance is akin to my knowledge of the body-mind-Spirit construct.

I really love what Misty teaches, and how she teaches because at the basis of her teaching is a philosophy that is totally congruent with the CHEK approach to live and creating well-being.

Here you can see my private dance team for the evening at the Chek house! Pretty cool ah.

This is Misty and I showing off our art for the day. Misty isn’t someone boxed in convention, so when she’s around, expect to have the child in you freed from its bondage!

If you’d like to explore dance as a means of unlocking your creative spirit, or getting in shape, I can’t recommend her work enough.

It’s even fun for guys like me that don’t have too many dance moves in their pockets! She teaches anyone to dance easily and freely, including the whitest of the white boys!

You can watch some footage of her teaching her fun dance teaching methods and see some of her DVD’s you can use at home at: www.bodygroove.com

You can also learn more about Misty’s work and see some videos of her and her instructors teaching kids and teenagers on youtube.com

After spending some time with Misty Saturday I had this vision of her dance expression so I drew this sketch to capture the vision:

Enjoy! She’s Liquid Fire Baby!

Saturday, Vidya drew this beautiful mandala as well. Vidya and I certainly can’t dance like Penny or Misty can, but Vidya can make pens dance on paper like few I know.

In minutes, she expresses her simple, pure inner-mysticism on paper. This mandala will be helpful for anyone who’s adrenals are stressed as well as those lacking mental clarity.

Just look at it with a relaxed mind until you feel calm and centered…then choose to live the way you feel and with practice, all blockages will be removed.

Vidya, also created this drawing recently; she was envisioning herself greeting the day . . . I can really feel the love of nature Vidya has, can you?

SUNDAY’S zen BLISS

Sunday was my day to do my manly duties around the house, which today included splitting and stacking firewood.

I grew up on a farm and we sold firewood to make extra money. I’ve stacked and split more cords of firewood than I care to try and count, so needless to say, I’m no stranger to an ax!

Here you can see me practicing with my left hand.

When I was a paratrooper in the 82nd Airborne Division, I had a pretty back parachuting accident that damaged my left shoulder joint capsule, leaving my shoulder permanently unstable.

Since then, I’ve had to do constant rehab to keep it working well.

I find that whenever I can practice single arm/hand exercises to develop my coordination and reintegrate my left shoulder with the rest of my body, it really helps.

Splitting kindling wood takes a lot of accuracy with the ax so it gives me instant feedback as to how well I’m doing.

By the way, I DON’T recommend anyone use an ax in bare feet like I am here. I’ve got lots of practice with an ax and accept responsibility for whatever I may due to myself, but definitely don’t recommend that practice to others!

Vidya caught this shot just as the wood was splitting and flying. Pretty fun! Great exercise too! You can find all sorts of muscles you never knew you had after a wheelbarrow of kindling is split!

BUILD A STACK WITH ME!

Vidya was out with her new camera in the garden while I was building a new stack. She caught me in every stage of its development so I though I’d share it with you:

The rock just to the right of my right foot is the one I chose as the base. The base stone is the most important stone in a stack. It’s metaphysical equivalent in your life is the root chakra.

Whatever’s left unresolved there magnifies itself in each successive relationship (for the rest of your life ☺).

Here you can see my nice juicy second stone. If the stones don’t conform well naturally, you can “force your choice”, but you usually just come out the next morning to find it all laying on the ground…

The third rock is typically a power center in a stack because most people can’t get more than seven stones to stand stable without practice. If there’s any imbalances here, the road gets narrow from here onward…

The fourth stone is the heart~center. I chose a fairly round and odd one just to make it more challenging and fun.

The fifth stone represents creative expression and will magnify the truth of the “ideas” you’ve given life to below it, and above it…

Usually by now (particularly if you get a little frisky like I did with the fourth stone), you need to stop using your head and get deep inside your inner-self if you plan on going much further…

Now we get into “the groove” of it; if you haven’t been present up until now, you stack is likely to be short lived, particularly if you have as many creatures that like climbing rock stacks as I do in my yard!

The eight’s chakra is one of your subtle body fields, but isn’t really talked about in the Hindu chakra system. This one has a point on top, which will make it challenging to go much higher.

I’m cool with that because that tree next to me is home to as many as 100 humming birds.

When I get a stack any closer to their home than that, they get nervous. They will actually fly at you and your stack to try and get you away from their home if they feel threatened.

One day my buddy Donal Carr was putting up a stack right where I’m at and a humming bird flew right at him and pecked him!

Now I’m getting into more decorative stones, which I also enjoy.

This is a nice red stone, which draws a lot of earth energy into it. When in polarity with a white stone, a strong chi current is created. This gives off energy to the garden and all whom enter it.

Here’s my completed stack. I got the entire stack up in about 20 minutes or so. As you practice, you learn to stop thinking and let your inner-guidance system work for you.

The zen masters call this being with “no-mind”, which I truly love!

If you’d like to learn how such a simple practice can be used as exercise, creativity and healing, we have a spot or two left from Friday’s (Feb 10th) zen In The Garden workshop.

Feel free to have a look at: www.ppssuccess.com where there’s a banner right on the home page.

EATING AS A SPIRITUAL PRACTICE

I fasted all day Saturday and felt so good Sunday, I ate about half as much as normal. I didn’t eat lunch and here you can see me enjoying a beautiful Vidya creation of vegetables, beans, and sourkrout.

I love to connect with the spirits of the food and invite them into a co-creative relationship with me.

It’s a lovely meditation and for me, is a way of showing respect for the spirits that give us an opportunity to live.

Overall, my weekend was just lovely and I can’t wait to get back into the zen garden Friday with everyone!

I hope you all have a wonderful day today. I’ll look forward to sharing more with you tomorrow.

Love and chi,
Paul Chek

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My Q&Q call with Sean Croxton last night was really fun!! I always enjoy Sean and how he gets people to look at their health in fresh ways. There are so many sick people out there and I am glad I could help with answering their many questions! Thanks Sean,!

I’m taking the day off of work today. I may be laying on a massage table or in a steam room right now in fact!

I’m going out today to find new rocks for my rock garden. I’m after some big ones and some cool ones. I can feel them calling to me! They want to join the stone Buddhas in my garden. I love adding to the party there! And then next Friday,

I’ll spend the weekend practicing what we are about to talk about today.

TUNING THE HEART (Part 2 of 2)

Life is certainly challenging for most of us. That is, as Byron Katie says, “the way of it!”

Many of us carry a wide variety of childhood wounds that skew our minds and distort the lens of the heart. We can easily forget how to feel, see and experience love.

Mother Nature has a built in “self-correction” or “heart tuning” plan for us though.

As I shared in Part 1 of this blog yesterday, we will attract people and circumstances to us that reflect the state of polarity of our hearts and minds.

Our whole life becomes a mirror, reflecting our state back to us in relationships with ourselves, persons, places and things.

Those that are stuck inside, will find themselves stuck in relationships.

Those that are angry inside will find themselves in angry relationships.

Those that are manipulative, will find themselves in relationships with manipulative people…

Every step of the way, we are given an opportunity to see what we are creating. In Mother Nature’s plan, pain becomes an offering for redirection.

Each painful experience is an offering to go/act another way. If we get mad and simply turn up the fire, we just meet ourselves as magnified in kind by the others in relationship.

In so doing, we give the rest of “ourselves” an equal opportunity to learn and grow too. Isn’t that just amazing!

And you thought pain was useless!

Offer One: Love At A (Safe) Distance

When you find yourself having Groundhog Day in painful relationships, your first act of love is to love yourself enough to STOP.

If you keep going back and creating entanglement, you are unlikely to heal and you ARE helping the other stay stuck in their faulty love model too; you are giving cigarettes to a chain smoker and that’s not a very high form of love since we know that chain-smoking kills!

In my program titled, The 1-2-3-4 For Overcoming Addiction, Obesity and Disease, I share the “Love Model” that I created from OSHO’s inspiration.

I share that often, the best we can do to love another is to love them at safe distance.

As a wise person once said, “You don’t have to like everyone, but it is important to love them!”

We are all part of each other. We are cells in an organism called “humanity”. If we hate another, we are killing that which is greater than ourselves, yet, we are inextricably a part of.

To learn to love better, try giving forgiveness for any and all that have harmed you from your heart.

You don’t have to go to them in person, call them, or even write them. You only need to love them at a safe distance.

This is a very high form of love called empathetic and compassionate love.

By letting go of the charge you hold within yourself, you essentially demagnetize your painful attraction to them.

This form of safe love is an easy first step to your authentic freedom to love.

Learning to love in a way that is safe for you is most important.

Love is God (Consciousness), which is non-local; every and nowhere all at once!

Once you know you’ve authentically loved someone, you always carry that truth, that healing within you.

Knowing that you love someone frees you from entanglement and your love becomes a source of levity, of healing for them.

To the very degree that you were connected in pain, you create freedom in love when you love yourself enough to love them.

Offer Two: Love a plant!

Plants are very affectionate. This isn’t just fluffy talk. This is fact.

You can read about scientific investigations to the nature of plant-human interactions in the amazing book, The Secret Life Of Plants by Christopher Byrd and Peter Tompkins. It will blow your mind!

When we are loving, plants respond to our love by growing, blossoming and scenting the environment beautifully.

I know this to be true from my own extensive living experiences interacting with them. Anything we touch, or interact with out of love is harmonized, and harmonized with us.

Many who are having a hard time loving don’t realize that this is often why they can’t seem to keep plants alive in their offices or homes.

They often wonder how in the world others can get plants to grow for them so well?

A month or so ago, my friend Troy Casey (The Certified Health Nut) came to visit me with his beautiful wife Uri. She’s full of motherly love and has a beautiful soft center.

We were creating art in the rock garden together and I saw her pick a flower from my garden and put it in the center of a little stone stack she’d made.

Every day I went out to my garden to do tai-chi, I checked on this little flower. I was amazed that after a week, it still looked fresh! That flower didn’t seem to know that it had lost its roots.

I can’t recall the last time I saw a picked flower last so long. Your love is strong Uri!

Plants are very safe companions. You can choose a plant or a plants that you harmonize with. Bring them home and tend to them as you would your dream lover.

Stroke them gently and talk to them. Give them water regularly.

If you pay attention, you will begin developing a relationship from your heart that subdues the ego-mind and allows your inner-perception to grow.

You will learn their language and you will be so surprised to find that they are often talking to you and sharing their love with you and the whole room.

To learn to feel this love very easily, after you’ve had the plant in your home for a couple weeks and loved it daily, try taking the plant out of the room.

Then, go sit in the room and see how it feels without your lover… You may get a surprise.

Then, put your friend back where it “likes to be” and sit quietly and feel the room again. What is the difference?

Offer 3: Love an Animal

Animals are very pure in heart. Their ego’s are not so well developed as to hold grudges; if you repeatedly abuse them, you can spoil their hearts and leave them in fear and pain but that’s not their natural state of being.

We can learn to love by giving love and affection to a pet. We learn that love comes with some degree of responsibility; if we don’t water our plants or animals, we loose our lovers!

Learning the responsibility of love with plants and animals is very good for children too. You can share your heart-felt feelings with your animal friends. They will listen. They will be present. They will love you unconditionally.

All you need do is treat them the way you’d like to be treated and you can learn how beautiful and safe love is.

Take that love outside the house or yard into the world and you will see that everything is brighter, more beautiful. Even people seem more happy and loving…because you are!

Offer 4: Love Your Creations!

Here you can see me creating original diagrams for my courses.

I LOVE to draw! When I draw, I become a little boy again and I forget about all the problems of the world for a while. I feel lighter in my being and carry that into my relationships with others.

Don’t worry how it looks. Just have fun with some unbound play!

No rules. No one to judge you; if you do that, you’ve identified a painful habit and today is a great day to stop judging and star LOVING yourself! You can learn how to do this as a healing practice in PPS Success Mastery Lesson 1: How To Find and Live Your Legacy.

It’s a fun way to learn about yourself, heal and grow.

I love playing with stones as you well know. As we all know, there’s only so much time in a day!

As I share in PPS Success Mastery Lesson 8: Time Can’t Be Managed, we can’t manage time. Time moves forward with or without us!

Only activities can be managed. Here you can see how I save time and increase pleasure by loving myself enough to mix my desire for creative self-expression and exercise.

Loving rocks is very easy. They never argue or complain.

If you’d like to learn to play and love this way, I invite you to join me in an intimate private setting right here in my rock garden next Friday, Feburary 10th for my zen In The Garden workshop.

Click on the link to have a look. There’s only a couple spots left so hop to it if you want to share some love with me and some other BEAUTIFUL people!

Love Offer 5: Love Your “self”, Your Body!

Your body is your temple of worship. This is the only place God can truly reside! If there’s no God in your temple, you certainly won’t recognize God anywhere else!

A healthy body is a happy body. A happy body is the foundation for a happy mind!

No matter where I am, I always make time to love and care for my body.

I find that when I love it, it’s much easier for others to love it too! Yum Yum!

The Cure Is U!

Some of you may remember from a fairly recent blog post that I was featured in a newly released documentary film called The Cure Is U!

This amazingly beautiful film shares real life stories of people that found that loving themselves and others was the turning point in healing from life threatening diseases. This film will touch your soul!

David Scharps, creator and director of this film has put together an amazingly generous package offering that includes my multimedia eBook, The Last 4 Doctors You’ll Ever Need – How To Get Healthy Now! as well as a brand new program I created with him called, The Absolute Essentials Of Nutrition that teaches you then things we all must know and practice nutritionally if we want to have a healthy body-mind, which is the basis from which we cultivate and express our love.

Click on the link above and have a look! You won’t be disappointed, I assure you! The cinematography is excellent and the presenters are all top flight!

Love Offer 6: Love Children

Here you can see me with Donal and Kathy Carr’s boys (Ryan on the left and Josh on the right of me).

I’m teaching them about love. I’m showing them that everything responds to love. I’m teaching them to play my Tibetan bowl by kissing it just right.

They were pretty surprised by that one! But it works!

Children are our future. When we love them, we create a future full of love, not drugs, arrests, and perpetual pain!

For those of you that have kids, or yourself are having a hard time finding your way to love and a life of fulfillment, you may find my easy reading eBook titled, “Paint A Circle Around The Arrow Of Life and Hit the Bullseye Every Time! healing and helpful!

Love Offer Seven: Love Yo Momma and Yo Pappa!

My father died when I was eight. That left me with only my mother, Meera Censor to love and learn to love from.

When I look at what my mother taught me and gave me in life, it’s clear I wouldn’t be who I am today without her! She’s actually quite cool and amazing.

She is a master-crafts woman. She’s taught me that it’s good to express myself creatively, openly and honestly. She created all the beautiful sculptures in my office too!

You are welcome to read her beautiful little book about all the amazing people she’s sculpted. It’s title, Humanitarians for Justice, Nonviolence and Peace: Journey of an Unexpected Sculptor.

Often, we have deep pain from our challenges with our parents. As I share in my 1-2-3-4 For Overcoming Addiction, Obesity and Disease program, it is important to remember that everyone is loving the best they can with the upbringing they had and the (love) tools they were given by their parents and life experiences.

When anyone in our family is in pain, it is very important to love them the best we can, even it its at a distance. For their healing is our healing!

Love Offer Eight: Love Your Lovers!

This is my wife Penny riding on my back as I do push-ups while at her mother’s home in France.

My wife is the greatest lover I’ve ever known. She allows me to truly be who I am and to love others as I feel is natural to me.

We have traveled the world over and over again together. She’s been by my side through every kind of challenge you can imagine.

It’s very easy to get board in long-term relationships. It’s just a fact of familiarity. What I’ve found to be essential to loving, co-creative, long-term relationships is simply to remember that those that play together…stay together!

Penny and I both love the mission of the institute and we enjoy each others company very much. She’s truly a Buddha in my life.

Many of you know Vidya. She manages my personal businesses and shares most every aspect of my life with me.

Vidya is trained as a psychologist as well as being a very talented chef, artist, healer, and she loves shamanic or native healing arts like I do too.

We have enjoyed an intimate relationship for six years now and she has added a lot of value and joy to my life, as well as being a great help to Penny running the institute.

Vidya has taught me a lot about loving, creating, and having fun. Thank you Vidya for sharing your life with me!

In my life, I’ve found that it is unnatural to create barriers to loving others naturally.

In my 28 years of coaching people through every kind of life challenge you can imagine, I can assure you, many of them had diseases arising from the pain and guilt they held over loving others outside their marriages.

Their religious ideals typically go completely against their authentic desires and needs for (what is often intimate) love from others.

My first marriage was 17 years long and both of us suffered a lot over our programming about monogamy.

There is simply something in human beings in general that doesn’t work well when it comes to confining love and affection.

I got clear on what I needed in a life partner if I was ever to get married again, and from that clarity, I found Penny. She’s allowed me to be me and I’ve allowed her and all whom I love to be themselves.

My personal belief, based on 50 years of life and a lot of research and experience coaching people is that real love can’t be lost!

When we try to control people, we turn them into “objects”, and that is something the soul and the ego both resist.

If you think you will burn in hell because you’ve shared intimacy with others, then I suggest that you seriously consider creating a living philosophy that is congruent with your honest needs.

Otherwise, that blocked creative energy is very likely to create a disease and you will probably have to face your belief system when you have the least energy to do it honestly….

Love Offer Nine: Love Mother Nature

We are Mother Nature’s children.

So, just as I shared above, it is very important to love your Mother!

I love nature and She loves me back in kind. Remember, love is a boomerang. Whatever you throw out in the world always comes back to you in kind! That’s a Universal Low, I can assure you!

Little acts of kindness to nature give others a good example.

If everyone in the world gave just one little act of kindness each day to Mother Nature, the planet would heal in no time! We should start NOW, don’t you think?

Love Offer 10: LOVE LIFE!

Life is for living!

You are going to die as sure as the day becomes the night!

Most people are so busy dying inside with all their constraining beliefs and misinformation that they end up on their deathbed wishing they’d been honest enough and brave enough to truly live.

Please don’t be one of those people. It’s a sad and scary end to the only experience you know you have FOR SURE, LIFE.

Why gamble on salvation in a theoretical heaven in an afterlife that’s not here when you can learn to love now?

After all, do you really think you’ll love any better when you are dead than when you were alive? Ponder that please.

Thanks for being present with me today.

I’ve done my best in a short blog to share the methods I use and the resources I’ve created to help you learn how to feel and create love.

Regardless of how screwed up the world may feel or look, I’ve found that the more I love myself and others, the more perfect, the more beautiful life is, regardless of what’s on the news at night.

The beauty of Great Spirit is that Unconditional Love always gives us what we ask for.

If we don’t like what we are getting, we are being given a chance to look carefully at “what we are giving”

…remember, Love is a boomerang!

Enjoy your weekend!

Love and chi,
Paul Chek

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I had a very busy day yesterday; I didn’t have time to do my morning tai-chi, but when I have a choice to “force it in” or “go with the flow”, I don’t force it.

The key issue with chi cultivation is consistency. If we create space in our lives to love and care for ourselves regularly, as part of our daily spiritual practice, we naturally have enough connection to spirit that we don’t feel insecure, as though we’ve cheated ourselves.

I did manage to get in a good solid lunge workout in though. I’ve back up to lunging with 225 pounds again and it feels lovely.

I feel like I could stand my water bottle on my butt after a few sets of heavy lunges. I coupled my lunges with Swiss ball Supine Lateral Ball Rolls and reverse crunches on the Swiss ball for five mini-circuits.

When I got home, I checked to see if my new rock stack had endured the squirrels “inspection” and it had, which was cool.

I enjoyed a nice evening tai-chi session before my PPS coaching call.

Our PPS call was great last night. I had the blessing of Barney and Julia sharing how PPS coaching and lessons have helped them through their life challenges and aided their growth and Self-realization.

It really helps to get such good feedback from those that actually apply the lessons. It helps others to know that the lessons do work if applied.

After that, I was fortunate enough to enjoy some amazing steelhead trout and vegetables Vidya prepared for me and it was AWESOME! Thanks Vidya! Thanks Mother Nature!

Then, I began another piece of art while watching a cop show. Then, off to bed for a good dreamless sleep!

Tonight I’ll be doing Q&A on Sean Croxton’s Underground Wellness Radio Show at 5pm pt. Join us, I always have fun and get asked lots of interesting questions.

TUNING THE HEART (Part 1 of 2)

Today, we are peaking in our intellectual development. Our whole world (at large) has become so information based that it (often unknowingly) has risen out of the heart to occupy the head.

A head without a heart is but an iPhone! When it gives you what you want to hear, you enjoy it or may even feel as though you “love it”, but when it doesn’t give you what you want, you may throw it across the room in frustration.

With a little observation, one can easily see that as we spend more and more of our life interacting and living in the plane of mind, we begin processing experiences and relationships as data gathering experiences.

Friends become friends when they tell you “what you want to hear”; plants, animals, and legitimate issues of world health become “things”, yet, we tend not to allow ourselves to “feel them”.

If we get too close, we may feel the gravity of a situation.

To the degree that we haven’t learned to love, nurture and care for ourselves, we innately fear that if we give love, we will somehow be shorted of our own.

A simple way to determine how far into the head one has become is to witness how one behaves when they don’t have access to their phone, computer, books, magazines, TV, radio, newspapers and other common head stuffers.

To the very degree that one becomes stressed in absence of such data streams is a measure of how externalized their sense of self has become.

I have witnessed people sitting in the middle of beautiful resorts, surrounded by nature’s abundant beauty having temper tantrums because they couldn’t get an internet connection or a phone connection.

I’ve seen children and adults crowding the video arcade, and all the while, the most beautiful flowers are opening and the dolphins are jumping and playing along the shore just yards away and they never even had a clue, nor even an interest.

The only thing different for them on vacation is that they are sleeping in another bed.

MAGNETISM AND THE HEART

In my career, I’ve seen many of my students and others assume that because they had “more ideas” about this or that topic than others, that they have mastered that particular topic; that they could make a good living (often they think they will get rich!) as a teacher.

They may try running some webinars, create their own seminars, or write articles. Typically, when they don’t have people coming in droves to respond to their message, I end up being someone they ask: “Why am I not getting a good response?”

Generally, I inform them that they are confused as to what mastery really is.

They think because they can regurgitate lines from another’s writings or teachings (like a good parrot), that they are an “expert”.

I’ve had several make comments like, “Paul, I’m saying the same things you say, but I’m not getting any response?”

I often inform them that this is due to a lack of “magnetism” within them.

It is well known that when a musician composes music, are an artist creates art, or when a teacher teaches, their message or creations carry the energetic imprint of what is real, what is truly enlivened within them.

Magnetism is not a quality generated by the head. Magnetism is the territory of the heart.

People that are ultimately successful in life are successful largely because they are passionate about what they love to do and strive to be authentically who they are.

In his excellent book, The Art Of Being and Becoming, Hazrat Inayat Khan says (p. 160):

“The heart will speak louder than words.

Our heart is also closely related to the people we meet, to such an extent that in industry, business, professions, science, politics, and domestic life, in every aspect of life, the people we meet are affected and influenced by the condition of our heart.

If the heart is out of tune, let a man be in his office, the factory, his home, among friends, in a club, in society, whatever he says or does not say or whatever he does, his very presence will upset the atmosphere.

Therefore the secret to magnetism, the mystery of attraction in a person, is solved by a study of the heart.

Very often we are uncomfortable in the presence of someone, or someone’s presence attracts us without that person having said one word.

We may feel as if we had always known a person, as if we had always been friends though we had never seen him before.

If we are in tune, we tune others also; but if a person’s heart is not in tune, then everyone in his presence also goes out of tune. That is the mystery of attraction and repulsion.

Very often we see that people attract one day and perhaps a week after or a month or a year later, there is repulsion.

The reason why that person attracted for the moment was that his heart was in tune; but then after some time his heart got out of tune again.

It is because of this that a person who was once attracted may feel repulsion another time; and because he does not know the reason he will always blame the other.

Human nature is such that man sees himself last. Especially if it comes to blame he never thinks of himself; he first blames the other.”

These are profound words spoken by a true master whose heart was in tune as a way of being.

I have read many of Hazrat Inyat Khan’s books and the books of many such masters whose hearts were in tune and when I read them with an open heart and mind, their very words create a vibration in me that harmonizes.

Once I experienced this reality, I began making it a practice to begin my day by reading the words of those that live in a way that represents who I aspire to be each day.

When I begin by tuning into a balanced heart, it is as though I have created a basis by which I can sense the flow of my own heart, my own love.

With that “morning tune-up”, I can better sense when I’m deviating off the path, de-tuning my heart-song.

I can feel the negative emotion arise when I’m stretching or ignoring the strings of my heart as an instrument of love.

The human predicament is not an easy one, not for anyone.

We are caught between the world of matter below and the world of mind above. In that predicament, we tend to vacillate between seeking sustenance in material things in one instance, and in seeking sustenance in ideas in other instances.

What is hidden between these two worlds or planes of existence is the spiritual plane.

It is hidden in the heart, which in the chakra system is in-between the lower chakras of animal urge and existence and the higher chakras which are generally slaves to the urges of the animal that can’t be interpreted by the head alone; the animal instincts themselves are pure but can’t be felt if one loses their natural gut instincts.

In the animal, there is less head-stuff to get in the way of their authentic gut urges.

When they are hungry, the seek food and when they are full, they seek procreation and then rest until hungry again.

When people whose hearts are out of tune feel hungry (for food), they often misinterpret their hunger for food (which is a form of nurture) as a need for more stuff.

They may mistake the need to feed themselves as the need to buy more, drink more coffee, eat more chocolate or chips, or to starve themselves more because they feel their body is ugly.

When people are hungry for love, they may feel that they need more sex, yet find that all the sex in the world doesn’t fill their need for companionship only codependency; they don’t realize that they must love themselves enough to become their own companion first before they will ever have room inside them for others.

This is a dangerous roundy-round that has led many to reaching a point of such despair that they fall in love with organized religion.

People who fall into this trap are so sure their life will always be shitty that they become attracted to the promise of everlasting salvation in the afterlife if they only accept this or that savior…

But can they truly accept any savior when they can’t accept and love themselves, or will the words of the savior ultimately just become another task to be completed?

More tasks from the savior leads to more “burden” for those that are seeking false hope. But the tasks not completed when handed down by the savior, in writing, voice, or otherwise, only become “sins”.

Then one is forever shadowed by their ego’s tabulation of sins and they begin to loose faith that even God will forgive them. Now the savior becomes yet another burden.

Jesus is reported to have said,… “Split the wood and I will be there; lift the stone and I will be there.” This means that the spirit of Christ is “everywhere”.

Start where you are. The littlest acts of self-love as self-care and nurture tune the heart.

This doesn’t mean little pieces of chocolate, or little cups of coffee, or giving people things to pacify them.

It means being honest about creating your dreams and living by their core values.

It means being honest enough to say “no” when you are aware that saying “yes” will take you in a direction that isn’t in harmony with your dream and your goals.

It means listening to your body with the authentic awareness that your body mirrors your mind.

Tomorrow, I will share some of the simple methods I’ve used and do use regularly as a means of healing myself so that I can more easily love myself as the basis from which I can authentically love others.

I invite you to start loving where you can.

Chen sook Fun is one of my HLC students. She walked into the room on day one of HLC 2 some years ago and I immediately saw her amazing energy field.

It was the first time I’d met her because I don’t teach very many HLC 1 classes. Her field was full of beautiful white light and took the form of a beautiful white rose in full bloom.

I expressed what I saw to her and asked her if she had a spiritual practice. She said yes, my master gave me a prayer to do each day and that is what I do.

I asked if she would write it down for me. She wrote it in Chinese and put the translation under it in English so I could read it. It said, “Use your Heart to feel what you know.”

She was all the evidence I needed that this simple practice could have profound effects. I have recited it too many times to count.

It was so profound an experience for me that I was compelled to draw the image that came to me when I was present with the words, which is the drawing above. The prayer is written in Chinese three times (one for Spirit, one for mind, one for body) and the four faces represent my own 4 Doctor Living Philosophy.

Today, if you’d like, you can share in one of my practices, you can use your heart to feel what you know when caring for our body, your mind, and being present with your spirit.

If you want to learn mare about how to do this simply and effectively, I invite you to study and practice my 4 Doctor approach which is available to you now in my multimedia eBook, The Last 4 Doctors You’ll Ever Need – How To Get Healthy Now!

This is a great book to learn from because it comes with audios, slides, and video clips of me teaching chi cultivation and breathing exercises right in the book!

When we Use our Hearts To Feel What We Know, the world becomes a much more beautiful experience!

Love and chi,
Paul Chek

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I had a great day yesterday and I hope you did too.

I had a lovely morning tai-chi session, got some work done and headed to the gym.

I asked Vidya to film me doing one of my mini-circuit pulling workouts for my youtube channel.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=aAVGWiehUEs

I share an uncommon way to do single arm rowing that really develops both pulling and grip strength called a cross-lateral Olympic barbell row. I make suggestions for maintaining muscle mass as one ages as well, which will hopefully inspire both men and women not to give up on themselves. Feel free to view my videos posted: www.youtube.com/paulcheklive

I was excited to finish off my recent rock-stacking project when I got home last night. I wanted to build a really high tower.

The high towers can draw a lot of cosmic energy into the soil, aiding growth potential in the garden and filling my zen garden with even more chi.

I began the project the day before, and needed to get out a ladder to finish it because I can only safely stand on piled rocks for so high before it gets stupidly dangerous.

This image was taken when the sun was down so it’s not very clear, but hopefully you can get a sense of how high it is.

I had to stand on the second from the top step of the ladder and reach as high as I could reach to put the last stone on this “space needle”.

It really does create a huge amount of energy in the garden, which I love. It makes it easier for me to go into no-mind while meditating in my garden.

I’m super excited about my upcoming zen In the Garden day next Friday, Feb 10! We are going to have a great time together! I’ve got word that some really cool friends and students are attending.

If you would like to join me, please register at www.PPSsuccess.com

THE RAINBOW BRIDGE

What are we, but
a rainbow bridge?

Empty sky above,
earth below.

Your bones are hard, as stones, yet
within you, water flows, and
where it came from,
no one truly knows.

The sky seems empty, yet
earth’s breath condenses.
Clouds form and something is there.
This I know because rain is falling.

Through the clouds,
sun shines.
Light is empty, yet
there it is, a beautiful rainbow; can you
find the pot of gold at the end?

If you are looking for a physical pot of gold, you
have forgotten that both sky and light are…
empty, yet, they
fill your eye!

Space is empty, yet
here we are, extensions
of the empty, appearing
as thought full.
Breath is the rainbow bridge, between
the empty, and the full.

Could “you” be
the pot of gold?
Are you still looking for
what you hold?

The atheist and the scientist will tell you,
there’s nothing there!
But here you are walking, talking, doing, and breathing
every-where…

Every is
becomes an isn’t.
Every isn’t, becomes
an is, yet behind it all,
ALL IS.

The rainbow bridge is what you are.
Only matter,
only emptiness, either alone
won’t take you far, for what is
the thought of driving,
less the car?

What is love, without
the breath?
What is sex, without
the steam?
What is a body, without
a dream?

You are the rainbow, and
the pot of gold.
The Universe is yours, to
have, and to hold.
Become the rainbow, forget about chasing
gold, and
you will never die, you will never
get old, for Spirit can’t be weighed, measured, bought,
nor sold.

You cannot weigh the beauty
of the day. The mind is a piper, you
cannot pay.

Enjoy the rainbow, for
it is the Universe breathing you, wanting
only to love, learn, grow and play.

Always remember, every night
gives birth to a new day.
That is
the rainbow way!
Enjoy your each, and
every day…

Love and chi,
Paul Chek

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Penny and I had a great trip to Las Vegas where I presented a one-day workshop on Scientific Shoulder Training as a pre-conference workshop.

By the way, my new Scientific Shoulder Training correspondence course is at the duplicators now (!) and will be available to you very soon. It comes with three DVD’s and a comprehensive, well-illustrated manual, and I’m very excited to finally have it done so you can all enjoy and benefit from the many unique and useful holistic methods I share.

If you’d like to be notified of the early bird special purchase package pricing, please contact the CHEK Institute and put yourself on the notification list.

After I finished the pre-conference workshop, I gave two lectures each day of the conference and people seemed to really enjoy my holistic approach to back, knee and shoulder pain challenges.

There were lots of new people who hadn’t been exposed to my work yet there, so it was a good chance to share with prospective CHEK students.

Fortunately, the hotel had a decent gym and a spa with a steam room and a sauna so I could enjoy some good exercise and post workout meditations in the heat.

My tai-chi sessions were between buildings on the concrete since time was limited and there was a serious lack of biological life to interact with in the area; Las Vegas is like a comparatively flat Times Square in NYC…

We drove home Saturday evening and though we got home late, we enjoyed a day off together at the house Sunday. It was lovely to see Penny rest. She works very hard and I love seeing her nurture herself.

I also took yesterday off so I could honor my own needs for rest. I’m working on a cool new rock formation in my zen rock garden. I also drew a new piece of art, which I’ll share below.

THE DRAGON OF MIND

I drew this picture of The Dragon of Mind yesterday.

I was inspired to finish it after listening to a recorded lecture by Arnold Patent titled, The Law Of The Universe and Mastery Over Money, which Vidya kindly shared with me.

Arnold Patent has a few books and I highly recommend his beautiful, simple teachings. They are totally congruent with the message I share in the PPS Success Mastery Program lessons.

David Siegel, MD defines mind as: an embodied process that regulates the flow of energy and information.

This is not only the case of our individual ego-mind, but is an accurate definition for all minds.

All minds that can be known are part of The One Mind, which we know of as the Universe.

If we look at the issue of Universal Mind from a Taoist perspective, then we may perceive the Universal Mind as The Dragon.

In the Chinese cosmology story of creation, it is said that THE DRAGON is the source of ALL, and that THE DRAGON’s favorite hobby is breathing new universes into being.

When it does, it always creates two dragons to manage it. One is the dragon of yin, and the other the dragon of yang.

THE DRAGON knows that they are equal to each other in every way as far as their creative potential goes, but they are just different enough (as male and female) to have different views and experiences on most any topic.

THE DRAGON says to it’s new children and the universe he creates in and of them, you two can rest when you learn to get along with each other.

In this very short story is the truth of how our ego-minds work.

Every thought has the power to create a universe of experience within, and around us. The thought is the first phase of creation.

To the degree that we believe our thoughts, we draw from THE DRAGON’s Unconditional Love, which is pure Potential.

Patent describes belief as “how we process potential and convert it into energy.”

He says, “efforting (struggling) is wrestling with the natural flow of the universe.”

It is this very “efforting” that THE DRAGON was referring to when telling the little dragons that “they can rest (from the task of managing their universe) when they can get along.

Paton beautifully states, “you know you wanted something when it occurs in your life.”

Surely, many will refute such a statement with such comments as, “come on, don’t try and tell me that I wanted to be abused by others…”

Patent reminds us that much of what we “choose” is the result of our unconscious processes, which emerge largely from our (parental, social, and cultural) conditioning.

In my 1-2-3-4 For Overcoming Addiction, Obesity and Disease audio/workbook program, I clearly describe the stages we all progress through as we learn to love. They are:

1. Sex and violence loving

2. Conditional loving

3. Empathetic and compassionate loving

4. Unconditional Love.

The secret to growing through each of these stages so we can become aware of the ultimate gift of (THE DRAGONS’s) Unconditional Love is “awareness”.

Awareness emerges when we become aware that our thought-actions produced something other than we wanted to experience in our life.

Even after many years of practicing, I still find myself becoming aware that consciously or unconsciously, I’ve created something other than what I wanted.

Though the ego-mind naturally wants to avoid taking responsibility for its 50% of every co-creative relationship, I know that the only person I can trust to become more aware and dream better is myself.

I must be brave enough to embrace the truth Arnold Patent shares when he says, “you know you wanted something because it happens in your life”.

As I’ve aged and become more wise, I’ve found that one of the most common causes of “unwanted experiences” is wanting and trying to do too much relative to what can realistically be done with the available time, energy, resources, and willingness that I (authentically) have.

I’ve come to see that when I’m still and inquire within myself honestly, even though I can’t always pin point the source of my desires for some of the experiences I’d prefer not to repeat, I can accept that there must have been something I wanted to learn that attracted the experience to me.

With that knowledge, instead of getting lost in the blame game, I can cultivate more acute awareness as to the power of my thoughts, words and deeds.

From that place, I can be more conscious as I interact with others. I can also be more aware of what rises from my unconscious mind, be it desires, fears, beliefs that may no longer work optimally, etc.

With this mindset, I feel I’m more able to grow and learn.

It is a lifetime practice.

If we look honestly at our lives and meditate on our experiences, we can usually find what it was that we wanted to learn.

Yet, it is only through awareness of our power to choose differently, to upgrade our beliefs to those more congruent with our current dream that we learn to work with THE DRAGON (the universe) instead of against the natural flow of cosmic unfolding.

Today, I’ll be practicing awareness of what comes into my life. I’ll celebrate the gifts, be they gifts of ease and flow, or gifts of resistance.

I know that feedback is the breakfast of champions and if we understand how THE DRAGON works, we can gain plenty of feedback from our own awareness of what we create within ourselves, and in relationship to other persons, places and things.

I invite you to join me in this important practice.

Love and chi,
Paul Chek

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I had a great time delivering presentations over the weekend in Las Vegas. I even got to visit my sister Barbara and her husband Randy for dinner on Friday night.

Barbara is my oldest step-sister and over the years we haven’t got the chance to visit much. She cooked a lovely dinner for us and was really interested about how to apply my book, How To Eat Move and Be Healthy! so Penny and I spent a fair amount of time going over the book with her and Randy.

I know she and Randy will create abundant good health by following a rotation diet and staying away from those offending grains.

Penny and I drove home late on Saturday so I had a lovely day in my garden yesterday, caught up on some great reading and spent some time with Dr Quiet under my fichus tree.

Vidya, Penny and I watched a really intense movie last night: The Wistleblower. The movie was based on a true story as it was about human trafficking in Bosnia during reconstruction. It was shocking; what was mind-blowing (aside from the violence toward women) was that our own Government officials were behind it – who receive immunity! These same officials fund many of the reconstruction efforts today in Iraq and other places around the world through their coverup businesses.

Today, I’m off for a massage and another day in my garden. I’ll be back in the office full force tomorrow!

EVERY

LIGHT

HAS

A

CIRCUIT

TAO-TE-zen Practice

TAO includes the created – visible – and the uncreated, the invisible or subtle. TE – THE CREATED is made of light. All creation (TE) emerges from the ABSOLUTE, which is Unconditional Love (UCL).

UCL is ABSOLUTE DESIRE – SHE has only Herself to fulfill, and HE is ABSOLUTE WILL – and can fulfill only HIMSELF.

The ceaseless giving of ABSOLUTE WILL fulfills the ceaseless DESIRES of UCL. Yet, because the ABSOLUTE IS ABSOLUTE, it cannot change; It is Unconditional.

The condition of ABSOLUTE DESIRE creates a positive drawing polarity, while the reciprocal gift of ABSOLUTE WILL creates a negative pushing or electromotive polarity.

The eternal constancy of exchange emergent from UCL as DESIRE and WILL creates a circuit; that circuit creates both light and life.

TAO describes the ABSOLUTE GIVING and RECEIVING of UCL—the Ultimate Relationship, which gives us Creation (TE). That you are aware of life occurs because you are a conscious being (te).

Zen practice includes awareness of that fact that light and life exist in a circuit. To be zen, practice awareness of UCL.

Practice being grounded, and use your will effectively, investing your light and your love into the essentials of life.

That is zen.

Wishing you all a zen day!

Love and chi,

Paul Chek

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I’m really excited about Paul’s upcoming zen-In-The-Garden day in just under 2 weeks, Feb 10!

My name is Evan Jerkunica and I am a student and friend of Paul’s. I have a number of web based businesses and am really excited our business activities can change people’s lives

— for the better!

zen In The Garden has helped me gain deep insights into how I was taking on too many entrepreneurial projects and how to bring my intimacy into my relationships.

And that stacking rocks in Paul’s garden really recharges my batteries!

So today I will take you through part 3/3 of my experience in the zen garden stacking rocks!! (my previous posts 1 & 2 were posted over the past few months on this blog)

Here I am carefully adjusting what I consider to be some large, heavy rocks (see below), especially compared to my first rock stack I ever made…

Ironically, this experience took place almost a year ago last Feb ’11.

I guess having my mom die when I was a kid, having a sick dad, harsh step mom, and a few co-dependent relationships can really take the courage out of you.

And here ís Vidya (below), making a rock stack taller than her in about 10 minutes flat.

Vidya told me that she just stacks the rocks up, and doesn’t care if they fall, since she isn’t “attached to them, like life, the next moment is a great opportunity to do something different and better!”

I am so thankful she ís my business (and life) coach!

Here is a cool collection of stacks by my buddy Paul L! I really have a great time with Paul every time we hang out in the garden:

Different rock types require different relationships – generally round river rocks will be much more difficult.

And in the spirit of doing more daring and impossible things, I choose to make a fairly tall stack of just river rocks. It was so fun because this stack just came together in just a few minutes!

I was so proud of myself to literally and metaphorically go for it!

Around this time we went and had a lunch and laid on the cool tile floors of Paul’s healing room. We chilled out, chanted a few OMs, and harmonized with the rocks a bit.

And Paul Chek told us some *crazy* stories about his days as a logger. Really amazing stuff that I won’t go into here, but if you come to ZIG next time, be sure to ask him about the spiders, sap, and logging. Hahahah. . .

It’s great breaking (gluten free ^^__) bread with everyone. I feel a bit naive saying it, but if everyone took a day each week to be with nature, we could enjoy more of the vitality of our ancestors.

After lunch it was back to the garden. At this point I was able to tune out most of my internal chatter and just enjoy the garden.

To stand among the rock beings we were creating and enjoy the day, our relationships, our comrades really felt like we were in a synchronized harmony.

Yes I was looking to learn more about intimacy, but was just as focused on having fun in our unbounded play!

I found my healthy child-like curiosity and imagination was quickly re-sparked with unbounded play like this.

How much more healthy would we be with more parents, couples and children playing outdoors together instead of trying of working to pay off shit we don’t need?

The day after a previous ZIG, I found myself to be much less intellectual and much more *feeling* what others were saying or explaining to me.

Being a trained physicist and having had many emotional needs meet through pleasing teachers and parents with good grades, it feels quite amazing to be switched into a more right brained state ^_^.

I also took the opportunity to enjoy some of Paul’s “night soil fertilized” tangerines – so tasty!!

It was just so fun stacking the rocks, even the small ones. See that big smile on my face!

And here is the man in his element!

And one last pose for the camera:

And one of Paul’s students at play, planking his ass off.

And a few more laughs to tears!!

Some last bits of debriefing from Master Chek!

And Lukas making love to the rocks!!

So all in all I had a day full of reflection, laughter, intimacy, meditation and nurturing energy.

Honestly though, words fail me. There was much more happening than what I was able to observe with my conscious mind.

Words fail to convey how nurturing it is for me to hang out with like-minded people in such a fun, playful and safe environment.

Although I am more comfortable in my skin than ever, it is nice to be even more myself, explore more of myself and to feel fully supported while doing it.

But if I must sum it up with words, I would say this:

Taisen Deshimaru (samurai master) said, “Learn to think with your whole body.”

And to me, learning thinking with my whole body is what zen in the Garden at Paul Chek’s house is all about.

If that is something in which you’re interested, I’ll catch you there next time!

W0000hooooooooooo!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! To life!@!@

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I had a focused day yesterday teaching Scientific Shoulder. My students where great and asked lots of questions.

I managed to get over to the spa to take a nice steam before dinner, which rejuvenated me.

Today, I got a quick tai-chi session in before I began teaching.

NO WATER

NO FISH

Sutra 2 Expansion: Here, we have two sutra’s in one.

“NO WATER” means no life as we know it. All sentient beings in the Earth-plane need water to “live”.

Throughout recorded history, water has been referred to as “Holy” because water brings life; Holy water is often used to purify shrines and people in religious ceremonies as a symbol of purification.

Without water, rocks would not transform into soil and nothing would grow; life as we know it to be as humans could not exist, for without water to transform rock to soil, there could be no food.

Without water, there could be no atmosphere in which to breathe.

Water is to all life as blood is to all living creatures in nature. What can live with out blood or it’s very essence?

Without water, what would carry the waste away – what would clean nature? Can you imagine how your life would change if you had no way to clean yourself or your environment?

Metaphysically, water is as Unconditional Love.

Lao Tzu tells us that, “Water always seeks the lowest level; it serves the highest, yet, as the saint or sage, serves the lowest”; how would your life be different if water suddenly decided to change direction, serving and seeking only the highest?

It is the very nature of water to penetrate rock – to penetrate even the lowest places, such as your sewer system; there, water serves as the key transformative agent, bringing movement, change, and therefore, “life” to all ‘things’.

We must remember that life is movement and without water, the movement that creates life as we know it could not exist – therefore – we could not exist as we do now.

Regardless of how challenging your life would be, dare to envision how menial your challenges would be without water!

Other metaphysical meanings associated with water include:

o Weakness; giving into the hard – in service to…Kabir expresses that God or your soul are as the master who bows in service to you, awaiting the day you wake up to the truth of yourself.

o Unexpressed possibilities of the mind; water represents the sea of thought.

o The subconscious mind – Intuition.

o Doubt; man is said to be lost at sea when he can’t effectively use his mind or imagination; his water faculty. Without fish, one must learn to use their imagination to survive – to find food.

o Negativeness of thought and of polarity.

o A low physical condition relates to ineffective use of the water principle.

o Baptism; washing away negativity and committing one’s self to openness.

o Restoration of flow so that one can think and function optimally again.

o Water is the source of all the humors of the body, including blood, urine, vitreous humor (eye fluid), cerebral spinal fluid, axoplasmic fluid (nerve flow), marrow, lymphatic fluid, digestive juices, inner-ear fluid and saliva.

o Life-giver.

“NO FISH” has many meanings.

The first and most obvious is that if there is “no fish”, there is essentially “no food”. Certainly, the challenges become obvious!

“No Fish” in this sutra comes after “no water”, therefore, “no fish” is a co-dependent statement; without water, there can’t be any fish.

In metaphysics, the fish is a symbol representing:

o Fecundity – a phallic emblem – the great possibility for increase

o Christ or the “Christ Principle”

o Deities such as Isis and Vishnu

o Ideas: the mental aspects of eating

TAO-TE-zen Practice

In the future, children will be telling stories of a time when their ancestors, with their infinite creative energy, developed amazing technologies for making everything in life “easier.”

They made their own birds that could fly and carry people; they made giant tractors to till the soil and chemicals to kill the weeds; they dammed the rivers to run massive power generators to light entire cities; they sucked all the oil out of the earth to power and lubricate their myriad of machines.

They even made food that did not grow or need to be prepared.

In just a few hundred years, they had forgotten why and how their forefathers worshiped Nature. The skies became dirty, the waters so poisoned with chemicals that Nature’s ocean life began to die.

Their massive fishing ships and factory farms threw Nature out of balance and they began to worship money and machines above and before the beings that gave them life.

Soon, they began to run out of water, and most of the fish had been eaten or died. Disease was rampant among them.

Zen is the practice of living simply, in worship of what creates life.

In balance with nature.

That is TAO-TE-zen.

May your weekend provide you many experiences to participate in nature.

Love and chi,

Paul Chek

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