Gratitude means happiness in the present moment with what we have. We look at our shirt and thank it for covering us and giving us shelter, no matter if the shirt is old, worn, stained, or whatever other judgment we can place on it. We even appreciate the stains because they remind us of the good times we had when getting them.
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We don’t look at others’ shirts and start comparing, wishing we had theirs. We are happy for others that they have a gorgeous silk shirt and we have a plain cotton one. Or maybe we even have a cheap polyester one. We can still be grateful for all the hands that went into getting that shirt to us. We can silently thank the person in the sweatshop in China who is slaving to make money to feed her family, the truck driver who endured traffic in the rain, heat, and other hardships to deliver it. The shop owner who selected it and put it on display and all the hands that touched it in between.

Gratitude takes us on an endless journey of wonderment. It is not dull. We are not looking to the future to feel OK. We feel good right now because we are thankful to be alive. With gratitude we can be happy with plain bread or a simple apple. We can be thankful for all the miracles that went into making that bread, the wonderment of how a juicy apple can come from a small seed. This kind of gratitude for simple things that are perfect just as they are is key to a happy life. Otherwise we are always looking for the next best thing, the thing that is better than what we have.

​Eckhart Tolle’s teachings showed me, through historical examples, how insane the ego mind is. He points out the 100 million people killed by ego-minds behind a regime such as Communism alone. But not just killed. Beaten, imprisoned and tortured, brutalized beyond what any other animal on earth would do to another. And that’s just one ideology that has caused huge suffering on this planet. He points out others.

He analyzes the dysfunction of the individual ego-mind and how when it encounters other ego-minds becomes poisonous, violent, and rabid in a collective way. Then he shows how automatic this ego mind is. It starts as soon as we wake up. It runs in its channels—endlessly repetitive. It is automatic and repetitive. Like other organs—it does its own thing, but this time it is to our detriment.

This made me see how, if we don’t control this thing, this ego-mind, it will control us. The pancreas is automatic and repetitive but it will not do us harm unless it is sick. The ego-mind is sick from start to finish. Other functions of the mind work well for us, allow us to perform tasks and take care of business and create. But the ego part is like a spreading cancer and its only destiny is to destroy. This is what Eckart Tolle brought out so very clearly to me.

I began reading Lao Tsu when I was 12 years old. It planted a new a way of looking at life within me. I didn’t understand it all, only very little. But I felt what he was getting at. He was talking about The Way, the underlying principle of the Universe: The Tao. He was describing something beyond the stories I had learned from my family’s religion about the meaning of life and why things were the way they were.
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Part of the reason I couldn’t understand Lao Tsu at first was that what he addresses is difficult to put into words. It is beyond the limited concepts of the human mind. Lao Tsu hints at it. He suggests it, quietly, simply. He knows that if you think you know the answer, you haven’t really seen the immensity of It All. It is a philosophy of humility and surrendering the human need to control everything.

I was raised in a religious tradition that placed heavy judgments on sinful behavior. Also we were evaluated about how loving and pure we were. Lao Tsu was not as concerned with moral and value judgments. He wasn’t interested in judgments at all, because he saw they are human-based, relative to each culture, and are changeable. Instead, he advised us to go with the flow. Don’t resist life. Be like the river. In this way, we will find happiness and inner peace.

I could see that following the Tao, people would behave in a naturally compassionate and decent way—not because they are being judged by The Man in the Sky, but because it is the simplest way that leads to the least amount of drama and unhappiness. This gave me tremendous freedom and allowed me to break away from the frightening idea that God was watching me all the time and taking notes on how evil I was, so I could be punished later.

Yes. Panpsychism is the belief that everything in the whole physical world, no matter as small as a grain of sand or as complex as a person, has an element of individual consciousness. This seems odd to a lot of people. They get it that animals and people have consciousness—that is, awareness of their surroundings and their connection to a higher order of intelligence.
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But how can a grain of sand have consciousness? It isn’t even alive. But panpsychism argues that all things, even a grain of sand, are part of a larger intelligence of continuity. At one time the sand grain may have been a huge mountain. Now it is tiny, but it still part of the larger Soul of the Universe that orders all things.

Plants are easier to see as having consciousness, from a panpsychic point of view. They strive for the light, get people to water them by wilting, and have intelligent ways of propagating themselves.

Another general argument for panpsychism, ex nihilo, nihil fit: Out of nothing comes nothing. Therefore conscious mind cannot arise from no-mind, so that mind must have been present at the very origin of things. An intelligent Universe would not produce stupid things. Everything is part of this intelligence. But I find this argument difficult to agree with because we have no proof the stones and rocks are aware of their environment.

Therefore, I would amend panpsychism to say, “Everything, no matter how small or large is part of the manifestation of Universal Intelligence. It is this over-riding consciousness that is at the center of everything that exists.”

Existentialism is frowned on today because it seems like such a gloomy philosophy. It is often confused with Nihilism, which further makes life seem comfortless. Nihilism proposes that the world is meaningless and everything is absurd so don’t even try to find meaning or purpose.

Existentialism also deals with the absurd but has a bit more of a hopeful attitude about it. The individual can act with authenticity and responsibility based on the level of his own consciousness, divorced from cultural conditioning, and thus find redemption in life. So it is not as totally devoid of any lightness or fun.

For example Sartre, in his Myth of Sisyphus, presents the unfortunate man who rolls a heavy stone up a mountain, only to have it fall down again when he gets to the top. So the next day, he rolls the stone up again, it falls down, over and over again until he dies. This is not a happy philosophy. Yet Sartre says that if we persist and imagine Sisyphus (ourselves) happy we will be able to get out of our state of angst and confusion. Our happiness depends on what we make of it—but it doesn't seem convincing from the example of Sisyphus.

This is why Camus, another existentialist said, “Happiness, too, is inevitable.” He was saying that in the course of life happiness and misery all happen and we can give them equal weight. Just wait around long enough and happiness will happen too. And then misery and despair will happen. Then happiness.

Angst, dread, and despair are key components of existentialism. These emotions do not fit in well with the current trends to think positively or manifest vibrationally. Angst is kind of an objectless fear. It is combined with dread to make a horrible life for the deeply thinking person who has no faith. It comes from knowing that they are out there alone, making their own decisions. So they feel vertigo, like on a high scaffold swaying in the wind.

Despair is also not an emotion a happy, positive-thinking person likes to entertain. Yet Sartre and other existentialists say that everyone is in underlying despair when they realize how quickly the rug can be taken out from under them.

Finally, Camus’ statement about suicide causes many people to hate existentialism. He says suicide makes sense as a Response to Absurdity. “There is only one really serious philosophical problem,” Camus says, “and that is suicide. Deciding whether or not life is worth living is to answer the fundamental question in philosophy. All other questions follow from that.”​

Instead of seeing this statement as liberating because now they are choosing life, people see it as an argument for ending it all. Therefore, existentialism has fallen out of favor. Though it is a brilliant philosophy, people don’t look deeply into it and prefer, if they care about it at all, to look at it from a surface point of view.

Like the hidden part of an iceberg, the collective unconscious is something that all of us have but we don’t really know about. It rules our lives and shapes our decisions but this part of our psyche is not by choice. It is something we inherit. It depends on our ancestors, who they were and what their predispositions were. It is genetic. It has nothing to do with our current experiences and what we have learned from them
Jung proposed that the collective unconscious is common to all human beings and is responsible for a number of deep-seated beliefs and instincts involving spirituality, sexual behavior, and personality traits. Sometimes it is called the “objective psyche” because it is not in our control.
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Whereas Freud believed that the unconscious was the product of personal experiences, Jung believed that the unconscious was the product of collective experiences inherited in the genes. It is composed of a collection of knowledge and mental pictures that every person is born with and is shared by all human beings because of ancestral experience.
As individuals, we really don’t know what thoughts and pictures are in our collective unconscious, but once in a while someone breaks through due to trauma, paying attention to our dreams, or psychoactive drugs.

Jung felt that the reason all the world religions share common characteristics is the deep-seated collective unconscious. He also thought that morals, ethics, and concepts of fairness or right and wrong could be explained, not as the product of reasoning, but at least the collective unconscious is partially responsible.

He also explained phobias, such as the fear of snakes and spiders in children who never had trauma from these creatures. It is genetic memory that is responsible for their fears. Even seeing a picture of a snake or spider can cause fear, though the child has never seen a spider or snake in real life. Other fears that Jung imputed to the collective unconscious are social anxieties, fear of the dark, fear of loud sounds, phobias about bridges, or horror of blood may all stem from in this collective unconscious.

Karma is about our actions in this and in other lifetimes. Most people don’t remember past lives because it is enough that we focus on this life. Many times we can’t even remember our actions in this lifetime. So memory and karma do not necessarily connect.

But there are times when we remember our actions in this life that make us feel uncomfortable about ourselves. We know those actions accrued karma that needs to be cleaned up. For example, I remember when I was about four years old. I was cruel to another child on the playground. That has stayed with me my entire life. It was unnecessarily mean and even to this day I regret it. So now I go out of my way to not make that mistake again.
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I can also remember times when I was charitable and forgiving as a little child. Those were actions that generated good karma. I was kind to a child who felt she was an outcast. I comforted a crying child. So even though those actions were more than a half a century ago, I still feel good about them.
The only connection between karma and memory would be that memories help us to refrain from repeating actions that bring bad karma. And memories can also remind us of how good it feels to do kind things for others and ourselves.

Gypsy souls are the wandering spirits of the earth. While many people have spent their past lives, or even this present life, in one general area of the globe, gypsy souls don’t settle in one place. They only feel comfortable moving around, with very few possessions. This is why most people don’t understand gypsy souls.

Gypsy souls do not care about the comforts of life. Freedom has always been the most important value in their lives. Living permanently anywhere, settling down, getting a regular job, getting married, all the things that most cultures see as good—gypsy souls find oppressive. They don’t care whether people accept them or not. They know they are just passing through.
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They are difficult to pin down but full of adventure, courage, and independence. They would rather be out in the cold than comfortable in a warm house if it means they have to conform to what other people want of them. Slippery and elusive, they are hard to get to know, but they are colorful, resourceful, and inspiring to be around, even if you can’t ever get them to stay.

​Technology can help us to be mindful. Whether we are a programmers or users, to operate any complex technology requires the ability to be in the present moment. We cannot be scattered all over the place and write a correct line of code. We must pay attention to every comma, every period, every letter and number. One mistake and things go wrong, won’t start, won’t work, and cause chaos. The same holds true for users. It’s usually not the machine’s fault, it’s something the user forgot, didn’t get right, or blanked out on.

So it isn’t that tech makes us mindful, but we must be mindful to operate or build it. In this sense it is very valuable as an example of the need for mindfulness. But on another level, the Internet and all wireless technology, have further shown us that many powerful things cannot be seen with the human eye.
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We can’t see electricity, air, and the world wide web—yet they all exist and we take them on faith. However, when it comes to our Souls, Spirit, or the underlying powers of the Universe, we have a lot of doubters. Many people do not believe in this substratum of existence because they can’t see it. Yet modern technology is bound to make believers of these people as well, as soon as they become conscious of it, for they will then recognize the boundless possibilities of the unseen.