Knowledge and Religion

The right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness

On inaugural week it is a wonderful time to comment on these words from The Decoration of Independence by Thomas Jefferson:

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable Rights that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.

Do these words have a spiritual meaning too?
Now it is rumored that besides having a political meaning, these words have a spiritual meaning too. I think that the founders of the United States had a good understanding of Self-Knowledge. That’s because in order to get to the essence of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness a person has to look within, to know his or her self.

This is not based on some conspiracy theory where the founders were trying to introduce some weird energy into government. It is based on knowledge, and the unique characteristic of knowledge is that it is straightforward and understandable.

Why look within?
So you might ask: “Why do you have to look within to find life, liberty, and happiness?” In order to get a sense of this you have to look to the actual place where you experience life, liberty, and happiness. Mind you, not the place where you are supposed to experience these things, but the place where you actually do experience them.

If you were to believe the advertisements that you see: if you only get the new house, new car, new ipod, xbox, new computer, husband, or wife then you will gain the happiness and freedom that you want. But when you get that car you have to admit that we don’t really experience happiness in the car ― you experience it right in your own heart. If you look carefully, I think you will find that your heart was the cause of the happiness ― not the car. At the most, the car can remind you of what you have already and just overlooked.

You experience happiness over here, not over there!
Moreover the car is over there, right? I never heard anyone say, “I feel lots of happiness over there.” No, they experience the happiness right here ― right in the place where they actually stand.

Once you discover that happiness and freedom come from the inside you will find two other advantages:

First, if the car or the house gets destroyed or goes away, your happiness does not have to go away. You will realize that your happiness comes from a much deeper source than any object that you see.

Second, you will not pursue objects with the vain hope of getting what they just can’t deliver: the happiness that you have already. Greed comes when you think more objects will deliver more happiness. But I haven’t seen it. The rich people that I know are not happier than the poor people who know themselves and are at peace. In fact many of the rich people that I know seem quite agitated. Perhaps they intuitively know that they are on a futile path.

What are inalienable Rights?
Now you may be wondering about another part of this quote: “endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable Rights.” What could that possibly mean? Well inalienable means unchallengeable absolute rights. How could these rights come from the creator?

When God created the universe he couldn’t first go to the lumber store and then to the hardware store, right? He could not hire a bunch of contractors and get to work. That’s because none of these things existed yet. So where did the stuff of the universe come from?

It had to come from God, right? So nothing that we perceive can be separate from the one God. If this seems strange to you, last night’s dream can hold a clue. Each character in the dream may have thought that they were separate. But when you wake up you see that the dream was not really made of separate characters. It was made of the one mind and that’s what you were too.

When you begin to look within to your own self-nature you will be in for a big surprise. The world that you thought was out there is really in here. Not only is the material God; but the very principles that make up this world like the pursuit of life, liberty, and happiness come from God. These desires are really our desire to return to the source which is our true home. It is to return to the one infinite being that we really are.

Not created they can never be destroyed
I hope that you can now see that the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness only seems to come from governments. They really come from looking within. There you will find that these rights were never created and that they can never be destroyed. They are just what you are. When you find them, you will have returned to your real home. This is the meaning of inalienable Rights.
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Question everything
Here I always encourage questions. People take too much for granted about the world, their body, mind, and their nature. Questioning encourages you to take a fresh look. Looking afresh, once again life becomes fresh and a real adventure. Without changing a thing, everyday experiences become completely new. If you need help with your questions you can write me at 
michael@light-up-your-life.com.

Please join us
Every Tuesday we hold a meeting here in our house in Los Gatos California. All too often it is only my wife and I that attend. But we still have a wonderful time. If you find yourself in this area and would like to attend here is a link where you can find more information

www.light-up-your-life.com/talks.html

Other resources available to you
If you need a more basic understanding of this Self-Knowledge or if you just want support for your practice, go to www.light-up-your-life.com and read down the main column. Also check out the different links that we provide as resources. They can help you to sharpen the focus of your meditation practice.

Another resource that we offer is the book, Making Your Wisdom Come Alive, a step by step guide taking you from your everyday experience to the highest wisdom and truth. To find out more, click on the link below:

wisdom.light-up-your-life.com

To join our mailing list go to: http://www.light-up-your-life.com/join.html

Please Tell Your Friend
Please tell you friends. Although we don’t have an advertising budget, we hope that everyone who wants to can find out about and wake up to this wisdom.

You have my best wishes,

Michael Gluckman

A letter to all who will pass away

It is hard to imagine a life without wisdom. Where would you center yourself? How could you really feel at home? Centering yourself in the motion of the world is like centering yourself in quicksand. The very spot that you think you stand on will slip out from under you, and you will be left with nothing to catch your fall.

If you center yourself in the body you already know that the body is growing older. It gets sick and in the end it dies. If you identify with it, it feels as if you are dying too.

Even now you are much more than a body
But fortunately if you look carefully you will see that even now you are much more than just a body. The body is just one of the many objects that you see. If you can know this in a deep experiential way you will begin to find your freedom from that which is in motion. That’s because you will begin to center yourself as the seer of change, not as the one caught in it.

Ask where do I stand so that I can see all of the changes that occur to the body? Is the seer of limitation really caught in limitation? The kind of shift that you will experience is not in what you see. It is a shift in the place that you stand. You will find the changeless presence that is your real center.

Now you will begin to sense that you are already centered in this fundamental still Awareness that lights up the world. You will feel that you are just beginning to discover what’s already true: that your center is the reference point from where you see change; yet it is unaffected by the changes that you see.

Looking right past this still Awareness, we take ourselves to be one of the many objects that we see. With this wisdom we return to the stillness, the place where we really stand. It is here that we find, “The peace that passes all understanding”. This peace does not come from what we do or how we act: It comes from what we are.

This is freedom from death
This wisdom is so deep that it even transcends that which passes away. And yet when we look afresh we discover that this wisdom is really what we are. Standing here we can rest in our true home, in the depths that supports change without being affected by it.

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Question everything
Here I always encourage questions. People take too much for granted about the world, their body, mind, and their nature. Questioning encourages you to take a fresh look. Looking afresh, once again life becomes fresh and a real adventure. Without changing a thing, everyday experiences become completely new. If you need help with your questions you can write me at 
michael@light-up-your-life.com.

Please join us
Every Tuesday we hold a meeting here in our house in Los Gatos California. All too often it is only my wife and I that attend. But we still have a wonderful time. If you find yourself in this area and would like to attend here is a link where you can find more information

www.light-up-your-life.com/talks.html

Other resources available to you
If you need a more basic understanding of this Self-Knowledge or if you just want support for your practice, go to www.light-up-your-life.com and read down the main column. Also check out the different links that we provide as resources. They can help you to sharpen the focus of your meditation practice.

Another resource that we offer is the book, Making Your Wisdom Come Alive, a step by step guide taking you from your everyday experience to the highest wisdom and truth. To find out more, click on the link below:

wisdom.light-up-your-life.com

To join our mailing list go to: http://www.light-up-your-life.com/join.html

Please Tell Your Friend
Please tell you friends. Although we don’t have an advertising budget, we hope that everyone who wants to can find out about and wake up to this wisdom.

You have my best wishes,

Michael Gluckman

The problem of good and evil

With all the news lately about cheating, corruption and, other scandals in the corporate world you might think that evil is increasing in the world. But I argue that there are not two motivations in the world, good and evil. There is only one motivation and that is the desire to find lasting happiness.

But the problem is that happiness does not come from the world; it is hidden in the heart of the one experiencing it. If you want to know how this is true, just look to the place where you actually experience happiness. Is it in the objects that you see or is it in your own heart?

Do you experience happiness out there in an object like money, a house or a car or do you experience in on the inside, right at the place where you stand? I think when you examine this closely you will find that the source of happiness lies on the inside, the exact place where you experience it.

Objects cannot provide what they don’t have
But the assumption is that if I only have more money, a house, or a spouse then I will be happy. But the problem is that objects cannot give you what they don’t have. And yet the desire for happiness is extremely strong and cannot be ignored; it is the desire to return to your real home, which is your own self-nature.

But you may think, “If a million dollars doesn't give me what I want, perhaps a billion dollars will do the trick.” But when you look at the world objectively you will see that billionaires have just as many problems as millionaires; at the least billionaires are not a thousand times happier than a millionaire.

And on the other end of the spectrum, saints who seem to have nothing can be ecstatic with joy. Situations that you would assume would make a person miserable do not necessarily make them unhappy. The starkest example of this is in Victor Frankl’s, “Man’s Search for Meaning,” where he describes different people’s reaction to living in a concentration camp. Not everyone reacted in the way you would expect.

But the desire for happiness is so strong that a person will do whatever is necessary to get the object of his or her desire, even if this means cheating and hurting others. In the same vein a person will do what he or she can to destroy which he thinks is an obstacle to his happiness, even if this means committing acts of evil.

Getting an object does not assure happiness
But the sad thing is even if people get what they want they will not get the happiness that they desire. That’s because the only way to find happiness is to have the wisdom to know where to look.

In life it is sometimes necessary to face situations that seem very changeling, situations that we have no desire to face. But there is a happiness or deep peace, found on the inside that will support you no matter what situation you have to face.

When you face a challenge just stand here
It is just a matter of discovering this happiness and standing here. Then you will be the depths of the ocean that supports the waves on the surface. You will see that your worth does not come from what you have; it comes from what you are. You will have discovered the peace that passes all understanding. This peace is free from our usual notions of good and evil.

For more information on the source of happiness go to www.light-up-your-life.com and scroll down to: “The kingdom of heaven is within you.”
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Question everything
Here I always encourage questions. People take too much for granted about the world, their body, mind, and their nature. Questioning encourages you to take a fresh look. Looking afresh, once again life becomes fresh and a real adventure. Without changing a thing, everyday experiences become completely new. If you need help with your questions you can write me at 
michael@light-up-your-life.com.

Please join us
Every Tuesday we hold a meeting here in our house in Los Gatos California. All too often it is only my wife and I that attend. But we still have a wonderful time. If you find yourself in this area and would like to attend here is a link where you can find more information

www.light-up-your-life.com/talks.html

Other resources available to you
If you need a more basic understanding of this Self-Knowledge or if you just want support for your practice, go to www.light-up-your-life.com and read down the main column. Also check out the different links that we provide as resources. They can help you to sharpen the focus of your meditation practice.

Another resource that we offer is the book, Making Your Wisdom Come Alive, a step by step guide taking you from your everyday experience to the highest wisdom and truth. To find out more, click on the link below:

wisdom.light-up-your-life.com

To join our mailing list go to: http://www.light-up-your-life.com/join.html

Please Tell Your Friend
Please tell you friends. Although we don’t have an advertising budget, we hope that everyone who wants to can find out about and wake up to this wisdom.

You have my best wishes,

Michael Gluckman

New Year’s resolution: This year I want to really change

Based to my response to her question on December, 23rd, Fran had some more questions. If you are tired of making New Year’s resolutions that never seem to change your life, you may want to pay special attention to this answer. Here we offer a new way to change.

By applying a little wisdom, you can easily send you life in a whole new direction. The exciting thing about this method is that the changes will be beyond what you could have ever anticipated. They will make your life sparkle and seem fresh like you are living for the first time. Remember that the questions are just as important as the answers: “Ask and you shall receive.”

Dear Michael,

Thank you for your response! I think this one really impacted me and is a very good yardstick. “Whatever you see you are not.”

I wish I had emailed you awhile ago before I spent money on Brain Wave Cds to change my brain. They do help me sleep though.

The Room Space analogy is also helpful. As I was driving home yesterday it occurred to me that part of my issue is that I have preconceived ideas of what awakening should look like. I have had crystal clear moments at times and somehow thought these weren’t valid because they didn’t look like the awakening experiences I had read about in books.

Usings Ramana's response of dropping the thought that I am not awakened or that it requires efforting made me realize as I have before my I AM Thatness. It’s just that I somehow want it to look differently than the way it is appearing in my life. I realized that being enlightened doesn’t mean that I wouldn’t be right here right now doing exactly what I am doing which includes working at my job or feeding my cat or getting groceries. I still get grumpy, or sick or frustrated or whatever is occurring. This has been very freeing!  The funny part of this drive is that when I stopped at a light I noticed that car in front of me had a license plate that said ...  BZYMIND  

Thank you so much for you help and support.

Bright Blessings,
Fran

Hi Fran,

There is one thing that I left out when I wrote to you last. Suffering is not natural. If you feel suffering and limited, then it is time to put in the energy.

As Ramana Maharshi said: put in the energy of a person, held underwater, who has to come up for a breath. But at the same time you want to be intelligent with how you use your energy. Just fighting with your thoughts is like your left hand fighting with the right hand. You never seem to change.

Thoughts don't really bind you
See, it isn't thoughts that bind you. The glue that seems to hold suffering together is your assumptions about them. You should know that the only thing that doesn't have a reason for it is peace, love and the feeling of oneness. That's just your natural state.

When you feel boxed in, frustrated, and grumpy there is always a why to it. Dullness is when you take these feelings to be normal. But sometimes they seem so close to you that they are hard to get a handle on.

So here are some signs that you are facing an assumption and not reality. "This is just the way I am." "That's life." "That's just the way my mind works." "Life is suffering."
"Of course I get frustrated, it's their fault." "I am completely justified in reacting in this way."

When you see or hear your mind saying these things, sit up and take notice. You are about to have the opportunity to find an assumption. When you see it you might think: "Oh yeah, this is what I took to be normal and learned from my parents or friends, or I just thought up myself."

Just by seeing an assumption you are free
The unique thing about finding an assumption is that just by seeing it you free yourself from it. Once you see an assumption you will change in ways that you couldn't have imagined. All of the sudden life will become fresh and new, and you will know the meaning of freedom.

Remember, what you see you are not. When you just look with honesty, assumptions fall apart and walls that seemed so normal disappear. So you never have to pump yourself up or put yourself down. Just look at yourself as though you were a character in a novel. Try to see what makes that character tick.

To learn more about these gremlins called assumptions you may want to read my blog, "What is enlightenment anyway?"

Assumptions are not a new word for devil
And finally I have not created a new word, for evil, or for the devil called assumptions,. When you find an assumption you will see that just by looking at it, it will disappear. It is not something that is really there. The only thing that is really there is your self-nature or God.

This blog is designed to help you get a handle on a practice that will really set you free. If it raises more questions in your mind then I have done my job. Of course questions are always welcome here. Questioning what seems to be normal is the gateway to freedom.

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Question everything
Here I always encourage questions. People take too much for granted about the world, their body, mind, and their nature. Questioning encourages you to take a fresh look. Looking afresh, once again life becomes fresh and a real adventure. Without changing a thing, everyday experiences become completely new. If you need help with your questions you can write me at 
michael@light-up-your-life.com.

Please join us
Every Tuesday we hold a meeting here in our house in Los Gatos California. All too often it is only my wife and I that attend. But we still have a wonderful time. If you find yourself in this area and would like to attend here is a link where you can find more information

www.light-up-your-life.com/talks.html

Other resources available to you
If you need a more basic understanding of this Self-Knowledge or if you just want support for your practice, go to www.light-up-your-life.com and read down the main column. Also check out the different links that we provide as resources. They can help you to sharpen the focus of your meditation practice.

Another resource that we offer is the book, Making Your Wisdom Come Alive, a step by step guide taking you from your everyday experience to the highest wisdom and truth. To find out more, click on the link below:

wisdom.light-up-your-life.com

To join our mailing list go to: http://www.light-up-your-life.com/join.html

Please Tell Your Friend
Please tell you friends. Although we don’t have an advertising budget, we hope that everyone who wants to can find out about and wake up to this wisdom.

You have my best wishes,

Michael Gluckman