Wisdom is essentially a deeper understanding of life and the world – and of ourselves – an outlook which can lead to more intelligent choices, more beautiful relationships, and more peace and happiness, and optimum living. It can promote more harmony amongst all people, leading to a world of peace, love and understanding.

I think wisdom can be very pivotal in bringing about a more enlightened world. After spending almost half my life, focused pretty passionately on life’s fundamental questions and answers, on philosophy and spirituality, I’ve come to see that together with all the other beautiful and powerful healing modalities and practices a lot of us are engaging in, it will benefit us hugely to deepen our understanding of life, and experience more clarity and wisdom,  bringing about a grander experience of life, and a more beautiful world for us all.

To serve this idea, I’m developing www.homeofwisdom.com (not displayed yet) as a home of all things wise and true.

These are some of the key features and offerings on the website:

• • a library of wisdom relating to fundamental aspects of life and the world.

  • a place where people can learn about the principles of life and share their own wisdom

  • a forum where people can discuss life issues and current situations functionality which enables people to rate ideas and theories, and get an idea of what more/most people agree on.

  • various offerings from world teachers in written, audio and video formats

  • an offering of self development, and spiritual growth courses.

Wisdom is not something that is ancient, or dying! It is today. It is here. It is now! Wisdom is alive and well, and growing, and developing.  I believe everybody has wisdom of some sort or the other. Homeofwisdom.com is a space in which to remind us that it is alive, to refine it, share it, and celebrate it. The basic purpose is to help humanity learn how to live enlightened lives and create a better world.

I have a dream… a simple, yet grand dream – Heaven on Earth in our lifetime.

If you’re interested to contribute, have a suggestion, or would like to be informed of the launch, leave your details below and I’ll stay in touch.

Have you ever had the experience of listening to a piece of music and being transported to a sublime, uplifted state of consciousness?

And who is this music created by? Humans? Mere mortals?

What is at the very source of this music? Is it the wire strings on the guitar? The stretched skin on the drum? Or the data and processing power of a computer?

Well, all of these certainly help to produce the music – to manifest it, but they only bring forth something which is occurring in a subtler space. They bring forth what is moving around in the heart and mind of the musician.

What sponsors this impulse within the musician, is something even more subtle than the heart or mind. The music is born in soul, in spirit, in divinity. It originates in the celestial realms.

Music is divine. We all love it. But because we’ve created the illusion of separation between us and divinity, we tend to see the music that emanates from our musicians as earthly and not exactly divine.

Once you see this illusion of separation for what it is, the boundaries disappear and you see divinity all around.

It might be difficult to see divinity in a chair, or in a stone! Maybe it gets easier to perceive the Divine in a flower or in a sunset. And if we mostly miss divinity in human form – in those around us, it may be easier to start to feel it in the music, to hear it in the notes and rhythm, and sometimes to see it in the eyes of our musicians, for they are indeed celestial musicians in human form.

They are our “Gandharvas.”

Every now and then you come across a truth articulated so clearly, that you feel compelled to spread it.

That’s how I felt when I read this little piece…

“Your moment of awakening can come to you at any time, and through any person. Therefore honor all times and all people, for the moment of your deliverance may be at hand. It will be your deliverance from The Illusion, the moment when you can be with it, but not within it.”

(this is from the book: “Communion With God” by Neale Donald Walsch)

I don’t only read these words, I feel them. Do you?

Some people say that our purpose in life is to serve God. Indeed some religions teach this.

This suggests that God is a needy entity, perhaps unhappy, and a being that created other beings to satisfy her own needs, whims, and desires!

Poor God!!

But once you come to a more accurate understanding of what God is, and who you are in relation to God, and of what life’s purpose is, you come to see that this is quite a mistaken idea.

We are not separate from God, and we are not separate from each other. Indeed nothing is separate from anything else! Separation is an idea born in the mind that misconceives the true nature of things. This can happen when the mind is informed by the senses alone, or by mistaken beliefs.

At deeper levels of existence everything is in exchange, interconnected, interpenetrating, everything is in relation, and at the deepest level everything IS ONE.

It is at this level of Absolute Oneness where there is no separation between the creator and the created. At this level you are not separate from the creative essence (or God.)

Indeed you are an extension and expression of the divine creative force (or God), and being such, your very existence in physical form serves this creative force. Through you consciousness experiences tastes; sounds; sights, feelings; thoughts; desires; new ideas and evolution into higher forms of being and greater levels of consciousness.

So your very existence serves God!

So free yourself from the idea that you HAVE TO DO anything else to serve God or any other agenda.

Find comfort in this knowledge. Find inspiration in this idea. Indeed find freedom in this realisation.

Whether you’re into research, gaming, or online social networks, or you’re just an avid internet surfer it seems that all of us are increasing our ’screen time’ – spending more and more time behind the computer monitor. And you may agree that online interaction, virtual worlds and the great big www can be so captivating that its easy to lose track of the time and suddenly realise that its 1am and you haven’t moved your body for hours!

Even if your office job requires you to spend most of your time at your desk behind your computer, it can certainly take its toll on your fingers / neck / social life / marriage!!

The problem is you could end up way too tired everyday, or you could be experiencing RSI – Repetitive Strain Injury,  carpal tunnel syndrome, or myopia.

Time to keep it in balance (or bring it back into balance!) Enter: Workrave!

This ingenious little program frequently alerts you to take micro-pauses, rest breaks and also restricts you to your daily limit.

Workrave reminds you to take a break in an unobtrusive manner. When it is time for your break, a friendly small popup window appears asking you to take a break. This window automatically moves out of the way if you keep on working. If you ignore these hints too often, however, the program acts less friendly and pops up the break window for your own good.

The program is designed quite intuitively. It continuously monitors your keyboard and mouse activity. If you leave your computer running while you are at a meeting, Workrave will notice that you are taking a natural break from the computer.

Workrave is fully configurable, in many ways, and here are just a few of the functions you can control.

• the duration between micro breaks, and between micro breaks
• the duration of your breaks
• the duration of the postpone, or ’snooze’ functions
• the maximum amount of times you can postpone
• you daily limit of computer time
• display of status window
• signal sounds or silent mode
• the ability to block you form working further or not

You can read get all the finer details and download the program on the Workrave website.

Don’t panic though – you can override any of the features, and continue to work or play if you absolutely have to! Here is what the configuration window looks like…

And this is what one of the timing windows looks like…

…and when it’s time for your exercises, you will be guided through a routine with the aid of this window…

Workrave is free software. Not only does it come free of charge, but you are also free to make modifications to the program.

You can read more about Workrave here and you can download it free here.

Have fun…and remember: keep the balance!

Let’s say you’re in Sydney, Australia you wanted to set up a telephone or Skype meeting with me in say Atlanta, Georgia in the USA, you would have to pick a time, say 10am, and then mention whether it is 10am “your time” or 10am “my time”. If you decide it is 10am your time, you would have to calculate what the time will be for me in Atlanta and then communicate this to me. In order to do so, you’ll have to figure out what American time zone Atlanta falls under – U.S. Eastern, Central, Mountain or Pacific Standard times. Then you’d have to make sure that we’re not in daylight-saving part of the year, and what the correct time will be.

Nightmare, I know!

Now imagine you were setting up a conference call with 5 people from 5 different cities across the globe.

Mega-nightmare, I know.

Isn’t it high ‘time’ we started to use a new system of time? Something more universal perhaps.

Well, as I said, it exists, and I’m surprised more of the world isn’t using it yet. I’m talking about Swatch internet time. With this system, there in no need for time zone conversions – because Internet Time is the same everywhere!

Instead of dividing the day into 24 hours and 60 minutes per hour, the Internet Time system divides the day into 1000 “beats”. And the distinctive aspect of Swatch Internet Time is its notation -  @248 would indicate a time 248 beats after midnight.

And off course the absolute genius and beauty of this time is: when it is @681 in Sydney Australia, it is exactly @681 in Atlanta, Georgia, and in fact @681 on every place on earth.

So if you’re setting up a virtual meeting with a friend in Rome,  Helsinki or Chennai, you can simply agree to meet at an “@ time”.

Problem solved!

Now there are certain logistic considerations when moving from our old system of time to this new system, and it will be best for a while to have both time systems displayed side by side. You will find a time converter on the swatch website here, or if you use a RSS reader like iGoogle, you can get a ‘gadget’ for it here,

I’m still on the lookout for software that can display swatch time on the task bar or in its own floating window, and for different ways to use and share this system. If you want to collaborate on how we can encourage more people to use this system, just leave a comment below, and I’ll get in touch.

If I take a while to reply, it’s because I generally check mail only between @375 and @750.

Unless you’ve been a hermit or living under a rock for a while you would have heard of “The Secret” and all kinds of books and programs focused on the law of attraction, on instant manifestation, conscious creation, the science of success, on creation rituals, visualizations and affirmations.

And it’s about time!

So I wanted to share an insight with you into what this is about in the greater scheme of things. You see, for thousands of years, as we lost sight of our true identity and nature we also lost sight of our powers of creation. All of this is part of the greater divine plan, off course, and now there is a huge groundswell of interest in our ability to manifest whatever it is we desire.

Now when you think about this, you probably wouldn’t see this as a spiritual interest at first. I mean, if you wanted a red Ferrari or a million dollars, and discovered a way in which you could get it faster, is this spiritual? How can it be?

We can arrive at clarity on this if we ask ourselves what is spirituality anyway? Now off course you would hear many different definitions of spirituality. Some mistaken, some enlightening and some more accurate than others. I’d like you to think about this as a definition: “Spirituality is the progression in the direction of Self Awareness”. The loaded word here off course is ‘Self’. What is Self? Who are you, really? This definition would seem limited if you think of yourself merely as a body-mind-ego complex, but would be more accurate if you see that you are essentially spirit in physical form, ie:spirit manifesting as and expressing through the body-mind-ego complex.

I remember clearly the experience I had about 15 years ago when I first heard the statement “We are not just human beings who have occasional spiritual experiences, but we are spiritual beings who are for now having a human experience” This one sentence powerfully crystallized a truth that had been emerging within in my consciousness over many years.

And if you are essentially Spirit, then your true self is spirit, which we can also call consciousness, energy, all that is, divine essence or God. (The word ‘God’, off course has been tarnished by centuries of doctrine and false beliefs. Only when you move through these false ideas, can you start to accept that the deepest part of you is in fact God.)

So if you are spirit, as you advance towards self discovery, you simultaneously advance towards spirit. And self discovery can come about by discovering what lies at the heart of your identity, or by discovering more about your nature. Imagine that you are a prince. You are of royal heritage. One day, while riding in the forest you fall from your horse and experience amnesia. You forget who you are. You stray far away from the castle and live as a beggar. The pain of poverty leads you to question your existence. And the questions cause you to advance towards self discovery.

This process can come about by remembering that you are indeed the royal prince, or it can come about by slowly discovering that you have hundreds of horses, a beautiful princess and a majestic castle.

Similarly by discovering that you can indeed draw to yourself whatever you desire, and consciously create and manifest things, circumstances or even worlds very effectively, you would discover that you are not as limited as you think you are. It would reawaken you to your abilities and your innate power, which is a step closer to remembering who you truly are.

For centuries we have been involved in spirituality driven by our motivations to experience more peace, more clarity, to avoid pain, and to reach higher levels of mastery and perfection. This off course is driven by the ‘call of spirit’. More recently in addition to these motivations we are now driven by the desire to be more, do more, and off course to have more! This has led us to discover more of our hidden powers and gifts. Again, the call of spirit is certainly not absent in this process (Is it ever?) So with this perception maybe you would now see manifestation teachings and programs in a slightly different light, and perhaps even embrace them more readily. It is perfect and beautiful that we are now re-awakening to our long lost powers, and awakening to self-realization.

Maybe this would give you motivation to go for that Red Ferrari after all! Or that holiday overseas, or perhaps that beautiful mansion you’ve been dreaming about. Achieving these things could raise your level of being into a more dynamic, powerful realm and raise your level of consciousness. Because at the end of the day and in the greater scheme of things, it really isn’t about the Red Ferrari. That is, off course, unless you say it is!

On the surface this may seem like it is promoting materialism. And a few subscribers wasted no time in letting me know!

However the experience of buying something or owning something is not materialism per se.  Materialism is only when one becomes attached to or preoccupied with material things. The dictionary defines materialism as “a preoccupation with or emphasis on material objects, and comforts, with a disinterest in or rejection of spiritual, intellectual, or cultural values.” So it would be helpful for us to differentiate between materialism and –let’s call it – material engagement.

You and I grew up in a world in which religion and old cultural and spiritual ideas suggested (and some times dictated) that material engagement was not compatible with spiritual development. We fashioned our world according to this idea, and this resulted in monks, swamis and most of the spiritual fraternity living in simplicity and often in poverty. This type of thinking is still pretty much alive – wouldn’t you raise your eyebrow if you saw a man in his maroon buddhist robes get into his Mercedes Benz?!

True spirituality, though, has nothing to do with what car you drive or how much you have or do not have. It indicates a certain focus. Similarly with materialism. It indicates a certain focus, and you can have this focus irrespective of how much you have or do not have.

Right now a homeless person in Africa with almost no belongings could be content and living in faith and love. A New York millionaire could be harboring a sense of lack, insufficiency and disconnection from the flow of life. On the other hand the homeless person could be so overly focused on getting his next handout, that he loses awareness of his inner connection to all of life and of the grace of god. If he becomes preoccupied with this focus, we could call him a materialist.  Yet the millionaire who’s now sitting in his penthouse, moving on from his visualization exercise into his affirmation sequence in his effort to manifest a new jet (or that red Ferrari!)  could be doing so in full remembrance of his ‘perfect, whole and complete’ nature. If he sustains his efforts to remember and affirm this truth, this would make him spiritual.

You may ask though, why would the millionaire want more if he sees that he is already whole? (And in the same vane – is not all seeking of material engagement anti-spiritual, as it were?) The answer brings forth a very important insight. The movement towards more is a natural quality of all of life. Yet this does not spring from incompleteness or insufficiency. The Divine Creative Essence is all. It is content in and of itself. Yet it does not sit still! It follows a continual impulse to become more – more beautiful, more complex, more conscious, etc. And this motivation is planted firmly within you and I, manifesting as our desires and our motivation to become more – more knowledgeable, more powerful, more balanced, more evolved, more aware…

God does not manifest universes because she feels incomplete, but to be more. The forest doesn’t grow more leaves and trees because it perceives lack, but to be more. You too are not separate from God or Divine Essence. And even as you seek to be more or have more, remember to affirm your wholeness. In this wholeness, in your oneness with all that is, all is you and all is already yours. (This is the basis of affirmation as a manifestation technique.) And you would be wise to focus on being more, rather than on having more. And whatever it is you seek to attract in your life, it would serve you best to focus first on being the one who is powerful enough or abundant enough to have it. Its manifestation then becomes a natural result of this state of being.

Being is primary. Doing or having is secondary. Therefore, BE IT FIRST, always. And when you find yourself wanting more, remember always to BE MORE…and more and more…

I’d like you to consider something startling: that this is an illusion! A myth. A mistaken idea.
Separation is an illusion, superimposed by the human mind over the truth of oneness. All things are one, and the idea of separation from life, separation from each other and separation from the Divine Essence is an illusion, a myth, and idea that is not congruent with ultimate reality.

You are a magnificent, powerful creator. If you think about it, you are creating many things of great magnificence right now and all the time.
Every thing and circumstance that you have encountered in your life is created by you. You are actively beckoning the energy that creates galaxies. You are a master of creation operating here and now in the space-time reality, and your desires and creations take thought itself to new heights. As you find yourself in a sea of contrast, you entertain new desires, and offer new vibrations which are matched and manifested by Divine Essence. Through this process the universe is taken to new heights of being.

I’m sure you’ve had the experience when it seems that source does not manifest your desire, or at least not as quick as you’d like! And sometimes you experience things you do not desire – pain, loss, death, and it seems that you are not powerful enough to change the undesired circumstances. This leads you to believe that you are not at cause, or not creating these circumstances – for why would you create something you do not desire?

We are quiet aware that we are creating on the physical level, and we know pretty much how to do this successfully, but currently we are quite unaware of how we are creating on an energetic level. In this physical world, we know how to use our hands. With our words and communication we are able to collaborate and create collectively. With our mental planning we create things of amazing complexity and beauty. But largely we have lost awareness of how we are creating on a vibrational energetic level – on our side of the ‘imaginary fence of consciousness’ anyway!
And this is not surprising since our consciousness has become so focused and almost locked down on the denser aspects of existence.

The law of attraction refers to a fundamental way in which the universe of consciousness and conscious beings operate. Like unto like is attracted. Everything has a vibrational essence, all thoughts and all things, and when you give your attention to something, your vibration begins to reflect that thing or experience. As you think about it more, you vibrate like it even more, and in turn more of that which it is like is attracted to you. So if you ever wonder why you do not already have what you desire, it is because you’re not holding yourself in a vibrational pattern as that of the experience you desire.

Since this is a law, it is always in operation. In other words there are no exceptions to this rule. If it happened at some times and not at other times, it would be  like a tendency, not a law! According to the law of attraction, you get what you focus on, whether you want it or not. All too often when you want something, you focus on the not having it, rather than on the experience of having it. And the universe, your contextual field, reflects, replicates and manifests your thoughts. So you end up with more of ‘not having it’.

When you desire something, you can only bring it in to your experience if you achieve vibrational harmony with it. An extremely effective way to bring about vibrational harmony with something is to imagine that you already have it. Imagine what it would feel like, and allow yourself to feel the enjoyment of the experience. When you do this consistently, you put forward this vibration and you put yourself in the space of allowing this ‘reality’ into your experience. And at the moment of holding the desire, you can tell whether you are in a space of attracting it or repelling it. When you trust, and you’re in the flow, and you are allowing your full connection with source energy, you focus on the experiencing of having it, and it feels good. When you somehow doubt you can have it, you focus on the ‘not having it’, and it does not feel good. So, by observing how you feel, you can tell if you are giving attention to your desire, or to the absence of you desire. Thus you can tell whether you are placing yourself in a space of receiving it or resisting it.

So, if you haven’t already, I’m reminding you to start consciously using the law of attraction in your life. Practice keeping yourself in a vibrational place of experiencing all that you desire. And above all, contemplate on the question that can change everything: Who am I? Then start to undo the conditioning that the world has placed on you, and remember again that you are infinite and eternal in your essence.
Remember too that you are you are a powerful attractor and creator, and create the things that bring joy to yourself and the world.

Whatever you think you need, take a moment to really analyze this, and ask yourself whether these are actual needs, or are they perhaps desires and preferences.

False Ideas

Whenever you think you need something, the uninspected pattern of reasoning that goes on in the background would go something like this: I need that $100 in order to place that advertisement in order to get that call in order to make a sale in order to make more money in order to survive!

Yet you do not need to survive! This may sound disparaging to life. I’m not suggesting that you should not survive – only that it is mistaken to perceive survival as a need. Survival and death are experiences of a life form, and whilst an aspect of you expresses as a life form, the essence of who you are is far beyond this. You are Life itself. And from this perspective your survival is guaranteed. Your essence is eternal, infinite, all that is, and needs nothing in order to be.

Another typical subconscious train of thought would go like this: I need to catch that bus now in order to get to town on time in order to buy those shoes in order to look good at the party in order be liked by my friends in order to be happy!

Yet this thinking is based on the assumption that we can be happy only under certain conditions. This is not true, but we have believed it to be true. And since belief colors experience, we currently experience it this way. So the whole train of thought leading to the conclusion that we need something rests on an initial assumption which is false!

Think about it: Do you need anything right now in order to be? No – you already are! And this is true at any given point of time – you need nothing in order to be.

This is true on the macrocosmic level also. Divine essence, or the universe needs nothing. It is quite literally everything, and sufficient unto itself. To surmise that divinity needs something would be to suggest that the fullness is not full, that it needs something to make it full!

All need is contextual

These days I watch myself from using the word ‘need’, and whenever I hear someone else using the word, I mentally complete the sentence. They say “I need X”; and I think “only if you want to achieve Y”. This is because all need is contextual. For instance, only in the context of wanting to get somewhere is there a need for a car. And only in the context of driving the car is there a need for fuel. Only in the context of wanting fuel is there a need to go to the gas station. Outside of this context there is absolutely no need to go to the gas station.

In the same way, outside of all our constructed reasoning of what we say we have to do, or what is required of us, need does not exist. This may sound contrary to our experience, because we do experience need from time to time. But this experience stems from an idea – and a false idea at that! Need is an illusion, a mere projected reality.

Desires and preferences on the other hand are an integral part of our expanding experience in an expanding universe. Once we learn to look beyond the mask (illusion) of need we will see it for what it is – preference. And when you elevate your ‘needs’ to preferences, it is extremely powerful and liberating. In fact they are already preferences; you will only be elevating your understanding and the experience leading from your understanding.

If we are able to elevate the perceived need for financial stability, for example, to a preference for financial stability we will not be as distressed as we are by the lack of it. This one lesson, if grasped deeply would change the experience of the vast majority of people today who are exacerbating need into distress, and further into desperation and depression.

Practice needlessness today

So practice needlessness today. You would find that you’re not practicing to be something that you’re not, but something that you already are! In this sense it looks like a practice from one perspective, but it is actually an allowing, and a remembering – and a grand remembering at that! In needlessness you will discover more freedom. In freedom you will find joy. In joy you find the truest version of yourself that you’ve ever experienced. In joy you find your Self.