The most self-centered, conceited person you know asks a favor, maybe change for the bus ride. Seizing an opportunity to teach this person a lesson, you indignantly decline the request, hinting through self-righteous body language that he should know better. The nerve!

It would hurt you to give in this situation, it would cause personal discomfort.

What is hurting though?

Would an apple tree deny this person its fruit?

Does oxygen somehow get out of the way for him?

Do the sun rays veer clear?

Imagine if Nature behaved how we do. The human species would not last very long.

Why do we do it different than Nature?

We have egos. Egos with opinions, beliefs, judgments—egos that constantly need to reinforce their superiority, especially over other human beings.

Always the result of buying into ego belief is separation, a distance between me and you. Separation leads to loneliness. Loneliness leads to suffering.

If you are interested in changing this, and living more in-line with your heart, you can practice giving in areas where you normally shut down.

Despite 'better' judgment, you give the conceited person the change for the bus, lovingly. Two things happen: 1) Your honor and selflessness has the power to inspire and transform him. 2) The pain you feel and do not yield to, in a way, takes a little chunk out of your ego, lessening its grip on you.

You feel better taking the high road you're not trying to take (even the high road has a sense of superiority), and a much better result is had than trying to change somebody through negativity, no matter how justified you are.

Mother Teresa, in great wisdom, was advocating profound spiritual practice, not martyrdom.

You failed. Miserably.

Every answer guessed was wrong. A torrent of confusion, pressure, and fear swept through your mind as you went from one wrong answer to the other to the other.

What is your teacher most concerned with now?

Penance? Excuses? Self-flagellation?

How about: action?

All your teacher cares about is corrective action in the future—no words need be exchanged, no presidential commitments submitted. Just do it different next time.

Particularly, care more. Pay more attention. Give it some more effort.

Should you have known better?

If you did, would you have failed so miserably?

Really, you're in a strong position. Now, you're clear and conscious of what to do next to improve (hopefully, if the failure is to serve a purpose).

The quesiton is: will you?

Most certainly not. Nothing is wrong. There are no needs. There is no danger.

They rest peacefully.

What happens when they resume waking consciousness?

Mental activity resumes. They perceive themselves as a singular 'I' that will not survive without doing something.

This is where the majority of a child's cringe-inducing wails arise from. Their ego that feels separate, afraid, and powerless--that demands attention from the outside world to ease its pain.

(Note to parents: No amount of coddling your child's ego will do him any good. In fact, you strengthen the ego by coddling it.)

It's really wonderful, children do not know how yet to mask their egos--so we get to see its workings in full, unadorned glory.

Ever find it odd no other creature in Nature makes such a disregulating noise as the child's manic scream? No other creature is as emotionally fragile?

Children go from happy to sad about every 5 minutes. Sad when ego doesn't get what it wants, happy when it does (for a short while).

Something unnatural is happening, the ego is unnatural.

See that we never grow out of this pattern of crying to get something we want--we just use different tactics, but they all revolve around using negativity (or positivity) to manipulate reality to feel better. And how we're only happy for awhile, while we have the something we want.

Does any of this occur during sleep? Do we have problems? Needs? Cares?

When are you the most at ease? When you are doing nothing. Wanting nothing. Needing nothing. Being perfectly still.

When the mind is silent, and ego, for a time, is disregarded. Now we know why the goal of meditation and process itself resembles sleep in every respect, and why Ramana Maharshi said your ultimate goal was to maintain sleep consciousness while awake.

You're still you when sleeping. The experience of reality has changed (for the better), but the experiencer remains the same.

With so much talk of waking up, what we really need to do is shhhhh ourselves to sleep. And realize, if we are fully cared for during sleep, we are cared for while awake.

Find some happiness for myself.

Create comfort for myself.

These thoughts and behaviors are born from The Choice--go to work, or go to bed hungry. They are much like a coping strategy, a way of self-medicating an experience of reality that hurts at the core.

Somebody builds up a family, possessions, a certain routine, etc. Take any of those things away and you are going to deal with a person who closely resembles a junkie void of their fix.

The fear of going hungry, of not surviving, for most, forces a lifestyle of self-concern--ever in the background is the thought of ending up on the street. Even millionaires suffer from this thought, and is why they can be the most reluctant to give.

You can trace all the ills plaguing our society to this simple cause and effect relationship.

A lifestyle of self-concern destroys community, fragments humanity, and empowers authoritarian entities able to commit murder with little or no backlash because everybody is so preoccupied with their own survival, too busy to be concerned with anything happening outside of their limited sphere of interest.

There are those who levy The Choice, small in number. Then there are those of us who tolerate it, oceanic in size.

How can we tolerate such misery? Such an infringement on freedom?

Do we want to be miserable? Do we want to be prisoners?

It's possible. And then we'd have to ask why, and pay particular attention in our own lives where we choose misery and imprisonment. Where do we censor the impulse of our heart? Why do we live life according to the approval of others?

Why is that?

Those are potentially chain breaking questions consider.

Each face the same choice: go to work, or go to bed hungry. The CEO, maybe due to more fortunate circumstances or stronger resolve, adjusts to that choice a bit better. But, maybe, the beggar is more honest by choosing not to participate at all because it's a choice that makes a mockery of us all.

It's The Choice we all face.

And it's a terrible one, one no human being should have to make. It brings out the worst in potential--in the constant background of our entire experience is fear of survival, i.e., not surviving. Common sense tells us how most humans act under threat of survival: aggressive, warlike, supplicant, criminally. The creative instinct is not there. The visionary instinct is not there. The very things that make us human, are not supported.

Why should it be a far off dream to make a living based around your passion? Why isn't that the norm? It can be. Easily.

Our community should be setup to bring out the best in potential. Our natural skills and abilities. Our reason d'etre. It's simple to design for--all the people willing and ready to make it happen are there, waiting for the go ahead, authority, and budget. What's hard is designing for what we have now because it requires constant work and effort, and the human suffering it creates, especially among the poor, creates unnecessary problems that drain community resources and spirit (crime, substance abuse, worst of all, emotional resignation).

Why should anybody have to worry about where the next meal is coming from? Why is education not setup to develop our strengths and leadership values? Should any entrepreneur or visionary ever have to worry about funding? The money is there for the programs, the people are there to administer them.

What's missing is the care enough to implement them.

That's the sad reality we have to come to grips with. Our community doesn't care about fundamental human livelihood.

Investing in people only works 100% of the time. Why aren't we doing it? Building amazing infrastructure. Why aren't we doing it? Investing in arts and cultural activities. Why aren't we doing it?

Solving challenges people care about. Why aren't we doing it?

With so much talk of disruption--the biggest opportunity for disruption is in the way we manage our communities.

Could you imagine a leader who: Spoke without a teleprompter, and with love. Ended all wars. Cut military spending down to a bare minimum. Reinvested in infrastructure and education. Ended all domestic spying programs. Reframed law enforcement to peace keeping. Whose foreign policy was not to have one. Who was solely focused on domestic issues.

How relived people would feel. How renewed. How much more willing they would be to participate.

It's so obvious what needs to get done. The fact it's so obvious, and still not getting done tells us:

A) Community leaders are thoroughly incompetent, enough to warrant immediate expulsion from all seats of power.

B) It's deliberate, purposeful chaos making.

Which do you think it is?

There is no option C) These programs take time to implement, are so hard to manage, people are so difficult to work with.

Really? Have we tried?

Do I have enough Facebook friends?

How can I get to Oprah?

How do I lose 10lbs.?

As humanity and its ecosystem sits upon the edge of ruin and destruction, while hundreds and millions go without, and corrupt and outlandish governments wage illegal, immoral wars and permeate further into the lives of citizens without consent.

Should our thoughts be dwelling on getting ahead? Looking good? Personal freedom? Notoriety?

Should we be worrying about these things? Do they matter?

For awhile now, this kind of individualism is and has been a strong indication of how disconnected we feel, what a lack of genuine community there is, and how distracted we are from these things.

The time for it is over—there is a gigantic elephant in the room we can no longer ignore. Things are not OK. Things aren't going to get better on their own. We are in grave peril.

Maybe it needs to get just a little bleaker, the hand needs to squeeze just a little tighter, for us to see it.

How can we reinvent the system to have one that works for everybody?

How can we reforge communities?

How are we going to get out of this mess?

If nobody cares about these things enough to take action—at least even in thought—and having the latest iPhone, with the latest photo filters is more appetizing—maybe it’s already too late.

It's a personal concept to me though and cuts to the core of our human experience. Nature is in a state of effortless reality—it expends no effort yet somehow manages to accomplish everything. We, too, are meant to live in this sacred state, and indeed is the state we long to return to. In fact, we already are living in this state, we just don't know it—how Dorothy didn't know her silver shoes could have taken her back to Kansas right from the beginning. That's a curious thing.

What went wrong?

That question is addressed in the book, as well as a host of information, invitations, and provocations to either start the quest to a life lived effortlessly or deepen your commitment to it.

Living effortlessly is connected to living in line with your purpose, or the counsel of your heart. When you do, you become not so much a doer but the done—action moves through you, not from you—you heed the imperative of a deeper will. A will that, at first, seems separate from you; but, as you progress, you come to realize it is your will—a separation was perceived because your mind, your ego was running a game of interference.

I will be submitting the work for publishing, why not? In the event that it's not picked up, it will be offered here, very likely for free.

Here are a few draft excerpts to get a feel.

Your Character is Your Fate — how your internal reality creates your external reality.

What Time is It? — concerning the great Wheel of Ages, and how what's happening in the world today is exactly what needs to be happening.

Fighting Less — a crucial subject of how it is not your job to provide for yourself.

The fall of humanity is its salvation and the salvation, its fall.

Nothing remains the same.

The real power lies not in your ability to effect change in the world but in your ability to transcend the world altogether.

To be in the world but not of it.

This is largely an internal journey for the advanced student having lived so long involved in the never ending drama of creation, destruction, rise, fall, happy, sad, only to find you keep ending up in the same place where and when you began.

Here and now.

All seeking, all of your effort took you to a destination and time you were already occupying.

This is the center of the wheel where you are able to witness the motion of the world without moving. You, yourself remain unchanged through changing seasons. When it rains, you don't get wet. When the sun shines, you don't cast a shadow.

This is the mark of mastery.

Immovability. Unaffectedness. Steadiness.

And the real power we wield.

Yet, it was curiously cut short as I considered my former inmates and prison brothers still behind bars.

Though they, I know, were happy for my escape, I wondered if I could really enjoy my new, so called free life?

Can I be free, while others are still behind bars?

Can I be happy, while others are meant to suffer?

These questions have haunted me ever since.

This is prime fodder for the ego.

A prime opportunity to prove your superiority. To prove another wrong.

In some cases, it might be necessary to directly address the lie.

In most though, it's an opportunity to engage in a high challenge—a black belt issue.

To remain loving towards this individual and not single him out, put him in the cross hairs and mentally eliminate him.

To not react in anger or righteous indignation.

That is the challenge and it takes a courageous effort, few are able to muster, to rise to it.