IMPROVING YOUR ALREADYNESS

I just came across a great quote from the Dalai Lama:

"Don't try to use what you learn from Buddhism to be a Buddhist; use it to be a better whatever-you-already-are."

This is so profound on so many levels. As an author, motivational speaker, and teacher over many years, it always has been most significant for me when a student uses what I offer to improve, expand, or accelerate his or her alreadyness (my newly coined word of the day). 

There are many who teach others to become almost clones of themselves, as there are institutions that teach participants and devotees to become regimented followers. Many organized religions would be appalled by the Dalai Lama's advice, having as their main focus the idea of worshippers becoming good whatever-the-church-wants-and-expects-you-to-be. One of the spiritual teachers I most admired was Jiddu Krishnamurti, who had some two million "followers" or disciples worldwide as a young man, but disavowed them and disbanded the organization he led to become what he termed a "simple teacher". 

It can be very heady stuff having followers or even fans. When Moneylove first gained major recognition, I was approached by a number of people who wanted to become apprentices or disciples of my prosperity teachings, little Jerry Gillies mini-mes. I discouraged them all. One went on to become one of the leading lights of the prosperity teaching movement with a bestselling book, even appearing in the movie, The Secret, so I evidently was right in turning him down at the time. He found his own way, as we all ultimately must do. 

When I taught meditation and was running the Biofeedback Institute in New York with two partners, I always was careful to teach that meditation is not going off in a corner or a cave and putting all your attention on your breathing or your mantra. That's just the preparation for meditation. A true meditator has learned to absorb those skills into his or her everyday life, so that everything becomes a meditation, so that meditation is an enhancement to what they are already doing, to what-they-already-are.

Jerry

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BEYOND WRINKLE THINKING

I am having fun with this new term I just created, "Wrinkle Thinking". I recently posted a comment on Facebook in which I said, "Thinking outside the box is no longer where it's at. We need to go deep within the box, and be able to then bounce out to a place where the box is no longer even in sight." 

For me, wrinkle thinking is not only staying inside the box, but sealing the box with duct tape, and then burying it under a layer of old ideas and preconceived notions and cultural prejudices and misconceptions. As we saw in the recent election campaign, a lot of people are still stuck in that modality. A lot of books are coming out on how to use some of the new knowledge we are learning about the human brain. Robert Greene's MASTERY is one of the best of these. He refers to what I am now calling wrinkle thinking by saying that if someone is successful early in life (which certainly happens a lot in this digital era), he or she may tend to become more conservative, more interested in protecting what they have rather than being excited about what new they can create. Greene talks about the importance of opening our minds to serendipity. I have long railed against the over-scheduled, overworked aspect of many people's lives that prevent them from being open to surprises and new opportunities.

This is one of my primary reasons for moving to Panama in a little over two months. A lot of serendipity has led me in this direction, but my life has been filled with many transitions and transformations, while also having a consistency in terms of synergy and flowing in a forward direction. Going from being a writer to broadcasting to writing books to doing lectures and workshops to writing and performing stand-up comedy, all seems very organic a process to me. And moving to a place where I will be forced to learn my very first second language, with new energy and many new adventures and lots of room for serendipity, all seems to be part of a smoothing out of those wrinkled thoughts.

The gorgeous Latina women, varied and wonderful food, majestic and sweeping beaches, warm temperatures--all these I consider rewards for my willingness to take new risks, perks I deserve for being willing to start a new life and be open to whatever.

Jerry

This is my very personal blog, but I also have a lot of fun writing my prosperity blog based on my two million copy bestseller, Moneylove, at:  http://MoneyloveBlog.com

SURVIVAL OF THE TRUEST

The phrase appears in a passage in the book, The Stark Munro Letters, by Arthur Conan Doyle, written in 1895 and one of his many novels not featuring Sherlock Holmes. In it, a young doctor talks about his friend and partner who has quite a vivid fantasy life and comes up with some wildly unrealistic schemes. This passage immediately brought to mind the political campaign just ended three days ago. It also comes in the midst of a lot of Republican and conservative recrimination. 

Billionaire donors are complaining that the Romney campaign lied to them about his chances to win, and that Karl Rove--who as George W. Bush's famed "architect" certainly knew the trend and demographics were against a Republican victory for the presidency or the U.S. Senate, but took hundreds of millions of dollars from them under false pretenses. And ordinary voters are lambasting Fox News for skewing the truth in just about everything they said in the final weeks of the campaign. In other words, a huge "Liar, Liar, Pants of Fire!" to almost all Republican pundits and politicians.

Here's the passage as it was written over a hundred years ago:

The future wilt decide which of us is right. The survival of the truest is a constant law, I fancy, though it must be acknowledged that it is very slow in action.

In the spirit of compromise and conciliation, I offer this suggestion. Let all of us of a progressive and/or liberal persuasion, reach out to those we might perceive as being on the other side with understanding and empathy. We should all appreciate how tough it is to be lied to consistently and persistently by institutions you have come to trust just because they appear to be in political agreement with you. This has certainly happened in the past from the other side, though arguably the lies were much more flamboyantly blatant this time around. Or maybe not--a historian has pointed out that during his campaign, our 4th president, James Madison, was accused of pimping out Dolly in exchange for votes.

It's a good time for healing, forgiving and forgetting. Gullibility is not a crime--and if it were, most of us would be under arrest from time to time. 

So, my conservative friends, let me remind you that there are some pundits on your side who had it right, who understood the truth and told it. People like David Brooks, and Joe Scarborough, Kathleen Parker and Peggy Noonan were sometimes called Rinos by the far right prevarication machine, but "truth-tellers" would be more accurate. And Olympia Snow and even young Megan McCain. They may not be as sharp-tongued or occasionally witty as Krauthammer, Hannity, Coulter, et al--but neither did they lead vast numbers of believers into shocked humiliation, or make millions at the expense of the duped.

Jerry

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JERRY'S MOVING-ON ADVENTURE

I've now been back in the Bay Area for a week after my return from my exploratory trip to Panama, in preparation for my move there on February 1st. All of the reasons I cited in my previous post for choosing this move have been dramatically reinforced and expanded. 

A lot of this has to do with the quality of the people I've met, mostly through my good friend and Panama mentor, Tony Busse. I would be willing to bet that no one has ever emigrated to a new country with more of a solid network of influential contacts and potential good friends. The food and beautiful women were way beyond my expectations, and even during the "rainiest month of the year," not a single drop fell on my head during the entire ten days, so that I still have never opened the umbrella I brought. I bought a windproof model over six months ago for the normally yucky San Francisco climate, but it hasn't rained here either for a long time--well maybe a couple of times, but not when I had to be out in it. 

My friend, Barbara Winter, whom I interviewed/dialogued with for the Moneylove Club audio series this month, says, "Figure out where the adventure is and optimize it."  My newest adventure will be later today at the Apple Store in San Francisco when I buy my very first smartphone, an iPhone 4S. It takes a year or two to get a landline in Panama, and I want to immediately start using an app that offers speech recognition Spanish, so I can just say a phrase into it and it will come back with the correct Spanish phrase. I can use it to communicate with non-English speakers, and also be learning the language. But once I get down there, I will enroll in a Spanish class at the University of Panama. 
Yes, I'd say I'm optimizing my adventure big time.
                                             Jerry

Check out my other blog at http://MoneyloveBlog.com

WHY PANAMA?

This is a question I'm getting almost every day now that I've announced I am packing and leaving the U.S. on February 1st and moving to Panama. I am about to share my list of reasons, but I think my immediate gut response to the question is, "Why not Panama?"  I've lived the past four years in the San Francisco area, ever since paroling from Folsom State Prison. For three of those years, I was restricted to stay within a fifty mile radius. I've always assumed I would spend the next period of my life somewhere else, and was just awaiting such an opportunity to offer itself.  Thanks to my friend, Tony Busse, who has lived in Panama since 2006, though with frequent returns to his native New York, I now have that option.

Tony has been suggesting I visit and then relocate to Panama for the past several years. He is an innovative and clever entrepreneur and wants to work with me in some areas of personal development. A number of people in the U.S. and other countries have praised my work, suggested they wanted to collaborate, or at the very least, support my efforts. But no one in the U.S. has so far come up with an actual plan or strategy for doing so. Tony has, on a number of occasions.  So my number one reason for deciding to move to Panama is:

1. Tony.

The rest of the list is in no particular order of importance, and I suspect after my return from my first exploratory visit to that nation this week, some of these items will be modified or replaced.

2. The Brain Stimulation of Learning a New Language.
     I have long felt like sort of a dunce for only knowing English. Especially with new evidence that learning and speaking a 2nd language is a tremendous boost to brain function.  Though perhaps not absolutely necessary, I do intend to become articulate in the Spanish language.

3. Climate.
    Let's face it, I am a warm weather person. Even Southern California was a bit chilly for me when I arrived directly from ten years in Florida. Northern CA? Forgetaboutit!  In Panama City, the annual average temperature is about 82 degrees. It also is out of the hurricane belt, has no active volcanoes, few earthquakes, and no killer heatwaves.

4. Cost of Living.
    A lot less, sometimes 40% to 50% less. Taxis are $1.50 to anywhere in Panama City, you can have a very lovely dinner for two for less than $20, and a luxury three bedroom apartment in a high rise building with a view of the Panama Canal is $1800 a month. For a lot less, you can find a nice single bedroom place.

5. Lots of Americans.
      There are tens of thousands of English-speaking expats in Panama, and they are quite often among the most colorful and adventurous people one can find, as they took this leap of faith into a whole new life in a whole new place. I also think I have a lot to share with this group, in terms of my stand-up comedy and prosperity concepts.

6. Prosperity Conscious Energy.
     With the long-awaited final passage of the U.S.-Panama Free Trade Agreement last October, a lot of U.S. entrepreneurship has poured into Panama, and there are lots of new opportunities for Panamanians as well as expats. This means there will be a tremendous need for consulting services, motivational and sales seminars, time management information, etc.  I don't know how this may specifically affect me, but I suspect some surprises may be in store--fun and most profitable surprises.

7. Access to Fastest Growing Economies.
    Placed where it is, a stone's throw from Colombia, which is also enjoying a new U.S. trade agreement, and with easy access to the rest of Latin America, including the world's most vibrant economy in Brazil, it feels like a good time and place to bring some of my prosperity teaching to a whole new market. I will be meeting with some people who are interested in doing this, as well as coming out with a Spanish translation of Moneylove.

8. Shiny New Things
    In my talks and writings recently, I have added this as a concept of what we all need and desire in our lives to keep our minds and hearts engaged. For me, a whole new country to live and work and play in is the ultimate shiny new thing.

9. Perfect Timing.
    I don't think it is ever a good idea to make a major shift in one's life, or major decisions when one is immersed in difficulty or emotional turmoil or pain. I am having a delightful time savoring San Francisco and all it offers, and getting a lot of creative efforts going around the world, and so it is, for me, a perfect time to follow through on my longtime intention to leave California.

10. Latina Women.
    Yes, I know about the gorgeous women of Panama, including many Sofia Vergara-like Colombian women who have emigrated to Panama. Tony and others have told me how gorgeous young Latinas love older American men, even if they are of modest means. My first reaction was that I am not really interested in women half my age or even younger. But I realize that is limited poverty thinking, so I am now open to seeing what will actually happen once I'm there. But this really isn't a high priority as I already have a couple of gorgeous women who are looking forward to coming down to visit me once I am settled in my new home.  
So that's it, the reasons that immediately come to mind for moving to Panama. Will I love it and want to stay there forever or a very long time?  I have no idea, but it's about keeping up the momentum, keeping up the life force with new options and adventures.
                                        Jerry

Check out my prosperity blog at:  http://MoneyloveBlog.com
    

TIME FOR CATS AND DOGS

I have been thinking about the subject of TIME recently. A lot. For one thing, I am about to interview and discuss this subject with a very interesting former New Yorker who now lives in England, Martin Boroson, author of The One Moment Meditation. He has thought a lot about TIME and our relationship to it, as I have since I recorded a segment of my first Moneylove tape album thirty years ago and called that segment, Take Your Time!  What I meant by that title, which I was also considering using for a book, was that we need to take charge of our time, that we needed to own our time instead of merely managing it.

I just listened to that 21 minute audio segment for the first time in years, and find that Martin Boroson and I agree that we can be much more in charge of this human construct known as TIME. 

And here's where I may offend or upset some of my dog-owning, dog-loving friends. Cats are great role models in the quest to master time. Dogs are time wastrels. I know it is hard for fans of either species to be objective, but consider this:

A cat knows exactly how much time it wants to spend in almost every activity, while a dog doesn't seem to have a clue. Cats choose to eat, sleep, play, sleep some more, eat some more, play some more. When a cat eats or gets some affectionate scratching from its owner (a dubious title to say the least), it has a point where its appetite for either is satisfied and it will walk away and go on to the next activity. A dog will keep eating until it gets sick or until the food runs out. A dog will lie there and let you rub its belly until you rub it raw. The concept of "enough" doesn't exist for dogs, nor does the concept, "It's time for something else." 

A dog is perpetually restless, while a cat is infinitely patient. When you return home to a cat after an absence of several hours, it might come up to give you a look of disdain, as if to say, "You fool, you missed seeing all the interesting and adorable things I was doing while you were gone."  A dog will rush over in frenetic delight, as if to say, "Oh master, I thought you were never coming home, I was bored out of my skull without you. I want you to pet me, I want you to feed me, I want to go out for a walk!" Let's face it, dogs are high maintenance compared to cats. 

Yes dogs can be great companions, and are more loyal than cats, even if their owners ignore or abuse them. Dogs do not have discriminating taste. If a dog loves you, no one is surprised, especially if you feed it. If a cat loves you, it feels like more of an honor, as if you earned something.  Oh, cats can be warm and affectionate--as long as it doesn't take too much time away from more interesting activities. 
                                           Jerry

Don't forget to check out my other blog, on prosperity. http://MoneyloveBlog.com

SHINY NEW THINGS

It isn't only babies, puppies and kittens who like shiny new things. We all do all our lives. There are often jokes made about men and women and their new toys obtained during a mid-life crisis. Men going out and buying a new sports car, women buying new breasts.

But beyond the humor, there is something serious going on here, and as I look back on those things that keep me going, keep me creatively productive, keep me growing and changing with zest and vitality--and keep friends and strangers amazed at how alive and youthful and adventurous I am in my so-called senior years--I realize that a lot of it has to do with my intention and commitment to keep my life filled with shiny new things.

In 2012, these include my first stand-up comedy performance at San Francisco's famed Purple Onion, after a course at San Francisco Comedy College; and my upcoming visit to Panama next month, which is really an advance scouting expedition preparatory to my relocating to that Central American nation early next year. And my first prosperity workshop in over twenty years later this month at Unity San Francisco, which will serve as a model for a series I will be presenting around the world. 

What keeps my consciousness filled with joy and passion and robust expectations is the fact I keep my mind and my life filled with shiny new things. This is so much easier to do than at any time in human history. We have the Internet now, that provides us with instant access to every new thing happening on the entire planet. 

In fact, if anything, we have to be careful not to become inundated with these shiny new things. Sometimes I find myself beating them off with a stick, metaphorically speaking. Personal editorial discretion is more necessary than ever.  

In the past 48 hours, I have added several of these shiny new things that keep me young and excited about life. In my bi-monthly trip to Trader Joe's amazing technicolor world of foodstuffs largely unobtainable anywhere else, as always, I decided to explore some new items, which I tasted and tested the very day I got them. And now I have two new food addictions, dark-chocolate covered Powerberries and Thai Lime Chili Cashews. I also made the online acquaintance of a fan of my Moneylove book and tapes overseas, and we've had some fun email exchanges in the past few days, which could lead to some collaboration on future projects. 

Here's the point. If we have the intention to keep a steady flow of newness that we embrace flowing into our lives, we maintain a certain level of excitement and anticipation that I believe generates hormonal and neurological regeneration. On the other hand, as pleasant as it may be, if we only stick to paths and experiences already known so as to maintain a high comfort level, we risk the danger of falling by the wayside in terms of youthful aliveness and a productive, creative mind. It is up to you how up you want you to be and feel.
                                            Jerry

Something shiny and new worth exploring, if you haven't done so yet, is my other blog, focused on prosperity in all its glory.
http://MoneyloveBlog.com