Tag Archives: happiness

One Basic Purpose for Living: To Thoroughly Experience & Completely Understand The Mystery of Being Both Alive & Human

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One Basic Purpose for Living:
To Thoroughly Experience & Completely Understand
The Mystery of Being Both Alive & Human

In spite of being largely unconscious, and usually based on assumptions, beliefs, feelings and ideas that we absorb from our social environment, everyone’s life is to some degree structured by purposes.  For the top 10 percent of our species, the purpose for living is to accomplish, acquire, and be recognized.  In other words, money, power, pleasure and fame are our primary motivators.  For the vast majority of us, however, we simply want to have enough accomplishment to acquire physical, financial, and emotional security.  As a result, our first purpose is to have a secure job, satisfying mate, a house and cars, and probably children.  Then, we want entertainment and friends.

At the lower end of the social/financial scale, we just want to live with some kind of decent and dignified survival and peace. Wherever on the scale we happen to be, there is no education or social awareness to show us that mastering the ability to thoroughly experience and completely understand human life is necessary to fulfill our potentials, feed our needs, complete our development, and create lasting happiness.

For all our technological advancements the development of self-awareness, and our understanding of the mystery of being both alive and human, is pitifully meager. This observation only means that it is now time, perhaps way past time, to learn about ourselves and life with the purpose of understanding the mystery of being alive and human.

It just so happens that I have spent a lifetime pursuing the answer to one question—”What, if anything, is necessary to make human life satisfying and meaningful?”  First understanding the question, then exploring life and the minds and experiences of other people has been necessary for me to discover that the invisible internal world of human experience is the source for layer upon layer of complex answers to my simple question.

 I first asked my question and defined my purpose at the age of five when my grandmother died. She was my favorite person, and really the only one who actually cared about and nurtured me. Even at the time, I could see my grandmother had had a very difficult life—married to a sphinx of a man with the tenderness of a stone—four children, all girls—hence one source of her interest in me—going thru World War I, the depression, then world War II, and finally, dying in 1950 at age 55 having experienced little joy and no fulfillment, seemed to my young mind an exercise in futility.

My response was to see that I too would go through a lifespan and die. Given my grandmother’s experience, this made me fervently wish I had never been born.

Since it was apparent that I was already alive and there was only one way out—much like being pregnant—I decided to make the most of it and spend my life figuring out precisely what would make this mystery of being alive worth effort and suffering, knowing in advance, the inevitable end to the story is my personal extinction!

In response, I spent my life gathering information about the mystery of being alive and human.  I have read endless biographies to learn how famous people chose to live.  I read literature, and studied the lives of writers.  I also studied music and musicians, painters, sculptors, actors, and other artists to see how artistic people chose to live.

Eventually, I studied scientists, naturalists, artists, businessman, politicians, soldiers, teachers, doctors, psychologists and lawyers, and anyone I met to learn how they responded to life and to what degree they were developed, fulfilled, and truly happy.  First with themselves, then with relationships, and finally, with their careers and professions. I discovered that people were more likely to be happy with their careers, than with themselves and their most important relationships.                                    

Ultimately, I could see that no matter how smart, successful, rich, or famous someone might be, no one knew how to thoroughly experience and completely understand the mystery of being alive. Most were honest and admitted that for them life began and ended a mystery, which meant in part, they never did understand their own internal needs, potentials, and developmental tasks—or how to create emotionally bonded long-term intimate relationships that were satisfying, equal, and reciprocal.

This information helped me see that I needed to clearly define, “thoroughly experience” and “completely understand” in relation to first fulfilling ourselves, and then loving life and other people. In exploring the meaning of thoroughly experience, I learned that we needed to be innocent, curious, and grounded in accurate observations of reality—  rather than be disconnected by vague beliefs, assumptions, and feelings. I also saw we needed to gather the information provided by our senses, and we needed to learn about Nature, how to experience and express love, how to explore life and discover what is worth loving, and how to use every experience and insight to slowly develop wisdom.

During this process, I learned that experiencing love begins with innocence and curiosity, while expressing love requires learning and nurturing. Wisdom, I discovered, comes from using information gathered from our observations, and connections we make using reason and experiments to learn how life works until we completely understand and thoroughly master our internal needs, potentials, and developmental tasks.

I have written down much of what I learned in the seven books currently available on my website, and use all of it in the individual sessions, videos and workshops that I offer. If this blog has awakened some innocent curiosity, consider exploring CMED.

Being The Source of Love Requires Objective Information & Specific Skills

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Being The Source of Love Requires
Objective Information & Specific Skills

After we decide to be the source rather than the recipient of love, we need to acquire the internal development—objective information and specific skills—necessary to pull it off!  In normal life, we assume love is a feeling, and because we have feelings we call love, we also assume we can become a source of love with no training, objective information, or specific skills required.  A hopeful normal sentiment, but quite inaccurate.

One reason it is rare to see a mutually satisfying expression of real love in everyday life and relationships is because of the degree of focused effort, specialized training, objective information and specific skills that love requires.  We all want love to be easier and require less effort than it demands.  Our fantasy is that love and happiness should be like ripe berries growing wild, so without cost or effort, we can just help ourselves!

The reality is that life, love, and lasting happiness are all complex, and to an untrained mind and emotions are as elusive as the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow.  Looking at a rainbow it seems at first glance it should be easy to find the end of it, and so, the pot of gold.  If you ever chase a rainbow, however, you will soon discover that the more you pursue it, the more the rainbow recedes into the distance, so the pot of gold (love and happiness), remains forever beyond your grasp.

Choosing to be the source, rather than the needy recipient of love is the first step toward internal development.  The next step is to observe that you need to give effort and get training, information, and skill.  Until you arrive at understanding both realities—one, you need to be a source of love—not a needy recipient—and two, this requires effort, information, and skill, you can never understand and master the full experience and innocent expression of real love.  Now, it is time to get to work, and truly learn.

What do we need to understand?  We need to first understand our own perspectives, and then the perspectives of the people close to us.  We also need to understand and master internal needs—our own first, and then learn how to feed the internal hungers of the people close to us.  These two categories—perspectives and internal needs—require both objective information and specific skills to first understand, and then master.

In normal life, there is no education for defining perspectives, or understanding internal needs, so the information and skill you will learn is new, and may feel difficult, or alien.  Never-mind how it feels; instead, just observe your experience to determine if the information seems to contain a common-sense level of truth, and if the skills actually work to enhance understanding, satisfaction, and meaning in everyday interactions.

Each person’s perspective can be defined in terms of six categories: motivations, purposes, needs, wants, choices and behaviors. To understand ourselves and another person requires that we accurately observe the specific details that define both ourselves and another person in each of the six categories.  Of course, for most people this is an impossible task because they cannot define the six categories of perspective, and have never been taught how to accurately observe life, themselves, and other people.

Instead of learning how to accurately observe, a normal education (cultural and formal), teaches us to draw conclusions and make judgments, which we often use to evaluate our own, or another person’s value.  Understanding for the purpose of nurturing is not something we normally pursue.  Nor is it something we normally have the information, skill, or training to pursue, even if we wanted to.

The most significant and universal internal need everyone experiences is the hunger to be seen, understood, and valued.  To experience and express real love—first for ourselves and life, and then for our mate, children, friends and strangers—requires we learn how to accurately observe for the innocent purpose of understanding and nurturing.

CMED training provides the detailed definitions for understanding perspectives and internal needs, as well as specific instruction in how to concentrate, accurately observe ourselves, life, and other people, and put it all together to understand and nurture.

All the critical information is available in my books and videos, as well as offered thru individual sessions and workshops. Internal development is complex, but CMED training is based on accurate observations and reason-based cause and effect connections that anyone can learn, and then verify through personal experience.

Life’s Most Critical Choice—Whether To be a Recipient—Or the Source of Love

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Life’s Most Critical Choice:
Whether To be a Recipient—Or the Source of Love

A common and invisible tragedy is that our most critical choice is usually unconscious.  This critical and primal choice is whether to be a recipient of love, or the source of love.  Most people never consciously think about love.  Instead, we just assume that love is defined by how we feel, and since we have feelings we call love, in our minds this means we are loving.

The normal process, where we assume we understand love when in fact, we have never actually thought-about it, is one reason that we humans have made little progress in learning how to define, experience, or express love in our daily lives.  Instead, we relentlessly pursue being the recipients of love, without ever clearly defining precisely what it is we are so avidly trying to get from life, animals, and other people.

The problem begins when as children our parents do not understand internal needs.  This means that no matter how well our parents feed our external needs for food, clothing, shelter, etc., our internal needs for acknowledgment and understanding are rarely fed.  We are also rarely taught how to create self-worth and emotional safety, or how to define and master our internal needs, potentials, and developmental tasks, so in normal life, we learn nothing about internal development.

Growing-up without internal education or nurturing, we are mentally and emotionally starved for warmth and acknowledgment, and to be seen, understood and valued—or in other words—to be internally fed and fully loved.  With this hunger driving our choices, most people try to be the recipient of love, and never know there is a choice.

What makes this tragic is that we often spend our lives searching for fulfillments we cannot define, and do not understand.  As a result, we often choose a career for security, financial reward, approval or self-image, and never understand our need for work that provides challenge, internal growth and fulfillment, and permanent meaning.

We also often choose a mate to compensate for our inability to make ourselves happy.  This places a heavy and often impossible burden on a romantic relationship because we expect our mate to nurture us when we have not learned how to nurture ourselves, or our mate.  As a result, we cannot give what we want to receive, and conflict is inevitable.

Have you noticed how rarely couples create and maintain long-term intimacy based on a genuine emotional bond?  Did you ever think about this fact with the purpose of first defining the negative of what is missing—and next, the positive of what is needed, and finally, how to master the skills necessary to feed the needs?

With the normal choice to be a recipient of love, we have no use for understanding.  We simply cannot see the reward for all the work necessary to understand.  Instead, we want simple answers and quick fixes that will create immediate good feelings, and relief from the pain caused by a lifetime of unfed internal needs.

While we all want to feel good, we need the understanding necessary to first nurture and fulfill ourselves, and then our mates, children, and friends.  The critical prerequisite for finally growing-up and wanting internal development is to change our choice—so we want to master the information, skills, and consciousness necessary to become the source of love.

Once we consciously want to be a source of love, then we will immediately see that a genuine experience and expression of real love requires that we understand and master internal and external needs, potentials, and developmental tasks.  For the first time, we experience a whole-hearted desire to be an emotionally independent adult, competent to nurture ourselves and other people—mentally and emotionally (internally)—as well as physically and materially (externally).

Understanding and mastery require the objective information, specific skills, conscious purposes, and mindful awareness that CMED training provides.  With CMED training people learn how to nurture and fulfill themselves, as well as their mates, children and friends.  Internal development is the artesian source for fulfilling our uniquely human potentials, and taking the critically needed next step up our own evolutionary ladder.

Without this evolutionary step, the demands, problems, conflicts, and responsibilities of modern life will remain beyond our developmental capacity to understand or resolve.  This means that to create happiness for ourselves and our loved ones, and to preserve Nature and the integrity of Planet Earth, we must become sources of love, and in the process must master all our internal needs, potentials, and developmental tasks.

Understand Internal Vs. External Life – Then Master Both!

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Understand Internal Vs. External Life – Then Master Both!

As much as we try to ignore, deny, explain or distract away from it, being alive is an unsolvable mystery that is sometimes cruel, sometimes inspiring and joyful, and often frightening.  The mystery that most affects human beings is the fact that unlike other animals we have the potential to develop self-awareness, and with it the ability to understand significant portions of ourselves, other people, life and Nature.

Fulfilling our human potential to be self-aware, and to work toward understanding life’s mysteries, is the beginning of an internal life.  However, if we do not fulfill these potentials, then we either fail to develop an internal life, or we are so superficial that we create more disappointment than inspiration, joy, love and wisdom.

A complete internal life is the result of mastering our mental and emotional, or internal needs and potentials.  Internal needs are defined by our universal need for self-worth, purpose, meaning, intimacy, beauty, wisdom, etc.  Internal potentials are defined by our uniquely human potential to understand, care, master, create and contribute.

By contrast, external life is defined by every need and potential outside our minds and emotions—like our external need for food, clothing, shelter, transportation, etc., or our potential to be physically healthy, professionally successful, financially secure, etc.

In normal life, we merge internal with external needs and wants, as well as potentials, so rather than create clear definitions and a detailed understanding of ourselves, life and other people, we create a confusing chaos of feelings, beliefs, and vague notions.

The lack of clearly defining internal vs. external life is the major reason human beings have failed to evolve mentally and emotionally.  As a result, we still fail to understand internal experiences: like how to create intimacy in long-term romantic relationships, or how to parent children so they grow-up not just able to make a living, but also develop a complete self-worth, can understand themselves, life and other people, and have the skills and awareness necessary to create internal fulfillment and lasting happiness.

Instead of evolving, after almost two hundred thousand years of human existence on planet Earth, we still cannot live in harmony with Nature, or each other.  We are still motivated by fear and greed, resolve conflicts with violence, exploit the weak, and as a species, prefer to distract with drugs, alcohol and mindless entertainments, rather than learn how to create intensely satisfying and truly meaningful internal and external lives.

If we look at the world through the eyes of an all-powerful Creator, we could imagine how He might feel disappointed in homo sapiens and be inclined to wipe the slate clean (eliminate the species), consider it a failed experiment, and then try again learning from His initial mistakes!  Even if the Creator lets us live, we may still drive ourselves extinct from a failure to master our internal needs and potentials.

Should we want to not just survive, but also fulfill our potentials motivated by a desire to flourish on a planet we are internally competent to make healthy and beautiful—or perhaps, just want to live out our lives internally fulfilled, then we need to concretely define internal vs. external life, needs and wants, feelings and facts, reality and fantasy, and every human potential.

Evolution in science has come about because we have systematically defined layer upon layer of observable facts and experiences in our everyday lives.  Prior to the scientific method, however, our progress in understanding Nature was glacially slow.

After the scientific method was adopted, our external progress has been phenomenal—but our internal development has not kept pace.  Now, we need to adopt the scientific method to study not just Nature, but ourselves, so we can first learn how to learn, and then master every internal and external need, potential, and developmental task. 

It has been my life’s work to lay the foundation necessary to understand ourselves, life, and each other for the innocent purpose of creating satisfying and meaningful lives, internally bonded relationships, and an evolving world where everyone learns to express love, pursue truth, experience and create beauty, and develop wisdom.