The Most Valuable Skill Ever     

Imagine that today, we take you away from your loved ones.

We take away your job title.

We also take away all your hobbies and interests.

Then we go ahead and put you in a cubicle black box.

In this box, there is only a bathroom, air ventilations and a basic bed?

Then we give you just enough meal and water so that you don’t die.

You are going to live here until you die.

No social contact. No nothing. Just you in this box.

And that’s it.

Now here is my question: Can you be happy in this circumstance?

Most people would say: No, of course not. Are you crazy?

Well, this is what unconditional happiness is all about.

 You might think this is an extreme example but not so fast.

Someone who cultivates true unconditional happiness can actually enjoy solitary confinement.

When I say that unconditional happiness is the single most important and valuable skill ever, I mean it.

If you haven’t realized yet, some people actually live this way.

Prisoners are stripped away all ‘personal’ control and being forced into living in these boxes without nothing to do.

This is what living in a solitary confinement feels like.

Now, I know that you are going to tell how these people are scarred for life, or how these people are stripped away the most basic needs of human beings in the Maslow’s pyramid, or how science is confirming how lack of social contact is necessary for our happiness because we are social animals.

Let me answer with this:

Yes, all of those appear to be true for almost everyone in our society. And I’m well aware how these prisoners are psychologically scarred after they get back to the society.

BUT… All of these negative effects are only true for people who haven’t developed this skill of unconditional happiness.

All of these are true for people who haven’t developed themselves psychologically.

Here is an example.

You are going to be shocked but Albert Woodfox, an ex solitary confinement prisoner, who served 43 years for a crime he didn’t commit, was able to stay sane all those years in that small box.

Do you know about yogis and master meditators (in other words, people who cultivate unconditional happiness) consciously choose to live humbly with less money, less relationships and less control?

In fact, there are meditation retreats that spans over years. 

The buddhist monk who chooses to go into a 5 year long meditation retreat to attain enlightenment is virtually no different than a prisoner who is sentenced to 5 year long solitary confinement.

You know what the actual difference is?

The monk already wants in and enjoys the experience but the prisoner wants out and feels trapped.

The monk makes the best out of every second by exercising mindfulness skills like concentration, equanimity and sensory clarity whereas the prisoner starts getting lost in the thinking mind and the feeling body in the form of monkey mind and boredom.

The experience is 5 year long isolation for both of these individuals, but the buddhist monk comes out of that experience refreshed and possibly enlightened whereas the prisoner comes out psychologically scarred.

Do you see the importance of our responses to circumstances rather than the circumstances by themselves? 

 Well, all this meditation and psychology work that we are learning here is helping us to do just that.

We are going to delve in deep into this concept of unconditional happiness (that master meditators have realized for years) and make this one skill the motivation of our training.

2) Open Mindedness

“Your assumptions are your windows on the world. Scrub them off every once in a while, or the light won’t come in.” ― Isaac Asimov

Open mindedness is a key life style change you’ll have to make if you want to advance into higher stages of your potential.

The practices we are going to be go through like meditation, enlightenment work and mindfulness will go against the “common” wisdom.

Doing spiritiuality and consciousness work requires for you to be as open minded and adaptable as possible.

If you get stuck or defensive about your existing paradigms and value systems, growth will be virtually impossible.

3) Lifestyle Minimalism

Life style minimalism is the radical lifestyle change marked by the following sentence:

‘Less is More.’ 

The less connections you have to both physical and emotional things,  the more happy and free you’ll be.

 With this lifestyle change, you’ll teach yourself to appreciate the small beauties of life.

The only effective antidote to greediness, ungratefulness and ambition.            

4) The Power of Self Acceptance

Before I was introduced to Buddhism, Stoicism and Meditation, I was a  self-development junkie.

Back then, I was thinking like this:

“If someone does not develop themselves, then what is the point? You can’t be happy if there is no tangible progress and constant improvement. If you can do better, you always should.” – Typical self help dogma

As I have operated on that value system for awhile, I have seen its huge limitations as well.

Yes, you do develop and get better at your craft, but do you truly feel happier?

Do improvement and progress make you feel happy even temporarily let alone parmenantly?

After levelling up in a video game, you get the dopamine high and then on to “the next level”. It is a never ending cycle.

No different than addiction. The cure then is to practice self-acceptance. To love your current self. To be okay with what you already have. Not “needing” to improve all the time.

Learn to accept yourself as you are.

5) The Benefits of Meditation

Apart from mindfulness meditation, there are handful of other meditation types like self inquiry, loving kindness and do nothing techniques which can greatly aid your meditation training. 

These are tested and proven meditation techniques practiced by masters like Shinzen Young and Peter Ralston.

You can’t get any more effective than these when it comes mind training. Also we’ll get into the practical and neurochemical changes happening in your brain as you meditate.

Learning why we do what we do is important for you establish pure and solid motivations.

6) Complete Stoicism Education

Stoicism is a practical life guide that perfectly aids your meditation and enlightenment efforts.

Not only Stoicism will help you get results in your career, it will also help you to deal with difficulties and problems that might arise in your relationships.

Stoics argue that the only think you have control over is your mind. So what can be more important than to train it? 

As you go through this course material, keep these words in mind:

“Waste no more time arguing about what a good man should be. Be one.” – Marcus Aurelius

We learn Stoicism not to show off our friends or to do armchair philosophy but to become a good human being, to learn how to live virtuously.

7) Adaptability: Avoid Dogmatism At All Costs

“By taking a shape, by having a visible plan, you open yourself to attack. Instead of taking a form for your enemy to grasp, keep yourself adaptable and on the move. Accept the fact that nothing is certain and no law is fixed. The best way to protect yourself is to be as fluid and formless as water; never bet on stability or lasting order. Everything changes.“ – Robert Greene

Life is like a chess game. If you keep making the same moves over and over again, you are bound to lose.

There is always a chance you may be wrong. So why the arrogance?

Times change. Trends change. Rules change. People die. Nations are born.  Everything changes.

Life is moving. Don’t let dogmas scare you away from change. Know when to let go and move on to unknown territory. Assume formlessness. Be like water.

8) Non-Duality: Good and Bad Doesn’t Exist

“There is nothing either good nor bad but thinking makes it so” – William Shakespeare

Non-duality is the concept that things are inherently “one”. Things don’t have their polar opposites like pain-pleasure, good-bad, or ecstatic-depressed.

At least not as distinct as you think. You can’t have bad without good, like ying and yang. They are inseparable. 

On the more practical level, you can verify this truth for yourself.

Every event that happens to you in life is fundamentally neutral. They are neither good nor bad.

Let’s say that if John hated his job and got fired, in some sense, this is good news for him. Now he can find something that he is more passionate about.

On the other hand, if John loved his job and got fired, this could lead him into depression and misery. Now he has the perception that he lost something valuable.

The same situation happened but John’s interpretations of that situation were completely different.

On one side, he was happy. He thought getting fired was good. But on the other side, he was sad. He thought getting fired was bad. 

What changed? Nothing, but John’s perception of the event.

9) Skeptical Questioning:

Don’t Take Anything At Face Value

“Blind belief in authority is the greatest enemy of truth.”  – Albert Einstein

Enlightenment work – the search for truth and happiness – is not some theory, value system or a dogma. It is not “hearsay”. You don’t have to “believe” anything.

You can directly experience the truth. This is why half of this course is about teaching you how to meditate.  No reason to take anything at face value.

In fact, this is a dangerous habit that is deeply programmed in our subconscious from our childhood.

Ever since we were young, we followed orders from our families, culture, society, government and media.

We never knew what “we” wanted to do. We have blindly believed that if we just did what we were told, we would be all right. We would be “happy” and “accepted”.

Look where that mindset got you?  Are you where you exactly want to be?

Use your skeptical and objective questioning abilities. Always ask the question:

“Why? What is the point of this? Is this getting me closer to my wants and desires?”

Many of the things you do in your life would change dramatically if you questioned them and contemplated more before you take action.

10) Ego VS True Self

Ego is not just “being arrogant”. Ego is causing all of your psychological sufferings in life. When you are bored, that is ego. When you are angry, that is ego. When you have anxiety, that is ego.

Ego, as Eckhart Tolle describes, is any form of attachment. Whether negative or positive. Ego is your sense of being an individual self. Your ‘fixed and single’ identity.

When you identify yourself with your thoughts, something which is not “you” (ego), your thoughts control your life. 

If something good happens, your ego is ecstatic and if something bad happens, your ego is suicidal.

The essence of meditation work is to realize the deceptions of the ego which leads us to our true self.

And our true self is free from all sufferings.

PS: This is very deep topic so I can’t really condense it into a few sentences. We’ll explore this more deeply in the course.

      11) Self-Integrity: Drop All Conflicts And Lies

Self-integrity, honesty and non-judgemental attitudes are one of the fundamental building blocks of a happy life. 

Self integrity means that there no cognitive dissonance between the things that you care about and the kind of lifestyle you lead.

Your values are not conflicting. You are honest about what you care about and you take action that is congruent with those values.

For instance: If you steal and lie from other people, even though you inherently value honesty, then you’ll break self-integrity.

By doing so, you’ll create cognitive dissonance and subconsciously hate yourself.  Don’t be afraid to be honest with yourself:

Do the actions you take truly feel “right” for you?  What is the worst thing that can happen?

Just be true to yourself.

      12) Stop Judgement Altogether: Both of Yourself and Others

Judging ourselves and other people is an unconscious process that most often fuels our moods and actions.

You can have a split-second negative judgement about someone who just entered the room. You were not conscious of this but you actually thought: “Eww look at that awkward walk.”

Or you sit down to cook a meal and the moment you dig in the spoon and taste it, you subconsciously tell yourself: “This is so not like my grandma’s soup. What a bland taste.”

This might seem innocent at first but actually you are re-inforcing negative judgements subconsciously and this becomes a life long habit.

The sad thing is that you are not even aware how much this internal monologue is ruining your life and your happiness.

Judgement’s twin sister is comparing. When you judge something in a negative manner, you are also comparing it to something that is better. That is why that thing you are judging is “not good enough”.

That is why you are negative about it. Because you’ve “known” and “seen” better. Instead of taking things one but one, enjoying the experience and seeing them as they are, you are constantly comparing that thing to your past experiences and try to find faults with it.

For negative people, this judgemental attitude is so ingrained into their psyche that when you tell them to accept whatever they experience without judgement, they look at you with a confused face.

Their psyche is so corrupt that that this is not even a possible operating system. But, it actually is. This is what healthy minds do. They accept instead of judge.

      13) Stop Moralizing: Removing The “Shoulds” From Your Life

You’d be shocked to know how much suffering arises because of moralization.

What is a moralization?

It is the feeling that you “have to” do something. Things like:

I “should” be a happy person.

You “must be” this particular way because your religion tells you so. Because your government, parents or education system tells you so.

Or maybe even a self development coach tells you why you should live this way.

After awhile, you feel that this is the one single “truth” and you “MUST” live this particular way or otherwise you are doing something “wrong”.

This stems from our black and white thinking and lack of authority questioning. Also remember non-duality. There is no “objectively” correct way to live.

There are artistic musicians and rational professors. You can’t truly say one is more “true of a career path” than the other. 

We’ll look more into how moralizations work and we’ll also learn how to get rid of this infectious virus from our psyche.

    14) Proper Expectations: Be Conservative and Objective

One of the characteristics of a happy and healthy mind stems from  “little to no expectation” mindset. 

Imagine that you are waiting for your girlfriend in front of Starbucks. She said that she is going to be there at 7 pm but now it is 11 pm.

You are frustrated and angry. She is not picking up the phone. You start to get worried. You’ve literally spent 4 hours in an anxious state waiting for a simple coffee date. 

When she finally arrives at midnight, you learn that she forgot about the date and fell asleep. 

Anyone would be angry, right?

Well, not someone who knows how to manage expectations. 

You are waiting and she is nowhere to be seen, right?

Just, calm down. Focus on the present moment. You did everything in your control. What you can do after calling her is simply enjoying the present moment.

What if you went out alone that night? Since you don’t expect your girlfriend, you’d enjoy the present moment anyways.

You’d grab a coffee and pick up a book. You’d enjoy the scenery.

But since you attached your happiness to your girlfriend at that moment, since you expected her to be as punctual as you are, you’ve spent that night in misery.

This all happened because you jumped the gun too early and set your expectations improperly.

If you were objective, you’d also see that she was never a “punctual” person anyways so it was irrational to expect her just at the designated time. 

But at that moment, you thought she “should” be as punctual as you are. But the reality is not like that. She can have many lazy tendencies.

You’ve projected your own ideologies to this person and therefore your faulty expectations made you feel even angrier.

Without learning to manage your expectations properly, a happy life will be a pipe dream.