The Problematic Ideal

As a practicing Mormon, I sometimes found myself weighed down with heaviness, a symptom of a self-burdening syndrome. Sometimes the syndrome manifests as a form of guilt and self-recrimination. But more often, it's just a feeling of heaviness. A burden we carry by maintaining a set of unrealizable objectives. As an example, I have sometimes tried to add up all the time it would take to do everything that Mormon church leaders tell us we are supposed to be doing. There simply isn't time in the day to do it all.

As I've recently looked at the church from a more neutral perspective, I've come to see the self-burdening syndrome as a natural outgrowth of some of the church's teachings. I'm not trying to slam the LDS Church. I respect it as an organization for what it does for its members and others. But as its teachings hold up an ideal of perfection, we're going to have a lot of people embracing guilt and judgment on some level.

On the other hand, there are many teachings in the church that tend to reduce the effects of the self-burdening syndrome. There are several scriptures I collected years ago that I called the "chill out Gospel". One of my favorites is Matthew 11:30, “For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.” I have seen some church leaders who recognized that there is a time and a season for everything (Ecclesiastes 3:1-8) and have preached a lighter gospel that sounds something like, “do what you can and enjoy the ride.” Unfortunately, there is also a core set of teachings, and plenty of talks by current church leaders, that feed right into the guilt and judgment.

This syndrome isn't limited to the LDS church. I only talked about that church because it's part of my background; it's what I know best. I think the syndrome is a natural outgrowth of any religion or school of thought that teaches an ideal of perfection, a concept of evil, and a conflict between those two things. In western religion and philosophy, these ideas are deeply entrenched. So deep, I never saw them clearly until I began to step out of them. In the Abrahamic religions (Judaism, Christianity, Islaam), there is an ideal good (God/Allah) and an opposing evil (Satan/Shaitan) except, I believe, in Judaism, which doesn't necessarily believe in a devil/tempter. There are numerous scriptures in these religions that speak of a conflict that began before, or at the time of, creation and will last until some promised time of peace. In Mormon/Christian theology, this is the promised millennium of peace following Armageddon.

In western philosophy, I see idealism first cropping up with Plato's forms, a concept of an abstract ideal of which all manifestations are imperfect reflections. Early Christian writers found they had a lot in common with Plato's teachings, and C.S. Lewis, one of my favorite authors, had quite a bit to say about them. As a beautiful example, take a look at Lewis' culmination of the Narnia series, "The Last Battle". The ideal is the spiritual, the unmanifested, the perfect. The manifested will never achieve the ideal, but is only a crude reflection of it. One day, after we die, we will see the ideal in all its glory. This is a Christian idea, not a philosophic one, but, when framed that way, you can probably see why Plato’s philosophy of forms has had great appeal in some Christian circles.

I think the concept of Plato's ideal forms is beautiful in a way, but also problematic. By imagining that the ideal is beyond our reach, those who strive for perfection in this life will never achieve their goals. Perfection and ultimate happiness must be saved for later. An echo of this is the end-time prophecies, which say we must wait for the ideal form of government and human society (the coming millennium I referred to earlier). Our current forms are corrupt and less than ideal. But the ideal will come.

What I find unfortunate about this line of thinking is that we're always waiting for something to be perfect. Perfection is always just outside our reach. Being forced to wait makes some of us give up on the life we're living right now. We begin to see our life on this earth as dirty, unhealthy, suboptimal.

But I don't see life that way. At least, not anymore. I look at the "imperfection" all around me and I think it's perfect. I've never seen a perfect triangle according to the rules of geometry (one example of Plato's forms), but the triangles I do see are each unique ... and beautiful in their own way.

I live in a pretty nice house, but it’s a typical family home. It's often a mess. The "ideal" home would have everything in its proper place. But the "ideal," could it ever be achieved, would be sterile and death-like. Life is messy. And messy can be beautiful.

In my living room, I have some cracks in the walls. They weren't there when we bought the house, but the foundation has shifted a little, and they appeared a few years ago. That kind of thing used to bother me (OCD personality that I am), and I would want to fix it. But now I look at it as a beautiful reflection of a home that has been lived in and loved. Every mark on the walls is a reflection and reminder of memories, many of them chaotic, loud, hyper, sometimes even combative, but always beautiful. We're planning to paint the walls soon because it's nice to have things clean and sparkly (and that will be beautiful too), but while we have the cracks and the marks, I'll enjoy them.

These realities, these messy things that never measure up to anyone's version of "ideal" are, in my mind, perfect. It is the ideal forms, which have never existed in the real world, that are unhealthy. 

Ring the bells that still can ring
Forget your perfect offering
There is a crack, a crack in everything
That's how the light gets in
  -- Anthem by Leonard Cohen

The idealistic mode of thinking manifests itself in some form, to some degree, in the conscious or subconscious thoughts of many of us. It causes people to compare themselves, their lives, their habits, their thoughts, or whatever to a perfect ideal that simply does not exist. Perfection is right here, in this life, right now. And happiness is best found when life is embraced and loved, not in spite of its imperfections, but because of them.

Ski Trip

I took my two younger kids on a ski trip this week. They had never been before, and I haven't skied in a LONG time. I think it's been about 17 years. It was really cool to be back on skis again.

My son decided to do snowboarding, so I couldn't really help him because I've never done snowboarding. But this is the same kid who learned to ride a bike by watching a friend for a few minutes. He was about four years old. No instruction. No training wheels. He just jumped on and rode. So I figured it would be ok.

My daughter and I did skis. I helped her learn to stop, control her speed, and control her turns. She did really well. She and I graduated from the bunny hills to the blue squares, and she only fell twice the whole day. She's good enough that she could probably handle a black diamond next time we ski. She could have probably done it that day, but she was a little too nervous to try it.

My son got a little help from a ski patrol guy to get his board on. He might have gotten a few tips from the guy, but mostly, he just took off and started snowboarding. He started on the bunny slope too, but quickly graduated to the blue squares. One of the blue slopes had a short run on the side that ended in a small ramp that joined the main slope. Early afternoon, he was taking that ramp, doing small jumps, and landing them with a few inches of air. In the middle of the afternoon, he and I tackled a black diamond. We skied that slope several times, and he loved it!

In a way, I'm not surprised at how well my kids did. Those two have always been pretty active. Different styles, but both are physically gifted. But even though I knew what to expect, I'm still amazed that my son picked up snowboarding with almost no instruction and was doing black diamonds on his first day!

I did pretty well. It was really cool how fast it came back to me. As soon as I was on the skis, I was suddenly 20 again. I immediately remembered a lot of what I used to know, and it felt really natural to be skiing, almost like I had never stopped. But not quite. I was a bit nervous to take the really steep slopes, and I was not excited about the idea of falling, so I probably took it slower than I needed to.

I gradually got more comfortable as the day went on, and I didn't fall until the very end of the day. On our last run, we were on a slope with a lot of ice and some small moguls. I'm not sure what it was that took me out, but I fell pretty hard. My skis stayed on, one leg twisted a bit, but nothing terrible. But my body sure felt it!

I had a really good time, but I learned that I'm not in my 20s anymore. My body is not as strong or flexible as it used to be.

Overall, awesome trip. It's expensive and a pretty long drive, but we are definitely doing it again.

The Problem of Evil

In Christianity, and any monotheistic religion that worships an all-powerful God, there is a philosophical problem known as The Problem of Evil. It asks the question: if God is benevolent, all-knowing, and all-powerful, how can there be evil in the world? The debate calls into question the existence of such a God.

It's an old question, and I don't have anything new to add, so I'm not going to argue either for or against the existence of an omnipotent God. But I do have a slightly different take on the Problem of Evil as it's typically formulated.

The Problem of Evil

I used to see things almost entirely in terms of good and evil. Everything was colored by that paradigm. Running beneath everything I experienced, felt, or thought, was an ever-present conflict between good and evil. Naturally, I pictured myself on the side of good most of the time. Occasionally, I would recognize that I had done something wrong, feel a bit guilty, and try to get myself back on the good side as quickly as possible. Everything outside the little bubble of what I defined as good was tainted with a twinge of evil. And a few things were just purely evil. Deeply dark and horrific.

Recently, I've discovered a new problem of evil. One that doesn't have anything to do with God. One that simply recognizes that the concept of evil itself is problematic. Not that evil is a problem. The concept that evil exists is a problem.

In recent years, I've begun to see the world through a different lens. One that doesn't require the existence of evil. This probably seems crazy. It did to me for a while. And sometimes, I still think I'm a bit nuts. But I'll try to explain my thinking, and you can decide if it makes any sense.

When I try to imagine the most evil thing possible, I think of acts of hate. Murder, whether on an individual or a massive scale, seems pretty horrific. I can't think of anything darker than that, so let's use that as an example.

Murder

When someone kills someone else, my tendency used to be to judge that person. I would wish for justice and its associated pain so the murderer couldn't be said to have gotten away with it, and so he/she could feel just a bit of what his/her victim(s) and their friends and family must have felt or are still feeling. That seems just.

But now when I think of a murder, I think less of judgment. My tendency is to ask why.

Why did they kill that person?

• It could be rage. There could be a history between the murderer and the victim. That history could be complicated, but rivalries and grudges are rarely one-sided. Perhaps there was some offense given by the victim that would allow us to make some sense of the rage.
• It could be mental illness. The murderer might be psychologically unhinged. How did that happen? Mental illness is complicated, but it likely comes in some measure from some painful experience(s) in the person's past.
• Or maybe the act came about through some twisted philosophy. Some belief system that justified the act in the murderer's mind. How did that philosophy get stuck in their head? Were they the victim of some intellectual abuse or cultural momentum that was itself a product of abuse or pain?

Maybe there are other reasons, but in all of my musing, I fail to find any motivation for murder that I can properly call evil. Maybe I'm just missing something, but I'm inclined to think that the murderer must have suffered in order to bring them to the point where they were willing to take someone else's life. I'm pretty confident that no one is born with the inclination to kill. And if that's true, that the murderer suffered, then the appropriate response is compassion, not judgment.

Of course, it's natural to feel compassion for the victim and their friends and family. That's where the suffering is the most obvious. And perhaps that's why it's easy to judge the murderer. Clearly, that suffering wouldn't exist if the murderer hadn't acted. But perhaps there is hidden suffering in the murderer's past that could evoke some compassion if only we understood it.

Judgment

Feeling compassion for a murderer doesn't mean I condone the act. Society has a right and a duty to hold people accountable for actions that take away the rights and freedoms of others. So I'm not saying there shouldn't be justice or accountability. The proper response is likely to imprison or otherwise punish the crime. If nothing else, this should hopefully deter future crime of a similar nature.

Lady Justice holding the Scales of Justice

Unfortunately, our punitive system of justice doesn't seem to do much good for the criminal. Shutting them out from society and placing them in a prison subculture typically doesn't do much to reform an individual. They often feel justified in further acts of crime as they probably feel that society has cast them out. Maybe there is a better way of dealing with crime, but I don't know what it is. Until we find a better way, I think society must step in to stop and/or punish such acts as best it can.

But as an individual, I don't see any value in judging the criminal. To label someone, or even the action they took, as evil seems unnecessary. There is pain. There is stupidity. There is horror. But I don't think there is such a thing as evil.

Stopping the War

The biggest problem I see with the concept of evil is judgment. For me, judgment naturally follows evil. When I label something as evil, I can't help but judge it. If that evil wasn't here, things would be better. But when I judge anything, a person, a situation, or something inside of me like a thought or a feeling, I quickly become exhausted by the mental conflict that ensues.

Because all judgment implies conflict. When I judge something, I find myself thinking things like: I don't like that. I wish it were different. Why does it have to be that way? And eventually, I find myself in the unhappy position of fighting my reality. And guess who wins that fight ...

In my opinion, the problem of evil isn't that it potentially disproves the existence of an all-powerful God. The problem of evil is that it exists only in our minds. As Hamlet said, "there is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so". Allowing the concept of evil to occupy our minds and remain a part of our reality is unhealthy, both for the individual and for the larger society.

Nothing is Wrong

Building on my recent posts about judgment and acceptance, I want to further explore something that helped give me the greatest peace I have ever experienced. I hinted at this in my original post about my spiritual journey with meditation, but I want to expand on it a bit.

I have come to believe that there is nothing wrong with the world. It seems that almost every western religion has the idea that we live in a fallen world. And the purpose of God and/or the religion is to fix the problem(s) that has/have been created, either by man or by some evil influence such as a devil. When I began to step away from the concepts of right/wrong, good/evil, I found myself entering a beautiful state of peace. It was unlike anything I had ever experienced.

If there is nothing wrong, there is no need for guilt or judgment. When I slip back into the mindset that something is wrong, I instantly judge it. And it doesn't take long for that judgment to snowball. Pretty soon, I find myself irritable, angry, and exhausted. Judging others, judging myself, and judging the situations in which I find myself is an incredibly exhausting job. And it's very unhelpful. In fact, I find it does more harm to my sense of peace and happiness and to my relationships with others than anything else.

Years ago, I would have considered this idea ridiculous. Nothing wrong with the world? Just look around! Everything is wrong! In addition to sounding stupid on the face of it, it also smells a lot like moral relativism or nihilism. I always thought those philosophies were a bit crazy because they seem to say that if there is no absolute right or wrong (or no right or wrong at all), then you can do whatever you want, and it doesn't matter. Anything goes. That sounds like a recipe for disaster.

As to whether the idea of "nothing is wrong" is stupid or not, I'll let the results speak for themselves. It has been instrumental in a deeper spiritual awakening in my life than I had ever before experienced. And for a description of why it might be the right idea, both psychologically and spiritually, see my previous posts on judgment and acceptance. Maybe the only thing that's stupid is our usual western perspective on life and our focus on what's 'wrong' with the world.

As for moral relativism and nihilism, I don't know whether the 'anything goes' attitude is a natural result of those philosophies or not. But for myself, while I don't think there needs to be any moral right or wrong, I think it's clear that every action carries with it natural consequences. So if I choose to take harmful drugs, I can expect a likely consequence of that action to follow. Among other undesirable effects, I may become addicted to the drugs. This results in a loss of freedom, which will negatively affect my happiness. So it's not 'wrong' to use drugs, but it's unhealthy. And my use of them could harm me and those around me.

We can't escape natural consequences, but the moral freedom to choose something unhealthy on occasion is quite liberating. I try to eat healthy food most of the time. But sometimes I want something unhealthy. Although it sounds ridiculous, a pretty common cycle in this case could look something like this: I fight the urge until I'm mentally exhausted; I break down and eat whatever is tempting me; I beat myself up for my weakness, which fills me with guilt making me more likely to need that unhealthy 'fix' to bring me back up. This is the addictive cycle, and it occurs with food, sex, alcohol, or any other pleasure that we associate in any way with guilt.

Growing up, I was taught to fight the unhealthy (or evil) urge or to run away from it. I have learned that this only empowers the thing I'm fighting. The only way to defuse it is to open to it. That doesn't mean I have to act on the urge, but I can. And acting on it may actually help me break the cycle, though it may not be worth it depending on the act. But here's how that might work:

Without a sense of moral right or wrong, I can make an unhealthy choice, but without the guilt. Without the guilt, it's easier to avoid getting caught up in the act, letting me step back and view the thing objectively. I am then able, at a deep level, to become consciously aware of my desires, my actions, and their consequences. This awareness makes it possible to break the addictive cycle by seeing clearly the chain of cause and effect at a deep place in my soul.

Note that I can also do this without acting on the urge, and it's probably better if I don't. But it may be more 'real' and accessible to me if I actually act. And if I'm truly addicted to it, I may act on it anyway, so I may as well use the act to help me break the cycle. But if I have a choice, and if the consequences are bad enough, it may not be wise to act. If you have the urge to hurt someone, for example, I recommend you don't act on that urge.

Through mindful awareness, I have come to see how damaging it is to be a slave of desire. Freedom from desire appears to be a mark of true enlightenment. I don't know exactly what that would look like, but having loosened or broken some of the chains of desire in myself, it seems like a good goal. And if my experience is to be trusted, it seems like letting go of the idea that there is something wrong with the world, either inside myself or outside, may be a key to achieving that state.

Acceptance

Something that has brought me profound peace is the ability to quietly and gently accept the unacceptable. This is something I was not taught in my religion. In a world full of good and evil, with those forces led by God and the devil, with militant teachings (found in scripture and in the teachings of living leaders) about a spiritual war being waged for the souls of men -- how can one accept the opposing side?

I wasn't able to find my deepest peace fully through Christianity. I imagine there are those who can, but I could not. It was not until I gave up on the idea of evil that I was able to fully enter into the opposing side and find it populated with friends. By submitting to the universe tugging at me, I learned to accept the demons in my life, both inward and outward, and understand them better. I learned to see the world as a complex interplay of many types of forces, which, when balanced, create a beautiful, colorful tapestry of life.

It's not in battle that we find peace. It's in acceptance. And balance.

When I began to truly accept everything at a deep level, there was no more room in my mind for the concept of evil. And no room in my heart for anger or hatred. Without these, there was nothing left in my soul to foster conflict. And the natural result was a deep, abiding peace.

But without the concept of evil, what does sin mean? Without sin, why the need for a redeeming sacrifice by God's Son? This shift in my soul tore the foundation out from under Christianity for me. All that was left was love. And that seemed like enough.

So a few years ago, I walked away from the religion I had known and loved. And it was difficult. More difficult than I know how to describe. But it was the right choice for me.

On Judgment

Recently, I posted about my experiences in learning about a simpler approach to life. Part of my reason for moving away from my religious heritage was the recognition that there was a more effective approach to life than the effort-based model I grew up with.

While this is true, I think a more important concept that helped me move on in my spiritual path was the concept of judgment. Or rather, the total abandonment of it.

I tend to forget this concept on a regular basis as I get pulled back into old, deeply entrenched patterns of thought. So I think this post has two purposes. I want to share an important principle that differentiates me from my religious background. And I want to document my thinking here to help remind me when I forget.

I remember several months ago my mantra had become something like, "There are no enemies, only friends I haven't yet come to know." This applies to people when they cut me off in traffic. It applies to situations that cause me pain or inconvenience. And most of all, it applies to my own thoughts, emotions, and impulses. By making friends with what I used to consider 'evil' or wrong, I have come to see that there is no evil. There is imbalance. There is illness. But nothing is truly malicious. And that is especially true of the various parts that make up my 'self.'

I have found that regardless of what's happening around me, I can create a state of heavenly peace inside of me by being at one with myself. By accepting what's happening around and inside of me without judgment.

For the parts inside me, I accept that they are what they are, but that doesn't mean I have to act on every impulse I feel. It just means I give them all attention. I seek to understand them without judging them. And slowly, their masks peel away to reveal ... myself. They are me. They are my friends. And having experienced this many times now, I am becoming convinced that there simply are no enemies. Just friends we haven't yet taken the time to get to know.

For the external world, I found that when I fight reality, insisting that it be something other than what it is, I create conflict inside of me, and potentially with those around me. Most of what occurs outside of me is completely outside of my control, so it's best to offer the serenity prayer and simply let go of judgment. When I do, the enemies I have made all around me tend to transform into friends.

It was in letting go of the need to judge that I was finally able to stop the war I had been waging with myself and the world around me. Or it might have been the other way around - when I stopped the war, judgment vanished. Either way, when I stopped fighting that war, I found peace.

The Effortless Way

My move away from the Mormon church was more experiential than intellectual, so it has been difficult for me to explain my reasons for the change. In this post, I will explore one of the concepts that may have played a role. At some point in my new spiritual practice, I began to see that my old model of living life wasn't as effective as the new model I found.

Mormon theology teaches a nice balance between grace and works. In the words of the Book of Mormon Prophet Nephi, "it is by grace that we are saved, after all we can do" (2 Nephi 25:23). Although grace is an important part of that teaching, when compared to Martin Luther's epiphany about grace, motivated by scriptures like Ephesians 2:8-9, "by grace are ye saved through faith ... not of works, lest any man should boast," it's clear that the LDS doctrine emphasizes works more than some other Christian, particularly Protestant, denominations. Because of this, I'll emphasize the insufficiency of the effort-based model. But I'll touch on grace a little bit too.

I recognized many years ago that overcoming pride was not something I could do through thinking about it. If I tried, I would only get stuck in a battle I couldn't win. Because I would be fighting myself. To be humble, I couldn't think my way into it. I couldn't get there through effort. I had to just be humble. I can't give you a formula for being humble. All I know is that it isn't through force of will that humility is realized.

Through meditation, I learned that this was true for many different aspects of life, not just pride. With Mormonism's focus on works, and being raised in American society, much of my religious and secular upbringing focused on effort. I came to believe that I could become anything I wanted if I just worked hard enough. While there is an element of truth in this idea, I have found this effort-based mental model to be expensive and ineffective.

Some years ago, I found great insight and healing through meditation. Part of this was learning to let go. Of everything. And as I began to let go - of preconceptions, judgments, presumed knowledge, etc, I found I could look at myself objectively and pierce the fog of mystery surrounding the core of who I am. I was able to penetrate the illusions I had built up about myself for years and, looking deeply without judging the experience, emotion, thought, memory, or whatever I was experiencing, I began to see the essence of the thing more clearly. And as I began to see, the thing I focused on began to lose its power and dissolve.

No effort. No force of will. No struggle to convince myself. Just a natural, simple, relatively effortless process of cleansing and healing.

Not that it was easy. It took courage to face my demons; and patience to let them show themselves in their own time. But though it wasn't easy, it was almost the opposite of effort. It was kind of like lining myself up with the flow of a river. It took a little work on my part, but it was mostly just me letting go and allowing the river carry me.

This process worked with pride, fear, shame, sorrow, loneliness, and more. All sorts of negative emotions and memories that got in the way of my spiritual progress. But also seemingly positive feelings like desire and attachment. We tend to think of these as happy because there's an element of excitement and potential growth in them. But hidden behind the excitement is a clinging and, sometimes, a fear of loss. I came to see these more clearly also and learned to let go of them.

Through meditation, I was able to achieve a deeper level of healing and more profound spiritual growth than what I found through decades of effort and solicitation of God's grace. So while I appreciate my religious upbringing, I believe the worldview I inherited is somehow lacking. I think I've found something better. And it doesn't rely on tradition, ritual, doctrine, creed, scripture, authority, or even God.

As a Mormon, I had been taught that the key to my salvation was in Jesus Christ. And maybe that's true. I mean no disrespect to the Christian religion, but I now believe that the key to my salvation was never "out there." It wasn't in any other person or external thing. My salvation was inside of me. And when I looked inward, deeply, I found it. No more looking outside (e.g. grace) for someone else to fix what's wrong with me. I had the power inside myself all along.

My conception of God, at least in the sense of an anthropomorphic being, may not have been involved in my healing process, but it is possible that God did play a role. I don't know who or what God is exactly. Perhaps God is that beautiful flow of life I sometimes sense inside of me. Maybe God is a part of me. Or I am a part of Him. Maybe God is the ocean I referred to in a recent blog post. And maybe He was just waiting for me to bring my attention inward sufficiently to unmask Him. To remove the shroud I had woven over the years that kept Him hidden from me.

No amount of effort from me or grace from God seemed able to remove the shroud. It was a part of me. I couldn't tear it off anymore than I could tear off a wound and expect it to be healed. It wasn't until a deep part of me recognized the shroud for what it was that it began to remove itself. The shroud was my ego. And as I began to transform, I came to see that this ego (a collection of memories, thoughts, feelings, etc), which I had always taken to be my self or my personality, was only an illusion. And through my awareness of it, it began to dissolve. I think this is what the Buddha meant when he talked about "no self".

My recent spiritual experiences have given me a deeper peace than I have ever known. And with fewer complications from my ego, my life, while still busy, has been simpler and more fulfilling in recent years than it had ever been before. I think I may now understand what Jesus meant when He said, "my yoke is easy, and my burden is light" (Matthew 11:30). I think the good life is an effortless one. Not lazy. Just effortless.

Paradoxically, the "effortless way" is not found without work. It takes practice to enter into a state of flow. There's a story that illustrates this beautifully.

Chuang Tzu tells a story about a butcher who became exceptional in his craft. After years of practice, he achieved a mastery of his profession in which all method dissolved and, when carving an ox, he intuitively felt his way through the animal, finding the spaces between the joints and cleaving the ox with very little effort. So efficient was he at finding these empty spaces that he said he had not sharpened his knife in 19 years. There was no need since the blade only ever encountered emptiness.

As a master butcher, he exerted very little effort in his craft, but he had studied and practiced for years before reaching that point. Whether the story is true is not important. The principle it teaches is that of alignment with the Tao, or the 'way.' Alignment with life or the universe. Alignment with what is. A unified state of being. Being in the flow. It takes practice to get there, but when we do, things become so much easier. Life is like the butcher's cleaving. Through alignment with reality, we become aware of the spaces through which we can exert a little influence to create significant change.

I've experienced that alignment at various times. I knew it through Mormonism. But I have found a more effective way to achieve it in meditation. As a result, I have experienced this 'flow' a number of times in the last few years. In this state, it seems like the entire universe conspires to bless me. Everything goes well. Even the things that don't seem desirable turn out to be beneficial.

Though I've only tasted this alignment a few times, I believe it is possible to feel it regularly. And the good life, or the effortless state, can become our daily experience.