Tree Quests

First Quest: 

 Read 10 pages from a book every day for a week.  

 Even though people can say no one reads these days since we have televisions and phones, the truth is that the majority of people have never read throughout history. Books have always been available to those who sought them, but it was usually more entertaining to go see a gladiator battle, or a sacrifice at the pyramids. After all, look how many people go their whole life without ever reading again after school (if they even still read in there), and have been ‘successful’, in modern terms, rich and famous. Life is short enough as it is, why waste time reading? 

 “Human life is short, and it is not wise to waste time.
 If death is the total annihilation of the human being and the consciousness does not survive the decomposition of the body, then the best one can do is to try enjoying this life and avoid suffering as much as possible. This is the materialistic world view which has many followers. With such mindset one does not worries about God, or any karmic laws of the universe that may judge his deeds after death. For him anything goes, he does whatever he wants, as long as he can get away with it without detrimental consequences while he lives. 

 On the other hand, if the human being is not only the physical body, but rather a spirit, or a spark of consciousness that survives the death of the body, then it is very important to find out what happens afterwards. If the consciousness cannot be killed, then there is a good reason to believe that its existence is eternal. The life span of a human is insignificant in comparison to the eons through which the spirit may continue its existence and experiences. In this case it is more important to make sure that our existence after death should be happy, than the temporary material happiness we might enjoy in the body. For those who take this seriously, the knowledge of the truth about our existence as humans, and beyond as consciousness is very precious. They are the spiritual seekers who are ready to trade the temporary joys and happiness of this world for the greater and eternal happiness of the spirit. They are not free to do whatever they want, not even if they could get away with everything without bad consequences while alive. Their actions, words, and thought have to strive for eternal happiness, which often require renouncing temporary benefits for lasting gain. 

 Whichever belief system one chooses, it is important to find out the truth about our existence. If there is no life beyond death then it would be stupid to waste time with spirituality, it would make more sense to follow the materialistic goals of life. But, if our existence is not terminated by the decay of the body, then it is foolish to care only about the joys of material life. It is much wiser to focus on our wellbeing after death.” 

 It is my firm belief that when the body dies, the soul survives death and is indeed immortal, and we should aspire to learn as much as we can about its nature. Therefore, we should read with purpose and intention, not as a mere entertainment. The books we choose to nourish our mind matter as much as the food we choose to nourish our body.  

 Modern ‘education’ has become as corrupt as government and religion. We are not educated; we are indoctrinated and brainwashed. We are lied to about every single fact of history. The bells to dismiss class, the sitting for 8 hours in cramped desks in rows, the unquestionable authority – we were prepared to live a life of servitude, not flourishing. We must take our education into our own hands, and learn from the people who built society, not the ones who destroyed it. 

 If you need a book suggestion, we host a book club focused on Platonic dialogues. The book is on Amazon, titled A Plato Reader- Eight Essential Dialogues. Plato is the foundation of all Western knowledge and deserves to be read.  

First Quest:

 Go for three 10-minute walks every day for a week.
 Human bodies are meant to move. The natural state of the human body is best satisfied with intense physical work. We are meant to run, climb, jump, throw, swim, roll, and crawl. If you ever used to play an instrument, or used to speak another language, you know that if you don’t practice a skill then you lose the ability to do it. When we do not move, we lose the ability to move that way as we get older. We do not stop moving on account of getting older, we get older on account of not moving. There is a very thin line between not wanting to move, and not being able to move. Lack of movement and immobility is the beginning of the slow spiral to death.  

 A healthy physical life is the foundation for a flourishing life. While materialism and vain narcissism are terrible vices, our bodies are the amazing vehicle that allow us to interact with this world. Even though they are temporary and will turn to dust when we are gone; they should still be developed to their maximum potential while you have the ability.  

 The first habit to develop for physical development is to get more movement throughout the day. We have engineered a society where movement is no longer necessary. We sleep in an extremely soft bed, sit down to eat, sit down to go bathroom, sit down to drive, sit down at work, sit down to read, sit down to watch TV, and spend the majority of the day not moving. Even people that consider themselves ‘fit’ and go to the gym often, don’t do anything else active all day. One hour of exercise cannot undo 23 hours of a sedentary lifestyle.  

 Walking is the most foundational human skill; it is what separates us from other primates. A lot of work had to be done on our bodies to allow us to walk upright, including a smaller birth canal, meaning earlier childbirth, meaning the need for a caretaker full-time, meaning the need for monogamous relationships, meaning the family as the foundational building block of a society, meaning civilization. Walking upright literally led to a moral and virtuous life. Which has decayed into degeneracy and sexual promiscuity, much like our walking habits.  

 It also meant the need for much bigger glute muscles, the biggest on any animal relative to its size. Our glutes become weak and tight from sitting all day, and without regular walking they stay weak. Weak glutes lead to terrible hip mechanics, which leads to back pain and overall ill-health. There is a fixation on glutes these days in the gym, but ‘strong glutes’ do not mean humping a bar with hundreds of pounds to look cool on social media. It also does not mean 30 pounds of fat transferred on to them surgically. Strong glutes mean properly functioning glutes which means they can stabilize your hips while you walk.

  
 Even if you walk around at your job, or think you walk enough, still go for dedicated 10-minute walks. The walks should be brisk, do not shuffle along like a turtle.  If you go for them after your meals, they will help with digestion and improve the blood sugar response. Use these walks as a chance to check in with your muscles – can you feel your glutes working? Can you feel your hamstrings, and your quads, and your calves? How is your back, are you hunched over? How is your neck and shoulders? Begin to develop the mind-muscle connection that will allow you to use your body as it was meant to be.  

 Do not scoff at the simplicity of the quest, neither. As simple as 10-minute walks may be, the truly successful people in any endeavor in life are the ones who applied the basics continually and persistently.  

 Nothing in the world can take the place of persistence.  Talent will not; nothing is more common than unsuccessful men with talent.  Genius will not; unrewarded genius is almost a proverb.  Education will not; the world is full of educated derelicts.  Persistence and determination alone are omnipotent. 

First Quest:

 Meditate 10 minutes a day every day for a week.
 Who are you? It may seem like a simple question, but the majority of people do not know who they are. They think they are who they have been told to be by society. They think they are their name – randomly given to them by their parents. They think they are a certain race, or sex – again, a random chance by accident of your birth. They think they are their physical bodies – but if I cut off your foot, I do not kill ‘you’. They think they are their minds – they think they are the thoughts and emotions that arise in them randomly. But with practice, you can step outside and observe those thoughts, and understand that ‘you’ are not in there.  

 The truth is, our real nature is not physical. We are an eternal soul – a word that has been corrupted on purpose to subvert the knowledge of our true selves. It’s not that you have a soul, you area soul. You are infinite consciousness, manifesting very briefly to have an experience of what you are as a human. Think of a magnet – the moving needle is not the magnetism; it is an effect of it. The magnetism exists on another plane (or dimension) and its effects are observed in this third dimension. Likewise, ‘you’ exist outside of this dimension, but ‘your’ effects are observed as you in this dimension.  

 It is hard to separate this ‘Me’ from “I’. We are bombarded with distractions that prevent us from ever having a moment with ourselves. Our cell phones are a demonic entity that prevents us from ever being disconnected from this world. This does not mean learning our true nature means not participating in this world or neglecting the physical world. We are infinite consciousness trying to experience and know everything, and our experience in this body is important. We must, as Jesus said, ‘be in this world, but not of this world,’ 

 
 Meditation is a fundamental skill in learning to identify with our true selves. It too has been corrupted and associated with hippies and losers. The entire New Age movement has been used to subvert spirituality, just as the Church was used to subvert religion. Spirituality comes from the Latin ‘spiritus’, which refers to the animating life essence. It refers to learning about the unseen animating life force, referred to in many different cultures as Vril, Prana, Chi, Tao, or even the Force from Star Wars.  

 Meditation is not the absence of thoughts or trying to ‘silence your mind’. Meditation is about disconnecting from those thoughts and learning how to be an outside observer of your mind. This way, you will not be enslaved to vices like food and sex; and will not be enslaved to emotions such as anger or fear. Only by calming our Lower Selves, can our Higher Selves flourish.  

 Many people get caught up on what they are supposed to be ‘doing’ when they meditate. There is no ‘doing’, there is only learning to observe. You are eternal spirit, and all you have to do is re-member, put back together.  

 Meditation does not always involve silence and sitting with your eyes closed humming. Once you learn how to disconnect your mind, you can meditate as you engage in labor, or walking in nature, or just learning to be in the moment.  

 I fully suggest getting the Headspace app on your phone and following the free basic course. It is a very helpful guided meditation that will gently nudge you when you get too attached to your thoughts. Do not overthink it, just do it.