Tonight Mel and I celebrated her birthday going to SAF restaurant in London – a completely vegetarian, mostly vegan restaurant that makes edible adventures.

Check out these photos:

 There were “cheeses” made from cultured cashews, “caviare” made from I-don’t-know’what, dehydrated samosa covers filled with finely chopped cubes of greenery…

 Beetroot and herb caviar with sweet potato blinis.

 Root vegetables wrapped in flaxseed skin samosas.

 Cashew “cheese” trio (paprika, olive and pesto)

After we’d finished the starters, I was worried this would be pretty and un-filling.

Well the mains stuffed that idea:

 Cashew “cheese” wrapped in aubergine skins and zucchine pappardelle

And we had to have desert too…

 Chocolate torte with dehydrated orange zest (fab!)

 Mousse Trio (mint, rose, fig swimming in strawberry love heart sauce)

So why is this post in the Healthy category?

Simple: ever heard of anyone getting fat eating just fruits and vegetables?

Ever heard of vegetable eaters having a healthy vitality and lots of energy?

The cab and the meal was 3 times what we’d normally pay when going out. Was it worth it? Eating out and having adventures are two high priority pleasures in our lives so the answer is an obvious “yes”.

Recommended? Absolutely.

I’ve watched this many times, and every time I do I continually get insights of joy and ease.

This is highly recommended to watch, all the way through, many times.

Anthony De Mello – Rediscovering Life

Leave a comment to let me know what you thought or felt of this video.

I’ve watched this so many times – different emotions each time; same enjoyment of him telling like it currently is.

George Carlin, “The American Dream”

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=acLW1vFO-2Q

This post is from Paul Lowe’s email list.

People sometimes ask me to give them my perspective on their behaviour.
Often, I answer, and do not get a reply. Happened a few times lately.

Someone else was just sharing that they loved the honesty that developed
in our group meetings. They said the honesty got us all closer  in a very
real way. True. Not hiding anything – no gap.

I have seen it as we are all Teflon coated, so just slid around each other.
In the groups the invitation was to peel away the coating and be more
honest, and thus more intimate.

That is not the way the Œworld¹ works. In most cases, just the opposite.
I have given consultations to partners, and in most cases each one shares
with me things they have never even hinted at with their partners. Lies in
fact.
So what sort of friendship can that be? – neither partner sharing their
truth!
The phrase that often came up: ³If I told them, it would destroy the
friendship.²

So what sort of friendship is that!

Suggestion:
Try it out with a few friends.
Sit down with them and ask them to share with you what they really think
about you – what they say to other people about you.
Then watch their eyes, and body posture.

—————————————–
Please Note::
The material we send out is intended to be a reminder to keep looking
at ourselves, our behaviour, and what may be going on around us.
Of course we cannot be certain of the authenticity of anything reported,
so the suggestion is to investigate for yourself..

It is not possible to reply directly to these emails.
To inquire about the interactive ‘IMLtalk’ list where
you can post responses and connect with others, please email:
<admin@paullowe.org> – with “IMLtalk info” as the subject.

You can help support Paul and the operation of this list by
making a contribution at: <http://paullowe.org/contribute.html>

{I wrote this as an email reply to my brother while where I asked regarding his children and the Steiner schooling they received.}

Hi Anthony

For many months we’ve asked and re-asked ourselves the questions such as “What do we want her to learn”, “What do we hope to impart?”, “What’s the benefit of her having us as parents?” and “What are the true skills, knowledges and abilities we’d want her to have (starting from scratch, as if there was no school concept)?”

As well as asking what we wanted her to have, we reviewed our experiences of school and asked ourselves what we don’t want her to have.

Keep in mind that for a traditional school concept, we both think the private school idea – St Peters, Ipswich Girls Grammar – is better than average state schools in UK and Brisbane… Yes, they push a child to becoming an academic professor, or if they drop out of academia along the way, then the child is to become a mental factory worker. For what they do however, these schools do it well.

From a school view, it’s worth noting Mel also did well at school by their standards – dux of her year, numerous awards, etc.

Of course, as you know, I’ve not wholeheartedly followed the traditional path of school, uni, job, death that most of us are steered toward (…by design? / … by lack of awareness?). For that reason it’s been easier for Mel and I to discuss the functional requirements of what we believe is necessary for a person to learn to fully experience the amazingness, fun, love and joy of this life.

These experiences and abilities go beyond the attributes I believe all people should hold and aim for. From the life coaching I did, I developed a simple system of life improvement by becoming

healthy,

rich,

related,

confident and

serene.

Beyond this list however are the abilities I’d want our child to have so she can enjoy the love of life from day 1 – day last, without having to un-learn negative attitudes and beliefs that hold SOO many people back.

To that end, we’ve come up with a list of abstract abilities and life skills that are believed to be needed for a child to learn. These are skills we’d teach her if we can’t find anyone better qualified to do so.

Investor Ability – we can teach her properties

Work Ethic – doing a good job for her own sake, not just the minimum she can get away with.

Doing maths in her head.

Read at least one language.

Able and happy to sell in many mediums (voice, face-to-face, writing)

Art Appreciation – in

Artistic expression – out

Ability to teach others

Personal strength of character

Joy of life

Spirituality (aware and growing)

Benevolent universe paradigm

Celebrating success

Physical attributes: coordinated, strong, agile, toned, belief in her own ability.

Self defence

So the burden of teaching these other attributes doesn’t solely fall to Mel and me,

I want a community of people expressing these abilities around her for constant positive re-enforcement. Ideally an organisation I’m not yet aware of exists to teach her this learning list.

Unfortunately, only reading, maths and art in&out would be learned at traditional private schools. Do Montessori and Steiner’s offer more?

When it comes to traditional Western schooling, I’ve seen a mix of intentions. Many consider it to be just a location to train for money acquisition – primarily by a job. Other “progressives” appear to intend using it for teaching life skills not taught in the home. Whether because of its alleged basis on the Prussian model of child rearing, the main thing seemingly taught in 12 years of influence seems to be subservient character moulding. Sit quietly, accept what you’re told and be competitively graded on your regurgitation abilities. That’s so 18th Century!

I don’t know much about other cultures’ schooling except a little of the Japanese system and I definitely don’t see her going there – for experience, yes, for school, no. The closest I can imagine was the system of private tuition given to noble children before the Industrial Revolution required large amounts of factory workers trained from a young age.

Considering how paradigm shifting the internet has been, repeating this indoctrination for my children with the awareness of schooling I have is unethical.

My list of 15 learning wants above are still valid, but we are now living in a totally different world to the one even I grew up in, so the list may need re-working further. Eg for the amazing learning capability of children using computers and the internet watch this video. {http://www.ted.com/talks/sugata_mitra_the_child_driven_education.html}. My recent learning experiences on the internet have led me to have close contact with Matt Furey, a Gold Medallist champion wrestler turned businessman and salesman who I’d never have met without the net. Another mentor who greatly changed my life direction, Simon Zutshi and his Property Mastermind was greatly enhanced by the Internet. And this hasn’t even touched on Wikipedia/amazon.

This massive paradigm shift is happened in other ways too. No longer is the focus of schooling for local caching of info. To live well now, we’re not expected to read, study and assimilate from books and classify that info into our heads – rather we now just google the answer.

Adding to that we offshore the doing of many jobs (Tim Ferris, 4 hour work week, style). I get many jobs done by virtual PAs, both in UK for customer focus and India for tech skills. I outsource for skills I both have (to save time) and don’t have (to enhance my ability). Schools haven’t caught up with this… even for the churning out of mental factory workers.

Now jobs are being done by 1) understanding what is wanted of the task, 2) searching and assembling info. Searching can be done by the internet as well as collaboration and searching other people’s heads – ironically very similar to the school idea of “cheating”. I currently get paid 5x the average UK wage by “cheating”. That’s also how Mel and I built our property empire – “cheating” again. So different from the time-waste of school.

That learning list is generic for all people-types. For my daughter, I’ll use my knowledge of analytic psychology to find her preferences and abilities, Wealth Dynamics style as well as a few others, to guide her to ways of large income AND fulfilment.

Adding to this, there are preferences I will be continually on the lookout to observe in her, in order to help guide her. Some of these preferences are:

physical or intellectual activity

Indoors or outdoors

Leader or follower

Solo or team based

specialist or generalist

working with people or working with things

Focussed single-mindedness or going with the flow

Each of these preferences lead to roles (traditionally called jobs, but I don’t like that the associations with that word either)

These preferences form the basis of any skills and attitudes required for domain experiences like job roles she wishes to focus on: for instance she may wish to specialise. Even within her multi-skilled mother’s and polymath father’s abilities is a range of experiences she could take further than we have: eg stage musician, formula 1/rally driver; computer or maths geek; billionaire investor; champion martial artist. These are roles derived from abilities her parents have that are already further developed than the “average” person. And who’s to say who she’ll meet and be influenced by to take her preferences even further to their full unfolding.

So when you asked if schooling questions weren’t 5 years away, I hope you can see that I’m not just talking about shoving a kid into the day-care called “School” with me wanting them “just to be happy”. For me, education, growth, material achievement and spiritual unfoldment are all the same.

I wonder if you realised what you had opened up with that short, but high-vibing email you sent back on schooling.

How To Stop The Mind?

By Paul Lowe in his IML email list – information at paullowe.org

I have often been asked this question.

Some Tibetans have a method.

You sit in a small cell, with eyes half closed, for eighteen hours a day,

until you die. Then after you are reborn, the Lama comes and finds you,

and you do the same thing again, for life after life, until you wake up.

Not a very efficient method is it – and you miss all the fun that planet earth has to offer.

There are workshops – that use the mind in an attempt to stop the mind.

Apart from the Satori group, (which can do just that) doesn’t seem to work.

(Notes.

Most spiritual methods/conditioning is often trying to stop the mind with the mind – and is against the mind.

Any tool/technique to stop the mind is based on using the mind.

Everything is in the mind, even thinking about the mind, looking at getting

out of the mind, all is still in the mind.

When you follow the mind it is usual in a negative direction.

If you are going to follow the mind – have fun and follow the positive.)

The other question I have been often asked is: ‘Why is the mind so frantic.’

Here is just one explanation.

That wall is under great pressure – to hold back billions of gallons of water – that has been stopped flowing in its natural way.

And it has just a few little openings at the bottom to let it out.

When it does come out, it comes, squirting out – with great pressure.

Part of your mind is like that dam – holding back everything you have not done and said, and the things you have done and said about which you now regret.

Most of your thinking is the little amount of thoughts that come squirting out, day and night – in an attempt to keep you legally sane.

What is behind that part of the mind that is damming the thoughts?

As said, everything you have not done and said, and the things you have done and said about which you now regret. Also…

The frustration as a child – not being able express and do what you want, when you want.

At school, sitting on a hard seat, for years, listening to an uninspired person trying to teach you something about which you are not in the slightest interested – which not only will be out of date by the time you get out, it is not of any use to you anyway. (All part of the scheme to keep you suppressed – so ‘they’ can have the illusion of power.)

Also, not feeling free to masturbate without guilt (And going blind.)

At a certain time in your young life, not being allowed to feel your feelings for the same sex.

And in your early youth, that overwhelming pressure that wants to jump on the opposite sex and roll on the ground doing it there and then.

And being in a relationship that is no longer appropriate for you;

in a job from which you longer get satisfaction;

the screaming kids;

the traffic jams;

the loud music everywhere you go.

All the things you do not share, in that very moment.

The things you are not doing in your life hat you want to be doing – places you want to go; people you want to meet. Feeling free.

It wouldn’t be so bad if we at least kept a balance with what we are suppressing with what we are releasing, but we are not – we are building the pressure moment to moment, day by day.

Then, in an attempt to stay alive – your body tries to release – by getting ill.

Living in the moment, the mind does not have a dam – just a natural flow.

In the stream of life, sometimes a trickle of gentle evolving; sometimes an emergency rush; a time of tranquility; a sinking – like being absorbed in a desert. All flowing in and towards a deeper ocean of love.

Nothing wrong with life; nothing wrong with us.

Just the neurotic way we are attempting to live life.

Antidote?

Live. Unconditionally. Truthfully. Totally.

Happy unconditionally totalising…