Despite his enormous health challenges, Sean has not only survived but thrived, becoming an inspiration to millions of people around the world including Sir Richard Branson, President Clinton, and his Holiness the 14th Dalai Lama.

A board certified therapist, Sean uses humour and compassion to develop a fun environment where individuals open their hearts and minds for lasting empowerment to occur.

This highly entertaining yet powerful talk was given to inmates of the Ironwood State Prison. “I have a belief that has served me in my life, and that is that everyone is rooting for me to win—even those who do not know it,” he says as he shares three lessons that is sure to inspire you to transform your life in wonderful ways.

More about the speaker

Sean Clinch Stephenson is an American therapist, self-help author and motivational speaker. Because he was born with Osteogenesis Imperfecta, Stephenson stands three feet tall, has fragile bones, and uses a wheelchair.

Sean has appeared on everything from The Oprah Show to online videos with hundreds of millions of views. The Biography Channel did an hour feature on his life called Three Foot Giant. His message has been heard at live events in over 16 countries and 48 states in the past 23 years. Sean’s latest book, Get Off Your But, has swept the US and been released in almost a dozen languages around the world.

The post If this doesn’t inspire you, nothing will! appeared first on Complete Wellbeing.

Why is there anger in marriage?

Most people, both perpetrators and recipients, seem almost helpless in the face of anger and, having suffered for some time, either want relief from the caustic “feelings within” or from the results of expressed anger afflicting them. But one cannot remove something that is not understood. So, the first question to be asked is “What is anger?”

Anger is not just another emotion. It is a unique kind of emotion, because its first incarnation is as an instinctive reaction [though after its first appearance, it becomes an “invited” emotion]. Anger is not an innate part of one’s higher consciousness, because emotions are not innate—they are part of the cooperative system between the physical body and the ego-based mind. The purpose of anger is to protect the physical form from dangers.

When the mind becomes aware of something that suggests danger, it reacts, such reaction being instinctive. In other words, it is not a well thought out response, but an automatic one that is designed to shut off all thoughts and analysis, lest we are too slow to respond to the danger.

So, the first mental reaction to danger is “anger”. The mind perceives itself to be in danger when it does not get its way. So we can then say that anger is the instinctive reaction of the mind when it does not get its way.

The unregulated mind

The trouble arises when the mind, unregulated, continues to lower the thresholds of danger with each instance of perceived trouble. Because there is nobody controlling the mind, its automatic functions are not guided by human intelligence; the mind mechanically chooses for us what it considers dangerous. Because of their samskaras (values), some individuals have much lower thresholds than others while others have learned to “manage” their anger. Still others, through holy indifference or daya, have risen above their emotions. But know for certain: until we begin the arduous practice of managing our mind, our emotions will rule our lives, affecting not only ourselves but also those closest to us.

Necessity is the mother of invention, and pain is the prod to liberation. The mind, due to the innate drive to survive, is constantly reminding us that we are perfect in our wisdom—what a joke!

None of us are afraid to declare “I am not perfect”. Yet, in our day-to-day existence, we rarely admit to being wrong. Surely you can see this conundrum in your own life. Well, this defines the battle of battles within, between atman [consciousness] and maya [play of the world]. And we generally pay no heed to the signals, until we can no longer stand the “pain”. The pain caused by anger.

Steps to deal with anger in marriage

Whether you are a man or a woman, a loose cannon of anger, or guilt-ridden because of what you might have said or done due to anger, or if you are walking on eggshells because of your spouse’s anger, now you have had enough, and you are willing to do the work, to make the effort, to deal with anger. Good for you!

Now, that you understand that anger is a “force” which is not you, let’s see what you can do to control it, if you are the one who is the perpetrator. Alternately, if you are the “victim” of an angry spouse/partner, you have to know how to deal with them as well as your own anger.

If you follow these prescriptions, you will not have to fear anger ever again.

When anger arises within your mind it feels like everything has to give way to it. But that is only because you have not learned to disassociate from it, or see it objectively. Now, don’t get me wrong. This is simple, but it will not be easy, not in the beginning. But over time, your mind will bend to your will, and you will have more and more control. In order to get a good foothold, you should be hyper vigilant in the beginning of your efforts!

As soon as you feel it, stop the mind

Say to it, out loud if the situation allows (the subconscious mind is more impressionable to sound), “mind, stop, we are not in danger!” Be forceful, and do not allow the physical sensations to convince you that you “are” angry; you cannot be angry, you are atman (consciousness). Next, you can now decide whether you wish to go along with the “feelings” called anger, or turn the mind to a more positive view of what triggered you, and a more positive outward response.

Don’t think the feelings will simply disappear. Those feelings are purposeful to the animal body, and your mind has been reduced to an animal mind in this regard.

A human being has free will. You can choose, always. You can choose to ignore the sensations caused by anger. You can choose to observe the feelings as an intruder which is not you.

You do not have to manage the anger [it is stupid to try to redirect it; it will not be redirected into good]. But you have control over the actual energy that created the anger, and this is what you are redirecting by stopping the mind. This is where you have control, and should exercise it.

Some people who have struggled with rage for their whole lives have tried from time to time to control their fury, and have been foiled every time. While dealing with anger, the will is not strong enough. But those same people have had the will to stop themselves from going along with the anger. They have had enough willpower to step back and observe, allowing them the ability actually see how anger manipulates them and their lives.

The next step is to consider the possibilities

If you were a saint, how would you behave? Consider your ideas. If an idea is going to create a lovingly positive outcome, give it voice. Or, if the struggle continues in the mind then you need to back away from there and go someplace where you can concentrate on your mind, watching the inner triggers, hearing all the lame excuses for allowing the anger to manifest.

Your mind belongs to you. Unless you have damaged your willpower with drugs or alcohol, it is your free will that must rule your life.

Marriage is elegantly designed for happiness, and the phrase “marital bliss” is a reality. But you must do your part by feeding your spouse only love, and that is why we address anger in the case where your spouse is not in control of theirs.

Dealing with another’s ill-temper

If you are living with one who expresses their anger towards you, or your children, try the following.

In today’s world there is a lot of talk about standing up for yourself, and sometimes it is necessary to do so. But there is a fine line between standing up for yourself and being in someone’s face.

As an individual you have the ability to walk away from abuse, if only figuratively. That is the first step. If you are being abused, you can shift your mind to the role of the ultimate compassionate friend, who understands your spouse is himself being internally abused by anger.

Don’t show sympathy outwardly, because their mind will freak out, but feel sympathetic, and carefully allow their tantrum to dissipate, internally chanting, “I love you”, “I will remain your best friend” and so on. Very carefully avoid their triggers, and when they cool down again, act as if nothing happened.

This will take a great deal of strength on your part, but it works! You will have to deal with your own anger, your own sense of despair, or feelings of self-pity, and so forth. But so what? Is not life about growth? Is not life about discovering ultimate happiness? Is not life about learning how to love unconditionally?

The soul purpose of marriage is to learn to love unconditionally.

The post A spiritual solution for dealing with anger in marriage appeared first on Complete Wellbeing.

And when we accumulate knowledge, what do we do? Nothing changes inside. The being remains absolutely unaffected. Just like dust, information gathers around you—just like dust gathering around a mirror: the mirror remains the same, only it loses its mirroring quality. What you know through the mind makes no difference—your consciousness remains the same. In fact it becomes worse, because accumulated knowledge is just like dust around your mirroring consciousness; the consciousness reflects less and less and less.

The more you know, the less aware you become. When you are completely filled with scholarship, borrowed knowledge, you are already dead. Then nothing comes to you as your own. Everything is borrowed and parrot-like.

Borrowed knowledge is dangerous

Mind is a parrot. I have heard—it happened in the days of Joseph Stalin—that a man, a very prominent communist, came to the Moscow police station and reported that his parrot was missing. Because this man was a very prominent communist, the chief at the police station inquired about the parrot, for it was significant and had to be searched for. In his inquiries he asked, “Does the parrot talk?”

The communist, the comrade, felt a slight fear, and then he said, “Yes, he talks. But note it down: whatsoever political opinions he has, they are completely his own.”

But how can a parrot have opinions of its own? A parrot cannot have opinions of its own—and neither can the mind, because mind is a mechanism. A parrot is more alive than a mind. Even a parrot may have some opinions of its own, but the mind cannot. Mind is a computer, a biocomputer. It accumulates. It is never original, it cannot be. Whatsoever it has is borrowed, taken from others.

Beware of hidden ignorance

You become original only when you transcend mind. When the mind is dropped, and the consciousness faces existence directly, immediately, moment to moment in contact with existence, you become original. Then, for the first time, you are authentically your own.

Otherwise all ideas are borrowed. You may quote scriptures, you may know by heart all the Vedas, the Koran, the Gita, The Bible, but that makes no difference—they are not your own. And knowledge that is not your own is dangerous, more dangerous than ignorance, because it is a hidden ignorance, and you will not be able to see that you are deceiving yourself. You are carrying false coins and thinking that you are a rich man, carrying false stones and thinking that they are Kohinoors. Sooner or later your poverty will be revealed. Then you will be shocked. This happens whenever you die, whenever death comes near. In the shock that death gives to you, suddenly you become aware that you have not gained anything—because only that is gained which is gained in being.

Knowledge must be transcended

You have accumulated fragments of knowledge from here and there, you may have become a great encyclopedia, but that is not the point; and particularly for those who are in search of truth, that is a barrier, not a help. Knowledge has to be transcended.

When there is no knowledge, knowing happens, because knowing is your quality—the quality of consciousness. It is just like a mirror: the mirror reflects whatsoever is there; consciousness reflects the truth that is always in front of you, just at the tip of your nose. But the mind is in between—and the mind goes on chattering, and the truth remains just in front of you and the mind goes on chattering. And you go with the mind. You miss. Mind is a great missing.

There are no shortcuts while seeking truth

Knowledge is borrowed, realise this. The very realisation becomes a dropping of it. You don’t have to do anything. Simply realise that whatsoever you know you have heard, you have not known it. You have read it, you have not realised it; it is not a revelation to you, it is a conditioning of the mind. It has been taught to you—you have not learned it. Truth can be learned, cannot be taught. Learning means being responsive to whatsoever is around you—that which is, to be responsive to it. This is a great learning, but not knowledge.

There is no way to find truth—except through finding it. There is no short cut to it. You cannot borrow, you cannot steal, you cannot deceive, to get to it. There is simply no way unless you are without any mind within you—because mind is a wavering, mind is a continuous trembling; mind is never unmoving, it is a movement. It is just like a breeze, continuously flowing, and the flame goes on wavering. When mind is not there the breeze stops, and the flame becomes unmoving. When your consciousness is an unmoving flame, you know the truth. You have to learn how not to follow the mind.

Stop seeking truth from another

Nobody can give you the truth, nobody, not even a Buddha, a Jesus, a Krishna—nobody can give it to you. And it is beautiful that nobody can give it to you, otherwise it would become a commodity in the market. If it can be given, then it can be sold also. If it can be given, then it can be stolen also. If it can be given then you can take it from your friend, borrow it.

It is beautiful that truth is not transferable in any way. Unless you reach it, you cannot reach. Unless you become it, you never have it. In fact, it is not something you can have. It is not a commodity, a thing, a thought. You can be it, but you cannot have it.

Truth can never be possessed

Truth can never be possessed. There are two commodities which can be possessed: thoughts and things. Things can be possessed, thoughts can be possessed—truth is neither. Truth is being. You can become it, but you cannot possess it. You cannot have it in your safe, you cannot have it in your book, you cannot have it in your hand. When you have it, you are it. You become truth. It is not a concept, it is being itself.

Excerpted from And The Flowers Showered Courtesy: Osho International Foundation; osho.com

The post Seeking truth? Discard knowledge, says Osho appeared first on Complete Wellbeing.

There’s a secret ability of successful people that not many know and even fewer will tell you. Nearly all successful, self-made individuals have mastered the art of silencing or at least slowing down their mind. It is believed that we think anywhere between 60,000 to 100,000 [mostly] useless thoughts everyday. It’s like a monkey that lives in your mind, jumping from one thought to another, pointlessly and endlessly. By unleashing a cascade of crippling thoughts, this monkey robs you of your innate ability to live a happy, successful life. So, unless you tame this monkey, you will forever nurture self-doubt, fear and uncertainty.

As your mind is freed from the reign of the monkey, you begin to see possibilities you hitherto didn’t think existed. New vistas open up as unnecessary and self-defeating thoughts and beliefs pave way for clarity. The iconic entrepreneur Steve Jobs once said, “If you just sit and observe, you will see how restless your mind is. If you try to calm it, it only makes it worse, but over time it does calm, and when it does, there’s room to hear more subtle things—that’s when your intuition starts to blossom and you start to see things more clearly and be in the present more. Your mind just slows down, and you see a tremendous expanse in the moment. You see so much more than you could see before.”

But gagging your mind’s monkey requires that you first understand it; after all, it’s part of your own consciousness. This month, acclaimed author Danny Gregory escorts you into your mind and introduces you to the troublemaker that has been living there for as long as you can remember. He tells you from where the monkey came and how it established itself firmly in the deep recesses of your mind. “The monkey is a formidable foe. It is more devious than you and it has plenty of time on its hands. It can use everything you know against you, push every button, pull every lever, and it is unrelenting,” says Danny as he explains how the monkey, pretending to be your friend and well-wisher, fabricates stories to push you towards self-sabotage. He then flashes his torchlight on the dark corners of your mind to enable you to see and face the annoying ape that has held you back from your joys.

Once the mischief maker is exposed, you begin to understand the tricks it has employed to keep you stuck in a hamster wheel as you keep running but going nowhere in life. It’s now time to disembark from the worthless wheel and proceed in the direction of your goals and dreams. Of course the monkey will put up a fight, but worry not. The author gives you practical strategies to fight back—and win—against this formidable opponent.

As you resolve to no longer allow your strings to be pulled by this invisible inner critic, its defeat is inevitable. After all, it derives all its power from you. So read the full story here and seize back your power.

The post March 2016 issue: Rein in the monkey appeared first on Complete Wellbeing.

— Chinese mystic Chuang Tzu

It is ordinary to try to be extraordinary

Chuang Tzu is a rare flowering, because to become nobody is the most difficult, almost impossible, most extraordinary thing in the world.

The ordinary mind hankers to be extraordinary, that is part of ordinariness; the ordinary mind desires to be somebody in particular, that is part of ordinariness. You may become an Alexander, but you remain ordinary—then who is the extraordinary one? The extraordinariness starts only when you don’t hanker after extraordinariness. Then the journey has started, then a new seed has sprouted.

This is what Chuang Tzu means when he says: A perfect man is like an empty boat. Many things are implied in it. First, an empty boat is not going anywhere because there is nobody to direct it, nobody to manipulate it, nobody to drive it somewhere. An empty boat is just there, it is not going anywhere. Even if it is moving it is not going anywhere.

When the mind is not there, life will remain a movement, but it will not be directed. You will move, you will change, you will be a river-like flow, but not going anywhere, with no goal in view. A perfect man lives without any purpose; a perfect man moves but without any motive. If you ask a perfect man, “What are you doing?” he will say, “I don’t know, but this is what is happening”.

Mind can live in the future, but cannot live in the present. In the present you can simply hope and desire. And that’s how you create misery. If you start living this very moment, here and now, misery disappears.

Ego is the baggage of the past

But how is it related to the ego? Ego is the past accumulated. Whatsoever you have known, experienced, read, whatsoever has happened to you in the past, the whole is accumulated there. That whole past is the ego, it is YOU!

The past can project into the future – the future is nothing but the past extended – but the past cannot face the present. The present is totally different, it has a quality of being here and now. The past is always dead, the present is life, the very source of all aliveness. The past cannot face the present so it moves into the future—but both are dead, both are non-existential. The present is life; the future cannot encounter the present, nor can the past encounter the present. And your ego is your past. Unless you are empty you cannot be here, and unless you are here you cannot be alive.

If people go on colliding with you and if people go on being angry with you, remember, they are not at fault. Your boat is not empty. They are angry because you are there. If the boat is empty they will look foolish, if they are angry they will look foolish.

Those who are very intimate with me sometimes get angry with me and they look very foolish! If the boat is empty you can even enjoy the anger of others, because there is nobody to be angry with, they have not looked at you. So remember, if people go on colliding with you, you are too much of a solid wall. Be a door, become empty, let them pass.

Ignorance breeds anger

Even then sometimes people will be angry—they are even angry with a Buddha. Because there are foolish people who, if their boat collides with an empty boat, they will not look to see whether someone is in it or not. They will start shouting; they will get so messed up within themselves that they will not be able to see whether someone is in it or not.

But even then the empty boat can enjoy it because then the anger never hits you; you are not there, so whom can it hit?

This symbol of the empty boat is really beautiful. People are angry because you are too much there, because you are too heavy there—so solid they cannot pass. And life is intertwined with everybody. If you are too much, then everywhere there will be collision, anger, depression, aggression, violence – the conflict continues.

Whenever you feel that someone is angry or someone has collided with you, you always think that he is responsible. This is how ignorance concludes, interprets. Ignorance always says, “The other is responsible.” Wisdom always says, “If somebody is responsible, then I am responsible, and the only way not to collide is not to be.”

“I am responsible” doesn’t mean, “I am doing something that is why they are angry.” That is not the question. You may not be doing anything, but just your being there is enough for people to get angry. The question is not whether you are doing good or bad. The question is that you are there.

Being is the problem

This is the difference between Tao and other religions. Other religions say: Be good, behave in such a way that no one gets angry with you. Tao says: Don’t be.

It is not a question of whether you behave or misbehave. This is not the question. Even a good man, even a very saintly man, creates anger, because he is there. Sometimes a good man creates more anger than a bad man, because a good man means a very subtle egoist. A bad man feels guilty – his boat may be filled, but he feels guilty. He is not really so spread out on the boat, his guilt helps him to shrink. A good man feels himself to be so good that he fills the boat completely, overfills it.

Tao is totally different. Tao has a different quality, and to me Tao is the deepest religion that has existed on this earth. There is no comparison to it. There have been glimpses, there are glimpses in the sayings of Jesus, in Buddha, in Krishna—but only glimpses.

Chuang Tzu’s message is the purest—it is absolutely pure, nothing has contaminated it. And this is the message: This whole hell is all because there is somebody in the boat.

Excerpted from The Empty Boat. Courtesy: Osho International Foundation

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