Achieving Focus and Clarity In The Midst Of A Chaotic World

GML-MeditateBch

This is the first podcast I did for Elite Marketing Pro.

Click on this to hear the Audio Recording

Discover Your True Path

the-tree-of-life

This is something I prepared for a podcast I did for Elite Marketing Pro, April 2016.

You can listen to it here: Hope you enjoy 🙂

Discover Your True Path (Audio Recording)

I have been teaching now for over 35 years and have taught tens of thousands of people all over the world. In the process, I have come to know my students personally as they have confided in me with many of their struggles in life. What I have come to understand now is that all of them think that their problems were unique and the most common rhetoric from people when you try to advice them is, how do you know when you have not lived “my life’, walked in my shoes, etc. However, in listening to so many people, what I find is that most of their problems have common roots. Although they vary in the look and feel, in the sequence of events, in the differences of circumstances, but all arising from the same foundational problems. And however great or small the magnitude of their pain, they all suffer the same. Whether the scale of one’s experience is small or great, one can only perceive the world from their perception and no one else’s. In the discussion of pain, if the extent of a person’s experience is only the pain caused from being struck by a pencil, then they cannot know the pain caused by being struck by a car. And, when one argues that there’s no comparison in the pain caused from a pencil from the pain caused by an impact from a car, what we discover is that pain is still pain and it’s very personal.

Foundationally, it is the question of meaning, of purpose and this has remained same all through the ages as man came to acquire, intellect, knowledge, since Adam & Eve ate the fruit from the forbidden tree of knowledge. As I have said, in order to change and transform a tree, what do you do? If you only focus on what you see and what is apparent then you would have to touch, change, transform every branch, every leaf, every flower, every petal. However, there is a way you can transform the entire tree by addressing only one thing – the roots. When you change what you put through the roots is how you can transform the entire tree in one shot, so to speak. As Einstein has said, “The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again, but expecting different results”. Therefore, the answer does not lie in what we can see and what is apparent; the truth lies in what is not visible or apparent, in the immaterial, in the ethereal, in consciousness, in what is harder to acquire.

As Einstein has said, “The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again, but expecting different results”. Therefore, the answer does not lie in what we can see and what is apparent; the truth lies in what is not visible or apparent, in the immaterial, in the ethereal, in consciousness, in what is harder to acquire.

In philosophy and science there is a battle between two juxtaposing views – materialism and idealism. Materialism states that everything in existence can be explained through matter, whether visible or invisible. Whereas, idealism states that all things in existence is consciousness and is invisible, ethereal. And before the technological advancements of our era, people devoted their lives to God, to spirituality, to family, to living. As we come into the modern era, the advancements in technology has made our labor easier, creating more time for leisure, but relieving more than just the burdens of living, but the knowledge in how to live free and independent. At one point one man possessed all the knowledge necessary to survive in the world and that person was then responsible to transmit that knowledge with whatever else he has gained to the next generation and so on, and so on. However, when there was so much knowledge, no one person could possess it all so we began to compartmentalize, specialize, to give more and more power and dependency to government, to the landlords as the state began to offer more than just protection. Then, finally with the advent of currency, it allowed the rapid expansion of cities, empires, and civilizations. In the beginning, people understood the value and limitations of currency, as it was only a promissory note backed by real commodities just as well as knowing where their food came from.

We have lost the understanding of purpose, of foundation, of meaning. And, in my opinion that is the greatest cause of suffering, the root of the problem. We have to ask ourselves if science, knowledge, intellect, materialism is truth, then why is the world in so much chaos, so much hunger, so much sickness, so much war. And more people today are lost in purpose and meaning as it is evident in our millennial generation that desires above all things than success and money; they want change, any change, just something other than what is: Not realizing that the change must come from them rather than asking for it, but of course in order for them to create change they must know what must change and for what end.

And more people today are lost in purpose and meaning as it is evident in our millennial generation that desires above all things than success and money; they want change, any change, just something other than what is: Not realizing that the change must come from them rather than asking for it, but of course in order for them to create change they must know what must change and for what end.

With so much information, yet so lost; and that I tell you lies in the ingenuous way we acquire knowledge. Not through empirical data, but through more and more hearsay. We need not journey, we need not venture outside our doors, it’s all at our fingertips and because there is so much information as well as misinformation, making it harder to believe in anything so we succumb to believing in nothing.

Harvard University performed the longest research project in history. It was a research to better understand human development, simply put to know what truly makes people happy. It took over 75 years and more than 3,000 subjects, half of whom was selected from the Harvard student body and the other half from the worst social-economic circumstances in the ghettos of Boston. They tracked all of them every year and subjected them to rigorous interview, physical medical review and psych evaluations. Some were poor and became rich, some were wealthy and lost everything, and even one became president. They asked all of them in the beginning what would make them happy and they all said money, fame or both. At the end of the 75-year research, they asked surviving members the same question and they all answered – relationships.

We are moving further away from the truth – the spirit; and relying more on the things human beings create. We forget the true nature and essence of all things as we focus only on the pleasure, the benefit, fulfilling the ever so prevalent phrase, “What’s in it for me?” Acquiring all things they desire in Machiavellian fashion and wanting the acceptance and praise of what used to be their community before the Internet and now the World. The truth cannot lie in more hearsay and opinion of others. Because the majority agrees does not mean it’s right. So, let me ask you something we all heard before, would you jump off a cliff if your trusted friend does so, how about 10 people, how about a thousand, how about a million, lets say everyone on the planet? You see it’s easy to say when there’s one, but when there’s everyone, then it all changes. I would have to say no! I wouldn’t jump, until I understood why and for what purpose.

You see truth, goodness, human beings posses intrinsic value, meaning they do not increase or diminish in their worth because the value and worth is in it’s existence.

You see truth, goodness, human beings posses intrinsic value, meaning they do not increase or diminish in their worth because the value and worth is in it’s existence. Therefore, the most noble path is to live and die as a scapegoat. You know we all had one growing up, in our family. There was that one child who was always at the wrong place at the wrong time. But because of that sibling, you escaped punishment, you were saved and yet they did nothing wrong. Is that not the best way to serve your fellow man? This can be fully understood when you know difference in suffering from doing good versus suffering from doing bad, or evil.

In essence, materialism makes gods of men, and idealism requires surrender to God, to ultimate consciousness. And for those who say the acquisition of ultimate consciousness is an ultimate goal in itself which can be achieved by man, but I say for what is the ultimate consciousness for, and that can only be known to God. For in the end, no matter how much a man can know, you also know that man is imperfect and so it cannot be trusted fully. Therefore we place ourselves in a conundrum we cannot escape.

The arrival to this conundrum is necessary in order for one to seek and understand the truth. And it is my hope that I may assist you in helping, guiding you to your personal truth, which is a condition that must be fulfilled to know the ultimate truth.
And in fact is that not the highest aspiration of any human being?

Seeking Truth

 

Seeking Truth

MLKumdoKneel

“Keep the faith and be true to yourself,

never relying on others or chance to determine your life.

Choose and once you have decided, then stick to it to the end.

And, when you do – after you have ceased to exist, you will have created “Truth.””

As I was browsing through our Forum, “The Flowering Way,” I happened to come across some student quoting me.  So, I read through it again and it hit a nerve.  TRUTH, from the time we can speak we have always asked the question “Why?”  That is one question that you can ask and ask and ask and it can never be satisfied.  Don’t you remember your three or four year old asking you, why is the sky blue?

Because God made it that way?

Why?

Because he likes blue?

Why? Because, OK to tell you the truth, it is the combination of gaseous material which diffracts light into particular frequencies of electromagnetic radiation that is perceived by our retinas as the color blue?

Why? And on, and on, again.

This is what drives most parents crazy.  But let us think for a moment.  Isn’t that the fundamental question that we need to ask in order to find the truth?  Why do our retinas perceive it to be blue?  Why couldn’t it be something else?  And do all creatures see it as the blue we see or even other people and if they do not, then blue as we know it could not be the Truth.  And if that is so, then how can anything we perceive be the Truth.  Further, what is ‘blue’ anyways?  It is our truth as human beings or truth as it remains convenient, but not the ‘Truth.’

We can continue this epistemological debate and go even further into the philosophy of language and as in Physics, the deeper we go, more the questions we’ll find.  So, after couple of decades of questioning everything, I have come to the point where I know I cannot answer all of them and that I will never know the “Truth,” but only functional truths.  And, I am at peace with that.

I think that this is the most important realization that one can come to and it is not giving up, it is not being pessimistic, it is not compliance, and it most certainly is not ignorance.  It is a realization, a self-actualized knowledge.  Truth as in life is in doing, in living, in seeking, it is in the journey.  Whether we find the Truth or not is not what is important, but that we seek it.  However, somewhere between why is the sky blue and does God exist, if there is a Santa grant me a bike and why has God forsaken me, thinking you are Superman and got to go to graduate school to get a raise, we have lost the sense of wonderment, the fuel which drives our truth-seeking engine, the stuff which makes dreams come true.  We lost the belief in the possibility that the impossible can happen and not only happen, but made to happen.  In my opinion, Truth is what we make of it.  If you say you cannot, then you cannot; if you say you don’t like, you don’t like; if you say you quit, then you quit; if you say I don’t love anymore, then you don’t love anymore; if you say you are done, then you are dead.  And what more truth is greater than knowing that if you live there is life and if you die then it is death.  I choose to live.

Don’t misunderstand me, you cannot get to this point until you journey.  One must be critical. Not just be critical of others and external things, but just as or more so be critical of the ‘self.’  The business of seeking truth is a lonely job, paved with disappoints, disillusionments, heartbreaks, sometimes abandonment (letting go then regretting it by blaming the offender), hopelessness, and many other not so pleasant emotions as one’s foundation starts to shake, crumble and rebuilt.  Yes, rebuilt, many times.  The question is will you rebuild or will you accept it as is?  To me this is a matter of life and death of the soul.  Once your whole world view and the truths that you’ve built your paper empire on falls apart, what will you do?  And, if your foundation, your core has not turned to ash, then it has not been tested, tried, and criticized.  The journey of Truth lies in the rebuilding and this takes all the courage in the world.  Who is better off, the bum who wanders for food and lives moment to moment or the person who goes to work everyday to pay their debts?  For me truth lies in purpose and purpose rises from the rebuilding of Truth.  Each time you rebuild, there will be certain things which will remain and that to me that is Truth and it is up to me to make sure it stays true.

A Hwarang is a truth seeker and a Truth keeper.  And, this means to be unafraid – unafraid of being wrong.

Hwarang Forever,

Grandmaster Taejoon Lee