Mickey Patel

You have different sides to your personality, with conflicting needs. Instead of ignoring one, make sure you balance them. Balance time with others and time alone. Balance your need for stability with your need for surprise. Balance input and output, consumption and creation, stability and adventure, body and spirit. Your opposing needs become each

Most individuals have never had enough time, and they’ve never had enough resources, and they’ve never had enough support or patronage or reward . . . and yet still they persist in creating. They persist because they care. They persist because they are called to be makers, by any means necessary.

All things lead back to seriousness and sincerity. Sincerity, not in a moral sense. But in the sense of a true and genuine and pure desire to reach one’s goal. S: Most humans simply are not this way. M: Most humans like to play games. They are window-shoppers, band-wagon-jumpers, and fad-followers. Such is the effect of societal conditioning.

Second, of course it’s difficult to create things; if it wasn’t difficult, everyone would be doing it, and it wouldn’t be special or interesting.

I think everyone knows it’s possible. There’s a great Osho lecture, titled “The Attraction for Drugs Is Spiritual.” He talks about why do people do drugs (everything from alcohol to psychedelics to cannabis). They’re doing it to control their mental state. They’re doing it to control how they react. Some people drink because it helps them not care

You might think it’s procrastination, but—with the right intention—it isn’t; it’s motion. And any motion whatsoever beats inertia, because inspiration will always be drawn to motion. So wave your arms around. Make something. Do something. Do anything.

Understand this: Man will take any opportunity to avoid that which is most immediate in his life. He will do anything but the task at hand. He will look at anything besides that which stands inches from his face. He is an escapist. He is a fantasy-seeker. Illusions are his drug. And reality is of no use to him.

If our aim remains fixed upon cultivating Atmamun, we will become observers of our feelings rather than “fixers” of them. We will be constantly vigilant of our observation and documentation of what feelings are arising within us, rather than allowing ourselves to react. Thus neither controlling the reaction nor refining it. For reactions arise from

Can practicing meditation help you accept reality? Yeah. But it’s amazing how little it helps. [laughs] You can be a long-time meditator, but if someone says the wrong thing in the wrong way, you go back to your ego-driven self. It’s almost like you’re lifting one-pound weights, but then somebody drops a huge barbell with a stack of plates on your