Essay Edition
Spontaneity and Choicelessness
Spontaneity and choice are central to such a magical way of life. What does it mean to be spontaneous, and what place does choice have in living a spontaneous existence?
Ultimately, spontaneity means letting your heart decide, being without agenda, and doing what feels right in the moment. What feels right is what feels right here. There is this instantaneous response one has when spontaneous. If I am dancing, something will just move through me, and dance moves will come out in a certain way. There is very little choice in spontaneity, if any.
What could you possibly choose? The concurrence of the moment comes with its own implicit dictates. The moment takes its form, and there is one response that is truly appropriate: the response of love, the response of spontaneity, the response of Dharma.
This is very closely related to Dharma. Dharma is the unfolding of truth and destiny or duty. In Sanskrit, it means truth or duty. It is your duty to be spontaneous and be yourself in a particular moment, with a particular set of conditions.
I see it very mathematically. In mathematics, we have a condition, and based on that condition, quantities, a function, there is a recursive step that results, an input and then an output. The moment is an input. The output is the next moment, and the function of transmutation is spontaneous choicelessness.
To live with choicelessness is such an enormous alleviation of burden, because when we do not have to make a choice, we are no longer dissipating energy in choice, with worry, with planning, with projection, with all the myriad unknowns. We lift this burden, and we generate energy. Whenever we are in resistance, we are dissipating energy. Whenever we are not entirely in flow, we are dissipating energy. But when we are in the absolute freedom of flow, we generate energy, and more and more energy happens. We generate more love, more energy, more chi, more vitality.
The mind becomes very clear because it does not see through choice. It sees through truth. Choices are the perturbations, the ripples on the pond. When the pond becomes very still, there is no choice, and we see straight to the bottom. Then we see the truth at the bottom of the pond.
Meditation helps us get into a state where we can truly be spontaneous. When you meditate, you unlock the shackles of choice, and the mind liberates into its capacity to be still and just be. When one is mindful, one cultivates the capacity for spontaneity. In mindfulness, we are not in a state of choice, but in a state of intentionality, observation, listening.
When we are mindful, there is a renunciation. Renunciation is a form of choicelessness. In renunciation, we are renouncing the chooser, the ego, the selfhood, the agenda, the sense of self, the ideations, all that obscure the simplicity of is-ness.
Spontaneity is colorful and beautiful. It does not seem so austere as you might read in the scriptures, and yet it is so much a part of them. It is very Bhakti scripture: playful, dancing, laughing, the freedom of spontaneity.
Freedom, Vulnerability, and Direction
Spontaneity releases a kind of intelligence. There are certain abilities that one has: divination, speaking in alien tongues. There are interesting things that come through us. If we get still enough and free enough, we will just act. We will do the Tai Chi movement exactly as it is meant to be because we are not getting in the way. The dance move will come through like mastery because we are not getting in the way. Certain occult psychic abilities will come through because we are being truly spontaneous. There is a form of esoteric intelligence that is awakened by this spontaneity, but one has to confront the dilemma of freedom versus security.
In spontaneity, we stand naked to the vulnerability of a lack of planning. Each moment dictates the necessity of that moment and the response to that moment, but the future is opaque. We cannot see it. We could sense it, perhaps. There is a degree of vulnerability, and one has to stop escaping from that vulnerability and be in a state of willingness to say that the moment is everything, and be really immersed in it.
It is actually not very scary if you get so immersed in the love of the moment. You feel a great deal of faith and trust in the future unfolding, much like the moment’s perfection already has.
If you are a completely spontaneous person and you have no plans, how can you be a great entrepreneur? How can you have a family? How can you be a great student? How can you do anything in a productive way in a society where perhaps you have aspirations?
Think of it more like a boat on the ocean. The boat is where it is, and in that moment, there is an inspiration to take a direction. We always have a direction in the moment. We are not necessarily committed, but we know we are traveling toward that island or on that bearing. There is a direction, and there is a position.
In spontaneity, we may have a vision statement for a business. That vision statement is in the now. Its real substance and reality are in the now. The vision statement is what gives the now energy. Those people who are paddling the boat, or the motor on the boat, need energy because they need a vision. They need somewhere to go. The vision statement is very alive in the moment. It is not really alive in the future.
In the moment, the vision statement may change. Every step of the way, that vision statement steered us to some destination that is beyond the vision statement. Maybe it is a distillation of the vision statement, because every step of the way, we find that there is a new vision. We became different. We may want to do something new. Experiences happen. The conditions are different.
It is important to see that there is planning, but some planning is a form of escape. Some planning is a form of control. Some planning is a form of choice, whereas other planning may be spontaneity. This is a big part of the practice, to figure out how to distill the reality of it and what it is not.
You can be a whimsical flower child of the sixties or seventies inwardly and still be enormously productive. In fact, we may be even more productive because the things we do are not our ideas of reality, but a true expression of it in the moment. Ideas interfere with the perfect unfolding of energy and love. If we are truly spontaneous, there is a lot of love. It is a loving state. It is very Bhakti, the yoga of love.
If we are constantly planning, we miss the moment. If we are totally immersed in the moment, then it has direction, but it is directed in a different way. We let the moment surprise us with the next experience.
There are also ways to do it that are the way of the artist. There is a lot of honesty in it, to be completely honest with what you are and how you are responding. It is the honesty of an ecstatic dancer, or maybe any dancer. That honesty is the transparency of completely acting on the impetus of the heart.
My favorite line is, “Let the heart decide,” because that is what Aladdin said to Jasmine. He said on the carpet, “Tell me, Princess, when last did you let your heart decide?” The teaching goes way back. Then the rest of the song goes, “A whole new world.” When you let your heart decide, there is this whole new world that is really inside of you, and you are changing your relationship to the world. Everything is so magical all of a sudden because we let all of that fall away, and we live in the choicelessness of spontaneity.
What does it feel like to have spaciousness in your week? There are people who have to plan two weeks out to get an hour block in their schedule. When one has a life like that, it does not give the soul enough time to hear the subtleties of the winds of the cosmic. There is subtlety there. There needs to be a wide-open plane, temporally, through which we can meet the day.
That is not to say it should be all that, but there should be some of that. There should be solitude balanced with being around company. This is the same sort of thing, the balance. It is something to explore. It is a very powerful thing. You can take it really far and never know what the next moment holds. You can find yourself at some crazy party in the middle of nowhere with a bunch of aliens.
In spontaneity, we accept. Usually, what we accept that comes to us is beyond our ability to conceive or contrive. In planning, a lot of times, it is more about creating, taking, willing something. But in spontaneity, there is a sense of allowing and accepting the gifts that come to us on their own, and those gifts are usually new.
What is very magical about it is that when we look out at the world, instead of seeing our agenda and ourselves, we see the unknown, the magic of the unknown, and the revelation of something new. When we look back on life, a lot of the best things that ever happened to us were not planned. Yet there was some underlying intelligence that seemed to be at play. That is the movement of Dharma and the heart, and the magic of spontaneity.
It is fun to say that for the next week, I am going to be as absolutely spontaneous as I can, to see what it feels like. A lot of people have not really given it a chance, especially if we were raised in a society that did not encourage that. You can find a way to make it work for you and still be productive.
I always try to do what feels right in every moment. It feels right in the chest. Your heart chakra should say yes. Then your heart chakra gets better and better. It is a very heart-centered, anahata cultivation. Usually, that is how I decide things, and then my mind catches up much later. The heart knows. The mind will figure it out.
It is good to do what feels right in every moment. Do you want a red bell pepper, or do you want a yellow bell pepper, or no bell pepper at all? When you reach for it, your heart says yes or no, if you are feeling your heart. Maybe the recipe is not what you got on the internet. Maybe it was different because your heart was writing it. Your heart writes the recipe of your moment.
Practical Integration and Creative Work
It is exciting to think that a business can be run with a sense of flow and perhaps be much more successful. If a business is spending so much energy looking at the numbers, they do not just get on with it.
One of my favorite entrepreneurs is Richard Branson, and he has this quote: “Screw it, just do it.” You just have to pick up the phone and get going. I think that is why he has hundreds of businesses. Many of them are so successful, and they all feel like a party.
It is not necessarily the Type A MBA world. It all really depends on who somebody wants to be. Some entrepreneurs have done that quite well. The shareholders may be upset, but ultimately they may benefit.
Meditation and Energetic Expansion
Bring your attention to the heart center, lifting the burden of choice, of responsibility, feeling that we are loved. Our destiny is held with gentleness by the cosmic order.
In our dissolution, we submerge into the light, the source, whence all of creation has arisen, returning to the source and its visual expressions, the causal, eternal heart beyond the heart center.
Listen to the moment. Let it be not an expression of one’s own self-idea, but an actuality of what is, in the form of listening. Allow the chi in the body to begin to move, to become more vital in this state of non-resistance. Bring the body into light and allow the chi to act of its own volition.
Choiceless awareness. Observe from the light. Become absorbed in the energy and discover the source as the self. Focus on the light, or in your heart center.
The heart has a field. It is an energetic, subtle physical field, a phenomenal structure. When we reach out, we feel that our heart is very large. We change its shape in a very real way.
Reach forward. Expand the heart. Allow the heart to expand upward and downward as well, to the sides. A literal big heart. In addition to reaching forward, upward, downward, and into the sides, now also reach back. Feel the heart expand backward, Vishnu Granthi, right behind the heart chakra.
It is a very comforting energetic exercise that makes you feel safe and held. Keep expanding your heart in all directions. You are no longer confined to a physical form. We are not supposed to be that very tight field of attention, field of energy. It is meant to travel outward.
Let it carry you into the size of the universe. Reach out. In the reaching, let your heart chakra, right in your body, transform, open, become more fluid, energetic. Take a deep breath and note your capacity for apprehending the moment, the sky, the people.
Full Transcript
Spontaneity and Choicelessness
Adam Wes Hi, everybody. All right. Maybe take a moment to light some incense, create the ambiance.
Namaste. Welcome, everybody. What a nice, spontaneous group we have. I just messaged Daniel a second ago. I haven't messaged him for months, and here he is. So good to see you, Daniel.
Kira's here. That priceless face right there. And shoulder frills. Shoulder frills are priceless.
Andrea's here. Thank you.
Oh, my sister's here. I don't see your face, so I didn't say you first. Jenna's here. Yay, Jenna. Good. Love that.
Today I want to talk about a very special topic that I think you will very much appreciate, Kira, and everybody here. Oh, that's okay, Jen. I'm so grateful you're here.
The topic today is so central to such a magical way of life: spontaneity and choice.
What does it mean to be spontaneous, and what place does choice have in living a spontaneous existence?
Ultimately, spontaneity means letting your heart decide, being without agenda, and doing what feels right in the moment. What feels right is what feels right here.
There's this instantaneous response one has when they're spontaneous. Spontaneity means I'm going to be instantaneous in each moment. If I'm dancing, something will just move through me, and dance moves will come out in a certain way. There's very little choice in spontaneity, if any.
What could you possibly choose? The concurrence of the moment comes with its own implicit dictates, right? The moment takes its form, and there's one response that is truly appropriate: the response of love, the response of spontaneity, the response of Dharma.
This is very closely related to Dharma. Dharma is the unfolding of truth and destiny or duty. In Sanskrit, it means truth or duty. It's your duty to be spontaneous and be yourself in a particular moment, with a particular set of conditions.
I see it very mathematically. In mathematics, we have a condition, and based on that condition, quantities, a function, there's a recursive step that results, an input and then an output. The moment is an input. The output is the next moment, and the function of transmutation is spontaneous choicelessness.
To live with choicelessness is such an enormous alleviation of burden, because when we don't have to make a choice, we're no longer dissipating energy in choice, with worry, with planning, with projection, with all the myriad unknowns.
We lift this burden, and we generate energy. Whenever we're in resistance, we're dissipating energy. Whenever we're not entirely in flow, we're dissipating energy. But when we're in flow, in the absolute freedom of flow, we generate energy, and more and more energy happens. We generate more love, more energy, more chi, more vitality.
The mind becomes very clear because it doesn't see through choice. It sees through truth. Choices are the perturbations, the ripples on the pond. When the pond becomes very still, there's no choice, and we see straight to the bottom. Then we see the truth at the bottom of the pond.
Meditation helps us get into a state where we can truly be spontaneous. When you meditate, you unlock the shackles of choice, and the mind liberates into its capacity to be still and just be.
When one is mindful, they cultivate the capacity for spontaneity. In mindfulness, we're very much not in a state of choice, but in a state of intentionality, observation, listening.
When we're listening, if I'm totally listening to Kira's subtle tiredness in her yawn, then I'm feeling that, right? And Ariella's showing up just a couple of minutes late, like a naughty teenager.
Where are these words coming from? They're coming from spontaneity. If I thought, "Oh, should I call Ariella a teenager?" then I might not have trusted the flow. My heart said, "That's right."
When we're mindful, there's a renunciation. Renunciation is a form of choicelessness. In renunciation, we are renouncing the chooser, the ego, the selfhood, the agenda, the sense of self, the ideations, all that obscure the simplicity of is-ness.
Why do we do these sermons together? We renew the sentiments of each of these cherished teachings together.
I'm enormously busy with work that I'm doing right now, and I'm like, "Okay, think about spontaneity," and it connects me with it. All of us, as Sangha, can renew our connection to these teachings.
Spontaneity is a really colorful, beautiful one. It doesn't seem so austere as you might read in the scriptures, and yet it's so much a part of them. It's very Bhakti scripture: playful, dancing, laughing, the freedom of spontaneity.
See, that's why I wanted you here, Kira. It's like, "Kira, you have to be here," because she's so spontaneous.
Freedom Vulnerability and Direction
Spontaneity releases a kind of intelligence. There are certain abilities that one has: divination, speaking in alien tongues. There are interesting things that come through us. If we get still enough and free enough, we'll just act. We'll do the Tai Chi movement exactly as it's meant to be because we're not getting in the way.
The dance move will come through like mastery because we're not getting in the way. Certain occult psychic abilities will come through because we're being truly spontaneous. There's a form of esoteric intelligence that's awakened by this spontaneity, but one has to confront the dilemma of freedom versus security.
In spontaneity, we stand naked to the vulnerability of a lack of planning. Each moment dictates the necessity of that moment and the response to that moment, but the future is opaque. We can't see it. We could sense it, perhaps.
There's a degree of vulnerability, and one has to stop escaping from that vulnerability and be in a state of willingness to say, "Okay, the moment is everything," and be really immersed in it.
It's actually not very scary if you get so immersed in the love of the moment. You feel a great deal of faith and trust in the future unfolding, much like the moment's perfection already has.
We should definitely talk about the counter side of this. If you're a completely spontaneous person and you have no plans, how can you be a great entrepreneur? How can you have a family? How can you be a great student? How can you do anything in a very productive way in a society where perhaps you have aspirations?
Think of it more like a boat on the ocean. The boat is where it is, and in that moment, there's an inspiration to take a direction. We always have a direction in the moment. We're not necessarily committed, but we know we're traveling toward that island or on that bearing. There's a direction, and there's a position.
In spontaneity, we may say, "I have a vision statement for my business." That vision statement is in the now. Its real substance and reality are in the now. The vision statement is what gives the now energy.
See, those people who are paddling the boat, or the motor on the boat, need energy because they need a vision. They need somewhere to go. The vision statement is very alive in the moment. It's not really alive in the future.
This is an interesting paradox, right? In the moment, the vision statement may change. Every step of the way, that vision statement steered us to some destination that is beyond the vision statement. Maybe it's a distillation of the vision statement, because every step of the way, we find that there's a new vision. We became different. We may want to do something new. Experiences happen. The conditions are different.
It's important to see that there is planning, but some planning is a form of escape. Some planning is a form of control. Some planning is a form of choice, whereas other planning may be spontaneity. This is a big part of the practice, to figure out how to distill the reality of it and what it's not.
Ariella has logged in about ten times now.
You can be a whimsical flower child of the '70s or '60s inwardly and still be enormously productive. In fact, I would say we may be even more productive because the things we do aren't our ideas of reality, but a true expression of it in the moment.
Ideas interfere with the perfect unfolding of energy and love. If we're truly spontaneous, there's a lot of love. It's a loving state. It's very Bhakti. Bhakti, the yoga of love.
Let's see. Any questions? Comments? Did I miss something? Do you want to add something?
Oh, good, Kira. Thank you. Oh, come on. Somebody. I'm waiting.
Kira Okay, I have something, of course. As Bhakti as I am, as spontaneous as I am, there's still someone who's even more Bhakti and spontaneous than me. Adam knows. David. David Starhart.
Honestly, keeping up with him is like, you have to totally let go of everything that's not spontaneous, basically. Even that stretches me into, I guess, what's possible.
I really love the balance that you gave, Adam, because you can't just, I mean, you could go all the way there, but then certain things might be lacking or missing that may need to be there, like certain structures and stuff. Maybe it's a dance.
Adam Wes When we plan, I think I'm getting echoed here. Oh, good.
If we're constantly planning, we miss the moment. This is a big part of it. If we're totally immersed in the moment, then it has direction, but it's directed in a different way.
When we're spending time with David Starhart, who very much embraces this lifestyle, it's nice because he's letting the moment surprise us with the next experience.
There are also ways to do it that are, I think, the way of the artist. There's a lot of honesty in it, to be completely honest with what you are and how you're responding. It's the honesty of an ecstatic dancer, or maybe any dancer. That honesty is the transparency of completely acting on the impetus of the heart.
My favorite line is, "Let the heart decide," because that's what Aladdin said to Jasmine. He said on the carpet, "Tell me, Princess, when last did you let your heart decide?" The teaching goes way back. It goes way back.
A lot of people don't let their heart decide. Then the rest of the song goes, "A whole new world." When you let your heart decide, there's this whole new world that is really inside of you, and you're changing your relationship to the world. Everything is so magical all of a sudden because we let all of that fall away, and we live in the choicelessness of spontaneity.
Kira I know it doesn't look like it, but I'm actually also a very, very extensive planner. Can you believe it? Having this talk gives a certain awareness that allows one to place themselves along the spectrum of that, whether you're way too far on the side of planning or, you know, you can go either way. But anyway, you can sort of feel where maybe it makes sense for you to be along that, or in each moment, what makes sense.
Adam Wes What does it feel like to have spaciousness in your week? I have friends who I have to plan two weeks out to get an hour block in their schedule.
When one has a life like that, I think it doesn't give the soul enough time to hear the subtleties of the winds of the cosmic. There's subtlety there. There needs to be a wide-open plane, temporally, through which we can meet the day.
That's not to say it should be all that, but there should be some of that. There should be solitude balanced with being around company. This is the same sort of thing, the balance.
It's something to explore. It's a very powerful thing. You can take it really far, like David Starhart, and never know what the next moment holds. You can find yourself at some crazy party in the middle of nowhere with a bunch of aliens. It's that.
David P Yeah.
Adam Wes A movie keeps coming to mind. Have you guys seen Yes Man with Jim Carrey? Watch that. He had to say yes to everything. People would ask him, "Come on a motorcycle with me," and he'd say yes to everything. He got into crazy situations, but it was a very different life for him from that moment. That's the lesson in the film.
Kira I love this theme of how magic can unfold more when we enter into that state of spontaneity. When we're planning, we're in control, so maybe what can happen is what we planned and what we controlled to happen, and then maybe there's a slight variation off of that.
But when you almost surrender, then things can occur that maybe you couldn't have mentally contrived or thought possible. You enter into the realm of magic and possibility, I think, when you choose the path, choose the way of spontaneity.
Adam Wes Thanks, Kira. Yes, you just reminded me of something that I really wanted to say.
In spontaneity, we accept. Usually, what we accept that comes to us is beyond our ability to conceive or contrive. In planning, a lot of times, it's more about creating, taking, willing something. But in spontaneity, there's a sense of allowing and accepting the gifts that come to us on their own, and those gifts are usually new.
What's very magical about it is that when we look out at the world, instead of seeing our agenda and ourselves, we see the unknown, the magic of the unknown, and the revelation of something new.
You can't really plan. I think when we look back on life, we're like, "Hey, wait. A lot of the best things that ever happened to me weren't planned." Right? Yet there was some underlying intelligence that seemed to be at play. That's the movement of Dharma and the heart, and the magic of spontaneity.
Any other questions, anybody? Then we'll start our meditation.
Colleen I need to let my heart decide instead of my head, and I need to be more spontaneous, like Kira is saying. That's my take on it.
Adam Wes I love that, Mom.
It's fun to maybe say, "For the next week, I'm going to be as absolutely spontaneous as I can," to see what it feels like. I think a lot of people maybe haven't really given it a chance, especially if we were raised in a society that didn't encourage that.
You can find a way to make it work for you and still be productive. I always try to do what feels right in every moment. It feels right in the chest. Your heart chakra should say, "Woo, happy. Yes." Then your heart chakra just gets better and better and better. It's a very heart-centered, heart chakra, anahata cultivation.
Usually, that's how I decide things, and then my mind catches up much later. I'm like, "Oh, wow, that's why I did that." It's like, "Why can't I send this text?" or, "Why do I have to send this text?" I don't know, but I do know.
The heart knows. The mind then will kind of figure it out. "Oh, wait, I shouldn't have said that because that would have..."
It's good to just do what feels right in every moment. Do you want a red bell pepper, or do you want a yellow bell pepper, or no bell pepper at all? When you reach for it, your heart says yes or no, if you're feeling your heart.
Maybe the recipe is not what you got on the internet. Maybe it was different because your heart was writing it. Your heart writes the recipe of your moment.
Meditation and Energetic Expansion
All right. Shall we meditate? Let's meditate. It's time to meditate.
When we meditate, let's go into light. Let's feel the heart and try to erase, renounce, all the shackles that are obstacles to spontaneity, so that after the meditation, you've actually transformed your energy into one who has the capacity to be spontaneous.
Cool.
Jenna, if you have to go, it was so good seeing you, seeing your orange square. Having you here, I feel you.
Ariella, no more getting off the chat and coming back in. No more. You have to be in here.
Okay, let's play some music. How do I play music? If I were to pick a song right now, I'm picking it based on what feels right. If I'd planned it yesterday, how would I have known what today was going to be, or who was going to be here?
Now Daniel's here, so I have to play a really cool song. Let me pick a song for Daniel. That'll do. Something divine enough.
Bring your attention to the heart center, lifting the burden of choice, of responsibility, feeling that we are loved.
Our destiny is held with gentleness by the cosmic order.
In our dissolution, we submerge into the light, or the source, whence all of creation has arisen, returning to the source and its visual expressions, the causal, eternal heart beyond the heart center.
Listen to the moment. Let it be not an expression of one's own self-idea, but an actuality of what is, in the form of listening.
Allow the chi in the body to begin to move, begin to become more vital in this state of non-resistance. Bring the body into light and allow the chi to act of its own volition.
Choiceless awareness. Observe from the light. Become absorbed in the energy and discover the source as the self.
Focus on the light, or in your heart center.
Let's do a heart exercise. Feeling the heart center, reach out.
The heart has a field. It's an energetic, subtle physical field, a phenomenal structure. When we reach out, I feel that our heart is very large. We change its shape in a very real way.
Reaching forward is a little easier than reaching back. Try to reach forward. Expand the heart. Allow the heart to expand upward and downward as well, to the sides. A literal big heart.
In addition to reaching forward, upward, downward, and into the sides, now let's also reach back. Feel the heart expand backward. Vishnu Granthi, right behind the heart chakra.
It's a very comforting energetic exercise that makes you feel safe and held.
Keep expanding your heart in all directions. You are no longer confined to a physical form. We're not supposed to be that very tight field of attention, field of energy. It's meant to travel outward.
This will be our final song. Let it carry you into the size of the universe. Reach out. In the reaching, let your heart chakra, right in your body, transform, open, become more fluid, energetic.
It's good to take a deep breath and just note your capacity for apprehending the moment, the sky, the people.
Namaste.
Meditation Reflections and Community
Hi, Mom.
Colleen Hi. A weird thing happened. I think I've been watching too many of your math videos because those colors started morphing into shapes and things like your math videos. Then another part was lots of little dots that made, I don't know, shapes. Very interesting.
The third different thing was that I saw a lot of yellow today. Really deep but bright yellow, which I don't normally see.
Adam Wes Beautiful. Good job, Mary. You're glowing. Look how bright your face is.
I love this woman so much. You're welcome, Mom. Love you. Good job. Thanks for being here. I honor you. Thank you for being here.
Let's take a moment and honor my mom for her years of support, being here and helping make this Sangha possible with her steady consistency and her complete acceptance.
Colleen It's my pleasure. Thank you for doing it. Thank you for being here for me.
Adam Wes Thanks for being grateful. All right, we're going to keep going back and forth.
How about you, Daniel? Would you like to share?
Daniel V I just want to say that I feel grateful. Grateful for you having me in mind and sending me that message. Grateful for your words. Grateful for the people in this meditation. And, well, yes.
Adam Wes Wonderful. Obviously, there's a small group of us. We all know each other now. This is our Sangha. It's really so wonderful to have you here and just to be able to talk about these things with you. I hope they really touch you in a significant way. I love getting together with you guys, so thanks for being here.
I'd also call in my dad. He's just a little bit quieter because he's got his camera off and he's not talking to us over Zoom, but honoring you too, Dad. Thank you for being here and for all your support.
Ariella, how about you? Thanks, Daniel. Namaste.
Ariella Hi. Thank you so much, Colleen, for sending me a text reminder. I'm staying overnight with my daughter in San Diego. I was playing with my grandson, so I completely lost track of time.
But I'm so glad. I had an incredible meditation. I felt myself going into the light. Then I don't know if I fell asleep. I don't know what happened. But as I came back, I just felt radiance.
Adam Wes Beautiful. Heart. Heart is all that matters.
It's actually pretty funny. I'll tell you a story. I was at Erewhon a few months back, and I'd come from an event where it didn't feel like there was very much heart. I was just walking up to everybody and saying, "Love is all that matters," to random people. It's kind of eccentric, but that reminded me of that. That's what matters.
Ariella Oh, yeah. I've really been in that love energy. Last week, I was up in Oakland with my two-month-old new granddaughter. The love has just been incredible.
Adam Wes Ariella, thanks for making it despite your busy evening.
Ariella Yeah.
Adam Wes How about you, Andrea?
Andrea P Hello.
Adam Wes Hi.
Andrea P I love being here. I feel like I haven't been here in a few weeks, and it feels really nice. I needed it today. I'm super exhausted, so this gives me energy. Thank you.
Adam Wes Good. Good to see you. I love having you here.
David made it despite his busy schedule. Do you want to share anything, or are you kind of in the no-talk space?
David P I joined when Kira and you were discussing something like losing control. I don't know if those were the words, but it's very different from what my day-to-day is about, right?
When I think about Excel, projections, forecasts, and results, I imagine saying to the people I work for, "Just flow, man. Forget about the pipeline and forecast. Let's just roll."
Adam Wes Love that.
David P I was trying to figure out a way to do this and to really go with the flow, and at the same time be able to fill out the form, because it's actually form, really, form in the very sense of the word. That's something that I'm going to meditate about, how to mix both.
The other thing I want to say is that I also feel that this is my Sangha. Really.
Adam Wes A big hug. One day I'll give you a real hug in person. I would love that.
David P I know. We should.
It's super important that you hold the space, man. I really appreciate that you have this inner strength. Thank you.
Adam Wes You're welcome. Thank you.
Practical Integration and Creative Work
It's really exciting to think that a business can be run with a sense of flow and perhaps be much more successful. If a business is spending so much energy looking at the numbers, they don't just get on with it.
One of my favorite entrepreneurs is Richard Branson, and he has this quote: "Screw it, just do it." That's what he actually says. "Screw it, just do it." He's just like, "You just have to pick up the phone and get going." I think that's why he has 300 or something businesses. Many of them are so successful, and they all feel like a party.
It's not necessarily the Type A MBA world. I don't know. It all really depends on who somebody wants to be.
I think some entrepreneurs have done that quite well. I think Steve Jobs has a little bit more of that than usual. There are a few others. The shareholders may be upset, but ultimately they may benefit.
"No, you guys didn't do your homework today."
"Yeah, we did. We did what mattered."
Good to see you, David. Thank you.
Kira, would you like to share briefly? I know it's 7:09, but I went to you last, right? Kira and I talk a lot.
One word. One word. I can't hear you.
Kira Bliss!
Adam Wes Good choice.
Have a spontaneous week of choicelessness and following your heart, should you spontaneously choose to do so.
I want to tell everybody, if you don't know, I actually have a very polished draft of my book. It's got 700 pages. You can download it on my website. TheBhaktiMathGuru.com is now the new website.
I also have my app, which is, guys, it's insane. You can literally do tutoring with it. It controls the scene. You can talk to it, ask it questions, like having a real conversation. It all looks like art and is beautiful. You can see it, and it's not just boring math. You can go in there, print the screen, ask questions, and play around with it. There are 23 worlds I've created. I've been very busy working on this.
The other thing I wanted to tell you was that I created a poster store where you can get large posters of all the art and put them on your wall if you're interested. It's as low as $25. In fact, if anybody needs a discount, I'd give any of you a discount if you just tell me what you need.
It costs money to make, but I would be honored if anybody had one of the posters. There are 58 posters, I think, right now. I've got 58 of them, so there are a lot of posters to choose from. I'll make one for you if you're like, "I want this in red," or something. I'll make a version for you.
Those are the updates. Love all of you. Good to see you. Thanks for spontaneously making it tonight. I'll see you next time. I'm just feeling a lot of love.
Big hug, Andrea. Big hug, Ariella. Big hug, Mom. Big hug, Daniel. Big hug, Kira. Big hug, Dad, before you left. He already left. See you.
David P Bye, guys.