Even God needs a little peace in a bustling city.

We are staying again in Mississauga, Toronto, teaching the Blue Belt Top Talent program. Toronto has been a work destination for years. I love coming here. I love Canada.  There is much the Canadians can teach us south of the border. When you tell Canadians they are a very nice nation they tend to not see it as a complement. But nice doesn’t mean they aren’t assertive, strong, powerful, unstoppable or even aggressive. Just watch them play hockey. It is the temperament of the nation, “Peace, Order and (continual search for) Good Government.” The spirit of live and let live. Ease of collaboration. Readiness to make the other look good and even better. Healthy laughter. Wit. Dedication to family. Appreciation of beauty and simplicity. You cannot help but notice these values. It feels a little saner, and with a balance that we sometimes struggle to find south of the border.

Mississauga, where many multi-national corporations have their offices, looks like many other extensions of major cities but there is also something else. There are small special places; little corners of care, where someone went out of their way to create a little peace for the city dwellers and its visitors.

A couple of weeks ago, back home in Seattle, we hiked to Spray Falls where you can see a majestic view of Mount Rainier. It’s nature’s supreme presence, away from civilization. A week later in Mississauga, we walked a short trail in Mullet Creek Park, a place almost too small and insignificant to have a name. This place brings forward an insight. Sometimes, we can feel more of God’s presence in the little known, inglorious places than there is in the grandest of places. God loves what’s not loved. Its presence shows up where it’s least expected. There is a special beauty in finding grace where you do not expect it. Here, in the city, God is hard at work, cleaning it up, replenishing and helping people to get up and go on. God needs a little peace too. Someone‘s dedication and care made this a little place of peace.

One more thought. It can be like this for you too. Do you only care about the big, visible things, or do you put a special care in the small, unseen corners? Do you attend to your work and development only in visible matters, or do you attend to your growth and endeavors when no one sees and knows?

Try to tend to the small things. Put a special care into the not so glorious. Grace the small efforts and steps with your full presence. Find beauty hidden in the mundane. Offer something else a little space of peace in your life. It is then that you will be magnified with something greater. God’s little peace.

© Aviv Shahar

Aviv Shahar :: Oct.04.2008 :: Spirituality :: No Comments »

You get up, go to work, you manage your way forward, you lead and you follow. You persuade and agree, and overcome challenges, you create solutions, and you hope for a good day. This is it. Stop looking for a spiritual experience. This is what you came here for. You are here to discover what you need to learn. You are here to influence, be influenced, change and be changed. This is it. You are in the experience of life. You are more than a human being looking for a spiritual experience. You are a spiritual being having a human experience.

Your work, your journey as a parent, as a partner, as a leader is the human experience you offer to your spirit.  Being a human is the gift of entering the realm of change, wherein you can grow and develop. That’s what you came here for. To learn patience. To learn how to listen. To learn to cope with pain, recover from setbacks. To develop the capacity to appreciate, feel and perceive new things. To make the higher choices. To forgive. You are here to create art and beauty. To learn and teach understanding. You are here to generate innovative solutions. To help make the impossible possible. You are here to help the human enterprise move forward. And to help you move forward. You are a spirit in a human body for this purpose.

You are here to find your gifts. You are here to express your gifts in a way only you can in this earthly realm of choice. To gain the experience of expressing your gifts and the powers endowed to you and to discover what that will crystallize in you. You are here to love and to learn to be loved. This is it. It is your spirit being granted a human experience.

© Aviv Shahar

Aviv Shahar :: Aug.08.2008 :: Personal Growth, Spirituality :: 1 Comment »

Why is language so confused (and confusing) when it comes to love? Why are so many people confused about love?

Falling in love has little to do with love and yet love is the word that is used. Infatuation and attraction are some of the words that describe what people experience when they say “I fell in love”. When attraction and infatuation fade they say, “We just fell out of love.” It’s not surprising that so many young people are confused about love.

‘Falling in love’ infers that we stumble into love without effort, without thought and most importantly, without the mindset that relationships require work and a steady influx of renewal and recommitment.  We can love our new car, a different house or the latest TV program, but these ideas convey little or no connection to human capacity for love.

“I do what I love and it energizes me” is one aspect of love and then there is a greater love. This love is not about what you do when you feel like doing it. This greater love is about what you do even when you don’t feel like doing it.

You don’t feel like getting up at night out of a deep sleep, but as soon as you hear a crying child or baby, you are up. Great love is about what you do in spite of what you may feel like doing at that moment. There are short, fleeting feelings and then there are durable deeper feelings. Personal growth is about learning to discern and differentiate one from the other.

The greater love is found not in the transitory, fleeting feelings but in the actions of determination born of devotional, durable and renewable feelings. There is love in commitment, love in service, love of making things better, and love of serving others who are in need. There is love of the human possibility, and the love of what you are called to do and be.

Show me a great endeavor and I’ll show you a person who follows the greater love.

© Aviv Shahar

Aviv Shahar :: Jul.13.2008 :: Relationship, Spirituality :: No Comments »

Your living presence is the most precious thing you have. Take it away and you take life itself away. All the things you own won’t mean a thing when you are gone.

What then is the greatest act of generosity? It is offering your presence, unreservedly. Giving your mindful presence to another human being is the most precious gift you can give. Offering your full attention and presence is what lifts the conversation from everyday to sacred. Your full presence is the greatest act of generosity.

© Aviv Shahar

Aviv Shahar :: May.08.2008 :: Listening, Relationship, Spirituality :: 1 Comment »

True joy is the fulfillment of a need.

Joy is when your work and service answer another person’s need. Fulfilling the need provides meaning and purpose and validates what you are here to do. Joy is found in the realization of your purpose in living.

© Aviv Shahar

Aviv Shahar :: Mar.10.2008 :: Happiness, Spirituality :: No Comments »

(Excerpt from the third Emerald Key: The Roots Nourish and Grow the Fruit)

FDR struggled immensely with polio away from the public eye. Unbeknown to him and to the American people, he was being made ready as he fought to get through his personal despair and depression. Roosevelt’s resolved determination and will power, which was fashioned during his painful ordeal with polio, is what America needed in the White House to overcome its own crippling despair and depression in the early 30s and the beginning of the Second World War. When readiness meets a need, actualization follows. The readiness and the need are invisible to each other until the meeting point brings them into fulfillment and actualization.

The late Pope John Paul the Second was fascinated in his early teen years with acting. He became enthralled with the power of words and especially with how he could deliver them through the characters such that they would powerfully impact his audience. Together with a small group of his friends he maintained underground theater work even under Nazi occupation of Poland. It is said that there he developed that rare skill sometimes seen with great actors to deliver his words with extraordinary persuasion and power. With his on-stage passion, it became common knowledge with his circle of friends that he would likely enjoy a great acting career. To their surprise he enrolled in the seminary. Little did he know he was becoming ready and had fashioned an inner program to take on a much greater acting role and meet his destiny through serving the Vatican as the first Media pope.

As John Paul walked to the balcony to announce his papacy to the world, it is said that his new role literally descended on him and he found his act. The programmed readiness in his case was the amalgamation of his devotional service to the Catholic Church and his on-stage practice. The readiness met its greater need and the outcome was a perfect union through the act of fulfillment and actualization.

What readiness have you been cultivating? What greater need are you facing in which your fuller realization may be found? The answer may lie ahead or right in front of you. Manifesting greatness now is less likely to play out in the same Churchillian or FDR archetype. We have entered the time of the small great heroes who perform their service and at times miracles when no one sees. You may be the next to carry that torch. What greater need are you called to?

© Aviv Shahar

Aviv Shahar :: Jan.15.2008 :: Spirituality :: No Comments »

Prayer is an action petitioning to come into the presence of something. Therefore the best prayer is an action taken when you are already with and in the presence of what you are praying for.

Pray for fitness and health when you exercise, when you enjoy hiking outdoors, when you swim in the ocean or in a cold mountain lake.

Pray for love when you are with your loved ones, when you hug and embrace the people you love.

Pray for peace in the world when you feel peaceful inside.

Pray for success and wealth when you are in the action of fulfilling the needs you came to serve.

Pray for healing power when you take care of another and help them to heal.

Pray for new connection and communion when your life is full of the presence of new possibilities and connections.

You ask: what do I do when I don’t have one of these things above and want it?
Act as though you have it already and pray as you act. Take on a small task and pray as you do this one thing as though your prayers have already been answered.

The greatest prayer in the universe is giving unto others what you seek to find and receive yourself.

When To Pray – Part One

© Aviv Shahar

Aviv Shahar :: Jan.01.2008 :: Personal Growth, Spirituality :: No Comments »

This post was triggered after reading the Cool Friend interview with Matthew Kelly on Tom Peters! I found Kelly’s reply to the question of why people stop dreaming incomplete and posted a comment. Upon further reflection I found my own comment also incomplete and added the following:

“A person without a dream is like a bird without wings”.
“Take a man away from his dreams and he begins to die slowly”.

It is natural to envision new development and possibilities, to dream of new attainment and capabilities. We are wired to dream of what can be. To wake up in the morning without a dream, a purpose to endeavor toward is to abdicate the charge of living.

Why do people stop dreaming?

People stop dreaming because…

1. They are afraid of the disappointment of not reaching their dreams.
2. They achieved one dream and have not found a way to rejuvenate into the next new dream.
3. Working towards a dream earlier in their life took a heavy toll. Now they are hurt and disillusioned.
4. Material dreams they did achieve left them feeling empty on the inside and they have yet to see the need for a new sustaining dream which might make their life feel more significant.
5. They have been ridiculed and criticized and have internalized the idea that they can’t achieve.
6. They are afraid of the power of having a dream and the responsibility it brings.
7. They have internalized the idea that growing up means to stop dreaming.
8. They don’t believe they are worthy of their dream.
9. They are missing that one person who will believe in them and give them the power to believe in themselves.
10. They don’t believe their own lives are significant enough, important enough to work towards a dream.

Then there is more. The journey to realizing a dream is not a linear process. As you progress you need to let go and transcend the mindset you had when you started the journey. And then once you realize your dream you may need to give up control as it gains its own life. Most people are afraid to not be in control even for a short period of time. Dreams require trust and faith.

Whatever the case is, let’s do away with excuses. Daring to dream is for the mind what breathing is for the lungs. Here is a question: what is your dream? Yes, I mean this for real – what is your dream?
Here is another way to rekindle this. What would you start dreaming today if you knew you couldn’t fail?

One more dream: who will you help to find their dream today?

© Aviv Shahar

Aviv Shahar :: Nov.12.2007 :: Reflections, Spirituality :: No Comments »

People most often pray when they need something. This is understandable, we want health mostly when it begins to fail; we want friendship when we are lonely, and money becomes much more important when you don’t have it.

But praying from absence is not the most effective way to pray. It is much better to pray for something from within its presence. The best time to pray for good health is when you feel most vital. You can then pray to forward the vitality and strength you feel towards the future, for days when you will need this strength to re-find you.

The best time to pray for fulfilling relationships is in the presence of it, when you are most appreciative of the richness you have. You can then pray to store up some of these good memories to accompany you in days when you may be lonely.

The best time to pray for you to have clients is when you serve a client, when you appreciate the opportunity of serving others with your talent. The best time to pray to find work opportunities that will improve your financial situation is when you are already grateful and enjoy your work for the opportunities it is now providing for you.

Abundance creates greater abundance.
Absence perpetuates wanting.
Presence grows presence.

When To Pray - Part Two
© Aviv Shahar

Aviv Shahar :: Nov.07.2007 :: Personal Growth, Spirituality :: 1 Comment »

The movie Iris about the life of Iris Murdoch, played by Judi Dench and Kate Winslet, portrays the extraordinary journey of Iris from a vivacious young woman to a highly admired author and her descent into the darkness of Alzheimer’s disease. Here are some words spoken by Iris in the movie: “Every human soul has seen, perhaps even before their birth, pure forms such as justice, temperance, beauty and all the great moral qualities which we hold in honor. We are moved towards what is good by the faint memory of these forms, simple and calm and blessed which we saw once in a pure clear light form, being pure ourselves”

Iris captures in this paragraph three eternal truths:

First, that consciousness exists independently of the flesh, in that the spirit was before and will be after the appearance in flesh.

Second, that qualities fashion an energetic form, so that whenever a human anywhere awakens to justice, care, courage, and compassion, their individual experience may be uniquely personal but the pattern and the energetic signature or form is recognizably the same. When you or I embody and become these or any other qualities we fashion a fractal of the universal pattern of that quality.

Third, that the human story consists of the journey of a spirit/soul compound coming into the flesh to experience, feel, discover and make choices and thereby refine and fashion the inner formation into an indestructible gem, a gem that makes a value added return to life itself, to consciousness and to the evolutionary process.

© Aviv Shahar

Aviv Shahar :: Oct.10.2007 :: Movies, Spirituality :: No Comments »