JoeGoldfarb.com

A large percentage of Americans believe in ghosts and spirits - a whopping 40% according to some polls - even though there is absolutely no scientific evidence to support their existence. Why do people believe in such a superstition? A personal encounter or experience with something that defies a rational or conventional explanation permits us to seek a non-rational explanation? Some people who have issues or problems dealing with a death of a close friend or partner can cause someone to imagine they still exist, a bit incorporeal, with them, or even visiting them from time to time to ease their emotional distress. From my experience, those who claim to have seen or communicated with a ghost or spirit insist they exist even though no scientific test can conclusively prove it so.

I’ve had many encounters with ghosts and spirits. I don’t for the life of me know exactly what they are, but something was there that was different from an ordinary experience allowing me to believe something supernatural was in my presence at that time. Today I will share a more unique encounter that touched me in a way which brings peace to my mind and a lesson to be remembered.

She died two days ago.

We gathered in my living room of my apartment on Ashland in Buffalo, NY. After lighting some candles to set the mood as the sun set over the houses across the street, the four of us sat together in chairs forming a circle. September, the older and more experience person in the group when it comes to beliefs and practices which reside outside conventional reality led our group. She held her hands out to her side, palms down, asking that we hold hands with each other. I held her hand in my left. My right held someone else’s. There think were two other people in that room and I can’t remember who they were. There are of course only a few possibilities, but as to exactly who I just don’t remember anymore.

What I do remember is the rest of the story. September was saying something, words out loud, a chant of sorts, a calling of her to come to us. I said her name, I called her too. We all did and we held each others hands tight. Then there was warmth, an incredible buzzing of heat emanating several feet away between September and I outside our circle. It glowed red and yellow but they were not colors seen with my eyes but rather with my mind. I saw a blank spot on that floor visually but felt her standing there which my mind painted with a vibrant, warm hue in that location. The vibration of the energy was unmistakably Elaine’s. It was beautiful. It was extraordinary. It was her in spirit standing right before us creating a feeling for us all the beauty and love which life is. I smiled in joy. Finally I can say goodbye, but at the same time I was blown away that this was actually happening. It was happening, in my apartment, Elaine is here in a warm, loving radiance.

On the mantle I had placed Elaine’s tube socks she let me wear when I spilled beer on my feet in her bedroom a few weeks before. Each of us gathered her personal belongings that were left with us after she unexpectedly passed away and rested them on the mantle above the fireplace near where we were sitting. All I had of hers were white tube socks. I gestured to the socks and told her she can have them back because they are not my style and I didn’t have the chance to give them to you when you were here. I remember thinking she laughed at that because an arm came up and moved across her chest, up to her neck or mouth then swung back down again. It was just a blob of energy that moved differently than the rest of the larger radiant red and yellow force, but it sure seemed like an arm to me.

I remember feeling a weakness, a feeling of waking up as the special, unique moment was coming to pass. It was as if we, as a group were unable to maintain the connection with her. Again, it was like a gradual feeling of being roused from a wonderful dream. I felt the urge to thank Elaine for our special moments together, for our bond we shared, and say my last goodbye before she leaves forever. That was a powerful yet peaceful moment for all of us sitting in that apartment on Ashland. For me it was not a feeling of loss, but of thanks which swelled from a feeling of deep gratitude from what we shared. Elaine emanated the same warm love to us all. So we all thanked her and said our goodbyes, fore we all sensed she was leaving. We all smiled and let her go together. She drifted to her left toward the mantle where her possessions where resting. During that movement she faded away.

And she was gone.

On a cold, blustering day we parked the car on the side of the road across the street from the cemetery. The clock tower showed several minutes past noon. My friend who drove us there laughed. She told me that Elaine hated the clock tower at UB and now here she is buried near one. Forever, time will shadow her grave. As we crossed the street we panned through the open gate into the land of manicured lawns and stone monuments. It snowed that morning. A several inch layer of white crystal covered all like a blanket over sleeping bodies. I knew too well that these bodies will be asleep for a long, long time.

Elaine’s funeral was that morning. None of her friends were invited. Her mother blamed us all for her only child’s death. Several weeks later I spoke with Elaine’s mother on the phone for hours as she wanted to know my involvement in her deceased daughters life. She also shared with me her story of losing contact and losing the life of the only thing which mattered to her. But I digress…

The main through-way just past the cemetery gate going left and right was well worn. Thousands of footprints melted the snow and the black asphalt revealed itself to the sun getting warmer and in turn, melting more snow. Which way to her grave? We had no information on her whereabouts. And this cemetery is huge. I didn’t expect such a large number of people to have visited here this morning, for I was hoping a single line of footprints in the fresh snow would lead us to Elaine’s final resting place. It was then I realized footprints will not be necessary, for I “felt” a strong feeling of sadness to my right along the asphalt road. And so I followed it. I “saw” in my mind’s eyes twenty to fifty adults dressed mostly in black walking with their heads down from that direction. Though they moved slowly and somberly, they were not physically tired but many held umbrellas which I thought was odd. Maybe they were present during the morning snowfall.

And so my friend and I followed that dreary river upstream, each footfall landing in wet snow that splattered on my shoes. Perhaps after fifty yards this intangible aura of sadness which led me here turned left. And so we looked left. A wide, rectangular swath of snow was removed. If I recall there may have been some mud or dirt in the area along with many foot indents left in the lawn. The grass was pretty much flattened. Clearly, a burial occurred here earlier today. At the end of this rectangular clearing was a lone stone marker perhaps two-feet wide which lay in the ground. We walked up to it. It said “Elaine.” Flowers were left around the stone. While I had no flowers, I did bring her tube socks. I pulled them out of my long left pocket of my trench coat, bound tightly in the traditional manor one wraps socks and placed them right below her stone marker. My friend said something, which I do not recall. With my hands in my trench coat pockets, we retraced our steps back through the lonely cemetery grounds on this cold and overcast day.

Aside: this friend of mine who drove us to the cemetery had a large, but brief impact on my life direction. When we met a couple months before Elaine’s death she told me she had to something important for me. She then provided me a copy of the Interview With A Heretic which drastically propelled me forward and outside conventional reality. Later on our first date, a mere block away from Elaine’s apartment we sipped on drinks inside a cozy coffeehouse as Elaine was lifted and removed from the home on a stretcher. Elaine was a mutual friend. It was during a casual discussion of her I remarked that I saw a fireman exit her house signaling someone was dead inside. Right then we both knew the reason for us being brought together was happing. She would later learn through networking and interrogation the burial cemetery location and drive us there. Our relationship ended shortly after.

Have you ever experience this?

Have you encountered or experienced anyone after they passed away? What was the experience like? Did you come away feeling loss or negative emotions or joy, love and gratitude like myself? How do you rationalize the experience, as in, how do you fit spirits and/or afterlife into your world view and reality? I for one am not sure what I experienced that evening on Ashland. It may have been a group hallucination. Why bring in supernatural elements when a completely rational and simple explanation works? Well, I may never know exactly what that in my room that evening on Ashland but what I do know is how I reacted to it. And it is that reaction which brought peace to my mind, love into my heart and this story to you. Her spirit taught me how to let go.. of her and her tube socks. Frankly, that is a hard lesson to learn. So what lessons have spirits taught you?

May you live with peace, gratitude, forgiveness. This is a song I associate with her.

Cosmo, our white Turkish Angora male cat got sick two days ago. We found out afterwards that he apparently ate moldy wet food and experienced feline food poisoning as a result of that action. There was a little bit of salmon and chicken left in a can that I had left out on the food tray for a few days. The dry climate here prevents mold and fungus from growing on anything unless it is wrapped in plastic. How mold grew on this wet cat food I have no idea. Normally, the wet food dries up and turns into a kitty version of meat jerky - dried up, hard and crunchy. This leftover food in the can did not. A little mold grew on it instead. Tell me, what cat eats bad, rotten food? I have never heard or experienced a cat who ate old food. Cat’s are here because they are extremely picky eaters, eating nothing but food that is fresh. If anything is slightly off with the food a cat will regurgitate it to avoid poisoning itself. Not Comso. He’s special.

This incident of food poisoning began around 1am. I noticed Cosmo breathing shallow and fast with his mouth open. Otherwise he seemed fine. I noted his behavior and carried on with my life.

A few hours later when it came time to brush his teeth he arrived and waited for the toothpaste but clearly was in a little discomfort. The source of the pain and/or discomfort was unknown. He just had a look on his face.

Come eight or ten hours later when I woke Comso was socially slow. Normally he is the first to greet me, however, this time he was third or fourth. I gave everyone some wet food and he barely ate. He just licked the wet cat food juice a little.

A few hours later he experience the first of several vomiting fits. The first time he vomited up his food. The subsequent times he vomited up bile and other stomach fluids.

Later on that night began shallow fast and shallow breathing again. At 1am that night I counted 94 breaths per minute. In contrast, another cat, Boo who was just laying about counted 20 deep breaths per minute. Fast respiratory breathing is an obvious sign of physical distress. Many other signs point to Cosmo being in extreme and obvious pain. He sat in the bread loaf position, which is almost sphinx style except the front legs and tucked in under the body. Cats choose that position to help themselves breath easier. He would recoil away from any touch or pressure to his chest area. He breathed with his mouth open. His pupils were fully dilated which is another bad sign that reveals pain and distress. Also, his eyes were glazed over and blank.

We were extremely concerned over this health. We feared that his ribs rebroke (from this incident) and caused internal damage. But, his illness was gradual over 24 hours. A broken rib would cause immediate pain. I had no idea what his problem was. I listened to his chest and noticed nothing out of the ordinary.

Since he was barely moving, making no noise, his ears became cool and gums turned from pink to white (all very bad signs, btw) we decided to take him to the emergency vet. I talked to a veterinary technician on the phone and she advised, naturally, for us to bring him in for a paid visit. Alright, so Tara and I stuck him in the cat carrier and we all entered my truck.

Immediately inside the truck Comso began breathing normally, his became alert, and his gums went back to a pink color. He started to talk. He was acting normal and healthy. This really confused me. We drove to the vet’s anyway. Once in the parking lot of the veterinarian clinic, we let the alert and energetic Cosmo out to walk around. Again, he acted totally normal. He was walking around, jumping in and out of the truck repeatably, and singing. His tail was up, he let us handle him, probe his gut and stomach (where I noticed that is bladder was full), squeeze his chest and general move him around. Again, he acted completely and totally fine and healthy.

The vet tech whom I spoke with on the phone came out to see what we were up to in the parking lot. Her and I spoke about the cat. she listened to his breathing on both sides of Cosmos chest for abnormalities but found none. She concurred with us that he appears healthy. Comso made us look like we were dreaming up an illness! She suggested that he was poisoned. Alright then, sounds like a nice idea, but at the time I new of nothing in the house which could have poisoned him. There was no charge since this generally casual conversation took place outside the vet clinic building in the parking lot.

Once we arrived home Comso urinated and experienced a bout of diarrhea. Right afterwards I checked the food dish and found the mold on the wet cat food in a tin container. Later that night Comso ate some food and drank a lot of water. He was mobile.

Today, Comso is acting normal once again! Yay!

(note: no other cat’s ate the bad, spoiled food.)

We are not our thoughts. Discipline of the mind such as meditation controls and removes our noisy thoughts and fluid emotions so they happen abstractly, separately from the rest of our mind. When anger arises, let it pass. Though the storm blows leaves and whips rain hard against our flesh, we can lie safely instead in our home watching the storm as a separate event from our existence. Like all things made by man, this storm too shall pass. The anger or other emotions will dissolve into nothingness, the sky will clear and we will be left standing with resolve, unaffected.

Control the mind. Be not like a leaf carried haplessly with the wind. Be strong like a mountain whom the wind passes over. Learn from the wind. It is always speaking.

Perhaps the worst action I have taken in at least five, even ten years occurred recently. This event marks perhaps the lowest point I have reached in my life in memory. Actions we take can either be positive or negative. This negative action was certainly the ugliest I have ever done with these human hands. Even though the action I took occurs daily all around us and may even be considered to be nothing special by others, that does not justify or make acceptable my ugly behavior.

We got back from a three day California desert and mountain driving trip. After arrived home, I was overtired from hours upon hours of driving coupled with poor sleep during our hotel nights. I was increasingly acting impulsive as the vacation days elapsed.

I went into the backyard to eat sushi. Boo, our siamese cat tried to sneak out - not run out, but sneak out. “Sneaking” I consider a disrespectful act opposed to impulsively running out to chase a bug. “Sneaking” shows admission of guilt. I warned him by stomping on the ground. He ran back inside the house. Being tired, I totally forgot to close the sliding glass door. Instead, I left it open, continued to eat sushi and that cat repeated his attempt to sneak out of the yard - this time succeeding. I spotted him out in the common ground area. Since the gate is locked, I left the yard by jumping over the fence and ran up to him heavily. He laid in a submissive posture as expected. But as I staired at him I grew increasingly angry. Feelings of aggression began to course through my blood. I grab him by his neck and brought him back toward the yard. I uttered “you jerk” and threw him over the five foot fence into the backyard with considerable force. The backyard is laid with stone - of which I momentarily forgot. I was thinking there was sand back there, as there was last year. Being angry when I threw him, I projected him incorrectly. The correct way would have been head first, right side up and straight, as I have tossed cats over the fence before, casually to get them back inside our property. This time being angry and clouded, I accidentally spun him instead and used more force then necessary. He covered ten feet. Due to the spin, he was unable to orient himself for a safe landing. Instead, he landed head first into the stone smashing his face. His upper, long canine broke off near the gum line as a result. There were other, trivial abrasions on his face as well.

Now this cat means the world to me. I sleep with him in my arms every night. Buy essentially, I spat on him in disrespect. Now will have a permanent reminder of my anger, loss of emotional control and my glarring disrespect towards such a good and noble creature.

There are several things wrong with what I did on psychological and spiritual levels.

I choose to not be around people who get angry with animals and abuse animals. Now, I have become one of those people I abhor.

This is a low point in my life and I am deeply ashamed of what I let myself do.
I never want anything like this to ever happen again. What do I need to do to reprogram my brain so I think of love instead of anger? What do I need to do to have a heart that always loving, not matter what happens?

I am deeply sadden by this event. This makes me question my ability to be a parent. This even has thrown me into a massive reflection into the status of my maturity. It seems I need to do a lot more growing.
What I did wrong:

• I became angry instead of being understanding.
• I treated the cat as if it were a human.
• Equally, I dropped my mentality to the level of a cat.
• I let the cat’s behavior affect me personally
• I did not control my emotions.
• I was irrational.

Yet i turn lemons into lemonade.

I took Boo to the Las Vegas dental expert who pointed out other, preexistent pathologies the cats mouth. He had two death teeth and reaborbtion lesions on two others. Those were taken care of. His mouth has been cleaned out, so to speak, and will end up having greater oral health than before this horrible incident.

After three weeks his breath smells a little better after some rotten teeth were removed. He still sleeps with me every night in my arms. He still loves me despite my fall.

Yesterday was Earth Day and Julia Louis-Dreyfus (of Seinfeld and The New Adventures of Old Christine fame) was on the Tonight Show with Jay Leno to provide five tips for a greener living. This actress has been a green advocate for long time, driving a hybrid car while her husband drives a biodiesel car. Both live inside a “green home” made with sustainable materials with solar panels. So, she walks the talk.

Julia’s 5 tips for a greener living are unarguably beneficial to society in terms of reducing one’s carbon footprint, which is what this is all about. I will reiterate them here with added notes:

• “Take out all your light bulbs; replace them with compact fluorescent. Now they make them pretty. And they seem to last forever. You should never buy a regular bulb again. Note: more expensive fluorescents cast a nice, bright white light. Look for full-spectrum lights when shopping. You will notice the difference and will be happy you spent the few extra bucks..

• “Adjust your thermostat by a couple of degrees - two degrees up or down depending on the season.”  Note: exercising this green tip should add a significant savings to your electricity bill.

• “Unplug your chargers, hair dryers, and shut down your computer instead of putting it on standby. All these things draw energy.” Note: appliances which draw power while in the “off” state such as stoves, dvd players, and TV’s are called “energy vampires.” The often have a red standby light while off. Some draw as much as 40% of their operating power while in the “off” state.

• “Avoid using plastic bags at the supermarket. … If you have the choice, choose paper over plastic.” Note: The causes less reliance on petroleum (which is not significant compared to automobiles) and less bags in the environment, which do not degrade. I strongly disagree with Julia that using paper over plastic is better — both are poor choices and neither are good. The only real solution is one Julia offers…

• “Ultimately, if you can, see if you can remember to bring a bag with you. I am bad at this. To get better at this, I’m keeping bags in my car all the time. Or … use bags that roll up into tiny bags and you open them and they get enormous. You can have one or two in your purse.”

Try to incorporate these five tips into your home and daily life. Doing so will help you live a more socially conscious manor by reducing your carbon footprint. A sustainable future is on the horizon for all of us. Cheers to green living!

Synopsis

I will explore why we are slaves to causality rather than free willed agents. Then I will posit the power of saying “no” is what breaks the metaphorical chains of causality we are enslaved with. It is this power of negation that is the truth which will set you and I free. The former and later positions and topics will be broken into separate segments.

The Magical Power of Free Will

The philosophical definition of free will is a human (agent) as self-causing. A person with free will does not react to, or has actions caused by external sources. Rather , this person is caused from their own internal will power. Furthermore, this will is a product or aspect of their own consciousness and is not a result or is caused from an external source. One who believes in free will logically disbelieves they are caused by God, fate, supernatural powers, and material or natural forces. Expounding upon this, free will is the single cause of their existence and reality. While the rest of the universe follows the natural laws of cause and effect, those believing in free will assert that human behavior, choice and consciousness is special and lies outside natural physical laws. The agent is the sole cause, not God or physical laws. On the other spectrum, those denying the existence of free will either espouse a material or immaterial (God) source for causality, and ultimately their existence. I believe the truth lies in a combination of both concepts, but with a twist. The first part of this essay will provide details why humans do not have free will and the second part will explain in what manor humans do have free will. In doing so I will recontextualize the notion of free will by using a term “free to negate” or “conditional free will.” The type of free will we employ is powerful, but the way it operates is counterintuitive to the traditional definition of free will. But I first must explore why we live in and are active parts of a universe of causality.

An Agent of the System

Agent Smith (talking to Neo): “As you well know, appearances can be deceiving, which brings me back to the reason why we’re here. We’re not here because we’re free, we’re here because we’re not free. There’s no escaping reason, no denying purpose - because as we both know, without purpose, we would not exist.”
” It is purpose that created us,”
” Purpose that connects us,”
” Purpose that pulls us,”
” That guides us,”
” That drives us,”
” It is purpose that defines,”
” Purpose that binds us.”

Agent Smith is a symbolic representation of an agent operating in complete and total causality, through in and throughout. He is unable to comprehend choice. This is clearly revealed in the final scene with Neo in the Matrix Revolutions. (This implies Neo has free will, but actually it is conditional free will or the ability to negate that he possesses.) The impact of this inhibits Agent Smith from willing himself out of the system, from making his own choices and living his own life. Even though he was freed from the system by an external factor - Neo, Smith still feels the overwhelming burden of purpose and causality. It is rather amusing tongue-in-cheek humor that his name is Smith - a rather common, everyday name. Living autonomously causality prohibits, but I digress. Let me build up the case why we cannot escape this natural “system” of cause and effect. It is a requirement to explain how our free will works. So I will speak from the viewpoint of an agent of the system.

There is no such thing as free will. Free will is an illusion created by our mind due to a lack of information and or mental computational ability. Or, free will is an illusion that emerges from a complex neural network, much in the same manor that democracy and stock markets emerge from complex social systems. They are illusions under the guise of reality, like time and temperature. They are manifestations of an intellect creating averages and approximations of systems due to the feeble mind being unable to count the trees in the forest. They are symbols and abstracts which we confused and mislabel as reality. They just aren’t real. Due to this, the concept of free will is has become misunderstood as an agent having total control without the influences of external, or even internal biological causes. This is not the case. Experiencing true freedom, or true free will as per the philosophical definition is an impossibility in a universe bound by cause and effect. Since everything, including you and I, are within and part of a universe governed by time, space and causality, experiencing freedom or liberation from that which this universe is bound too cannot naturally occur.

Moreover, one cannot be self-causing, and thus free willed in the strict sense of the term. Every action and every thought has a prior cause. And to be free willed, one would have to be separate from all causes which would include the brains own electrical and chemical reactions that initiate consciousness and thoughts in the first place. The notion of this is absurd. The outcome is obvious.

But it’s not all downhill from here. While a deterministic universe spells doom for the notion of free will, on the contrary, being a part of causality is an empowering feature of living. Building a personal history of life events gives us in theory a limited ability to envision and control the course of our future. Paradoxically, this suggests free will. If it exists in this fashion as an ability to avoid misfortune by choosing a new road, in which I believe it does, it exists in an extremely diluted form represented by a negation power. This will be discussed later.

Note: It’s entirely possible that because I want to feel I have control, however small, over causality, I will be inherently biased towards freedom creating arguments for it existence even though it may not exist at all.

Let me now focus on proof as to why free will does not exist in the magical power as it is commonly understood.

The Particle

All physical systems that have been studied are universally conceded to be either deterministic or random. On the quantum level, the smallest known scale of reality, particle systems are popularly known as mysterious, random and strange. However, there is a growing trend that believed Quantum Theory only appears to be mysterious, random and strange. The new ideas are implying these features are an illusion. There are several theories and ideas that explain away these illusionary characteristics, namely the nature of randomness that occurs at the universes fundamental level. The first of these propositions, one by Einstein himself, proposed that a new, unknown theory underlines Quantum Theory. All these ideas raise a red flag over whether free will exists. These ideas and theories point to determinism as the mechanism for a foundation and the subsequent nature of reality. And all are parallel with the current evidence in neurological science explaining free will as an artifact of consciousness.

The Brain

Free will is probably located in the pre-frontal cortex, and we may even be able to narrow it down to the ventromedial pre-frontal cortex. –Stephen Pinker, How the Mind Works

Determinism is a system governed by cause and effect who’s histories, past and future can be predicted with certainty. The opposite of this is randomness, or chaos. Look around you. There is no chaos. Everything, from the largest structures to the tiniest of organisms are ordered, driven and with purpose. All is predictable. Human beings and our brains, made of physical matter are also deterministic. Our consciousness is not somehow magically separated from this reality. Studies over and over show the same circuit of neurons firing before a subject makes a choice. Based on this proven fact, the latest study was able to predict the choice the subject would make before they made it (which was to lift or not lift a finger). Again, before the person made a choice, that choice was already determined and known by a computer that measured that subjects brain activity in a certain neural circuit before the subject was conscientiously aware of making a choice. Since free will is about consciously making choices, this study throws the existence free will into question since choices can be predetermined through the measuring of brain electrical activity.

The Probability Illusion

God does not play dice. — Albert Einstein

There is a warming trend that particle behavior at the most fundamental level of reality only appears random because of a lack of information. This lack of information creates probability and chance. The less information that is known about a system, the greater the probability of outcomes. Therefore if all information about a system is known, which includes information about the observer measuring the system, then all outcomes, going forward or backwards in time are also known. Let’s use a coin flip to demonstrate: if all information is known about a coin flip, which includes the coin, tosser and present environment (other systems that may have an impact on the system being measured), then the outcome of the coin toss can be determined with 100% accuracy. The same holds true with the universe, now matter the size of scale. Probability, chance and the belief in free will are artifacts created from a lack of information.

This is why it is of utmost importance to know thyself. Once we understand ourselves our purpose in this universe becomes clear - just like a coin flip. And we all want to know why we exist, don’t we? Just look backwards, all the way back to your birth and look at the pattern of causality that led you here to the present moment. There are clues left in the past that reveal your purpose. Since our parents are a cause of our existence, clues for our purpose can be found within their life as well.

Belief if free will springs from a belief in an ego. Both are false and the former is an artifact of the latter. Our ego wants to believe it is in control. We all understand causality: when we are hungry we eat food. But when causality in our personal existence becomes so vast and so minute, our brain cannot compute and generates the illusion of free will to exercise a false sense of control over this vast sea of causality. Or, viewed from the opposite way, as our brains become complex, free will, hand-in-hand with the ego emerges as a tool for protecting and conserving our individual existence. With a self-identity and belief in control over causality we become powerful acting agents in the flesh.

The power of negation

We grow, we move on, and we all want to make the “right” choice. Everything we think and due is a reaction to a prior circumstance. There is no escaping causality. It surrounds us, it envelopes us. But then how do we grow? How do we say “no”? All thoughts, whether to walk or talk are generated from the subconscious mind of causality. After thoughts are created, they are passed to our conscious mind. Here is our chance to say no and negate a thought. That is our only exercise of free will. However watered down it seems, it is an extremely powerful tool. With this negation power we can improve our lives. We can escape the cycle of bad relationships. We can say no to drugs. We can say stop working the job we hate, stand up and say “No, I quit!” The secret to improving out lives is to say “no” to a bad behavior, cycle or pattern. Make the choice to say no and move forward to a better life. Exercise your power of negation in this universe of causality.

I will continue with part two that covers our conditional free will as a power of negation — of saying no. I would like to use it as an opportunity to show it’s power for self empowerment and improvement, as a tool to expand conscious by becoming an autonomous, free thinking individual who is capable of living a responsible, moral lifestyle. Till then — accept or say no.