A Letter from Albert Einstein to his Daughter #16

In the late 1980s, Albert Einstein’s daughter, Liesel, donated 1,400 letters written by Einstein to the Hebrew University, with the orders not to publish their contents until two decades after his death. This is one of them:

When I proposed the theory of relativity, very few understood me. And what I will reveal now to transmit to mankind will also collide with the misunderstanding and prejudice in the world. There is an extremely powerful force that, so far, science has not found a formal explanation for. It is a force that includes and governs all others, and is even behind any phenomenon operating in the universe and has not yet been identified by us. This universal force is LOVE.

When scientists looked for a unified theory of the universe, they forgot the most powerful unseen force. Love is light that enlightens those who give and receive it. Love is gravity because it makes some people feel attracted to others. Love is power because it multiplies the best we have and allows humanity not to be extinguished in their blind selfishness.

Love unfolds and reveals. For love, we live and die. Love is God, and God is Love. This force explains everything and gives meaning to life. This is the variable we have ignored for far too long, maybe because we are afraid of love because it is the only energy in the universe that man has not learned to drive at will.

To give visibility to love, I made a simple substitution in my most famous equation. Instead of E=MC2, we accept that the energy to heal the world can be obtained through love multiplied by the speed of light squared; we arrive at the conclusion that love is the most powerful force there is because it has no limits. After the failure of humanity in the use and control of the other forces of the universe that have turned against us, it is urgent that we nourish ourselves with another kind of energy.

If we want our species to survive, if we are to find meaning in life, if we want to save the world and every sentient being that inhabits it, love is the one and only answer. Perhaps we are not yet ready to make a bomb of love, a device powerful enough to entirely destroy the hate, selfishness, and greed that devastate the planet.

HOWEVER, EACH INDIVIDUAL CARRIES WITHIN THEM A SMALL BUT POWERFUL GENERATOR OF LOVE WHOSE ENERGY IS WAITING TO BE RELEASED. When we learn to give and receive this universal energy, dear Liesel, we will have affirmed that love conquers all and is able to transcend everything and anything because love is the quintessence of life.

I deeply regret not having been able to express what is in my heart, which has quietly beaten for you all my life. Maybe it’s too late to apologize, but as time is relative, I need to tell you that I love you, and thanks to you, I have reached the ultimate answer!

Your Father, Albert Einstein.

Come Alive in Your Own World #15

One time in my early childhood, I heard my mother say to someone, “Oh, Donald just lives in his own world.” I heard this as a criticism and not as a compliment. Now, 80+ years later, I believe everyone lives ‘In their own world,’ at least perception-wise. This is a necessity, not a choice because we receive a million bits of information in our mind/brain every second and can only decipher around 100, so even if we are an identical twin, we will perceive a different kind of world than our twin.

We finally realize that that is a gift, not a curse, if we learn how to communicate with joy, compassion, cooperation, and positive thinking! For centuries, we have gone to war and killed people because they perceived the world differently from us because we falsely believed they, whoever they are, were wrong. We did not realize, or refused to learn, that another way of thinking could enhance our world – and perhaps the entire world. In human history, we have often murdered creative and enlightened mystics for their ‘wrong’ way of thinking. Think of Jesus, prophets, Gandhi, Martin Luther King, and many others in our own time.

We need to change the way we teach history and human development so that we fully utilize the gift of fact that everyone perceives the world differently - we do 'live' in different worlds. Isn't it amazing and wonderful?

In my years of marriage counseling I often encountered this phenomenon: each one thought the other partner should perceive the  world exactly as he or she does, that is, "If you love me." Of course, the solution is to learn how your partner 'sees' things and clearly see your own views, and learn from one another and grow with one another and live happily ever after.

So now, I want to listen to others, even those I believe are totally ‘wrong’. And I want to dismiss them only after a thorough study and/or realizing that this other opinion is too authoritarian or destructive. And so study and celebrate and...

Nurture your heart, and don’t eat the menu.

CHRISTMAS – A Season Of LIGHT and LOVE #13

I don’t remember when I first learned that humans who lived before the time of Jesus often celebrated a winter solstice by having a Festival of Lights to brighten up the cold winter nights. Christians ‘baptized’ it and came up with the story of Jesus’s birth in Bethlehem, so we have Christmas. When Christianity became the Roman Empire's official religion in 325 CE, it became an official holiday for the Mediterranean area and grew in importance. The ‘sacred’ writers created a delightful story that’s also enlightening.

So now, we still need a mid-winter celebration of life and light, and I encourage everyone to celebrate that we humans are the light for all of life – from the smallest cell to the most magnificent and largest animal. An activity we all can participate in is to reduce our ‘footprint’ on our planet by using less polluting substances. We are endowed with the intelligence and genius to care for our planet.

And we can work to decrease or eliminate anger, fear, and hatred that hurts our planet and leads to killing and wars. We can start by replacing fear with hope, anger with understanding, boredom with wonder and awe, punishment with knowledge, and anger and hurt with acceptance, compassion, and love.

For six decades, I have written a personal Christmas card to a familiar tune, and I would like to share one of my favorites from several years ago:

     I see Christmas trees, Menorahs, and Lanterns, and other signs too of people’s faith in me and you, and I think to myself, WHAT A WONDERFUL WORLD.

    I see Christians, Muslims, Buddhists, Hindus, and Jews; they all work for peace and justice too . . . And I think to myself, WHAT A WONDERFUL WORLD.

    The rules of many religions keep people apart and from speaking from the heart; still, I see people helping people and smiling, too. They’re thinking and saying, “I love you.” And I think to myself, WHAT A WONDERFUL WORLD.

. . . YES, I THINK TO MYSELF WHAT A CHRISTMASSY WORLD

Now, please be a wonderful life-giving mentor to those around you. And please don’t demand nor preach, but be an exemplar and gentle teacher. And now, please . . . 

Nurture your heart and don’t eat the menu – including the above.

A Message from Pope Francis #12

“You can have flaws, be anxious, and even be angry, but don’t forget that your life is the greatest business in the world. Only you can stop it from failing. You are appreciated, admired, and loved by many.

Remember that happiness is not having a sky without storms, a road without accidents, a job without effort, and relationships without disappointments.

“Being happy is to stop feeling like a victim and become the author of your destiny. It's going through deserts but being able to find an oasis deep in your soul. It's to thank God every morning for the miracle of life. It’s kissing your children, cuddling your parents, having poetic moments with your friends, even when they hurt us.

“To be happy is to let live the creature that lives in each of us, free, joyful, and simple. It's having the maturity to say: "I made mistakes," and having the courage to say, "I'm sorry," It's having a sensitivity to say, "I need you." It is having the ability to say, "I love you." May your life become a garden of opportunities for happiness . . . that in spring I can be a lover of joy and in winter a lover of wisdom.

"And when you make a mistake, start over. Because only then will you fall in love with life. You will find that being happy doesn't mean having a perfect life. But she uses tears to irrigate tolerance. Use your defeats to train your patience.

"Use your mistakes with the serenity of the sculptor. Use pain to tune into pleasure. Use obstacles to open the windows of intelligence. Never give up . . .

Above all, never give up on the people that love you. Never give up on happiness because life is an amazing show."

POPE FRANCIS

Being OBEDIENT & COMPLIANT Can Be Hazardous to Your Health #14

When I was a child, I was told the reason I was born: “To know God, to love God, and to obey God, so I could be happy with Him in heaven when I die.” And the worst part, I learned later, was that to know God, I must listen to and obey those “big people” whom God has put in charge to make sure I was taught how to think, speak, and act properly so that I would be pleasing to God. And those people were my parents, teachers, and most importantly, the priests. Wow, I was doomed. I had to obey all of these people, or I would go to hell and burn up, over and over and over again, forever.

That was how I formulated the life of fear I thought in my mind and felt in my body. As a priest and later as a psychotherapist, I learned that everyone seemed to be motivated by some fear that prevented them from feeling positive about themselves and their lives. Instead of bringing to the tasks of human growth and education when experiencing this wonderful world, they were told that this world is a very dangerous place and that if we hoped to survive, we must obey our parents and all the other authority persons who, supposedly, are in charge of us. And even later, I learned that conforming to how others my age thought and acted was equally lethal. It is important for us to be certain that we are following our lights even if it is not the ‘in thing’ to be doing.

When I saw my first newsreel showing thousands of German soldiers robotically saluting that ugly guy with a mustache, I wondered what their ‘big people’ had told them about what pleased God and how they must obey and conform. I hoped that ugly guy’s message didn’t get to our country. I began silently questioning what my ‘big people’ told me about what to think, say, and do. My thinking became too muddled for me to understand, and I began to have headaches – every day. I tried to d
o my best to obey, but I was never obeying fast enough or correctly, I guessed.

There is a false positive to being obedient and conforming, and that is: You will get ‘atta boys’ from your superiors (i.e., parents, teachers, and other authorities). And you will have an excuse to avoid responsibility for doing some ordered atrocious things, like brutally killing innocent people. You can say, “See what they made me do? I was following orders.” That is very much a FALSE positive.

I’m proud of this short paragraph I wrote in my novel, A New World of Hope. I was describing my idea of a future school: “First, I hope that every graduate will become a compassionate ‘free thinker’ – someone who thinks for themselves and doesn’t just blindly follow anyone else even if they also think that person is wonderful (or even sent by God). And each graduate will have learned to connect with and understand others and be compassionate toward all.”

Now, on a daily basis, examine your thoughts, feelings, and actions, discover where they came from, and freely choose to direct yourself to the life-giving path YOU want. I want to be a life-giver and not a follower. Now…

Nurture your heart, and don’t eat the menu.

More Heart For AI #11

I believe we can all be more creative and enlightened individually and may even have a profound “Ah Ha” moment like Thomas Merton did - see below.

“In Louisville, at the corner of Fourth and Walnut, in the center of the shopping district, I was suddenly overwhelmed with the realization that I loved all of those people, that they were mine and I theirs, that we could not be alien to one another even though we were total strangers. It was like waking from a dream of separateness, of spurious self-isolation in a special world of renunciation and supposed holiness. The sense of liberation from an illusory difference was such a relief and such a joy to me that I almost laughed out loud . . . I have the immense joy of being "man," a member of a race in which God Himself became incarnate. As if the sorrows and stupidity of the human condition could overwhelm me, now I realize that we all are one. And if only everybody could realize this! But there is no way of telling people they are all walking around shining like the sun.” Seven Storey Mountain

Thomas Merton went on to become a Trappist monk and, fortunately for us, a famous writer who is now renowned as a mystic. I sincerely hope that more and more people learn to open their hearts and allow themselves to truly believe that they can feel the transforming energy that comes with realizing that we all are walking around and shining in the same sun.

Oh, and we do not need to become monks or mystics. I had two very enlightening experiences that opened my mind and helped me realize that I can let go of many, if not all, of my fears. The first was the day, the hour, and the minute I walked across a parking lot with the woman I was working with. We were giving educational workshops. She was a nun, and I was a priest, and she stopped our walking, and I stopped with her. She then said in a tranquil way, “Don, I love you.” I felt like the sky had opened and God had spoken to me. This beautiful woman loves me very much. Wow, and a thousand ‘Wows.’ Two years later, we got married – and that was 53 years ago, and this heavenly gate opener still loves me!

The second experience was not so life-changing but even more enlightening. At a workshop, I experienced a profound feeling of oneness with the entire universe, especially with all other humans. I was in a blissful trance for over three hours in which I had no sense of time, place, or expectations. I was just simply in a state of ecstasy. And without drugs. I hope you have had the ecstasy of ‘falling in love’ and expanded it to encompass everyone somehow.

We need to realize that we can open our minds and hearts and connect with others and stop hiding behind our computers or continue believing that we are too weak or uneducated, whatever negative messages we carry from our earlier years.

We need to realize we are all living under the same sun. So now, take a deep breath and say to yourself, “Ah, I’m breathing the same air and shining under the same sun as everyone else.” I am sure that AI cannot replace nor even lose to imitating this. Now . . . 

Nurture your heart, and don’t eat the menu!