Everyday enlightenment, p.1
Everyday Enlightenment, page 1
Copyright © 1998 by Dan Millman
All rights reserved. Except as permitted under the U.S. Copyright Act of 1976, no part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, or stored in a database or retrieval system, without the prior written permission of the publisher.
Wellness Central
Hachette Book Group
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New York, NY 10017
Visit our Web site at www.HachetteBookGroup.com.
Originally published in hardcover by Hachette Book Group.
First eBook Edition: June 1999
Wellness Central is an imprint of Grand Central Publishing.
The Wellness Central name and logo are trademarks of Hachette Book Group, Inc.
ISBN: 978-0-446-55018-5
Book design by Stanley S. Drate / Folio Graphics, Inc.
Cover design by Diane Luger
Contents
PRAISE FOR
BOOKS BY DAN MILLMAN
DEDICATION
EPIGRAPH
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
PREPARATION: Stairway to the Soul
THE FIRST GATEWAY: Discover Your Worth
THE SECOND GATEWAY: Reclaim Your Will
THE THIRD GATEWAY: Energize Your Body
THE FOURTH GATEWAY: Manage Your Money,
THE FIFTH GATEWAY: Tame Your Mind
THE SIXTH GATEWAY: Trust Your Intuition
THE SEVENTH GATEWAY: Accept Your Emotions
THE EIGHTH GATEWAY: Face Your Fears
THE NINTH GATEWAY: Illuminate Your Shadow
THE TENTH GATEWAY: Embrace Your Sexuality
THE ELEVENTH GATEWAY: Awaken Your Heart
THE TWELFTH GATEWAY:Serve Your World
COMPLETION: Practicing Everyday Enlightenment
PRAISE FOR DAN MILLMAN
AND Everyday Enlightenment
“Brings enlightenment down to earth by presenting his own unique expression of practical spirituality to everyday life. I recommend this book to anyone interested in the bigger picture and higher purpose of living.”
—John Bradshaw, author of Homecoming
“[Dan Millman]pushes the New Age another step ‘closer to practicality…full of tips for ‘turning your daily life into spiritual practice.’”
—Dallas Morning News
“Presents an excellent, useful model for integrating spirituality into one's daily life. If you seek more meaning and direction in your life, you'll want to read this enlightening book.”
—John Gray, author of Men Are from Mars, Women Are from Venus
“Provides a self-sufficient map and practice of spiritual principles that enhance personal, professional, and spiritual growth. The twelve gateways…allow us to serve the world with less fear, more trust and commitment, to cultivate compassion and authenticity in support of fostering the beauty of the human spirit.”
—Angeles Arrien, Ph.D., author of The Four-Fold Way and Signs of Life
“Millman has achieved a level of authenticity and courage not often touched upon. It is in the simple, realistic look at living the spiritual life that its radical nature is found.”
—Aquarius
“Dan Millman demonstrates his dedication to lovingly inspire those of us who open ourselves to his wisdom…. This book is indeed a magnum opus.”
—Arnold Patent, author of You Can Have It All and Money and Beyond
“An illuminating and spiritual discussion…gives us the knowledge we need for our spiritual journeys and shows us how to translate that knowledge into action.”
—Whole Life Times
“A brilliant marriage of spiritual vision and practical wisdom. Dan Millman speaks with both tenderness and authority.”
—Alan Cohen, author of The Dragon Doesn't Live Here Anymore
“Its clear and straightforward structure…offers advice for body, mind, and soul.”
—Newark Post
“Beginning with a personal, transcendent experience, Dan Millman generates a powerful, moving, and ‘practical guide for the individual journey toward spiritual growth…a superbly written and compelling map of the winding path to inner balance.”
—Dr. Kenneth R. Pelletier, author of Sound Mind, Sound Body
“Many thanks for the enlightening headstart! As a college professor who works also in the public schools I find your insights invaluable and want you to know you are also contributing to hundreds of children's lives in California.”
—Don Morris, Ph.D., professor, California State Polytechnic University, Pomona
“EVERYDAY ENLIGHTENMENT had proved to be just what I needed to regain my center and focus. I currently own every book you have ever written and apply the lessons therein on a daily basis at my martial arts school. Thank you for the inspiration to go beyond.”
—Robert Hopkins, reader
“Offers a detailed format for the inner journey that encompasses the physical, mental, spiritual, and emotional aspects of life.…Millman's personal story helped carry the thread of his message into my everyday life.”
—Unity Magazine
“I bought your book EVERYDAY ENLIGHTENMENT, and I must congratulate you on your work! I've only read two chapters and I feel like I've discovered gold.”
—Anthony Oliver, reader
Books by Dan Millman
THE PEACEFUL WARRIOR SAGA
Way of the Peaceful Warrior:
A Book That Changes Lives
Sacred Journey of the Peaceful Warrior:
Three Selves and the Tower of Life
GUIDEBOOKS
Divine Interventions:
Stories of Mysteries, Miracles and Lives Transformed
Everyday Enlightenment:
The Twelve Gateways to Personal Growth
The Life You Were Born to Live:
A Guide to Finding Your Life Purpose
No Ordinary Moments:
A Peaceful Warrior's Guide to Daily Life
The Laws of Spirit:
A Parable About the Laws of Life
Body Mind Mastery:
Creating Success in Sport and Lift
CHILDREN'S BOOKS
Secret of the Peaceful Warrior:
A Story of Courage and Friendship
Quest for the Crystal Castle:
A Journey Through the Forest of Life
For further information:
www.danmillman.com
This book is dedicated to you, my readers, who lend my words new meaning and purpose in your own lives.
The path of personal growth
leads upward,
through the gauntlet
of human experience
to the peaks of our potential.
On this journey we encounter
twelve gateways.
Their purpose is evolution.
Their arena is everyday life.
Their secret is action.
And their time is now.
—Dan Millman
Acknowledgments
No one stands alone in this world or accomplishes anything on their own. Even though I've written all the words of this book, I've benefited from the skillful efforts of designers, typesetters, printers, secretaries, software developers, teachers, and countless others—and from the sun, rain, and earthworms who prepared the soil for the trees whose flesh became the pages of this book. Support is everywhere; gratitude has no bounds.
First, I would like to thank my family—Joy, my life partner and editor in chief; my daughters Sierra and China for their support; and my parents, Herman and Vivian, whose generosity of spirit made a difference.
I am indebted to my literary agent, Candice Fuhrman, for her counsel and caring every step of the way; to Claire Zion, my dedicated editor at Warner Books, who, along with Maureen Egen and Larry Kirshbaum, demonstrated a firm commitment to quality; and to JoAnn Davis for her initial faith in the project. Many thanks to local editors Douglas Childers, Tom Grady, and Haden Blackwell, whose sensibilities helped to shape this book, and to my precision copyeditor Sona Vogel. My manuscript readers and friends Jilian Manus, Barry Elkin, as well as my daughter Holly Deme and neighbor Beth Wilson, took time from busy schedules to offer their own insightful suggestions.
The “Constructive Living” teachings and example of author David K. Reynolds—friend, colleague, and mentor—contributed to this work, influenced my teachings, and enriched my life. Dr: Reynolds also gave me permission to use quotations from lectures he gave at his “Constructive Living” certification training. Many thanks to Gregg Kerch and Linda Anderson at To Do Institute in Vermont for their kindness. Appreciation also to my sterling research assistant, Emily Acker, who found the sources of numerous quotations.
The following people kindly gave permission to use material, quotations, or excerpts from their work: Dr. Kenneth Pelletier permitted me to adapt material from his germinal work, Longevity. Jim Chamberlain, Pete Dixon, Anne M., Susan Christian, and James Chapman all gave permission to reprint their letters about “the kindness of strangers,” most of which originally appeared in the Sun literary magazine. Trudy Boyle and Gottfried Mitteregger coined the term “three-question reality check” used in a later chapter. Lynne Twist, a founding executive of the Hunger Project, extended her philanthropic heart to allow me to use brief excerpts on “Service,” as well as selected words on “The Soul of Money,” based on a New Dimensions Radio interview with Michael Toms. Harry Palmer graciously let me excerpt his words first published in the Avatar Journal.<
Abiding gratitude also to Oscar Ichazo, founder of the Arica School. In this book I share but a few drops of the oceanic cosmology he has taught—specifically, in the eighth gateway, I present the basics of a deep massage designed to clear fear-produced tension from the body, and in the ninth gateway, I offer a map of the polarized aspects of our character from Professor Ichazo's larger cosmology, in order to clarify universal shadow elements within our psyches.
Deep appreciation to Ivan Smith aid Cochrane Thompson, ninth- and tenth-grade English teachers, who convinced me that I could write—and maybe even think. Finally, my thanks to Hal and Linda Kramer, Nancy Carleton, Uma Ergil, Mick Laugs, Jan Philips, and Monique Muhlenkamp for their past and present support in myriad ways; and to Karie Jacobson, Sandra Swedeen, and Danielle Dayen for their quality editorial and administrative assistance.
PREPARATION:
Stairway to the Soul
Many men go fishing all of their lives without knowing that it is not fish they are after.
—Henry David Thoreau
A Flash of Light
One night, years ago, I fell into the depths of despair over a woman I loved and was losing. We had been married for six years and were living in a cottage at Stanford University where we served as dormitory directors. My wife had become enamored of a handsome tennis player. When he entered our cottage to speak with her, as students did on occasion, her eyes sparkled as they no longer sparkled for me. They spoke and laughed into the night, lost in conversation.
I went to bed but slept restlessly, waiting for her to join me. I awoke at two A.M., still alone, unable to sleep any longer. In a dark, disheartened mood, I rose, threw on a shirt and pants, and walked toward the front door. They were still sitting together on the couch.
“I'm going out,” I muttered, grabbing my car keys, hoping she would show some concern, even ask him to leave. She said nothing.
Waves of rejection, worthlessness, loss, jealousy, and, most of all, self-pity washed over me as I got in the car. I also felt foolish and weak. Why didn't I tell him it was time to leave? Why didn't I grab her and say, “Enough! This isn't right!” But how can one control the affections of another?
In this desolate mood—the closest I had ever come to feeling suicidal—I drove aimlessly through the night, ending up in a wooded grove. I stopped the car and stared out the window at the muddy earth puddled with rainwater. No reflection stared back at me, only blackness. I didn't know where to go or what to do.
Then it happened.
My awareness suddenly shifted of its own accord. Words fail me here, but at the precise moment I could no longer stand the pain, my consciousness exploded, leaped, broke free, and I was touched by God.
The pain—and this is important—hadn't gone away. The circumstances of my marriage and my life remained the same, yet I had changed in my relation to it all. Suddenly it didn't matter what was going on inside my mind or emotions. The hurt feelings remained, but there was no “I” to suffer them. My feelings and thoughts no longer seemed to mean anything. They had no significance, power, or influence. I was free—free of time, existing not in the moment, but as the moment. From that state of grace, that transcendent awareness extending beyond the confines of my personal feelings, I thought of my wife and her friend and was overwhelmed by compassion for them both, and for all beings. No, it was beyond compassion; it was a sense of resplendent empathy, of unity. I was not separate from them, or from the trees or the stars.
I began to laugh uproariously, as if life were a cosmic joke and I had just gotten the punch line. If someone had found me in the woods that night, they might have mistaken me for a crazy man. The irony was, for the first time in my life I felt completely sane. I looked around—the night seemed filled with light, reflecting the light within me.
Eventually the light faded and the realization passed, as all things pass. In the months and years that followed, I sought to recapture that sense of unity and divine perfection. I yearned for the light as one might long for a lover. I tried meditation and visualization, seminars, soul-searching, and self-analysis. I had insights and experiences, but nothing matched that simple illumination in the forest grove.
Still, the impression of that experience served as a template of possibility and, I believe, a preview of our collective destiny. It also served as a catalyst in my life, generating within me the desire to share what I had learned. My quest began to shift from what I could get to what I could give. I knew that ancient schools and religious traditions had devised their own methods of personal and spiritual growth, from yoga to meditation to prayer, so I traveled and read and studied, not for my own sake, but to gather gifts I could share with others. In the end, I found the answers I sought not in the temples of the East or schools of the West, but here and now, in everyday life.
The most important understanding that emerged from my experience that night in the forest was that peak experiences fade—and that if I was to make a real difference, I would have to find a universal path, free of exclusive dogmas or cultural trappings. I needed to find a way less dramatic but more lasting than my experience years before. All signs pointed me to everyday life as a spiritual path and practice—and to the twelve gateways.
I use the terms “personal growth” and “spiritual growth” interchangeably because we are spiritual as well as physical beings, and as we mature and grow personally, through the challenges of everyday life, we also evolve toward a deeper awareness of our spiritual nature.
Twelve Gateways to Spiritual Growth
If we never suffered pain or loss—if death did not await us—we might never need to seek a higher understanding, might never wonder about the soul, the hereafter, or the ultimate meaning of life. But life is brief—a flash of lightning, a snap of eternity's fingers. So we question and wonder. While striving for a successful place in the material world, our path eventually leads to the arena of spiritual growth and discovery. We sometimes seek Spirit in churches, temples, or revival tents, but we don't always encounter it there. Some of us look for Spirit in a bottle or a pill, leading either to an early death or unconscious life. Others seek inspiration in sports or sexual relationships. Yet all the time, Spirit has been waiting for us, calling to us, right here, right now in everyday life.
A man once wrote to me, “I want to make time for more spiritual practices, but I have a wife, three kids, and a full-time job.” He hadn't yet realized that his wife and children and work are his spiritual practice—a practice far more challenging and rewarding than sitting in a cave and meditating. I know, because I've done both.
Everyday life is our spiritual school. As you see your reflection more clearly in the mirror of daily life, you will come to know and accept yourself as never before. As you learn from the natural consequences of your actions, you'll find the wisdom necessary to progress on the path of personal and spiritual growth.
As an athlete and coach, I learned to divide goals into distinct, manageable steps. First I applied this method to finding the qualities that constitute a talent for sports. Then I explored the qualities that generate a talent for life, blending elements of psychology, ethics and values, spiritual principles, and practical wisdom. I found a complete map of the territory of personal growth and everyday enlightenment.
The premise of this book is that human evolution—whether we call it personal or spiritual growth—necessarily involves a passage through twelve gateways, like a school from which we graduate after passing twelve core subjects. Twelve seems an auspicious number. After all,, there are twelve hours on a clock, twelve inches to a foot, twelve months of the year, twelve days of Christmas, twelve signs of the zodiac, Twelve Step programs, twelve labors of Hercules, twelve jurors to dispense justice, the twelve tribes of Israel, twelve gates to the city of Jerusalem, and the twelve disciples of Jesus—and in some circles, the twelve disciples is a metaphor for the twelve disciplines of life presented in this book.
Inward spiritual practices such as meditation, breathing techniques, and self-analysis generate insights and enhance abilities, but none are so useful as learning to live harmoniously in a committed relationship, being a skillful parent, or juggling the demands of daily life. Spiritual practice begins on the ground, not up in the air. The twelve gateways form our stairway to the soul.
