This essay is a near-verbatim adaptation of the live spoken teaching, edited only for continuity and readability.
I begin with a short meditation, just a couple of minutes, to settle in. Sometimes the technology is unreliable, and I notice my Zoom keeps dropping off, but I welcome everyone who is present. Some people could not make it, but that is alright.
When someone shares that they have not been able to focus on their practice due to life circumstances—caring for a loved one, for example—I remind them that there is no need to make an excuse. The whole idea behind meditation is that it gives clarity, so you are more leveraged in the way you manage your life, unless you truly do not have enough time. If there is a lot going on, the point is that meditation is a leveraged way to deal with life’s circumstances. It brings an abundance of detached love, perhaps, an abundance of stillness, which gives clarity so decisions are correct. Even if you are digging ditches for 14 hours a day, taking a break to meditate halfway through would probably help get the nervous system into a state where it can find more time.
Nobody needs to make an excuse. You could simply say, "I have not done it yet," because that just means you have not made the connection between the practice and your daily life. Do you have five minutes a day? Of course you do. Five minutes a day would be enough to say, "I did not do a lot, but I did five minutes every day." Consistency is what matters here. Five minutes a day means it is a part of your life. Zero means it is not even a consideration. This is one of the challenges—not with any one individual, but most people do not know how to get into meditating consistently.
The key is to make it a part of your life. Even a short prayer or going into the light of the divine for a few minutes at night counts. That is what we call meditation here. Consistency is more important than duration. I know that if I do not meditate, I do not feel good. I do not feel magical, and I do not like that. I start to feel mundane when I do not meditate, so perhaps you need to find the discomfort in not attending to your spirit—especially for those who are very spiritual.
Today’s teaching is on principles. Principles are an essential aspect of being true to yourself and finding happiness. Principle, as I am using it here, is the way you engage with things in your life—a way you relate to circumstances. One person may have a principle of always being very considerate in whatever they do. Someone else might have a principle of always being very efficient. Perhaps someone has both of those. Usually, one may be prioritized over the other—they are slightly in conflict. Those could be principles. Even "cool" could be a principle.
There are various forms of principles that people have, which inform the way they relate to life and circumstances. Principles are a constant in response, a constant in change. Most people have a set of principles. Most people unconsciously have a set of principles that they usually inherit. Each of us has a set of principles that we may consciously apply, or we may have a set of principles that is much deeper and more subtle. These are the principles that we would want to live by. They are the real, underlying drivers.
Principles are a dimension—they are ineffable. They are an ineffable dimension of awareness that we inhabit. When we live to be cool, when we live to be efficient, when we live to be considerate, we experience a subjective, ineffable state of mind. All of this is involved in spirituality. What are your principles? It is involved in being true to yourself. Many people do not consciously know what their principles are, and therefore, they lack the clarity to maintain integrity. They do not have the clarity to be the truest expression of their spirit.
Part of enlightenment is being conscious about who you are and who you are choosing to be. Principles are involved in that. It is important to become aware of your top five principles. I would say every individual might be able to delineate five top principles that are most endemic to their spirit, their personality, and who they want to be in life.
Principles give us a very special gift. From moment to moment, we get to be who we want to be. There is a gift in the integrity of showing up in any situation as who you really are. We cannot always control circumstances, but we can control the way we show up. When we have that as a constant, it creates peace of mind and a kind of joy in integrity. It is a feeling of, "Okay, well, I am still getting to be me."
For some people, it can be difficult to maintain the principles that you really want. For example, you may be considerate until you lose your temper, or you may be considerate until it is just too inconvenient to be considerate. But then, we always feel that discord—"I am a considerate person, but I just was not being considerate, and I value that so much." So, there is this feeling of discord within.
Part of knowing one's principles is being true to them in all circumstances. This is a measure of integrity. Our collection of principles is ineffable—it is beyond words. Just because someone has the principle of being, let us say, efficient, another person may have that same word as their principle, but it will not be the same thing. For every individual, there is a subtle difference. They may be very closely related, or they may be quite different, in fact, because they may have very different semantic definitions of it.
So we need to use the word to find the principle that is the truest expression of what we are. Often, you can simply feel your heart and ask, does that feel right? Contemplation, which is one of the three pillars we discussed last week, is a very important practice for your principles. This week, you could contemplate your principles and ask yourself, what are my principles? Who am I?
You can play a little isolation game with it. For example, if I were in this situation, would I prioritize this principle or that principle? You can ask yourself, what would I do? Or, what would I want to do? Perhaps do not just ask what you would do, but what is your aspiration? I think that is more aligned. It is not about your current capacity to do it; it is about your aspiration. Capacity can develop and evolve toward that aspiration.
I have five principles. Actually, one of them is really two, so now I think of it as six, but for a long time I thought of it as five. I am very happy when I am in touch with those principles. One of them is gentleness. I love to be gentle. I do not like to be not gentle. When I am not gentle, I think, whoa, that is not who I want to be. Gentleness in every way.
Principles apply to everything we do. When you pour a glass of tea, be gentle. When you do math, be gentle. When you drive your car, be gentle. That means no crazy screeching, no honking, no jolting—all of those things. Now, there may be someone who has a principle of speed, someone who loves motorcycles and race cars. For them, they would not want to be gentle when they drive. They might say speed and safety together.
What are the principles that you live by? This is a key point, so you understand it is the law of response to circumstantial conditions. Another thing about principles is, if you really become attuned to your own, you can often see them in others. That is a very important quality—first, if you want to help another person, and second, if you want to deal with another person, especially if they are problematic.
With principles, you get to be the person you want to be. You get to be that person, and then your actions—"I am these things," and then my actions will unfold in certain situations. This is very much associated with karma. When you know the karmic repercussions—how your attention field changes as a result of your actions—you will be very selective about your principles.
I love heart and light. Gentleness and kindness are very, very good for the karma of heart and light. If you are the opposite of those two things, it is actually harder to access heart and light. So, this is part of the reason those are two of my favorite principles.
When you are embodying these, it is not about trying at all. There is no trying. Unless you are rebuilding your karma, then you are evolving. But the one that is probably most easy for you, if you are in alignment with yourself, is a very top principle. Positivity is actually another one of my principles. And the people who are in your life tend to be similar. We reinforce each other's positivity, and we just get along that well because that is the way we do things. Some people are very different. They will get together and be very negative, and they want that. That is not what we tend to do.
Some people have five principles, but some people have one. You may have one principle. Somebody who is very, very focused—they only care about one thing. Some sages do this. I do not think it is necessarily required for a sage, but I have seen some sages do it. For example, if you think of the sage who is just about truth, or just honesty—they do not care about anything else. They are just going to do truth, truth, truth.
It is a little bit more difficult when you start mixing them together, although perhaps there is an underlying principle that they are all really pointing to. It depends how you think about it. For example, kindness, positivity, and gentleness—maybe the principle there is heart.
When you look at this, one of the things I was contemplating today is, I was describing it as a basis function in mathematics. This is like X, Y, and Z. When you put them together, you can go anywhere in this three-dimensional space by adding, and the span of a basis is the kind and gentleness.
You can make a distinction between a principle and a value. A value is something that I find valuable in the world, in life. A principle is the way that you are. Your principles are closely connected to your values, so if you value heart and love, you are going to act in these certain ways. This needs to be subjectively defined for each individual. Try to make a distinction between those. Is that the principle? It is both, right? So it is an interesting thing to look at. And is there a distinction? Maybe when you look at being loving, they are different in that space of loving. Sometimes gentleness and positivity are very different things. Gentleness might be very quiet, positivity might be really bright, but positivity can also be very quiet as well.
The concepts here are karma, principles, and principles in relation to values, which we will do another week. Values is a different thing. But delineate your principles. Maybe do your top three, your top one, your top five—I tend to do the top six. And I have another five or six more that I could talk about, but generally it is these six. And those six are the way I maintain an assessment of my alignment. Like, okay, is it this, this, this, this, this?
Gratitude is my fourth principle. I used to pair that with positivity, because gratitude is a very positive thing. But actually, for me, I think they are quite separate. Positivity and gratitude, I believe, should be considered separately. My fifth principle is mindfulness. Mindfulness is a very, very important principle. Mindfulness and silence go together. Really, to stay present and sing a song.
Mindfulness is another one of my principles. I really take these things seriously. I think it says a lot about how committed someone is to their principles. If I am pulled away from mindfulness or kindness by the expectations of others, I will really insist—no, let me be. I am going to be mindful, whether you like it or not.
The other one is independence. Independence is very related to freedom. Independence means I can… and peace, too. When you have independence, you have a lot of peace, because you are not constantly pulled by dependency. Now, when I say independence, I do not mean just circumstantial, although that is part of it. I want circumstantial independence as well, but it is more about inner independence—the independence from needing to escape into entertainment.
Now you know my six principles, and you know a lot about me. These principles are very essential to enlightenment.
Integrity is another concept that comes up. I usually think of integrity as more of a meta principle. Although that might be a principle for somebody. They might say, no matter what my situation is… for me, it is more that integrity holds all principles. But for somebody else, they might say, when I am in a situation, all that matters is that I am true to myself and that I am following my principles. That could be something they emphasize. So yes, beautiful. That is a good one.
Your semantic definition for integrity may have a little bit more richness and specificity than the one I am using right now. It is like doing the right thing in a business situation, or in any situation. Some people will not cross the road unless they are at a pedestrian crossing, and that is part of their integrity. Others may have no hesitation to cross the road in the middle and jaywalk, because they are a bit of a rebel. But they still do not compromise their own integrity. Sometimes, bending the rules is a principle. And justice. That is maybe the word. So, I feel that maybe that is one of your principles, too. It is like integrity and justice.
I have seen these principles in some of the other people, which I would like to embody. Humility, patience, and tolerance. I love those three as well. Patience, tolerance, and humility. Gorgeous. It is interesting to try to think, well, what do I emphasize? If you go for a walk, you can walk with all your principles. It is like, what is your swagger? What is your gait? Do you walk to be cool? Do you walk to be humble? Maybe put your hands behind your back, right? That is the humble thing, right? Do you walk to be efficient? Do you walk to be kind? All different energies. You can embody the energy with the most minimal actions.
Try to embody all five principles on your walk at the same time. There is a level of mastery involved in this. The mastery of yourself—it is to be a connoisseur of consciousness. Of your own consciousness. A connoisseur of consciousness. That is actually something I came up with earlier that I wanted to share with you.
Revise, refine, and bring forth the fullest expression of those principles within yourself. And contemplate them. Perhaps once a week—maybe every Tuesday—you contemplate them, or maybe you contemplate them for this whole week and get really clear on them. I have spent years and years contemplating these, and really getting clear on what it means for me to be who I want to be.
When you meditate, you can actually do them too. You can meditate on humility. You meditate on the light, but you can say, okay, well, I am humility right now. And it is really a beautiful thing to be extreme in your principles. Take those three principles that you just shared, and take them to an extreme. And enjoy that. It is fun.
That is an interesting way to look at it. This is not about, you know, “Oh no, I have to do my principles.” It is fun to do your principles. It is fun to show up and be humble to the extreme. Tolerant to the extreme. Integrity to the extreme. Right? Kindness to the extreme. It is fun to do that, and it helps us progress to enlightenment, because we are consciously choosing something that is good karma, which ultimately will help us.
Now, “cool” could be a principle of yours, and think of that as being playfully true to yourself. Like, everything I do is cool. Sometimes I meet a guy or a girl who is just all about being cool, and you can just tell—the way they dress, the way they walk. As long as it is not about ego, but it is about full self-expression, that is fine. Think about the jazz musician who is just so cool. That is actually a guy I just thought of right now. I used to play music with him. And he was just the coolest guy, and we all wanted him to be cool, because that is who he is.
That guy used to do a show. It was a burlesque show where he was singing, and he would wear these 1920s overalls. A big, big Black guy, he would be smoking a cigar on the stage, singing spoken word. He would just be cool, he would be on stage, and there would be smoke drifting, and the spotlight would be shining through it. There would be burlesque dancers, and he would be singing in a very chill way, just being himself. It is very much about—it is very much an artistic mentality, to find out what your principles are.
Principles are the way we engage with life, and they are a constant of our integrity. They are a constant in how we relate to things, how we hold our energy. My principles are kindness, gratitude, gentleness, positivity, mindfulness, and independence. Those are my five—or six. It used to be five, but I split positivity into gratitude and positivity.
The whole idea is to contemplate your principles, to find out which principles are most central to you, and really refine and master them. Could you go on a walk and embody all your principles? Could you make dinner or breakfast and embody all your principles? You can meditate on the principles and feel them.
Think about your principles. Try to find out who you really want to be. When you choose your principles consciously, it helps generate the right kind of karma. Make sure your principles are true to yourself and aligned with enlightenment. They should be principles that help you move into states of dissolution, freedom, and greater consciousness.
Principles can also be very playful. Playfulness might be your principle. I am sure you have met people who are just constantly playful. Or, coolness might be your principle. If you are an entrepreneur, one of the principles I used to live by was absolute efficiency. That was a big thing for me—total efficiency. I used to live by that. Or diligence. I used to live by that too—just get as much work done as possible, period. I did not care if it was kind, I did not care if— you could get into that, but that was not very good for my karma when I was doing that.
I used to think, okay, I need to make this business happen, and then I just pushed through everything, and I was not necessarily kind. So kindness can sometimes take more work, but now I understand kindness is ultimately quite efficient. In kindness, we collaborate, we do not create problems for ourselves, and we use gravity to make things happen.
So principles can change, but ultimately, we want to find the principles most central to who we are.
This week, think about your principles. This is different from values. A value is what you care about, what you find valuable—like human connection, or healthy food. Your principles and values will be related to each other, because if your principles do not support your values, you probably need to adjust them. Otherwise, you will not be getting what you really want.
A principle is a way of holding your energy and a way of responding to things. Could you close your car door with that principle? Maybe ask a playful question—can I close my car door with kindness? Yes. I really always personify my things. I say hello to all the things in my apartment. For example, "Hello, Crystal, hello, Cup," and I do that because it allows me to practice kindness with everything. "Hello, Cup, it is so nice to see you today." It allows me to practice kindness with everything.
Maybe take a moment and write down 20 principles. Just write down all your principles, and then contemplate them, refine them, and get clear on—do I have 5? Do I have 1? And when you are looking at other people, consider, what are their principles? Is this person my best friend because we share 80% of the same principles, or all of the same principles? A principle could be simplicity, or silence. To me, that is all involved in mindfulness and independence. When you find that word, it points to an ineffable reality beyond the principle. So think of it as a portal for you. You are like, okay, whenever I say kindness, I feel it. It means something to me. It helps you step into something that is beyond words. It is personal to me.
Businesses operate according to principles. If you look at Microsoft, Apple, Tesla, or SpaceX, they each have a set of principles that they live by and embody. Similarly, in music—artists also have their own set of principles. So, you can start to contemplate the idea of principles in general.
The spring cohort starts next week, which means there will be new people joining us. I am going to do a five-part series on Introduction to Enlightenment for the next five Love Light Sanghas. Also, we have the meditation resolution happening again. We did it four months ago, so about a third of a year has passed, and now we are doing it again. I would love for everyone to join and participate. It would be wonderful if you can do it. It is at 6 p.m., Monday through Thursday. It will be integrated into the Tuesday night class. I have set up pricing based on country on the website, so if you go there, all the information is available. If you need a scholarship, just let me know. It is very important to me that everyone has the opportunity to participate. If you need assistance, just let me know and we will work something out. If you are able to pay, that is wonderful. Your support is very helpful and appreciated.
There is also Coding Constellations. We are starting a new coding series that is designed for total beginners. So, if you want to try something new, this is the time. It is for coding and math—total beginner coding—and we are focusing on a fairly simple math topic. Well, it is not that simple, but it is trigonometry, which is quite accessible, and I think it is very intuitive. So, if you are interested, you can get to know some math as well.
With the meditation resolution, I am planning to keep it a bit simpler this time. It will really be 15 minutes, maybe 16. And there will be no lengthy introduction. The plan is to keep it to just 15 minutes. Whether or not people continue, you could invite friends who have been saying for years, "I want to meditate every day." I will be there supporting everyone with consistency. That is the primary value of this.
Once I am in the room with everyone, I want to go for 45 minutes, but we cannot do that. So, we will keep it to 15 minutes.
Contemplate your principles. Another blessing.