Self-help ... some people turn away from such a book heading with a shudder, while others are attracted by anything that might offer them self-empowerment. Why are we each so different in our approach to life? Does this difference begin in our childhood, our school education, or does it occur later in life? These are questions that have very clear and obvious answers. My wife, Treenie and I were recently in America promoting my new book, THE MAGIC FORMULA. I was in a bookshop preparing for yet another book reading and general chat, along with book signing, when a woman stopped, picked up a book, and asked what my book was about. “It’s a teaching story,” I replied. “It offers a way of life and living that anyone can easily bring into their life. The benefits are a life of fulfillment and happiness.”
She looked at me suspiciously. “Do you have to do anything?” she asked. “Yes,” I said. “You just incorporate a few simple guidelines into your life. The rewards are great.”
Even before I had finished speaking she dropped the book as though it was suddenly red hot and quickly departed. Obviously ‘she’ had a problem with doing anything! She reminded me of the people who tell you that they have read a certain self-help book, then caustically announce that it did not do anything for them. I have little sympathy for such people. A book presents an opportunity to apply the contained suggestions in your everyday life, the readers ‘do’ it for themselves.
As a person who has been on the world speaking circuit for quite a few years, I have learned that the people who are too steeped in apathy to help themselves are invariably unhappy, unhealthy, and are certainly unfulfilled. It’s a viscous cycle, and very self-destructive. I really admire the therapists who are prepared to work with such people. Maybe their reward is seeing how ‘big’ the little steps truly are for these people. I am serious when I say to you that as a reader of this magazine you are a person who is trying to learn the skills of life and living. Give yourself credit for that. You are one of the world’s minority who is attempting to stretch beyond the parameters set by your earlier years, and open yourself to a greater reality.
Greater reality ... what is a greater reality? Let me present it this way: a tiny field mouse has a view of life that is very different from the viewpoint of an eagle. Neither is right, nor wrong, but each has such a vastly different perspective of life that they will live incredibly different lifestyles. Be aware, however, that the field the mouse lives in is the same field both for the eagle soaring high overhead, or the mouse running nimbly among the stalks of grass. So also, it is with people.
It is the One life we all live, the same planet , the same air we breathe, the same water that flows, the same earth ... the same Principles of Life that offer the perfect way for us to live and experience the miracle that is Life. Yet in all this, some people take ‘disadvantage’ and use it to weave magic into their lives, while others take ‘advantages’ and turn them into something sour and mundane.
It is the Principle of Life that makes the difference. Most religions know little about these Principles, having lost or diluted them in the dogma of ages, and, unfortunately, our schools never teach them. It is sad, but you can be fully educated in our systems and know ‘nothing’ about life. You can pass through the whole school/university process, and see life from the view of a field mouse. A very clever field mouse, perhaps, but seldom clever enough to transcend the field mouse view. In nature, an eagle is born an eagle, a mouse a mouse, but in humanity we choose which one we will represent in our life. We choose whether or not we will fly on the uplifting thermals of Truth, our eyes open to ever greater vistas of insight and inspiration, or whether we will retain the blindfold of ignorance, deciding that the path of history and the masses offers the safest route.
When I was thirty-five I was hit with devastating impact by a question ... Who am I? That question revealed my ignorance and shattered the complacency of my life. As a farmer, that question changed my whole life. It took me away from farming and into the unknown. For the next fourteen years - to know Self - became the focus of my life, my reason for living. As a married man with four children, I was unable to reconcile my life with the normal way of living and doing. My path was one of inner-experiencing and being - along with some living and doing! At the physical age of forty-nine and three months, I entered the experience of knowing/being Self. I know who I am.
I share this simply so you know the basis of my writing and speaking. All my books revolve around Truth ... the Truth of life. The Principles of Life/Truth have become familiar to me, my way of living and being. They open up a greater reality. I once lived in the field as a field mouse, now I fly on the thermals of Truth and I see the fields of life from a different perspective. This is what I offer in my books.
THE MAGIC FORMULA is my latest offering. Basically it is about a group of boys who, growing up in the same neighborhood, become closely bonded. As they reach their late teens, life starts moving them in different directions, so one evening at their favorite restaurant they all make a promise that they will meet there again in ten years time.
In their late twenties they meet as arranged, and over food and grog they each tell their stories about how life is for them, but each man is aware that he censored his story. Again, they pledge to meet in ten years at that restaurant, or if it has gone, at the nearest to it. When they next meet, one has died, and their chosen lifestyle is showing its effects on each of the others. Again, they share an edited version of their lives with each other, drink and eat too much, and pledge to meet again in another ten years.
When they meet the next time, they are in their mid-to-late forties. As they look at each other, they realize that they are strangers, each in their own way suffering and hurting. This time they each share their truth, revealing that life is beating them, that despite all their work skills, they don’t have a clue about life. Into their life comes an older man offering to teach them how to be happy and fulfilled. His offer is met with scorn and resistance. To one man the stranger offers an impossible moment, a miracle, with the outcome that he becomes their teacher. He tells them that once they have learned the most basic Principles of Truth he will offer them a magic formula. This formula, used for a few minutes daily, is guaranteed to change their lives.
Although the book is about men, it is a powerful teaching story for people from all walks of life.
In Love and Light, Michael
