Manifesto: How To Get What You Want Without Trying. The Doctor Barefoot

      a feeling of belonging

       (wherever you are)

      While it is evident on close inspection that even the most permanent object, such as the oldest mountain, was once nothing more permanent, hence belonging only in situ, than molten lava, we still delude ourselves into craving a sense of belonging on the planet, and specifically to a particular place or group of places and, even more specifically, with a particular person or grouping of persons. Of course when you see through the illusion, it’s quite clear that if we belong anywhere at all, it’s in our bodies and in the universe. Anything more defined than that is asking for trouble. Yet ask for trouble we always do – hence xenophobia, nationalism and all the painful nonsense that comes with them.

      So visualize yourself now feeling a deep sense of belonging in your body in the universe, so that no matter where you find yourself, nor with whom, whether in Taunton or Timbuktu, whether with friends or complete strangers, you feel completely at home. Feel it as a relaxing awareness in the belly now.

      peace of mind

       (including being at peace with the idea of dying one day, as well as having a workable, reliable philosophy or existential model that may or may not have spiritual underpinnings)

      This is really the big one, because if you have unshakable peace of mind, no matter your external condition or situation, no matter your state of health, wealth or status, then you’ll always feel comfortable, which is after all what everyone wants to feel all the time – comfortable. Peace of mind isn’t something come by easily yet it is incredibly simple to attain. And it usually only takes thirty years or so of diligently following any valid psychophysical, spiritually based, philosophically sound system that grabs your fancy. Meantime, start visualizing yourself immediately with a mind so calm and peaceful that even if a stray asteroid were to crash into the ground before you now and destroy everyone and everything you hold dear or are familiar with, you would still retain your inner and outer composure – imagine that.

      purity of heart

       (hence authenticity and intensity of experience)

      It’s a rare person who’d enjoy an insipid life and who’d prefer things to be dull. Rarer still someone who’d truly prefer simulated life to the real thing. Even the most commited couch potato, if you could get them up off their arse, would rather be out in the world having a good time than watching other people doing it on TV. But the intensity of experience we crave and look for mistakenly in drink, sex, drugs or spending money to excess, to name but a few examples, can only truly be accessed with a pure heart. This implies a sufficient level of inner self-awareness to be honest with yourself and hence honest with others wherever and whenever possible, something usually facilitated by a few years of therapy with a competent therapist, meditation under instruction from an experienced teacher, or both. Meanwhile, immediately start visualizing yourself with absolute self-honesty, purity of heart in other words, living each and every moment with optimum authenticity and hence intensity now (however that may look to you).