The Home of Steven Barnes
Author, Teacher, Screenwriter


Monday, March 17, 2014

Core of the Diamond Hour


The “Diamond Hour” concept asks us to ask what can be accomplished in less than an hour of focused time a day.  The most important things I recommend are generative.  In other words, following the Chakras if you EITHER increase love (beginning with yourself) OR decrease fear, you will automatically evolve to more complex and “altruistic” levels of human connection.

Is this true? Let’s take the first case: the theory is that if you start by increasing love, the rest of our humanity flowers.

Let’s say you begin with the Heartbeat Meditation.  You connect with the sense of love within you.  ALL children were nurtured at some point in their lives--otherwise they die.  Period.  Make contact with that sense of caring and worth, and you have a foundation.

Now...visualize your child self, the oldest version you can “reach” prior to any damage that occurred to you in your life.  For me, that’s six years old.    Now...create a “love connection” between your current self, and that child.  YOU are now that child’s “parent.”   Got it?    When that child is filled with love, and trusts the connection (it may take weeks, or months of daily effort, depending on you) she will automatically seek companions, connection.  She is GENETICALLY as well as socially and psychologically programmed to do this--you need have no fear at all.  Once damage has been healed, we seek mates and tribe.

The best way to have healthy, happy long-term sexual and social relationships is to play fair.  It is like a salesman who travels through the same territory once every year.  You CAN’T cheat people and come back time after time.  Doesn’t work nearly as well as fair trade.  So simple fear (of loneliness and starvation/isolation) and greed (of lack of trading partners) will actually end up driving healthy behavior over the long term.  All children begin as totally selfish little entities, and most of them grow out of it once they figure this out.

Now, we have love, survival, sex, and tribe all aligned to produce a safe environment.   Once you have this foundation, it is possible to begin to ask questions about self-expression, “truth”, higher levels of growth and consciousness, and “awakening.”

But remember that the most basic drives will short-circuit ALL of this stuff.  This is why civilization is so incredibly important.  We often hate lawyers, but I think what we’re REALLY afraid of is the fact that without the  law, we’d be killing each other in the street to resolve our issues.  We must feel safe to be free to love.

So the “Diamond Hour” begins by combining Self-love (not the kind that is vulnerable to exploitation) with healthy stress response (the “Five Minute Miracle”).  Proper breathing and heartbeat meditation.  Once you have this, add your balanced goals and begin to progress toward them.  Observe and chronicle the results.  Within a year, you’ll know yourself as few human beings ever dare to do.   Journal the results.  You have begun the process of awakening, in a fashion that is safe, efficient, effective...and a surprising amount of genuine fun.



Namaste,
Steve
www.diamondhour.com

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