rself -- there are as many good results from self-help as bad… I think self-help leads to self-obsession, and self-obsession is about being loved, being lovable, being good, being happy. And the truth is none of those things ever made one human being happy. Helping others, loving others, loving beauty, appreciating people, this makes us happy because in doing that we forget our “self.” My favorite quote says to effect that self-help doesn’t work. It can’t, because the ultimate end is to discover there is no self, and therefore nothing needs help.

Q:

I love your statement that "people become as you treat them, and what you appreciate grows." One of the reasons awareness resonates so strongly for me is that I've found you can't appreciate what you don't notice! Does this idea fit in with what you meant?

A:

I’ve noticed, that if I don’t notice what is noticeable, then I get put on notice that my notice is not enticing. This is a very strong observation that you make. One that I think we can all learn from.

The forth Law of Nature is appreciation. So, I fill my head and heart with appreciation. Now, the complexity is that sometimes stuff happens and you don’t appreciate it, instead you want to run away from it, or fix it. But bloody hell, how far can you run? You can run all the way to Nepal, and still find the things that were annoying you in Sydney, or New York or in a commune, or in an ashram in India. Annoyance about things we don’t appreciate follows us.

When we talk about personal growth, most people measure this personal growth in how happy, wealthy, healthy, smart, or in control they are. This is not how nature measures growth. Nature measures growth by how much doesn’t annoy you. I know this is really weird language, but sometimes it’s great to put things in the negative.

Growth is not a gravitation toward the positive, it is the development of an appreciation for the negative. You are nature and all that you are is worthy of appreciation. We can’t run from those things we hate, we must learn to appreciate them, not change them.

Q:

Your vision is huge! It just feels like it takes such an expanded spirit to hold all those important, world-shifting intentions: to communicate the message of modern well-being, to transform educational systems, to inspire a new global perspective, etc. Can one person really do all these things? How do you keep so many big intentions present in your everyday life?

Frankly, I have no idea. The thing for me is about my intent. Each day I want to wake up and just burst with enthusiasm to get out of bed, do things that motivate me to give to others and be inspired. I am not interested in being depressed, or a victim of the system, or spending my whole precious life complaining that MacDonald’s hamburgers made me fat. I have a gift, if I die with it still inside, I’ll be pissed.

Q:

You describe yourself as an “ordinary Aussie bloke.” Did your upbringing in "the bush" contribute to your receptivity to The Laws of Nature?

A:

When I say ordinary Aussie bloke, I mean that we Australian men seem able to laugh at ourselves. We don’t take things too seriously unless it’s about protecting our home or a mate in trouble. It’s the Aussie spirit. It’s unique in its light-hearted goodness. My upbringing in the bush was very much about trust. My step mum beat the crap out of me daily, the kids at school thought I was a weirdo (I moved to the bush from a little green, friendly and isolated country town in Tasmania that no one had ever heard of in this tough and rough bush environment). Poor old Dad was busting his chops working to try to overcome his grief from my mother’s death (I was two and a half years old and was beside her in a car when she died.)

Living amongst this kind of chaos, a kid searches for their own source of comfort and love (the Laws of Nature say that nothing is missing in life). I found comfort and love by the riverbank, playing in the bush, hanging out with Aboriginal kids that no other white person trusted. It was here that I learned not to trust words, just people. So, Nature was Mum for me. I felt her spirit in trees and rivers and branches and food that came from the earth. I felt her spirit in the wind and in the hot sun, her warm heart. This was how I learned to love. I learned to love by loving the earth

Q:

At what point in your life did you become aware of The Laws of Nature? Was it a process or more of a single moment of clarity you had upon reading about them?

A:

I went through a hell of my own in the midst of a divorce. My three beautiful children sailed off on a yacht with their Mum and her new love. I really went down the tubes after that. I did therapy and Zen and yoga and more Zen and danced with Native American people all over the place. But ten minutes after I did any healing, the pains would come back. Something would remind me of my children and bingo, there I was, angry, sad and resentful.

I trekked in Nepal and many parts of the world alone, trying to find my own heart. I lost it, and the soul that feeds it, or so I thought, so I just went back to nature, to Mum, to be nurtured. One day I was looking at the sunrise. The moon was also in the sky. On this beautiful morning I got lost in thought. I drifted to the place where I was when the kids were born. When I watched them hatch into this world I just felt a miracle happen in me. So, sitting on the beach, I was back in that energy. I was so filled with tears and so happy. I looked at the moon and I realized I was in the same universe as my kids, in the same atmosphere as my kids, in the same realm of love with them. We were connected, inseparable and suddenly I was home again! I jumped up and started to dance like a mad man, I could see there was nothing to heal. All the healing had failed because there was nothing to heal. For the first time, I knew the formula for love. I had always mixed up my expectations of doing something good -- being a good father, providing, nurturing and caring – with love. Love is what nature does. She doesn’t care if you are here or gone, she loves. And there it was, the breakthrough. I separated emotion, expectation, philosophy, religion, beliefs and all that mumbo jumbo of complexity from real love.

Then I went back over all my studies of religion, the mysteries, metaphysics and poetry, and I just asked myself: “what’s behind these?” That’s when I became aware that behind every single expectation, emotion, philosophy and religion are five undisputable and universal Laws of Nature. They’re universal because from the smallest molecular structure to the widest galaxy these laws exist. And I found these laws written in ancient texts. And now it’s my job to bring them to others.

Q:

What is it about you that makes you an ideal messenger for The Laws of Nature? What personal strengths help with the delivery of your message?

A:

None. Really. It’s totally not about the messenger…but there is one thing that makes me a little different from the average person selling love potions, and self-help blab, blab, blab. I don’t care about my approval rating. I say it as it is. The Howard Stern of the spiritual world. As an Aussie bloke I tell it as it is. I don’t mind a good fight, and I am not interested in shoving the message down people’s throat. I guess I am a good messenger for a message that says “BE REAL,” but a million other people could do it, if they had the conviction and the certainty.

Q:

Can you describe a Law of Nature?

The first Law of Nature is balance. It says: positive thinking people are negative thinking people. There can’t be an upper without a downer. Positive thinking must be met with balance. We tend to look at life really selfishly, like “what is right for me?” I agree that positive is best for me, but I can’t then condemn all the negativity in my lover, or my business partner, and run around saying, “Oooh you are so negative.” No, I can say “Welcome to my world and have a beautiful day – thank you for expressing what I am repressing. Thank you for carrying the negativity that frees me to express my positivity.” You know 50 % of the world is yin, and 50% is yang. You go yang, someone goes yin. Simple isn’t it?

There are two sides to everything and everyone. We are all sinners and angels and worthy of love for it. We can’t change, we can only put a mask on and why do that? People become as you treat them, so I suggest that my students always look for both sides of everything and don’t get self indulgent and deluded by believing half-truths. For loving and good life, balance the positive and the negative firmly, then focus on the positive.

Q:

On your Web site you say that you can't change yourself or another person, you can only help someone appreciate who they really are, and help them to express their authenticity in the healthiest way and to make choices that support "their way." Is this a Law of Nature?

A:

No, this is a consequence of a Law of Nature. Laws of Nature do not dictate how people should and shouldn’t act. That’s the realm of religion and psychology. I call that mumbo jumbo mainly because I find it all so complex, opinionated and diverse in its translation. I am not a psychologist or a philosopher. With my mind I’d go mad trying to sort out right from wrong! No the Laws of Nature do not prescribe behavior. They do, however, set down principles from which we can see what is causing us to go loopy -- they reveal the emotion and myths that run our lives.

There is nothing missing in our lives. We are everything we want to be. It’s just that sometimes what we’ve got and what we want are in conflict because we got our wealth in love and we want it in money. Now, what we don’t appreciate we lose, so a person who is really wealthy in love, walking around wanting to change their life is fine, but if they are saying, “oooh I am so poor,” but they are really very abundant in love wealth (nothing is ever missing, just changes in form) then they may also lose their love life. See, it’s a matter of contentment. If we can say “thank you” for what we have, we get what we want. The form can change, not the content. We can change love dollars for Australian dollars, or our health Yen for Japanese Yen. Easy.

Q:

Can you briefly describe the 5 great keys to lifelong happiness?

A:

This is how we all think. We think if I know the 5 Laws of Nature, I will have lifelong happiness. But that is absolutely mumbo jumbo…. Life long happiness is a marketing campaign proposed by people like myself, the Buddhists and most new age gurus to sell books, get audiences and win a good bank balance. But there is really nothing that can cause life long happiness. Life is not about being happy all life long, but we don’t know this. So we buy the books, believe the marketing, go to the workshops, join the religions, and in most cases, judge the people who cause us discomfort.

Really, this is where the buck must stop, with people like me. The Laws of Nature, on the other hand, argue that:

• You are going to have an equal balance of happy times and sad times
• If you don’t appreciate the sad times, they get worse
• Evolution happens at the border of happy and sad
• We never find the balance between these two, we cycle like a drunk staggering down the street from one side to the other
• The person who is looking for all peace, all happiness, all goodness in their relationship or work life is a fool. They are drunker than the rest of us. That person will stagger between extremes. They’ll be more emotionally shocked when their hard-won peace and tranquility gets disturbed by reality.

The Laws of Nature simply reveal the lies that marketers promote, and the delusion that people try to manifest in their lives -- that there can’t be any existence in any walk of life without challenge and discomfort.

That’s humility. Staying thankful for the small things means you don’t get complacent and think that you are infallible. In a relationship this is even more critical. The time to invest in humble gratitude is when things are going well, not when they are down and out. When things are up, there is the unseen down. You need to be humble to these Laws of Nature then you don’t get shocks.

Q:

You say that Happiness come from contentment and contentment comes when you stop trying to be someone else. Was there a time in your life when you found yourself trying to be something you weren't or have you always managed to make good lifestyle choices for yourself?

I still try to be someone else. I am not content all the time. Crikey! don’t put me on the pedestal and say that I can practice all I teach 24/7. No way. I go up and down just as nature has warm days and storm days. But, the big difference is that when I become unhappy or unhealthy I know I have gone against one of the Laws of Nature. Unhappiness for me only comes when I don’t like who I am and I try to fix it, which just make matters worse. If I am unhappy, unlike a lot of people who think they’ve made a bad decision or need to fix themselves, I say the opposite. Instead of therapy or self-help, I believe I am worthy of love for who I am, and the only person who needs to know that is me. Nothing needs to change, only something to appreciate. What you appreciate grows and what grows is happy.

Q:

You say that your message is not about "self help." I think of self-help as people writing or talking about a topic they know well and me learning. I take from books and lectures the "pearls of wisdom" that resonate for me. What is your definition of self-help? Isn't your goal to help people and corporations to look inward in order to better express themselves in the world?

Yes, I guess you are right. But the self-help industry is so filled with people who learned to be a yoga teacher last week and wrote a book this week. Our industry is the most unregulated, dangerous, self-proclaiming, money-spinning messing-with-people industry on earth. You need a license to give someone a massage. But you can mess with people’s hearts, minds and spirit if you just say “Oh, I am a native blood, therefore I have wisdom” or “I am Chinese therefore I am Tao” or “I am completely disconnected from reality, therefore I can sell books on angels.” You must see this yourself -- there are as many good results from self-help as bad… I think self-help leads to self-obsession, and self-obsession is about being loved, being lovable, being good, being happy. And the truth is none of those things ever made one human being happy. Helping others, loving others, loving beauty, appreciating people, this makes us happy because in doing that we forget our “self.” My favorite quote says to effect that self-help doesn’t work. It can’t, because the ultimate end is to discover there is no self, and therefore nothing needs help.

Q:

I love your statement that "people become as you treat them, and what you appreciate grows." One of the reasons awareness resonates so strongly for me is that I've found you can't appreciate what you don't notice! Does this idea fit in with what you meant?

A:

I’ve noticed, that if I don’t notice what is noticeable, then I get put on notice that my notice is not enticing. This is a very strong observation that you make. One that I think we can all learn from.

The forth Law of Nature is appreciation. So, I fill my head and heart with appreciation. Now, the complexity is that sometimes stuff happens and you don’t appreciate it, instead you want to run away from it, or fix it. But bloody hell, how far can you run? You can run all the way to Nepal, and still find the things that were annoying you in Sydney, or New York or in a commune, or in an ashram in India. Annoyance about things we don’t appreciate follows us.

When we talk about personal growth, most people measure this personal growth in how happy, wealthy, healthy, smart, or in control they are. This is not how nature measures growth. Nature measures growth by how much doesn’t annoy you. I know this is really weird language, but sometimes it’s great to put things in the negative.

Growth is not a gravitation toward the positive, it is the development of an appreciation for the negative. You are nature and all that you are is worthy of appreciation. We can’t run from those things we hate, we must learn to appreciate them, not change them.

Q:

Your vision is huge! It just feels like it takes such an expanded spirit to hold all those important, world-shifting intentions: to communicate the message of modern well-being, to transform educational systems, to inspire a new global perspective, etc. Can one person really do all these things? How do you keep so many big intentions present in your everyday life?

Frankly, I have no idea. The thing for me is about my intent. Each day I want to wake up and just burst with enthusiasm to get out of bed, do things that motivate me to give to others and be inspired. I am not interested in being depressed, or a victim of the system, or spending my whole precious life complaining that MacDonald’s hamburgers made me fat. I have a gift, if I die with it still inside, I’ll be pissed.

E

ce like a mad man, I could see there was nothing to heal. All the healing had failed because there was nothing to heal. For the first time, I knew the formula for love. I had always mixed up my expectations of doing something good -- being a good father, providing, nurturing and caring – with love. Love is what nature does. She doesn’t care if you are here or gone, she loves. And there it was, the breakthrough. I separated emotion, expectation, philosophy, religion, beliefs and all that mumbo jumbo of complexity from real love.

Then I went back over all my studies of religion, the mysteries, metaphysics and poetry, and I just asked myself: “what’s behind these?” That’s when I became aware that behind every single expectation, emotion, philosophy and religion are five undisputable and universal Laws of Nature. They’re universal because from the smallest molecular structure to the widest galaxy these laws exist. And I found these laws written in ancient texts. And now it’s my job to bring them to others.

Q:

What is it about you that makes you an ideal messenger for The Laws of Nature? What personal strengths help with the delivery of your message?

A:

None. Really. It’s totally not about the messenger…but there is one thing that makes me a little different from the average person selling love potions, and self-help blab, blab, blab. I don’t care about my approval rating. I say it as it is. The Howard Stern of the spiritual world. As an Aussie bloke I tell it as it is. I don’t mind a good fight, and I am not interested in shoving the message down people’s throat. I guess I am a good messenger for a message that says “BE REAL,” but a million other people could do it, if they had the conviction and the certainty.

Q:

Can you describe a Law of Nature?

The first Law of Nature is balance. It says: positive thinking people are negative thinking people. There can’t be an upper without a downer. Positive thinking must be met with balance. We tend to look at life really selfishly, like “what is right for me?” I agree that positive is best for me, but I can’t then condemn all the negativity in my lover, or my business partner, and run around saying, “Oooh you are so negative.” No, I can say “Welcome to my world and have a beautiful day – thank you for expressing what I am repressing. Thank you for carrying the negativity that frees me to express my positivity.” You know 50 % of the world is yin, and 50% is yang. You go yang, someone goes yin. Simple isn’t it?

There are two sides to everything and everyone. We are all sinners and angels and worthy of love for it. We can’t change, we can only put a mask on and why do that? People become as you treat them, so I suggest that my students always look for both sides of everything and don’t get self indulgent and deluded by believing half-truths. For loving and good life, balance the positive and the negative firmly, then focus on the positive.

Q:

On your Web site you say that you can't change yourself or another person, you can only help someone appreciate who they really are, and help them to express their authenticity in the healthiest way and to make choices that support "their way." Is this a Law of Nature?

A:

No, this is a consequence of a Law of Nature. Laws of Nature do not dictate how people should and shouldn’t act. That’s the realm of religion and psychology. I call that mumbo jumbo mainly because I find it all so complex, opinionated and diverse in its translation. I am not a psychologist or a philosopher. With my mind I’d go mad trying to sort out right from wrong! No the Laws of Nature do not prescribe behavior. They do, however, set down principles from which we can see what is causing us to go loopy -- they reveal the emotion and myths that run our lives.

There is nothing missing in our lives. We are everything we want to be. It’s just that sometimes what we’ve got and what we want are in conflict because we got our wealth in love and we want it in money. Now, what we don’t appreciate we lose, so a person who is really wealthy in love, walking around wanting to change their life is fine, but if they are saying, “oooh I am so poor,” but they are really very abundant in love wealth (nothing is ever missing, just changes in form) then they may also lose their love life. See, it’s a matter of contentment. If we can say “thank you” for what we have, we get what we want. The form can change, not the content. We can change love dollars for Australian dollars, or our health Yen for Japanese Yen. Easy.

Q:

Can you briefly describe the 5 great keys to lifelong happiness?

A:

This is how we all think. We think if I know the 5 Laws of Nature, I will have lifelong happiness. But that is absolutely mumbo jumbo…. Life long happiness is a marketing campaign proposed by people like myself, the Buddhists and most new age gurus to sell books, get audiences and win a good bank balance. But there is really nothing that can cause life long happiness. Life is not about being happy all life long, but we don’t know this. So we buy the books, believe the marketing, go to the workshops, join the religions, and in most cases, judge the people who cause us discomfort.

Really, this is where the buck must stop, with people like me. The Laws of Nature, on the other hand, argue that:

• You are going to have an equal balance of happy times and sad times
• If you don’t appreciate the sad times, they get worse
• Evolution happens at the border of happy and sad
• We never find the balance between these two, we cycle like a drunk staggering down the street from one side to the other
• The person who is looking for all peace, all happiness, all goodness in their relationship or work life is a fool. They are drunker than the rest of us. That person will stagger between extremes. They’ll be more emotionally shocked when their hard-won peace and tranquility gets disturbed by reality.

The Laws of Nature simply reveal the lies that marketers promote, and the delusion that people try to manifest in their lives -- that there can’t be any existence in any walk of life without challenge and discomfort.

That’s humility. Staying thankful for the small things means you don’t get complacent and think that you are infallible. In a relationship this is even more critical. The time to invest in humble gratitude is when things are going well, not when they are down and out. When things are up, there is the unseen down. You need to be humble to these Laws of Nature then you don’t get shocks.

Q:

You say that Happiness come from contentment and contentment comes when you stop trying to be someone else. Was there a time in your life when you found yourself trying to be something you weren't or have you always managed to make good lifestyle choices for yourself?

I still try to be someone else. I am not content all the time. Crikey! don’t put me on the pedestal and say that I can practice all I teach 24/7. No way. I go up and down just as nature has warm days and storm days. But, the big difference is that when I become unhappy or unhealthy I know I have gone against one of the Laws of Nature. Unhappiness for me only comes when I don’t like who I am and I try to fix it, which just make matters worse. If I am unhappy, unlike a lot of people who think they’ve made a bad decision or need to fix themselves, I say the opposite. Instead of therapy or self-help, I believe I am worthy of love for who I am, and the only person who needs to know that is me. Nothing needs to change, only something to appreciate. What you appreciate grows and what grows is happy.

Q:

You say that your message is not about "self help." I think of self-help as people writing or talking about a topic they know well and me learning. I take from books and lectures the "pearls of wisdom" that resonate for me. What is your definition of self-help? Isn't your goal to help people and corporations to look inward in order to better express themselves in the world?

Yes, I guess you are right. But the self-help industry is so filled with people who learned to be a yoga teacher last week and wrote a book this week. Our industry is the most unregulated, dangerous, self-proclaiming, money-spinning messing-with-people industry on earth. You need a license to give someone a massage. But you can mess with people’s hearts, minds and spirit if you just say “Oh, I am a native blood, therefore I have wisdom” or “I am Chinese therefore I am Tao” or “I am completely disconnected from reality, therefore I can sell books on angels.” You must see this yourself -- there are as many good results from self-help as bad… I think self-help leads to self-obsession, and self-obsession is about being loved, being lovable, being good, being happy. And the truth is none of those things ever made one human being happy. Helping others, loving others, loving beauty, appreciating people, this makes us happy because in doing that we forget our “self.” My favorite quote says to effect that self-help doesn’t work. It can’t, because the ultimate end is to discover there is no self, and therefore nothing needs help.

Q:

I love your statement that "people become as you treat them, and what you appreciate grows." One of the reasons awareness resonates so strongly for me is that I've found you can't appreciate what you don't notice! Does this idea fit in with what you meant?

A:

I’ve noticed, that if I don’t notice what is noticeable, then I get put on notice that my notice is not enticing. This is a very strong observation that you make. One that I think we can all learn from.

The forth Law of Nature is appreciation. So, I fill my head and heart with appreciation. Now, the complexity is that sometimes stuff happens and you don’t appreciate it, instead you want to run away from it, or fix it. But bloody hell, how far can you run? You can run all the way to Nepal, and still find the things that were annoying you in Sydney, or New York or in a commune, or in an ashram in India. Annoyance about things we don’t appreciate follows us.

When we talk about personal growth, most people measure this personal growth in how happy, wealthy, healthy, smart, or in control they are. This is not how nature measures growth. Nature measures growth by how much doesn’t annoy you. I know this is really weird language, but sometimes it’s great to put things in the negative.

Growth is not a gravitation toward the positive, it is the development of an appreciation for the negative. You are nature and all that you are is worthy of appreciation. We can’t run from those things we hate, we must learn to appreciate them, not change them.

Q:

Your vision is huge! It just feels like it takes such an expanded spirit to hold all those important, world-shifting intentions: to communicate the message of modern well-being, to transform educational systems, to inspire a new global perspective, etc. Can one person really do all these things? How do you keep so many big intentions present in your everyday life?

Frankly, I have no idea. The thing for me is about my intent. Each day I want to wake up and just burst with enthusiasm to get out of bed, do things that motivate me to give to others and be inspired. I am not interested in being depressed, or a victim of the system, or spending my whole precious life complaining that MacDonald’s hamburgers made me fat. I have a gift, if I die with it still inside, I’ll be pissed.

nd the negative firmly, then focus on the positive.

Q:

On your Web site you say that you can't change yourself or another person, you can only help someone appreciate who they really are, and help them to express their authenticity in the healthiest way and to make choices that support "their way." Is this a Law of Nature?

A:

No, this is a consequence of a Law of Nature. Laws of Nature do not dictate how people should and shouldn’t act. That’s the realm of religion and psychology. I call that mumbo jumbo mainly because I find it all so complex, opinionated and diverse in its translation. I am not a psychologist or a philosopher. With my mind I’d go mad trying to sort out right from wrong! No the Laws of Nature do not prescribe behavior. They do, however, set down principles from which we can see what is causing us to go loopy -- they reveal the emotion and myths that run our lives.

There is nothing missing in our lives. We are everything we want to be. It’s just that sometimes what we’ve got and what we want are in conflict because we got our wealth in love and we want it in money. Now, what we don’t appreciate we lose, so a person who is really wealthy in love, walking around wanting to change their life is fine, but if they are saying, “oooh I am so poor,” but they are really very abundant in love wealth (nothing is ever missing, just changes in form) then they may also lose their love life. See, it’s a matter of contentment. If we can say “thank you” for what we have, we get what we want. The form can change, not the content. We can change love dollars for Australian dollars, or our health Yen for Japanese Yen. Easy.

Q:

Can you briefly describe the 5 great keys to lifelong happiness?

A:

This is how we all think. We think if I know the 5 Laws of Nature, I will have lifelong happiness. But that is absolutely mumbo jumbo…. Life long happiness is a marketing campaign proposed by people like myself, the Buddhists and most new age gurus to sell books, get audiences and win a good bank balance. But there is really nothing that can cause life long happiness. Life is not about being happy all life long, but we don’t know this. So we buy the books, believe the marketing, go to the workshops, join the religions, and in most cases, judge the people who cause us discomfort.

Really, this is where the buck must stop, with people like me. The Laws of Nature, on the other hand, argue that:

• You are going to have an equal balance of happy times and sad times
• If you don’t appreciate the sad times, they get worse
• Evolution happens at the border of happy and sad
• We never find the balance between these two, we cycle like a drunk staggering down the street from one side to the other
• The person who is looking for all peace, all happiness, all goodness in their relationship or work life is a fool. They are drunker than the rest of us. That person will stagger between extremes. They’ll be more emotionally shocked when their hard-won peace and tranquility gets disturbed by reality.

The Laws of Nature simply reveal the lies that marketers promote, and the delusion that people try to manifest in their lives -- that there can’t be any existence in any walk of life without challenge and discomfort.

That’s humility. Staying thankful for the small things means you don’t get complacent and think that you are infallible. In a relationship this is even more critical. The time to invest in humble gratitude is when things are going well, not when they are down and out. When things are up, there is the unseen down. You need to be humble to these Laws of Nature then you don’t get shocks.

Q:

You say that Happiness come from contentment and contentment comes when you stop trying to be someone else. Was there a time in your life when you found yourself trying to be something you weren't or have you always managed to make good lifestyle choices for yourself?

I still try to be someone else. I am not content all the time. Crikey! don’t put me on the pedestal and say that I can practice all I teach 24/7. No way. I go up and down just as nature has warm days and storm days. But, the big difference is that when I become unhappy or unhealthy I know I have gone against one of the Laws of Nature. Unhappiness for me only comes when I don’t like who I am and I try to fix it, which just make matters worse. If I am unhappy, unlike a lot of people who think they’ve made a bad decision or need to fix themselves, I say the opposite. Instead of therapy or self-help, I believe I am worthy of love for who I am, and the only person who needs to know that is me. Nothing needs to change, only something to appreciate. What you appreciate grows and what grows is happy.

Q:

You say that your message is not about "self help." I think of self-help as people writing or talking about a topic they know well and me learning. I take from books and lectures the "pearls of wisdom" that resonate for me. What is your definition of self-help? Isn't your goal to help people and corporations to look inward in order to better express themselves in the world?

Yes, I guess you are right. But the self-help industry is so filled with people who learned to be a yoga teacher last week and wrote a book this week. Our industry is the most unregulated, dangerous, self-proclaiming, money-spinning messing-with-people industry on earth. You need a license to give someone a massage. But you can mess with people’s hearts, minds and spirit if you just say “Oh, I am a native blood, therefore I have wisdom” or “I am Chinese therefore I am Tao” or “I am completely disconnected from reality, therefore I can sell books on angels.” You must see this yourself -- there are as many good results from self-help as bad… I think self-help leads to self-obsession, and self-obsession is about being loved, being lovable, being good, being happy. And the truth is none of those things ever made one human being happy. Helping others, loving others, loving beauty, appreciating people, this makes us happy because in doing that we forget our “self.” My favorite quote says to effect that self-help doesn’t work. It can’t, because the ultimate end is to discover there is no self, and therefore nothing needs help.

Q:

I love your statement that "people become as you treat them, and what you appreciate grows." One of the reasons awareness resonates so strongly for me is that I've found you can't appreciate what you don't notice! Does this idea fit in with what you meant?

A:

I’ve noticed, that if I don’t notice what is noticeable, then I get put on notice that my notice is not enticing. This is a very strong observation that you make. One that I think we can all learn from.

The forth Law of Nature is appreciation. So, I fill my head and heart with appreciation. Now, the complexity is that sometimes stuff happens and you don’t appreciate it, instead you want to run away from it, or fix it. But bloody hell, how far can you run? You can run all the way to Nepal, and still find the things that were annoying you in Sydney, or New York or in a commune, or in an ashram in India. Annoyance about things we don’t appreciate follows us.

When we talk about personal growth, most people measure this personal growth in how happy, wealthy, healthy, smart, or in control they are. This is not how nature measures growth. Nature measures growth by how much doesn’t annoy you. I know this is really weird language, but sometimes it’s great to put things in the negative.

Growth is not a gravitation toward the positive, it is the development of an appreciation for the negative. You are nature and all that you are is worthy of appreciation. We can’t run from those things we hate, we must learn to appreciate them, not change them.

Q:

Your vision is huge! It just feels like it takes such an expanded spirit to hold all those important, world-shifting intentions: to communicate the message of modern well-being, to transform educational systems, to inspire a new global perspective, etc. Can one person really do all these things? How do you keep so many big intentions present in your everyday life?

Frankly, I have no idea. The thing for me is about my intent. Each day I want to wake up and just burst with enthusiasm to get out of bed, do things that motivate me to give to others and be inspired. I am not interested in being depressed, or a victim of the system, or spending my whole precious life complaining that MacDonald’s hamburgers made me fat. I have a gift, if I die with it still inside, I’ll be pissed.

their relationship or work life is a fool. They are drunker than the rest of us. That person will stagger between extremes. They’ll be more emotionally shocked when their hard-won peace and tranquility gets disturbed by reality.

The Laws of Nature simply reveal the lies that marketers promote, and the delusion that people try to manifest in their lives -- that there can’t be any existence in any walk of life without challenge and discomfort.

That’s humility. Staying thankful for the small things means you don’t get complacent and think that you are infallible. In a relationship this is even more critical. The time to invest in humble gratitude is when things are going well, not when they are down and out. When things are up, there is the unseen down. You need to be humble to these Laws of Nature then you don’t get shocks.

Q:

You say that Happiness come from contentment and contentment comes when you stop trying to be someone else. Was there a time in your life when you found yourself trying to be something you weren't or have you always managed to make good lifestyle choices for yourself?

I still try to be someone else. I am not content all the time. Crikey! don’t put me on the pedestal and say that I can practice all I teach 24/7. No way. I go up and down just as nature has warm days and storm days. But, the big difference is that when I become unhappy or unhealthy I know I have gone against one of the Laws of Nature. Unhappiness for me only comes when I don’t like who I am and I try to fix it, which just make matters worse. If I am unhappy, unlike a lot of people who think they’ve made a bad decision or need to fix themselves, I say the opposite. Instead of therapy or self-help, I believe I am worthy of love for who I am, and the only person who needs to know that is me. Nothing needs to change, only something to appreciate. What you appreciate grows and what grows is happy.

Q:

You say that your message is not about "self help." I think of self-help as people writing or talking about a topic they know well and me learning. I take from books and lectures the "pearls of wisdom" that resonate for me. What is your definition of self-help? Isn't your goal to help people and corporations to look inward in order to better express themselves in the world?

Yes, I guess you are right. But the self-help industry is so filled with people who learned to be a yoga teacher last week and wrote a book this week. Our industry is the most unregulated, dangerous, self-proclaiming, money-spinning messing-with-people industry on earth. You need a license to give someone a massage. But you can mess with people’s hearts, minds and spirit if you just say “Oh, I am a native blood, therefore I have wisdom” or “I am Chinese therefore I am Tao” or “I am completely disconnected from reality, therefore I can sell books on angels.” You must see this yourself -- there are as many good results from self-help as bad… I think self-help leads to self-obsession, and self-obsession is about being loved, being lovable, being good, being happy. And the truth is none of those things ever made one human being happy. Helping others, loving others, loving beauty, appreciating people, this makes us happy because in doing that we forget our “self.” My favorite quote says to effect that self-help doesn’t work. It can’t, because the ultimate end is to discover there is no self, and therefore nothing needs help.

Q:

I love your statement that "people become as you treat them, and what you appreciate grows." One of the reasons awareness resonates so strongly for me is that I've found you can't appreciate what you don't notice! Does this idea fit in with what you meant?

A:

I’ve noticed, that if I don’t notice what is noticeable, then I get put on notice that my notice is not enticing. This is a very strong observation that you make. One that I think we can all learn from.

The forth Law of Nature is appreciation. So, I fill my head and heart with appreciation. Now, the complexity is that sometimes stuff happens and you don’t appreciate it, instead you want to run away from it, or fix it. But bloody hell, how far can you run? You can run all the way to Nepal, and still find the things that were annoying you in Sydney, or New York or in a commune, or in an ashram in India. Annoyance about things we don’t appreciate follows us.

When we talk about personal growth, most people measure this personal growth in how happy, wealthy, healthy, smart, or in control they are. This is not how nature measures growth. Nature measures growth by how much doesn’t annoy you. I know this is really weird language, but sometimes it’s great to put things in the negative.

Growth is not a gravitation toward the positive, it is the development of an appreciation for the negative. You are nature and all that you are is worthy of appreciation. We can’t run from those things we hate, we must learn to appreciate them, not change them.

Q:

Your vision is huge! It just feels like it takes such an expanded spirit to hold all those important, world-shifting intentions: to communicate the message of modern well-being, to transform educational systems, to inspire a new global perspective, etc. Can one person really do all these things? How do you keep so many big intentions present in your everyday life?

Frankly, I have no idea. The thing for me is about my intent. Each day I want to wake up and just burst with enthusiasm to get out of bed, do things that motivate me to give to others and be inspired. I am not interested in being depressed, or a victim of the system, or spending my whole precious life complaining that MacDonald’s hamburgers made me fat. I have a gift, if I die with it still inside, I’ll be pissed.

rself -- there are as many good results from self-help as bad… I think self-help leads to self-obsession, and self-obsession is about being loved, being lovable, being good, being happy. And the truth is none of those things ever made one human being happy. Helping others, loving others, loving beauty, appreciating people, this makes us happy because in doing that we forget our “self.” My favorite quote says to effect that self-help doesn’t work. It can’t, because the ultimate end is to discover there is no self, and therefore nothing needs help.

Q:

I love your statement that "people become as you treat them, and what you appreciate grows." One of the reasons awareness resonates so strongly for me is that I've found you can't appreciate what you don't notice! Does this idea fit in with what you meant?

A:

I’ve noticed, that if I don’t notice what is noticeable, then I get put on notice that my notice is not enticing. This is a very strong observation that you make. One that I think we can all learn from.

The forth Law of Nature is appreciation. So, I fill my head and heart with appreciation. Now, the complexity is that sometimes stuff happens and you don’t appreciate it, instead you want to run away from it, or fix it. But bloody hell, how far can you run? You can run all the way to Nepal, and still find the things that were annoying you in Sydney, or New York or in a commune, or in an ashram in India. Annoyance about things we don’t appreciate follows us.

When we talk about personal growth, most people measure this personal growth in how happy, wealthy, healthy, smart, or in control they are. This is not how nature measures growth. Nature measures growth by how much doesn’t annoy you. I know this is really weird language, but sometimes it’s great to put things in the negative.

Growth is not a gravitation toward the positive, it is the development of an appreciation for the negative. You are nature and all that you are is worthy of appreciation. We can’t run from those things we hate, we must learn to appreciate them, not change them.

Q:

Your vision is huge! It just feels like it takes such an expanded spirit to hold all those important, world-shifting intentions: to communicate the message of modern well-being, to transform educational systems, to inspire a new global perspective, etc. Can one person really do all these things? How do you keep so many big intentions present in your everyday life?

Frankly, I have no idea. The thing for me is about my intent. Each day I want to wake up and just burst with enthusiasm to get out of bed, do things that motivate me to give to others and be inspired. I am not interested in being depressed, or a victim of the system, or spending my whole precious life complaining that MacDonald’s hamburgers made me fat. I have a gift, if I die with it still inside, I’ll be pissed.

Edited by Melsia Wadsworth

Learn more about Chris Walker at his Web site www.ChrisWalker.com.au