The Great Cosmic Lesson Plan: Healing through spirituality, humor and music - Softcover

Menahem, Samuel

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1504328914 ISBN 13: 9781504328913

Verlag: BalboaPress, 2015

Inhaltsangabe

The Great Cosmic Lesson Plan is a unique way of looking at life. It presents a perspective that combines spirituality, psychology, humor and music as pieces of the puzzle leading to a happy, peaceful, meaningful life. We are all connected to each other in the great energy source that is God. We become unhappy when things don't go our way in the material world. This book suggests that happiness will come from a gradual shift to spiritual values. The book presents practical techniques for letting go of anger, fear, guilt, and negative beliefs. Additionally, humor and music are very helpful in aiding the process of letting go. Part One explores changes which need to be made to find happiness and the means to accomplish those changes. Ultimately to reach this goal, there needs be a connection to the source of all being, often called God. Part Two presents this message in the form of a comic novel. Dr. Hans Off, a chiropractor meets tragedy when he is bitten by an aardvark and can no longer practice his profession. Instead of sinking into depression, he goes on a spiritual search to find new meaning in his life. He visits a variety of therapists including an analyst, an existentialist and a spiritual therapist. Dr. Off discovers that enlightenment requires lightening up.

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The Great Cosmic Lesson Plan

Healing Through Spirituality, Humor and Music

By Sam Menahem

Balboa Press

Copyright © 2015 Sam Menahem, Ph.D.
All rights reserved.

ISBN: 978-1-5043-2891-3

Contents

Introduction, ix, 
PART ONE, 
Chapter 1 The Great Cosmic Lesson Plan, 1, 
Chapter 2 The Only Answer There Is, 11, 
Chapter 3 We Have Everything Backwards, 15, 
Chapter 4 Guilty? Me?, 21, 
Chapter 5 Guilt, Anger and the Human Condition, 25, 
Chapter 6 What Does God Want From Us?, 34, 
Chapter 7 Forgiveness: The Key to Successful Psychotherapy, 38, 
Chapter 8 The Culture of Narcissism: Are we Putting Descartes before the Horse?, 49, 
Chapter 9 Loneliness: Is it the human condition? Can it be healed?, 51, 
Chapter 10 Meaning, Spirituality and Rock and Roll, 54, 
Chapter 11 Taking the "Self" out of Self-pity, 62, 
Chapter 12 What is Happiness?, 71, 
Chapter 13 What is Spiritual Reality? Get Real!, 74, 
Chapter 14 Do We Create Our Own Reality?, 77, 
Chapter 15 Freud Meets Jesus, 81, 
Chapter 16 What I think Jesus Really Meant, 86, 
Chapter 17 The Secret behind The Secret, 90, 
Chapter 18 You Are a Money Magnet, 94, 
Chapter 19 Can We Really Change? Or Are We Just Stuck The Way We Are?, 97, 
Chapter 20 Can We Heal Ourselves?, 100, 
Chapter 21 Reincarnation and Karma in Psychotherapy, 102, 
Chapter 22 The Power of Prayer Revisited, 109, 
Chapter 23 When Bad Things Happen ... A Response to Rabbi Harold Kushner, 114, 
Chapter 24 Non-Judgmental Awareness-Is it Possible or Desirable?, 125, 
Chapter 25 I Will Not Fear, 129, 
Chapter 26 A Poem to Heal By, 131, 
Chapter 27 Guided and Unguided Meditation, 133, 
Chapter 28 The Great Cosmic Chuckle, 135, 
PART TWO HANS OFF: THE PSYCHOLOGIST, 
Chapter 1 Hans Off Begins his Great Cosmic Lesson Plan, 147, 
Chapter 2 Hans and Otto, 156, 
Chapter 3 Studley Megabucks, 161, 
Chapter 4 By George, 165, 
Chapter 5 Whatever Lola Wants Lola Getz, 169, 
Chapter 6 Hey Wild Bill, 173, 
Chapter 7 The Dream, 176, 
Chapter 8 The Chase, 182, 
Chapter 9 The Funny Farm, 186, 
Chapter 10 Anal's Analysis, 189, 
Chapter 11 The Cosmic Chuckle, 193, 
Chapter 12 Benny Oldman, 195, 
Chapter 13 Lola Returns, 200, 
Chapter 14 Xavier Istential Ph.D., 202, 
Chapter 15 The Holy Laughatron, 204, 
Chapter 16 The Denial of Death, 209, 
Chapter 17 Hans Takes Off, 212, 
Chapter 18 The Big Bang Theory, 216, 
Chapter 19 Hans Off Accepts Life As It Is, 219, 
Author Bio, 221, 
Acknowledgements, 223, 
References, 225, 
Appendix: Some techniques for self-healing, 229, 

CHAPTER 1

The Great Cosmic Lesson Plan

"Hey dad, what is life for anyway? It's not that much fun." This question was posed by my nine-year old daughter Lauren. We were riding in the car, on the way to a "biddy basketball" game (a children's league). I guess she wasn't enjoying the games too much. But I didn't know the exact reason for her question. Somehow, at that moment, she was wondering what life is all about and I had to respond. I replied with the first answer that popped into my head, "Life is about loving, as many people as you can ... as often as you can."

The second part of her statement about fun gave me a clue about how to continue. "You are right: nobody has fun all the time," I told her. "You do have fun sometimes don't you?" She admitted that was true. I continued. "But if you love people as much as you can, you will be happy. That is the most important thing in life, love people and you will be happy." We then went on to the game and the question was dropped. My daughter has grown up into a happy young woman, who has her share of fun, with occasional doses of negative events and issues. No more than anyone else, less than others. I sometimes wonder if she even remembers that conversation. My guess is no. But from my observations, she is a very loving person, so she followed my advice. She is learning her life lessons in her own way.

Still, is that enough of an answer to a question that has perplexed human beings since time immemorial? Maybe it sounds too trite or pat to an adult who is battling serious illness, financial ruin or a puzzling series of failures. Just love everyone. Some might be thinking: "Yeah right, I'm going to love my husband who just cheated on me and left me." Or, "Sure, I'll just love everyone while I die of cancer or heart disease." "Well, my house just floated away in a hurricane, but I'll just love everyone and it will be all right." In short, there is a lot of resistance to accepting a life that is full of problems, issues and seemingly negative events. People often get discouraged, depressed, and filled with self-pity and anger when things don't go their way. What is there to say without being banal or trite?

Bad Things, Good People

I give many speeches. During these talks, I often ask the audience two questions. First, "How many people here think they are a good person?" Everyone, of course, raises their hand. Then I ask, "How many people here have had at least one bad thing happen to them?" After a few snickers, of course, everyone raises their hand again. I then pronounce, "Now you know why Rabbi (Harold) Kushner sold so many copies of his book, "When Bad Things Happen to Good People." Bad things happen to all people." The question we ask ourselves in times of distress shouldn't be, "Why me?" It should be:

"Why not me?"

Rabbi Kushner might even agree with that statement. However, we seem to have different concepts of God. He portrays God as a wonderful, but overworked parent, with many children, running around, putting out fires. God is very busy, says Rabbi Kushner, sometimes he slips up, and bad things happen. This is how the Rabbi counters the erroneous concept that bad things happen as a punishment for being bad. Indeed, bad things also happen to good, righteous people. However, I think he misses the mark with the overworked parent metaphor. There must be some other reason so many "bad" things happen to all people. Of course, people are not all bad or all good. Most of us try our best to live a good and righteous life. All of us, however, have the potential to do some hurtful things. Psychologically, this is called our "shadow." So are the bad events of our life the result of unknown bad deeds? Or repressed shadow emotions? Are we being punished for real or imagined thoughts and actions? I think not. The punishment metaphor just does not hold up for me. I just do not see God as a vengeful judge or a beleaguered parent. I will explore in more depth the differences between Rabbi Kushner's philosophy and mine in a later chapter.

Atheists have a different view of why things happen the way they do, randomness. My scientific, materialist friends might jump in and say, "Why are you trying to make sense out of meaningless events? Stuff just happens. Why not just accept your life and do the best you can? Why do you have to make up a supernatural God that punishes or saves? Just suck it up and make the best of your life before you die and are obliterated." Whew! To me, that is a very depressing pathway. In order to go down that path, you have to be very cynical. You have to ignore the many wonderful qualities of all being. You have to ignore all selfless acts of love, all beauty, chocolate, ice cream, wisdom, and baseball, the very essence of how life may have started in the first place. Was life started by a...

Details zur Ausgabe

• Verlag: BalboaPress
• Erscheinungsdatum: 2015
• Sprache: Englisch
• ISBN 10: 1504328914
• ISBN 13: 9781504328913
• Einband: Taschenbuch
• Anzahl der Seiten: 246
• Kontakt zum Hersteller: Nicht verfügbar
• Verantwortliche Person: gpsr@libri.de; gpsr@libri.de; ; Europaallee 1; Bad Hersfeld; 36244; Deutschland