My Integrated Philosophy and Its Symbol

Thank you for joining me at my new virtual home.  I look forward to continuing and elevating the conversation with each of you.  As you will see by looking around the site, I have set my sights on some future intentions (speaking, ongoing interviews) while continuing our conversation on this blog.  In case you are new, the conversation is about personal improvement, peace, and business success while recognizing our connection with nature and the rest of humanity.

The Symbol

It’s become clear to me recently that though I didn’t make up the philosophy that guides my life, I have integrated several ideas from life experience and various schools of thought.  Though I don’t have a name for this philosophy, a symbol has presented itself in my mind, which you will see in the upper left corner of this site.  The image first appeared in my mind several months ago while I was outlining the various stages of self-awareness, meditation, balance, business, and civic life.

The horizontal line represents the surface world – the world that we encounter physically every day.  Money, jobs, buildings, civilization, nature, and your body exist on this level.

Beneath the surface we see a singular dot – the point of origin.  This is your serene, unthinking self – your simple existence.  You can feel the peacefulness of this place while in meditation – no thoughts, no fears, just being alive.

The goal for each of us is to access this singular point and allow it to guide our existence on the surface world.  We use our activities in the physical realm (our doing) to bring us closer to understanding ourselves (self-awareness). The sweeping “shoots” represent the boundaries of your life as it grows from a singular reference point to the larger, more complicated surface world.  You can think of this as a flowering from a seed.  The flower is beautiful and attractive but it’s the roots beneath the surface that provide stability and nourishment.

In life, there are uncountable micro-steps to achieving your flow in everyday life.  These practices fit in between the “shoots” in this illustration.  There is a continuous feedback loop between ‘doing’ in the surface world and your quiet, peaceful source of reference.  This process uses self-awareness (recognizing your thoughts and feelings) to bring balance (keep what feels good, get rid of what doesn’t) to your life.  The micro-steps, exercises, and tools that help in this process fit in between the seed and the flowering of your life on the surface.

In the practice of accessing the silent place of stillness, we realize that each of us is connected to all other humans and to our natural world (the earth).  Our connection to all life is represented by the circle. Earth contains each of us for a period of time, but eventually we pass on from the physical world, while life continues.  In our time on earth, we have a responsibility to find our truest selves, manifest that into the world but to always do so while considering if our actions are positive for the rest of nature and humanity.

Join Me

Everything in our surface physical world starts from beneath the surface in someone’s subconscious.  My goal is to teach and inspire you to access the deepest aspects of yourself and to help you recognize that you are connected to all living things – nature and humanity.  I believe this is the key to creating a world of peace and prosperity for all.

I know these goals seem lofty, ambitious, and perhaps somewhat crazy.  But I see this world around me and I believe the message can be spread further.  I believe a more peaceful, creative, and harmonious world is possible.  Join me in this effort by listening in (subscribe to the RSS email feed above, upper right), contributing to the conversation (leaving your comments on posts or emailing me: benjacoe(at)gmail.com) or making change in your own life and telling me about it (for our interview section).  Thank you for reading, for being and for doing!

~Ben