Know exactly what to do in any situation

Learn the art of following charm. (3min read)

A little recap…

In our first issue, we discussed the importance of trying things for ourselves to gain the highest-quality information—direct experience. 

Rather than taking someone else’s word, or analyzing it from every angle, we “leap first” using our gut and “look later” by using our rational mind to review the information gleaned from that experience, to make an even better decision next time. 

In the grand scheme, we’ll evolve much faster and arrive at those better decisions before someone who spent more time analyzing and less time acting.

As Tom Cruise says in Top Gun, “Don’t think. Just do.”

Does that mean things will always turn up roses as long as we follow our gut?

Not at all.

We’ll make mistakes. We’ll fail. We’ll crash and burn.

But in so doing, we’ll ultimately learn.

In our second issue, I recalled a story in which I attempted to “act” against nature’s current and force a situation to go a certain way by sheer will. 

By reviewing the firsthand information I gleaned from that decision later, I ultimately learned it’s usually best not to do that.

Does that mean we should never challenge the status quo? 

Does it mean we are destined to live our entire lives in accordance with an invisible grand plan written in the stars? 

Or can we change the stars, transforming life’s proverbial lemons into something other than lemonade?

How do we know when it’s time to go with the flow, and when it’s time to carve a new route?

How do we know if what we’re experiencing is guidance lighting the way or resistance testing our grit?

We follow charm. 

Charm is our trusty divining rod, leading us without fail to the most evolutionary decision available to us. 

Scarface’s Tony Montana famously said “I always tell the truth, even when I lie.” 

What could that possibly mean?

By following charm, we can never go wrong—even if we do. 

Allow me to explain…

Following charm doesn’t mean pursuing a life of pleasure and gratification.

Charm is felt on a subtle level, beyond thought, and comes from Big Self—nature’s cosmic intelligence within us—as opposed to the small self rational thinking mind, which some in the West might call “ego.”

Nature, in all its infinite intelligence, makes certain things charming to us, in order to help guide us on our evolutionary path.

Following charm is what led me to leave my role as a music executive to become a meditation teacher—it wasn’t rational, it didn’t make financial sense, and it wasn’t easy—but I felt the current pulling me on a level deeper than any of that. 

Life as a teacher has worked out well for me so far—but even if it hadn’t, following charm was still the right decision. 

That’s because sometimes, the most evolutionary option for us is to make a “mistake”, from which we can learn a lesson we needed to learn. Of course, there are no such things as mistakes, only lessons.

For example, if things hadn’t worked out for my teaching career, maybe it was because I needed to learn that the grass isn’t always greener on the other side.

Other times, charm leads us from Point A to Point B, only so that we can see our ultimate destination, Point C, from there.

For example, maybe the charm I felt to become a meditation teacher was really just so that I would realize I love teaching and ultimately become a grade-school teacher. (So far, not happening!)

So how can we align with our own inner charm compass?

Only by accessing our least-excited state of mind.

And how do we access that least-excited state?

Each time we sit for our twice-daily practice of Vedic Meditation, we remove more and more stress from our psycho-physiology, in effect cleaning the grime off the camera lens, sharpening our perception, deepening our awareness, and allowing us clearer and clearer access to our own inner charm as it bubbles up from that place beyond thought, that place where we are one with nature. 

Without this crucial component of Vedic Meditation, we end up having our lives guided by the impulses from the stress we’re carrying around, which can cause us to move toward some pretty unsustainable and non-life-supporting behaviors.

In a way, you can say following charm is following nature.

Since nature always knows better than us, as demonstrated by its ability to maintain order in the entire universe for billions of years, we’re guaranteed to end up exactly where we need to be for our own personal evolution. 

Music this week from rising star out of Mexico City, Ela Minus, with “they told us it was hard, but they were wrong.”, who just had her collaboration with DJ Python named to Pitchfork’s The 100 Best Tracks of 2022. I had this album on repeat when it came out and am proud to consult for Ela’s management team today.