INTRODUCTION
The Purpose and Meaning of AGING and he Importance of Mantras
An Example
A Mantra for
AGING PEACEFULLY
Look for beauty in all things
Expect love at all times
Share from the heart
Be grateful for life itself
And SMILE
My wife Jean and I wrote the above mantra 12 years ago when we first moved from our small but cozy, bungalow of 46 years to an assisted living community. It’s one of those stages in life when everyone faces multiple SELF to WORLD adjustments that they don’t really expect.
We were fortunate enough to recognize that given the medical and other conditions of change that were affecting us, we were going to have to make some major adjustments and needed to rethink our lives personally and even even mutually. Simply put, we were GROWING OLDER. No, Call it AGING.
At the time, we both were both retired. Mindfulness was not so much a concern as Soulfulness. Jean immediately became active the community and eventually was elected president of the resident’s committee. I was too busy with the writing of a book to sum up my 25 years of private practice as a social worker to recognize that the mantra we were composing might also be of value to others as well as to Jean and myself. In short, we were adjust but we needed to gather our thoughts.
I had noticed that basic to my private practice were four questions that people used as a sort of checklist, a serices of progress questions:
Who am I?
What’s it all about?
Were do I fit in?
What are were here?
We decided to use it as a basis for the development of our mantra. mantra. At the time, we didn’t realize the possible use of by others to develop a personal mantra relative to their management of SELF to WORLD. Also, the WORLD was not in such turmoil back the. Still I continue to use it. We were personally at ease and didn’t feel the need to find pollical ways of expressing it
Today, the WORLD is in even deeper trouble than it was then. Added to the list of woes we not have several ongoing global wars and the global warming to add to our list of problems. We need today to get beyond the present dualism of MINDFULNESS and SOULFULNESS - Physical, and Intellectual and the one and Emotional and Spiritual on the other. Otherwise, we will continue to be stressed out personally and be at odds with one another politically. Worse, we will disrupt the flow of knowledge that converts into wisdom and passes on one generation to the next.
Even my generation’s more recent attempts at three-dimension learning and personal and political dialogue will not be enough to repair the damage. The fact of the matter is that we are beginning to live in a global community of our own design and it is proving to be woefully lacking in terms of the total wisdom of our humanity as a whole.
Fortunately, mantras like the one that Jean and I cIntroduction: In this book, I use my twenty five years in private practice plus the ongoing advances in learning in psychology and theology combined together to explore the future of a SELF and WORLD in transition.
PART I: The Pupose and Meaning Of AGING
There is an overall lack of leadership today and we as individuals will need to inform ourselves more personally rather than politically. To do this, we will need to move beyond our present state of mindfulness to that of soulfulness.
This redefines AGING based on shifting of four growth and development transitions and as result, on the expanded demand for universal love personally and politically. . Particularly as we are confronted with conditions of a global lifestyle
This is based on new information about the brain and a revised theory called “ego autonomy” emerging from Freud vs Jung resolutions. omposed for ourselves are four dimensional in outlook and help us to recall the ONENESS of life will help us to align ourselves SELF to WORLD daily in today’s highly competitive, computer driven WORLD.
To make that transition from SELF to SOUL we need an even higher sense of inner alignment. I have singled out three of my most recent writings as examples. They are clearly one person’s explorations BEYOND MINFULNESS and SOULFULNESS in search of PEACEFULNESS. . We need a formula reflecting the Ages and stages of our humanity itself!
We can develop mantras that are four dimensional for ourselves and use them daily to keep ourselves on track with our lives and we can use them to guide our participation and contribution to the world around us. SELF to WORLD. That’s called contributing to our “collectivity” as a family, as a community, and as a society by professional. And we can use them to feel a part of humanity as a whole on generation to the next. That’s called GENERATIVITY. In either case the process of called AGING. It’s that way we’re equipped. With two hemisphere, we have the capacity for four-dimensional learning!
We mantras to lo remind us daily that we are part and parcel of a humanity and to extend our personal and political development, we work closer to capacity. But we can also use mantras as formulas like:
MINDFULNESS plus SOULFULNESS equals PEACEFULNESS
By using formulas, we open ourselves up up more totally to the AGING process itself and move from knowledge to wisdom. We realize that we are members of something much larger then ourselves - of a humanity and beyond that, a universe as a whole. In short, it opens us up to Cosmic Awareness.
By using four-dimensional mantras to look at life, we no longer see our SELVES in terms of our personal and political differences but also our sameness - our togetherness. We no longer see the other people living in the various WORLDS that interface with ours as their power versus ours. Instead, we see ourselves working together as a common humanity. We move from SELF to SOUL, Apparently, Mantras are a way of maintaining the momentum of this awaeness day to day!
Recent neurological studies suggest that the AGING is a learning process begins at birth - as a SELF that evolves into a SOUL. It is a gradual awareness confirmed by our ongoing experiences. SELF-awareness is governed by the left hemisphere of of our brains and is responsible for our leaning about the physical and intellectual dimensions of our lives.
SOUL-awareness is governed ty the right and is responsible for our learning about the emotional and spiritual dimensions of our lives. The two hemispheres of our brain - right and left - are designed to work together as one.
As a result of our having two versions of the world around us running either side of our brains, there is a constant balancing and re-balancing process going on between the two hemispheres of our brains going on - a shifting back and forth from the SELF-awareness of MINDFULNESS to the SOUL-awareness of SOULFULNESS as we are inundated by information about the world around us and integrate the new with the old nanosecond by nanosecond. It’s the amazing work of a corpus callosum joining the two hemispheres of our brains, consciously or unconsciously.
This is a natural evolutionary process. It’s the ongoing learning that has taken us person by person and generation by generation toward an unknown future - a common human destiny that we contribute to and benefit from. Properly aligned with the cosmic forces of life, it is has enormous potential for our SELF-healing and WORLD-peace making.
Since writing the mantra for AGING PEACEFULLY 12 years ago, a lot has happened relative to my personal and political existences, that is to my SELF and the WORLD around me. I ’ve managed to survive three major operations of surgery on cancer plus two radiation therapies Jean chose to die with dignity.s moving one generation to the next. Love’s awareness is of our connectivity one person to another. It is also about our generativity one generation to the next.
ABOUT BOOK I - THE POWER OF LOVE’s CONNECTIVITY: A Case Study of Medical Assistance.
I wrote this at the suggestion of members of my family, that I e. compiled this book in 2018 from the writings that Jean left behind, particularly from her self-composed obituary which she wrote in the first person and her interviews with trained volunteers from Dying with Dignity. To Jean, her dying was a matter of her valuing life so highly and of expressing her gratitude for living.
eJean was very open abo ut herself and life. Similarly about death. When we were in palliative care, she managed somehow to meet individually with all of our family members and with her most intimate friends. and she wrote her own obituary and participated in the planning of her celebration of life. She was truly at peace. She wanted people to know about the possibility of dying with dignity.
It is about dying with dignity. But first and foremost, it is a love story co-authored by both of us.
ABOUT Book II - AGING MINDFULLY, SOULFULLY and PEACEFULLY in the NEW POST-PANDEMIC ERA
This book offers a new way of looking at AGING based on recent discoveries about the brain and how it functions. The intent is to develop AGING as a more meaningfully as a lifelong process and as a source of possible solutions for those times and places when we are impacted negatively. It argues that if we are to use the full extent of our brain power in the new post-pandemic era, we will have to be more aware of it and manage it more holistically, that is four dimensionally by merging our learning of the physical, intellectual, emotional and spiritual in to one. Four working principles from the profession of social work are identified:
The dignity and worth of the individual person
2. The development and growth of individuals
3. The plasticity four dimensionally for change
4. The ongoing homeostasis for integration and balance
It argues that the WORLD-view that we have accepted for our SELVES is not working as fully as needed. Thus, we are the WORLD that we are building. It is disturbing to feel that we are not on the right track but also it is comforting to know that we are going through a critical time in life together, personally and politically, to the extent that regardless of age or other obvious differences, we can have common goals based on our humanity as a whole and it’s eventual outcome.
To use the full potential of our brain power, we will have to seek new ways to be a part of the rebuilding of the social and economic structures that have been governing our lives. We will have to find new ways of expressing for the sense of balance within us, physical and intellectual versus emotional and spiritual. Left hemisphere versus right hemisphere.
To satisfy the full potential of our brain power, we need to be constantly seek a new alignments, SELF to WORLD, individually and collectively, personally and politically, which are more inclusive of our humanity as a whole with its immense breadth of diversity as well as its unfathomable depth of unity. We will have to move beyond our present state of MINDFULNESS versus SOULFULENSS to the more inclusive PEACEFULNESS where we can feel and learn to value being At-One with the Universe.
a, we will be more aware of ourselves as aging and we will seek new ways to be a part of the rebuilding of the social and economic structures that have been governing our lives. We will seek to find expression for the new sense of balance within us, physical and intellectual versus emotional and spiritual. We will seek a new alignment, SELF to WORLD, which is more inclusive of our humanity with its immense breadth of diversity as well as its unfathomable depth of unity.”
Clearly, the two streams of learning - MINDFULNESS (physical, mental) and SOULFULNESS (emotional, spiritual) when merged together four-dimensionally as one open the way to our experiencing more fully the kind of PEACEFULNESS that has been hidden beneath the surface our consciences. There is a new potential for learning.
We need more positive ways of thinking about life beyond COVID-19. In particular, global warfare, global warming and a myriad of global issues that seem to be beyond our humanity as a whole.
ABOUT BOOK iii
TOWARD A MORE LOVING AND CARING WORLD
Although I did not occur to me to self-publish this book until 2014, I wrote it bit by bit over the period of 23 years from 1972 to 1995 that I was in private practice as a family and child therapist and community development consultant. We tend not to think ourselves that way, that is, as having accumulated years of experience in whatever field of work with the result of developing a level of expertise that is valuable one generation to the next. We participate busily - often taking leadership roles what shape the future of our professions and, indeed of our local and global communities - but we don’t value it, it seems. But in fact, there is our connectivity to another on the one hand and also our generativity - our generation to the next. These two processes are intertwined into AGING.
When we retire, we think that our learning retires with us. This has not been the case for me. In continuing self-publishing, I have been very clear about my wanting to passing my learning on. As a result, I have intentionally filled TOWARD A MORE LOVING AND CARING WORLD with quotations from my favorite authors as well as my ongoing learning.
Self-publication has been a means of making this happen. Jean was a great hlelp to me in the years that it took for me to write TOWARD A MORE LOVING AND CARING WORLD in particular. Truly, a partner.
Start each day by asking life four most basic questions: 1) who am I ? 2) what’s it all about? 3) where do i fit in ?4) why are we here? There are no answers. Only more questions.
ABOUT THE AUTHORS
Jean Ayre wrote her own obituary and planned her own Celebration of Life with the intent of helping others enjoy and be grateful for life in the face of death by becoming more familiar with the notion of dying with dignity. Her words are central to this book. More about Jean →
Don Ayre has put Jean’s words into the context of the new and revolutionary practices that are challenging today’s medical professionals…and us. In the very real sense that these two books are based on their mutual experience and love, they are co-authored. More about Don →
Jean assisted in the writing of Toward a More Loving and Caring World previously featured on this site. The hash marks in the upper right corner of this page lead to additional information and a CONTACT form for visitors to comment or share ideas or resources that they are have. Both books are available for purchase later on this page along with the more recent the self-publication by DON AYRE…
Evolution of Universal Love and of Personal and Political Contribution Globally -
North America is split into two competing nations - United States versus Canada - because of an overall lack of an awareness of universal love, personally and politically. we are not AGING in the sense of our being committed to a learning process that is open to change through growth and development.
My first real awareness of my own AGING within the larger developmental context of universal l love was s not of a lifelong process of fulfilment. It was only of vague feelings of discomfort about what I had been learning from my family and friends through elementary and high school and on to three degrees of University training the basics of psychology, sociology and even theology.
Even so, I had remained an active questioner, seemingly at odds with the general flow of ideas and learning. But was I living out my life fully enough? Was I seeing the my SELF and the WORLD around me totally enough? It was beginning to bother me. How were the two were interrelated? SELF with WORLD? My friends, in fact almost my whole generation it seemed, were beginning to express the same concerns. It was the aftermath of the atomic bombs dropped on Japan by the united states of America to end WW II. Obviously, the WORLD that we had been building for our SELVES was not working out!
What was happening was that it was becoming increasingly important - by small incremental steps - that our learning as individual and as a humanity generally were out of synch. It seemed that we were part and parcel of the society that we were building. But we didn’t like the way it was taking shape!
Learning about the WORLD we are living in is gained from our ongoing education and personal experiences from the top down whereas learning about our humanity bubbles up from within. My generation was no long comfortable with the slogans like “make love, not war.” It was no longer were comfortable with protests. Our two stream of learning were not always in synch and we wanted change. The ongoing process of our AGING could no longer be taken for granted.
I was asked by Lyle Longclaws to present his band with a socioeconomic model that was more in keeping with today. .Lyle was a former chief of Manitoba Council of Chief, in fact the youngest to have served. He had just returned home to Lizard Point Reserve. Like me, he had his University training in Social Work. We worked together with a homebuilder for several years. our community development efforts lead us to the youth who nots get employment after their schooling. Lyle called it “Bridging the Gap” based on his own experience. It was my first time on a reserve. Eventually we were funded by Employment and Immigration Canada bbut wew h were asked to move into the City of Winnipeg were the problem was even more severe.
Then came 1980. The First Global Conference on the Future held in Toronto Ontario June 1980. Over 6,000 attended to hear 60plus academic and learned papers about the future. The theme of the confnerence was Thinking Globally, Actig Locally. It lasted almost a decade afterwards.
I was asked to present a paper along with Jackson Beardy, an internationally famed Aboriginal artist!. As there was no PowerPoint at the time, our presentation was to be a mix my words from an earlier research document and Jackson’s pen and ink drawings as a slide presentation. 37 people attended.
The pen and ink drawing of Einstein included here is by Jackson. It was his suggestion for the title page of our slide presentation. In my earlier paper, I had described four lifestyles that were vaguely representative of dimensions within all of us.
Lois Riel, Malcom X, Freud, and Albert Schweizer. Jackson added a fifth: Albert Einstein.
There were no doubt others but Jackson’s choice was particularly important at this point . Jackson’s choices of drawings for our presentation based on my research were interesting in and of themselves. It introduced insights into how aboriginal and other minority groups understand North American history. .
The first two lifestyles represented by Jackson were 1) Louis riel and 2) Malcolm X were viewed historically as “rebellions” in Canada and United States respectively. Both the Louis Riel rebellion for Metis in Canada in the 1800’s and the black power movement in United Sates 100 years later were regarded as threatening enough to the main establishment that they had to be put down forcibly. Both leaders were assassinated but elders today continued to think that it was exactly this violence of whites that would lead to their eventual downfall.
Jackson’s remaining choices of lifestyle for his drawings were of a third lifestyle 3) as represented by Sigmund Freud, the dominant psychological and sociological at the time. Jung’s thinking was slower to evolve but Jackson included 4) a fourth lifestyle as represented by Albert Schweitzer. Both drawings 3) and 4) pointed toward an eventual resolution of socioeconomic instability, the one internationally and the other globally.
Jackson then added a fifth lifestyle 5) that was inclusive of all four previous lifestyles as represented by Albert Einstein who was leading way in outer space exploration but not yet of inner space. All that was needed, according to Jackson, was a build-up of our personal and political participation in a universal love for a cosmic awareness to happen.
In a variety of ways, we identify with the success and happiness the lifestyles as paths to follow within the dominant socioeconomic system.
This ongoing integration and balancing of information is performed by the corpus colossus, an information highway joining the two hemispheres of the brain – left for the physical and intellectual information and right for the emotional and spiritual information. The four combined as one would leads to decision-making based on universal love and ultimately to the development of an ecological conscience.
Jackson’s choices of drawings for our presentation based on my research were interesting in and of themselves. d called my earlier paper Human Dialogue and the Emergence of an Ecological Conscience. Jackson and I agreed to keep the title for our presentation although his illustration brought new purpose and meaning to it.
The conference theme was presented by Alvin Toffler who had just released his book -The Third Wave - documenting the looming need for social and economic change. A new global society was forthcoming.
Jackson and I continued to work together for several years using the research that we presented to at the First Global Conference on the Future. I helped Jackson arrange series of art showings of aboriginal artists like Jackson, were internationally known but not always accepted as such. More as craft.
He helped me develop the multicultural components of a computer-based training program for aboriginal youth. When Jackson died of heart failure two years later, both programs were being successful.
The Business Learning Opportunities training program lasted 10 years and graduated as a model in Winnipeg, hopeful of other Canadian communities. It had 37 workplace hosts when it was discontinued for lack of funding. It graduated18 students per year.
That was over forty years ago! Working with Jackson was an aha experience for me. Jackson was very insistent about the importance of elders to our growth and development as a humanity as a whole. In fact, he insisted on adding a drawing of Einstein to our presentation: “He was an elder to all of us - a global awareness.”
It seems that by reducing our perception of our SELVES and the WORLD around us to 3 dimensions instead of 4, we have short-circuited the aging process and access to our elders, the very maturity of our SELVES and the WORLD have continued to build!
There are four lifestyles and more, by adding in the integration of them as one, five lifestyles needed. I like to call it HOLISTIC AGING to indicate that the ongoing process of our learning has to be four dimensional and that elders have a role.
Our learning as individuals within a global society is limited to three dimensional and it tends to devalue that learning of elders. This means that we have not only greatly diminished our chances of personal fulfilment in life but also our opportunities for political resolutions.
We have limited our very own sense of humanity! We have not only limited our brain power by using it three dimensionally also our capacity for building but we are not building a four dimensional one supported by - physical, intellectual, emotional and spiritual.
Our lack of vision is blocking us from tapping the enormous energy field of which we are a part and of and of generating the universal love we need to complete it! Still Thinking Globally, Acting Locally remains as a possible solution.
At the time, neither Jackson nor I - nor anyone else at the First Global Conference on the Future - were looking for a quantum level formula to free up the process of our aging ecologically, But looking back now, it is possible to make the connection.
Einstein was insistent about putting ours SELVES - indeed our HUMANITY - at the center of our universe. Einstein’s famous formula for energy is E = mc². This equation, part of his theory of special relativity, states that energy (E) is equal to mass (m) multiplied by the speed of light © squared
Jackson explained it this way: “My people have observed that We are part and parcel of an enormous energy field that we can tap into. But we are also it’s caretaker and have to treat it with respect.”
According to both Jackson and Einstein, it calls for both objective plus subjective sciences. It calls for an appeal to the left and right hemispheres of our brains. In short, they both anticipate today’s need of an awareness of life that is four dimensional.
1.MINDFULNESS plus 2.SOULFULNESS equals 3.PEACEFULNESS.
4. COSMIC CONSCIOUSNESS - all three totaled together interactively as an integrated and balanced whole.
Similarly by asking ourselves what I have called “life’s four most basic questions” will prompt the bubbling up of our humanity.
Who am I?
What’s life all about?
Where do I fit in?
Why are we here?
It allows us to experience moments of PEACEFULNESS within SELF that are integrated and balanced as a whole and to participate in and contribute to a WORLD that is otherwise vast beyond our imagination. It is the purpose and meaning of our humanity itself! Universal Love is at the base of all we do - if we let it.
Einstein foresaw the development of quantum physics - a new science - to explore outer space. What we need now i a mTchinxw sc
