just be it It’s about the work involved in establishing a dedicated practice to feelings of a bigger belonging through practices aimed at increasing feelings of compassion, gratitude and forgiveness

They Didn’t Teach This in School

Published on 12/09/09
by randy


I wish someone would have taught me the Second Law of Thermodynamics when I was in grade school.  It’s really not that difficult to understand and states, “Energy spontaneously tends to flow only from being concentrated in one place to becoming diffused or dispersed and spread out.” The ‘big deal’ about this is that, “all types of energy spread out like the energy in a hot pan (unless somehow they’re hindered from doing so) They don’t tend to stay concentrated in a small space; they flow toward becoming dispersed if they can — like electricity in a battery or a power line or lightning, wind from a high pressure weather system or air compressed in a tire, all heated objects, loud sounds, water or boulders that are high up on a mountain, your car’s kinetic energy when you take your foot off the gas. All these different kinds of energy spread out if there’s a way they can do so.”  Frank Lambert has fully elaborated on this law at  HYPERLINK http://secondlaw.oxy.edu/   It’s a law that helps us accept the natural tendency for people, animals, elements and all things to disperse energy and break down.

This law explains scientifically why we ‘tend’ to engage in behavior that may not be healthy.  It can explain our tendency to not follow those instructions we know are healthy for us.  We can speed our ‘entropy’ through ingestion of toxic foods or drink, drugs, smoking, mindless TV, sexual misconduct, stealing, war and violence or any other number of common addictions.  Or we can slow the dispersion of energy by ‘practicing’ the teachings common to most ancient wisdom.  By slowing our disintegration we actually speed our evolution to a higher being. Interestingly, this process requires ‘action’, the application of certain ancient laws that have been passed down through the ages.  So what are these laws?

Perhaps the best test of whether an action was destructive or health promoting is a review from the future.  We place our actions in a higher level of consciousness when we project forward, concluding we’d take the actions again if given the chance.  It means our actions will carry integrity when we pause to project into the future an image of our satisfaction just prior to initiating the action.  With this increased consciousness we move from our lower self and inhibit actions stimulated from negative emotion.  Ancient wisdom often directs us to take actions on our neighbor as though that same action were to be taken upon ourselves (The Golden Rule).  The main Law of Huna wisdom states that the action must be done for the best interest of all concerned with no harm to anyone.  All ancient wisdom stresses the “practice” of gratitude and forgiveness, yet we continue to destroy ourselves and one another through our lack of appreciation and our inability to let grudges go.

Actually, the truth test on whether an action inhibits entropy can be found in whether it’s “working” or “not working”.  Clearly, fear and anger have shown to never be effective except when one’s immediate physical well being is threatened.

Universal wisdom shows that ‘what we put attention to grows stronger’, so if we put our attention to ‘dis-ease’ and wishes to return to ‘normal’, we’ll grow our ‘dis-ease’.  If we put our attention to ‘wellness’ and those actions that promote health, we’ll grow in gratitude to health.  There are entire communities where elderly people recite their health ailments like a daily mantra.  As a society dedicated to ‘comfort’, ‘ease’ and ‘pleasure’, we’ve been raised outside the power in “use it or loose” function.  Without proper body use we’ve grown to a nation of obesity.  Our addiction to TV, computer games, spectator sports, gambling and other forms of ‘mindless’ consumption has resulted in the speeding up of our energy dispersion…of the entropy of a nation.

The solution to the natural pull of entropy is in “the practice” of the ancient laws.  Belief systems and thoughts without disciplined practice only hasten entropy.  When all ancient spiritual teaches direct us to reverence for life, why do we continue to war with one another?  When wisdom tells us conflict resolution comes only from love and listening to one another, why do we hold to the ‘belief’ that our security will come from weapons and war?  When we know our children’s happiness can always be sourced to gratitude, why do we not teach our children to say ‘thank you’ as a stimulus to their happiness?  When we know all grudges must be ‘cleared’ for health, why do we continue to prevent our healing?  When we know drugs, alcohol, cigarettes, fatty foods, sugar and heavily processed foods hasten our entropy, why do we continue to destroy our bodies with them?

It  boils down to ‘conscious’ living.  Do the actions we take hasten or slow the natural tendency for things to disperse energy?  It’s about ‘awareness’.  Perhaps the biggest steps we can take to slow our entropy would be regular meditation, exercises for strength, flexibility, and endurance, mindful consumption, and a disciplined practice to ‘review our actions’ with full consciousness before we take them. In the tradition of Hawaiian Huna, our actions either build positive or negative energy.  They promote positive speech, frequent contact with nature, gratitude and forgiveness, and harm to none with service to others.  When we’re uncertain it behooves us to ‘wait’, clear our thoughts and direct our request for clarity from the heart.

That's it. What Next?

Please leave your comment so we know what you think about this article. Trackback URL: They Didn’t Teach This in School.