Most of my writing is about self-enquiry these days

What is self-enquiry? It’s a way of deeply observing your own sense of self to see what lies beneath the illusion of what we believe we are. Since the earliest age we have been conditioned with thought by our parents, relatives, teachers, religion, and all sorts of other sources of authority. As a result we have formed a sense of self, often called an ego, or “me.”

The self believes it is separated from the rest of reality, including its own proclivities and negative aspects. And this causes all kinds of problems due to the ensuing internal conflict.

Self-enquiry isn’t a belief system. It is a practice of observation without judgment, presumptions, or criticisms. It’s just looking at what you are, how you tend to think, what you tend to think about, and so on.

I tackle many of the issues of the self and how to get out of its trap in my book entitled 13 Pillars of Enlightenment: how to realize your true nature and end suffering, which is doing amazingly well in terms of readership. If you are one of the few people who have always wondered about the fundamental questions about life and existence, this book may help you.

You can read my articles on self-enquiry on medium.com and substack.com.

The Enduring Myth of the Buddha: New Book Release

The story of Siddhartha Gautama, who became the Buddha, connects the human psyche to the transcendent. My new book, The Enduring Myth of the Buddha, is rich in metaphor that touches the heart and has the power to turn the egoic self back onto itself to question your very essence. 

Maybe you’re wondering: What the heck does this mean?

The egoic self is what we commonly call “me,” and we are referring to a person who we only believe we are — complete with ideas, memories, dispositions, preconceptions, fears, biases, and attitudes that interfere with our seeing life for what it really is, which is the source of suffering. To move past this egoic self is to end suffering and find a life of compassion; and this was the core of the Buddha’s teachings.

Siddhartha ultimately discovered that we suffer due to the way our minds are psychologically conditioned to believe we are separate from all others. Because we do not realize that everything is available to us, we are always desiring to get or attain something to make us feel whole and happy. To truly understand this fact of life takes enquiring into your own sense of self to find out what you are beneath this conditioned mind. And this is what Siddhartha had done, and once he knew he became the Buddha — the awakened one.

This book has little to do with Buddhism as a religion, and mostly to do with Buddha as a mythical figure whose life, actions, words, and relationships are full of power that bring to the fore compassion, humanity, love, respect, deep thinking, caring, and the transcendence beyond human suffering and desire. This is a light and interesting study that appreciates the metaphor and myth in the Buddha story to reflect on your own life. While it is most common to regard the life of the Buddha as an historical fact and a suggestion to quiet the mind and avoid attachment, the Buddha myth is really a much deeper teaching, and I have used the teachings of other enlightened persons who were able to elucidate what it means to be awake in a world otherwise perceived by the limited mind of the egoic self.

I am not a Buddhist nor a Buddhist scholar, and The Enduring Myth of the Buddha is not an academic work; I leave such writings to the experts. My interest in writing this book was to explore the depths of the myth, as well as to make it clear that a myth, despite popular misuse of the word, does not equate to a lie. Rather, a myth is a story that guides you back from the objective to the subjective to find out who you are at the core. As such, it does not matter whether you are a religious person, an atheist, or merely interested in a subject  that moves your thinking about your self beyond materialist, scientific, religious, and academic thinking.

The Buddha’s teachings have endured for millennia for a good reason that is fundamental to who we are as human beings, and if we regard his story literally then we are apt to miss the richness of his hero’s journey.

Do we create reality, or are we reality itself?


Consciousness: The Potentiality of All Existence: Exploring reality and belief as a subjective experience

For many years I had read how we create our own reality. This was a great puzzle to me. Of course, it’s quite easy to repeat what others have said and then convince yourself that it’s true. This is called belief. Belief is not knowing; it is not a realization. You can believe that out-of-body experiences are real, but unless you have had one or a thousand then you don’t really know what it feels, looks, or sounds like. It remains an idea, but not a realization. You can also believe that life has a purpose, but it is only the conditioned mind that tells you this out of belief and not as a fact. And you can believe that you create your own reality, but unless you fully see this then it remains a belief.

Consciousness is the totality of all that is. It is existence at all levels, including all emotions as well as pairs of opposites that we call duality. Consciousness is a field of potentialities pertaining to what may or can happen, as well as the entire range of experiences, phenomena, expressions, and thoughts. The contents of consciousness is consciousness; it’s the whole enchilada, uninterrupted. And this totality is each one of us. It is as much in us as it is us.

Consciousness as the totality
Everything is consciousness; it’s the singular movement of life, and because we are all consciousness then we know of all of the dualities of hot and cold, good and bad, caring and uncaring, smart and stupid, loud and quiet, tall and short, wild and controlled, chaotic and ordered, and so on. It is the brain and mind that makes this possible.

The writer creates reality
As consciousness, we all are the creators of our own reality, each and every waking moment, as well as in every moment of a dream or daydream. When you look into this to see for yourself you can consider that all of the good, bad, and indifferent are within you.

Delving deep into consciousness in my new book

When I wrote Consciousness: The Potentiality of All Existence: Exploring reality and belief as a subjective experience, I knew I was jumping into turbulent waters, because there is such a huge divide between materialist science and spirituality. Strangely, as I discovered in the process of writing, both religious people and materialist scientists base their opinions about spirituality on beliefs. Both ends of the spectrum swear that they are right and that they have the answers to life’s questions, including what consciousness is. But it turns out that a belief is a belief, which means that the believer has no idea of what the truth is, yet this is what shapes most people’s opinions and actions.

Consciousness isn’t a book for everyone, because it’s quite honest in its approach to who we are and why we see the world in our own unique ways. Honesty does not sit well with the egoic sense of self. The self has been conditioned since birth to believe it is a body and all of the attachments and identities that go along with it. In essence, people are not who they take themselves to be; they are amalgams of thoughts that are unreliable, ephemeral, and changeable.

Although we are quiet complex people, this book is easier reading than it looks!

In Consciousness, I discuss all sorts of ideas of what consciousness is, according to the experts who ironically really do not know very much outside of their own guesses and iffy conclusions, whether they are scientists or self-proclaimed New Age experts. If you are alive, you are experiencing consciousness.

This book also dives into the many experiences in consciousness — near death and out of body experiences, dreaming, lucid dreaming, intuition, hallucinogenic trips, imagination, quantum entanglement, and more.

It’s so easy that it’s hard
So how do you get to the bottom of what consciousness is? The answer is so easy that it is mostly overlooked. In addition to my experience with many years of self-enquiry meditation, I turned to some of the most respected and profound teachers who have realized their own natures by waking up to what they are not. That’s right, what they are not. This means that we all have the ability to observe our own state of being and see where thoughts come from, how they rise and fall, and how they accrete to form a sense of self.

A number of gurus have taught about finding one’s true nature as consciousness down through the ages, from Buddha to Rumi, and from Jiddu Krishnamurti to Ramana Maharshi. These individuals have all said the same thing: You cannot rely on information, teachings, rituals, religion, ideas, thinking, or practice to realize consciousness; you just have to observe with great persistence, desire, and interest, and eventually it dawns on you who you are.

If you are too tied to your beliefs about who you are, as well as the teachings of New Age philosophy, religion, or materialist science, then don’t take this book personally. You can read it for an intellectual understanding. Or if you are brave enough you can look into your own self at the deepest level and in the process let go of your preconceptions and suppositions. Read the book and investigate your own nature. It’s quite rewarding if you can do it.

Happy reading!

#neardeathexperiences #outofbodyexperiences #dreams #quantumentanglement

Find out who we really are, beyond the mind

Recently I published two books about the mind and how it creates stress, happiness, illness, and health. The books are Stressing Out Over Happiness, and The Guidebook to Stress, Meditation and Happiness. My goal is to go far past the subject of the mind. This is why I wrote my latest book, 13 Pillars of Enlightenment, which is a novel about self-realization and enlightenment. Through the eyes of its protagonist this book takes you on a journey into the sense of self and then far beyond. It took me more than 60 years of research and a year to write this book.

This new work is a short narrative novel that leads you to find the most mysterious and illusive aspect of life throughout the ages. It’s been called self realization, enlightenment, or realizing your true nature. Nonetheless, these terms are relatively meaningless and can only point to what exists behind that which we call the mind, body, and reality. I am hoping that this book can point you toward your own realization about who you are, if that’s what you desire.

My goal is to share the most fundamental tenets related to enlightenment. In the book I also go into the problem of language in trying to shed light on something that is beyond language, concepts, and images. Ultimately, I hope that you will be able to find out for yourself where thoughts come from, how they form the sense of self and the world that seems to exist, and how to discover the true nature of the essence of existence.

Letter from a reader of Remember Us.

Thank you for sharing your personal letter!

 

Dear Mr. Shayne,

Thank you for offering a unique reading experience with the the book Remember Us. I am just at the end of it and I must say it really is a moving story.
I have read a lot of books / biographies depicting these horrific times and still one meets a Holocaust denier, even here in peaceful Sweden; just recently realized one of our friends is just that.

There has been scary statistics presented in media here, how little the youth of Sweden know about this sad period of our recent history.

As for my own family, on my father’s side, they had top pay a heavy toll; my grand father was a brave man who together with som friends organized escapes for jews and other persecuted people. They managed to get them out from Hungary to Romania through Transylvania where they lived. Ultimately, of course, Gestapo found out and my grandfather, grandmother (and unfortunately, my uncle, who was over from Budapest for the weekend) were taken away, never to come back again.

My grandmother on my mother’s side, helped Jewish directors of their savings bank to get Swedish papers from Raoul Wallenberg, and I know that many of them made it to freedom. My grandfather though never came back from the Eastern Front, where hundreds of thousands of Hungarians lost their lives for a totally lost cause.

Yours truly

Peter v. F.

New book: Stressing Out Over Happiness

screen shot of stressing out over happiness cover. pngMy newest book, Stressing Out Over Happiness, is the culmination of several years of research and writing. It began as I was doing research for a novel (not yet published as of this writing) and I wanted to delve in to the protagonist’s particular sense of angst and trauma. As I was doing this, I thought that all this research would make a good book in itself, as a nonfiction self-help book.

Stressing Out Over Happiness is primarily about three things: Stress, Meditation and Happiness. It is a look at stress and happiness from the vantage point of several sciences, including psychology, neuroscience, biology, psychoneuroimmunology, and quantum physics. And, I bring into play the work and teachings of sages throughout history that now seem to be substantiated by leading-edge science.

If you are stressed out or sick, this book will help you. If you are unhappy, depressed or anxious, this book will be great for you to read. If you wonder why self-help, positive thinking isn’t doing a thing for you, this book is perfect for you.

If you are wondering about the meditation part of the equation, then let me tell you. There are two types of Buddhist meditation that have been studied at major universities in conjunction with happiness and stress reduction. I discuss these in the book. One is called mindfulness meditation and the other is loving-kindness meditation (also known as metta, or compassion meditation). While these are not the only types of meditation that are in existence, these are the ones that are most studied and have yielded empirical results.

Within a week or so, a companion to this book will be released. It will cover some of the same material but a little more in detail and with a less formal and more exploratory angle. The idea is allow you to think about the subject matter and to stimulate your impressions and ideas.

Happy reading!

‘Remember Us’ makes it to 3 important best-seller lists

My nonfiction biography of concentration camp survivor Martin Small, Remember Us, has made it to the New York Times best-sellers list, in addition to two other important ones, including Amazon’s Historical Biographies and the Wall Street Journal’s list.Screen Shot 2016-04-05 at 5.51.50 PM
wall street journal best seller listOn the left is the Wall Street Journal listing. My book is number 3 under Nonfiction Books.

To the right is the amazon.com best seller listing where the book is in the first position.

 

What professionals are saying about The Super Foods Diet

SUPER-FOODS-DIET-COVERHere are some great reviews on Vic Shayne’s latest book, The Super Foods Diet:

“It’s so refreshing to read a book about real food nutrition and not crazy gimmicks. Dr. Shayne’s book is a must read for anyone interested in how real food can make all the difference your health. It’s time we take back control of our health from the corporations and this book is perfect roadmap for doing that.”
— Josh Boughton
Natural Products Director
Village Vitality, New York

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“Finally! A book that combines the latest super food craze with actual science. Now I can invest in my health knowing that I’m not wasting money on the latest fad. I found this book to be an easy rea

d, highly informative and to the point without a lot of extra fluff that so many authors put in to make a book longer. Thank you so much Dr. Shayne. I highly recommend the Super Foods Diet to everyone interested in staying young, healthy and active..”

— Tamara Star
Daily Transformations Huffington Post columnist

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“In his book “’The Super Foods Diet,’ Vic Shayne continues to us teach safe and effective ways of using whole food nutrition to promote health. In contrast to the trendy diets and fads promoted by many authors, Dr. Shayne takes us back to nature to find safe, reliable and effective ways to use food for healing and general health. I have studied and used his protocols in my practice

broccolifor over 20 years and know him to be a man with a strong conscience and one who does not compromise his values.

— Dr. Allen Kowarski DC,PT , Fairfax, VA

——–

“Dr. Vic Shayne’s latest book: Super Food Diet, picks up where the work of Dr.’s McCarrison, Price and Pottenger leave off. But with one big difference. Where they documented the travesty of modern “foods of commerce” on our health, Dr. Shayne documents the benefits of whole foods and hopes of everyone wishing to eat to live and not just to live to eat. He guides us in how to nutritionally slow down the ultimate aging process so that we can enjoy life as it is meant to be, naturally. More than just a manual, it is a guide to healthy nutrition.”

— George Siegfried, D.C., N.D. Portland, OR

———

“This book should be essential for any physician’s library. Dr. Shayne’s work has been the backbone of my nutrition advice to patients for many years. In this internet-based world, there is so much misinformation out there, almost none of which I trust. But reading his clear style of writing made me realize very quickly that he is one to listen to, with a self-evident ability to cull the poor information from the reliable, or the cutting- edge and possible from the hoaxes. He has an open, brilliant, and discerning mind, all backed by decades of experience. I trust him completely.”
— Dr. N. Duryea, Boulder, CO

The Super Foods Diet is super for your health!

SUPER-FOODS-DIET-COVERVic Shayne’s newest book, The Super Foods Diet, is out and available through amazon.com. This work is the culmination of more than twenty years of research in discovering which foods you should add to your daily diet that provide the most nutrition for a healthier you.

The Super Foods Diet is all about eating specific foods in which scientists have discovered amazing biochemicals capable of healing sickness, preventing disease, supporting cellular function and maintaining optimum health. This book shows you how and why super foods are so essential for good health.

The Super Foods Diet is the only diet that achieves all of the three most important reasons for changing your diet for the better:

  1. weight control,
  2. promotion of good health, and
  3. fighting even the most serious diseases

A diet full of SUPER FOODS, while you avoid the junk foods known to the modern world, can take you out of the running for the most prevalent diseases of our era: cardio- vascular illness, diabetes, cancer, arthritis, Alzheimer’s disease, obesity and more.

Illness isn’t a matter of genetics for most of us; it’s a matter of ignorance, exposure to toxic substances, poor dietary choices and abstinence from our planet’s most nutritious foods found right under our noses!