What a funny question.  Just what in anyone's life isn't habit?  We as a species are habituated to just about everything that we do or think.  We are comforted by the routine and predictable.  Even when we assume wild and crazy persona's we are comforted by the routine and predictable wild and crazy.

Atman 

Really nowhere.  Best I can tell I don't belong.  There is little that seems to ask for or demand me and there is a lot that rejects me outright.  Notwithstanding that I am here and try to make the best of those places that I frequent.  No doubt it will become clear at some time in the future why it is that I feel this estrangement from more or less the rest of the species.  At least I hope so.

This seems a poorly designed question to me.   At least the one of which I was originally notified by e-mail did.  That question was more or less "is happiness discovered or created."  It now appears that the question is "is happiness a choice."  To the first question I would say you can only discover what is there and what is there is either God or it was created.  So I say happiness is discovered and created at a minimum.  To the second question I say happiness is a legitimate choice most of the time.  The rest of the time happiness is an indication of a mental illness.

Atman

God is everywhere little one.  God is in your finger and your elbow and your nose.  And God is in my finger and my elbow and my nose.  And God is in the leaves of the trees and in the petals of the flowers and in the tail of the squirrel.  And they say that Gods favorite place is in the smile and laughter of the little ones.  So be kind and loving to God little one.  Smile and laugh a lot.

I am a higher spiritualist.  The mystery school that I am associated with is also a church called the Aquarian Foundation.  We do not have monks and nuns per se but each and every student or chela is taken under the wing of one or more Ascended Masters and an assortment of guides and guardian angels and is guided along their path of mastery and ascension.  It is among the most advanced religious or spiritual teaching I have ever come in contact with and it provides the basis for achieving conscious immortality and Ascended Mastery through this lifetime.  If I had to become a monk or nun I would not change my religion I would just change my title from chela to monk.  I fact I sometimes describe myself that way.
 
I have also moved along a path that has taken me outside of the church and into even higher realms.  At the level of communication with conscious immortals that I am in right now I am told that none of it is intended to become a religion.  It is all directed solely to  rescuing the species and the planet individually and collectively in the present and immediate future.  Perhaps that would make me something of a cosmic monk.  A monk traveling without portfolio so to speak.  Choosing a religion in order to be a monk is not only not indicated in my circumstance it is actually not indicated. 

Atman

Spirituality is the organizing principle of my consciousness.  Spirituality and religion both serve to attract human consciousness to higher ground.  However, for me formal religion has been somewhat co-opted by the dark side.  How many have been and are being murdered and tortured and otherwise made to suffer by those that either identify with or are actually running organized religion?  The number over the centuries and mellenia must be in the billions.  This is not higher ground.  Is a person murdered or tortured or otherwise made to suffer by a religious official or zealot any less murdered or tortured or otherwise made to suffer than if the perpatrator is a despot?  No.   

To what purpose?  We live on a Free Will Choice planet but we are not at choice in being of service.  Every thought action and deed serves something.  So one might say that human beings are these glowing arrays of that which they serve even if they do not say a word.  When you come upon one or the leavings of one or the forwardings of one you may always ask; "To what purpose?".  What is being served?  The answer(s) therein is where the mystery of life lies.

Atman

The events of 2012 have already happened so I am told by higher spiritual beings.  The Mayan calendar was miscalibrated.  I have written two newsletters on the subject.  I am told we have gone through a once in 15 billion year event and that the psychics that created the Mayan calendar interpreted it as the end of life and that as a species we are currently in a delusion about it.  There are many reasons for that.

I have interviewed these beings and I am persuaded that their consciousness is so far north of mine that it would at least be prudent to operate as if they are telling the truth.  The prospect that they are saying these things as some sort of cosmic joke upon the species or even just upon the Atman is a far more frightening one.

Now I have not found that even upon an internet site as eclectic and aledgedly leading edge as this one that there is much interest in this subject other than to ridicule it.  The human species has many characteristics which retard its growth.  One of the most pernicious (?) is the free rider syndrome.  For example: Less than 10% of the colonists were in favor of the American Revolutionary War, less than 1% actually fought in it but 100% got the benefits of its success.  Indeed, even 100% of the species got the benefits of its success.

So it will be with the 2012 conversation.  Very few will believe prior to the heavy lifters producing the success and then those that didn't believe will suddenly always have believed.  Makes you wonder why the higher spiritual beings would even bother to intervene for us to save the species from extinction.  Then again maybe they didn't, maybe the saving of the species from extinction was just a side effect of something else they were doing that was actually important to them.

If you started from the perspective that it is possible that the whole species goes in the crapper if you don't respond appropriately to the 2012 conversation would it change how you look at it?  Are you a heavy lifter or a free rider?  No.  No.  Let me guess.  What do the laws of probability say?

Atman     

I believe that we plan our lives fully before we are born.  We select our parents as those best ably to provide the type of environment that will allow us to fulfill our plan.  We agree with others to at least meet up with them and remind each other of our respective plans.  We build in as many redundancies and as many hints and guideposts and warning signs as possible.  We select and participate in the construction of the vehicle (our bodies) that is most suitable for the fulfillment of our plan.  And we include higher spiritual beings in the development and execution of the plan.  We build in their guidance as part of the plan.  And then we dive into the world of free will choice and follow the plan to the best of our ability and if we are attracted to and decide to move down an unplanned path we are allowed to do that. And we often do.  I think destiny is in there somewhere.

Atman

Back in the 1980's I was a member of a small group of men that engaged in what are known as contests for corporate control; hostile takeovers.  From reading the papers at the time regarding our exploits one might have thought that we just flew around in our jets partying and making easy money.  Not so.

Over one Easter weekend in New York City during that time I worked on a deal for 72 hours straight.  I call that a long day because I did not so much as close my eyes to rest during that 72 hours.  Everyone else got at least cat naps but I stayed up the whole time.  I was unwilling to risk losing the sense of the deal as it evolved by sleeping and so even when I had an hour or two where I might have gotten a cat nap I would not do it.  Every financial term in the capital structure under negotiation had to be run through my computer models and many times that involved reprogramming the models because they were complex terms.  And I had to coordinate that over the phone with my assistants in my home town since I could not get a remote terminal hooked up in New York City on less that a couple of months notice.

Similarly I had to produce a comprehensive funding document with the investment bankers that acurately reflected the deal and all of its multivaried aspects and since time was so short and since my stuff was good they pretty much took my stuff and just built their document around it..  As it turned out the funding documents that I was responsible for formulating and preparing got to out to airport with only minutes to spare before the private jet had to leave to get the documents to the west coast.  If we had missed that takeoff slot the deal would have been put in great jeopardy.

We later lost a court case in this deal because the judge could not believe that we had done what we got done over the weekend.  He refused to believe that it was doable.  So its not like the 72 hours were just normally productive either.  We were moving at light speed mentally.  It was a great honor to be such an integral part of this longest day.  It was a great honor to work with the men that I worked with then and with our lawyers and investment bankers.  These men were movers and shakers and Katie bar the door if they took a bead on you. 

Now speaking of moving and shaking let me tell you of my experience when I laid down and tried to sleep.  My whole body was twitching.  It was like every individual muscle in my body was being operated independently and it was engaging in short powerful bursts of contraction.  I discovered hundreds of individual muscles in my face alone.  I felt like a piece of bacon spattering in a skillet.  Fortunately, I practiced transcendental meditation at the time and I was able to reintegrate myself after an hour or so of the practice.  For a time there though I really questioned if I was going to make it and still be physically, emotionally and mentally intact.  Perhaps I didn't.  Your call.

Now this is a power longest day story and it is suitable to the solstice and to the power of the sun but I have found that the most moving times of my life have always been the moments.  So I do not want to exhalt it above the moments of myself and others.  In particular I would not want to exhalt it above those 72 seconds immediately preceeding and including the moments in which someone did lay down their life for another or the 72 seconds immediately preceeding and including the saving or birthing of the life of another or the 72 seconds immediately preceeding and including the conscious and courageous meeting of ones destiny.  Those are the ones to be exhalted.  Those are the ones that make you weep with humility and love for your fellow human beings.

Atman