The Art of Surrender
How to stop seeing life as an opponent you need to resist Before this talk, I looked up in a dictionary the word ‘surrender’ and the definition was “to stop resisting an opponent.” The word derives from a French word “surrendre” which is to give something up. In my experience what we need to give up is seeking to be in control. The price for peace is giving up the need for control, which we will come back to in due course. For me, all control is an illusion, so we are not actually giving up anything but an illusion or a delusion. Of course, many of us are clinging to our favourite delusions decade after decade and it is always much easier to see the delusions in others than in ourselves. I can see my wife’s delusions very clearly, but I can not see my own quite so well. Most of us, if not all of us, have been conditioned to, if not educated to, seeing the word surrender as something negative, weak, or undesirable. Many personalities, perhaps more male than female to be stereotypical for a moment, are built around the cornerstone of never giving in. Surrender is often viewed as a sort of passive resignation. Whereas true surrender, is actually an active awareness. True surrender is being receptive to what arises; being alert to how life develops. To genuinely understand this topic we need to distinguish between the inner world and the outer world. Without that distinction, there is … Read More
RADICAL RESPONSIBILITY
Harness the events of life for your own evolution… Responding, or responsibility, comes from the Latin word ‘respondere’ which means to respond. So, for me, it is really all about what is our response to what is happening in our lives? At the end of the 16th century, the meaning developed to include ‘answerable to’ or ‘expected to justify.’ In the 17th century responsibility was also extended to include the idea of accountability. Right now, my sense is that we’ve created radically different cultures around the world in places like North Korea, Afghanistan, Norway, Iran, Australia. And in all of these different cultures there’s extraordinarily little responsibility or accountability on our planet right now. What I’m going to focus on tonight is the idea of a lack of responsibility. I’m not going to get into the debate about the difference between responsibility and accountability and I will use both these terms interchangeably. Each lifetime is made up of millions of events, most of which are mundane. We wake up, we make a cup of tea, we shower, we get dressed. Other events are more meaningful; we make a good friend, we fall in love, we establish a new business, we move house. Then there are traumatic events; we get divorced, loved ones die – these are life changing events. Of course, there’s an awful lot in between but every one of these events makes up a lifetime. It seems to me that there are only two different ways to respond, i.e. take … Read More
REBIRTH
Discover a different way of being in the world As we all know, each of us has one physical birth, from the womb out into the world. From my perspective, we also experience other significant rebirths – times in our lives when we feel we go through some sort of fundamental shift. We may end up on a different pathway or maybe we simply find ourselves being in the world in a different way. This is what I refer to when I talk about rebirth. In many religious traditions this shift is recognised. In Christianity we talk about being born again. In Hinduism and Buddhism, especially among the Sannyasins and in the Yogic tradition, individuals are often given a new name to signify a rebirth that they have experienced. I believe that at this moment on the planet, there is an invitation to all of us to participate in a massive collective rebirth. Humanity needs to find a different pathway. We need to discover a different way of being in the world because the old way is not serving us. It’s not serving us individually and it’s not serving the community. As I’ve said many times before, for me, this is the sole reason for Covid-19. It could have been many other things but it happens to be a virus. The virus is an attempt to wake us up from our effective hypnosis, and to find a different pathway forward. If this is unsuccessful then we’ll need something stronger, something … Read More
The Quantum Field
A different way of being in the world The aim of this talk is to explain two things; First, why, in my experience, the quantum field allows us to understand that there is a different way of being in the world. And that secondly, from this different way of being we can create a different outer world experience for us all to live in. I am not a scientist but I want to try and approach this subject from within the context of science. Some of what I am going to say is analytical and logical. I want to ask you to try to allow this to wash over you in a reflective way. The detail of what I am saying is not so important; just try and allow the felt sense of what I’m saying to resonate with you or not. The quantum field is the kind of expression that leads to misunderstandings due to multiple definitions and uses. The word quantum is a Latin word which literally means “amount.” In modern understanding it has come to mean the smallest possible unit of any physical property. The quantum field has arisen as a result of the evolution of science from what we call first principles to the sub atomic world, and science, especially physics, shares something with mysticism in so far as it has always been preoccupied with the ultimate nature of reality. Physics and science both seek to discover what is the ultimate nature of reality. Science is … Read More
Fear & Identity
Are you who you think you are? Many of us have spent decades in this lifetime. Yet I wonder how much time we have spent reflecting on the question, “who am I?” A fairly fundamental question which millions of us never address. Each one of us started out as a fertilized egg and we spent approximately 40 weeks in utero. One of the facts of science is that after between 12 and 14 weeks in utero, we have something called a neural tube. Once that closes, we live off the same electromagnetic field as our mother. Essentially, every human being is its own electromagnetic field. So if our mother is depressed, that’s what we feel. If she is happy, so are we. If she witnesses a bad car accident, we witness the impact too. Even prior to conception, we inherit two ancestral lines. The maternal and paternal ancestral line. Scientists got excited in 2003 because they demonstrated that each one of us is affected by seven generations. So we are influenced by our ancestral lines. For some people it’s much more controversial but you could also say that we have many past lives that influence and affect us in our current lifetime. It used to be the case that experts maintained that when we were born we were a tabular rasar, a blank slate. They thought that each baby had it’s innocence but I hope you can see that there’s actually quite a lot happening before we come out of … Read More
Andrew Borkowski
Business Alchemy does exactly what it says on the tin … I’ve worked with a number of mentors throughout my career but Andrew stands head and shoulders above the rest. He brings a unique quality as a mentor with fantastic business acumen and the ability to allow magic to happen!
Earl Adams
I originally approached Andrew at his first book launch and asked whether he would mentor me in certain aspects of my professional and personal life. Andrew was very professional and honest with his initial feedback and we started work almost straight away. In a stressful role I was finding the balance between work and home life a real challenge, this was not for the first time in my career. The non-separation and pressure to work longer hours to always be on the phone or emailing but not feeling fully engaged or able to focus on specific tasks. But this pressure was self-inflicted and not the expectation of peers. These understandings have enabled me to be a better leader. Through time spent with Andrew on a one to one basis he has fundamentally adjusted the way in which I think and approach both personal and professional issues and challenges. Allowing me to trust in an outcome rather than trying to control every element or stage of the process. This has not only been enlightening, but has brought both happiness and success in equal measure. In twelve months, I have consciously and unconsciously seen great changes. Increased productivity in business and improved quality of sleep (not many people can say that with a young family) the changes have become a part of my character…just ask my wife! From an individual who struggled with change or just simply trusting something intangible, Andrew has provided me with the platform that I start each day … Read More