Bradley Grove Hyson

“Is not the natural, instinctual desire of every human being to grow and evolve, to blossom and become all that we may before returning back into the vast unknown from which we came?”

Awakening 101 is about the power of understanding life’s design and how doing so is essential in helping us create the kind of healthy, safe, secure, peaceful and thriving world we all most want to live in.

We live in an age of extraordinary social, economic, environmental, health and many other challenges.  In the United States, there is no shortage of finger pointing and blame to go around. The liberal or conservative media, government overreach, the military industrial complex, conspiracy theories, Wall Street, the 1%, corporations, the poor, social programs, specific faiths, religions or ethnic groups, the right and the left, and the list goes on and on.  Fake news now proliferates the Internet, leaving many unable to discern fact from fiction.  In the US, division and polarization have contributed to one of the least productive congresses in history establishing priorities and choosing how to respond (or not), to these and many of our most pressing problems.  However, it is essential to accurately diagnose any problem if we are ever to find workable solutions.

Beyond all the labels, stereotypes and generalizations are real people – individuals and groups – who are ultimately making choices for themselves and all of these. Thoughts and the mind are possibly the greatest tools ever known in determining what and how we choose to create.  History amply demonstrates that thoughts are powerful enough to create entire universes of what people believe and act upon, even when their narratives don’t correspond with reality.  The world is flat, Earth is the center of the Universe, women spending time in the woods are witches, those of particular genders, races or skin color lack the capability of others to name just a few examples.  Consider the heartbreaking lost potential of millions of slaves and their descendants with capabilities comparable to Grover Washington, Michael Jordan, Serena Williams, Colin Powell, Louis Armstrong, Nelson Mandela, Archbishop Desmond Tutu, James Brown, Oprah Winfrey, Michael Jackson, Whitney Houston, Prince, Barack Obama and Martin Luther King, Jr.  What gifts was the world robbed of all because of thoughts about skin color that turned out to be just plain wrong?

Advances in science have taught us more about the nature of the mind than at any time in human history.  We know a great deal about how and why we think what we think.  For instance, scientists and brain specialists know there’s a natural propensity to focus on fear-based or negative thoughts.  Throughout history, the wisest women and men have all taught how our use of thoughts can place us into and out of both joy and misery.  The Buddha said:

All that we are is the result of what we have thought… What we think we become.”

We teach subjects, grammar, math, science, biology, history, gym, and the arts in schools, but we don’t equip young people with the ability to fully utilize one of the most fundamental aspects of our being, our steering for navigating and responding to life. Many exercise to maintain a healthy body, but how many consciously take care to grow and develop their mind?  What creates our thoughts and how can we use them to best serve ourselves and our world?

If there’s one thing author Bradley Grove Hyson is sure about from over 30 years in the field of sustainable living, it’s that all life on Earth has a design, and thoughts are but one critically important aspect of ours.  Just as fish need water and plants need soil and sunlight, so too do human beings have a way we are naturally designed to function.  As an adult or a mechanic are able to do things with a car a toddler cannot, understanding our design offers us access to enormous capabilities that are unavailable to those who don’t understand that design.

Having travelled to some of the most ecologically designed buildings and communities in the world, he witnessed firsthand the dramatic implications understanding design makes available in enabling us to build communities, economies and associated infrastructures that harness and maximize this planet’s incredible power, energy and abundance to peacefully and lovingly shape our world.

“Understanding the design of life on Earth has allowed us to heat buildings from the sun, generate energy from wind, grow organic foods almost anywhere, harvest rainwater, turn waste into fertilizer, design products to safely break down at the end of at the end of their life cycle, and even cure illness through diet and lifestyle changes without using drugs or pharmaceuticals.  The implications of understanding and optimizing the natural, inherent design of life on Earth are staggering.  Maximizing design is like swimming with the current, sailing with the wind, using the sun for light or warmth, planting in Spring or honoring gravity.  Scientific advances in understanding the design of our physiology allowed us to cure and eradicate diseases and dramatically increase lifespans.  Basic fundamental principles embraced on a large scale offer efficiency improvements that will literally save trillions of dollars while dramatically improving the quality of life for all.  We don’t need some new, as of yet undiscovered, space-age, technological breakthrough.  We have solutions we don’t use that are available for us NOW!  We really need to WAKE UP and unlock the immense power and profound potential that lay dormant in the design of each of us and this abundant, magical living planet we’re fortunate enough to be part of.  We have never had more tools available to help us do so, than right now.

One cannot consider the portfolio of human accomplishment and deny the ability of our species to create virtually anything we’re able to dream up and imagine.  Things that once seemed utterly impossible, as if parts of some science-fiction fantasy world, are now normal parts of everyday life that billions simply take for granted – flight, computers, satellites, X-rays, antibiotics, smart phones, enormous bridges, skyscrapers, lasers and so much more.  We’re blessed with centuries of data, gathered from the billions of ancestors who preceded us, offering unprecedented opportunities to create higher quality lives than ever before.  Yet access to the limitless possibilities of creation only become available, to greater or lesser extents, when we understand how life is designed to work.

Given our enormous scientific, technological and industrial capabilities, surely “anything” must also include ensuring a basic standard of life for all.  While such an idea may have been unimaginable for the majority of our ancestors given their very challenges of survival, look how far we’ve come.  From cave-dwellers and hunter gatherers we’ve discovered how to feed billions, split atoms, unlock the human genome, transplant organs, create invisible radio waves, fly, travel space and now we have the ability to spread ideas around the world in an instant.  We’ve seen equally dramatic inner transformations of views on virtually everything from race, religion, politics, and violence, to culture, drugs, sexuality, abortion, human and animal rights.  Despite our long list of challenges, Awakening 101 makes the case for why “Peace” is an idea whose time has come.  It is designed to elevate the dialogue for Peace On Earth and show why such a possibility is not some hippy-dippy, naive fantasy, but the most efficient, economical and intelligent path forward.  Awakening 101 demonstrates how a healthy, sustainable, peaceful world is not only possible, it’s inevitable.

What People Are Saying:

“Offers a most positive direction forward and shows how we can work toward a world where all life can thrive.  Despite many serious challenges, he shows how we have never been better equipped to actually address these issues.  His contribution is powerful, assembling the evidence and examples to help us wake up and live as more fully functioning human beings.”

Jim Merkel, Author, Radical Simplicity

“Awakening is the master game on Earth, and this is a master class.  Let’s learn these lessons so we can all play well.”

Bill Pfeiffer, Author, Wild Earth, Wild Soul: A Manual For An Ecstatic Culture

 “A wonderful primer on where we’ve been, where we are, and where we can go – if we’re bold enough to try.  Important principles for everyone living in the 21st century, keys to not only improving our lives, but ensuring our species survival. 

Barry Brown, MSW, LICSW

 “An authentic and important voice, well worth your time in reading.”  

Greg Gerrit, Founder, Friends of the Moshassuck & ProsperityForRI.com

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