The universe has a rhythm - a flow. All of nature has a rhythm and a flow. The seasons change, animals migrate, your heart beats, the tides ebb and flow. Everything in the universe has a rhythm. Have you heard her rhythm or flow? Your life has a rhythm and flow.

Nature's rhythm is based on the path of least resistance; the most value generated from the least effort. In this rhythm and flow reflected in nature you can find your real essence, an essence of pure potential. A potential that is waiting to express itself through actualizing its reflection in your physical world.

Start feeling, feeling the flow that is your life. A flow that is never ending and full of eddies, rapids and back currents. A flow that endlessly moves towards the inevitable - a return once again from where it came. As part of the cycle of all life, your life has a rhythm and flow. You can no more stop the flow of your life than you could stop a river from returning to the sea. You could dam the river up and move its direction temporarily, but you can never fully stop its journey - though its possible to harness that flow. You can harness this ageless energy, this pure potential; manifesting results effortlessly, as you move towards your origin.

Power of Choice

One way to harness this limitless energy is not through efforts of control but rather through acknowledging the power of choice. This energy is available to you in your life, the energy created naturally as your life completes itself, moving from choice to choice, moment by moment. It is through this understanding that choice is always present that you more readily experience your power; the power you have to choose whatever response you want to any circumstance, event or person in your life. This too then is an aspect of the Principle of Flow - your life is a series of choices. This is very much akin to the Principle of Polarity and the Principle of Cause and Effect. Imagine each choice as a fork in the road. This is a reflection of the duality of our universe, that to know up is to know down. Life is experienced and measured in opposites. Every moment you choose between opposites; on or off, yes or no, up or down, "to be" or "not to be", etc. Even "to choose" or "not to choose" is still a choice. It was Robert Frost who so eloquently stated this fact when he wrote, "A road diverged in a wood, and I took the road less traveled by, and it has made all the difference in my life…………"

Think now, how many choices do you suppose you have made so far in your life? It is an inconceivable number, isn't it? Each fork in the road leads to another fork. Moment by moment, choice by choice you experience your life. Each choice sending you further along in the flow. Each choice making all the difference in your life.

Your life is the sum total of all those choices, conscious or unconscious. All those forks in the road have led to this moment in time - the reading of this book. According to the Principle of Flow it is not an accident then that you are reading this book. This point of view is called accountable, standing where you are, looking back into your past and accounting for your results.

Life is not an accident. You are able to see how you have arrived at where you are. Strive to see this purpose and congruency to your life. Able to see how each choice has led you to where you are, you experience yourself as accountable. Account-able.

The Conversation of Responsible

The conversation of responsible takes place from another point of view, a completely different realm. Responsible does not mean shame, blame, guilt, or obligation. To be responsible does not require asking the questions "why" or "how" life is the way it is. Being responsible merely means; the ability to respond, consciously, mindfully and from an infinite realm of possibilities. One of the most powerful aspects of the Principle of Flow is that in every moment there are an infinite number of possible experiences, and each moment then has an infinite number of possible responses. Responsible doesn't imply that you even create all the events in your life. It merely addresses the reality that you are the complete authority over your response to whatever event you are experiencing. Responsible calls for you to "be in the moment" - conscious and alive, aware of how you are responding to this moment and event.

You have the power, whether you accept it or not, to choose your response to life. Only by "being in this moment" can you manifest your power to affect your future. Strive to be here now. You have the power to respond in any way you desire, this is an aspect of the Principle of Flow. Responds-able. Responsible.

Event versus Interpretation

Consider this; that your life is a series of events, and with each event you attach a meaning. With each event you have decided upon an interpretation of that event. It is with these interpretations or attached meanings that you have defined who you are and what you can do and have. Then you go about your life collecting evidence to confirm your interpretations. You live in the past, basing this moment on last moment's interpretation.

The events you have experienced haven't affected your life. It is the interpretations of the events that shape your life.

Another way to say this is; it wasn't what happened in your life that made the difference, it was what you decided about what happened that has made all the difference! "Getting locked in a glove box" didn't affect your life. It was what you decided "getting locked in a glove box" meant about you or others that has affected your life. It is this realm of interpretation that is shaping your life. You become the effect, not the cause of your life. You become "victim" to your interpretations. You become "victim" to all of what you have decided should or shouldn't be. You become fixed in your experience and continue to re-create the events and interpretations that confirm all of your previous beliefs. Life becomes dogmatic and dead. You give up all of your aliveness and power in order to "be right" about what you have previously decided. Being right becomes your focus. It becomes more important to "be right" than successful for most people.

From this point of view, it appears that events in your life are distinct from each other, that you move from one awakened moment to another, separated by some degree of unconsciousness. From this point of view, things will seem to happen to you, and this can only lead further to a feeling of "victim". Life will seem to be happening to you, unfair and unjust at times, but having nothing to do with you. This fosters a feeling of powerlessness and incapability. This is just not true.

When you begin to make a clear distinction between the event and the interpretation of the event, you will begin to operate from responsible - that in each moment and event is an infinite field of possible experiences and responses. You choose. You then begin to cause your experience of your life.

Life is Flow

If you step back and gain some distance, you will see the totality of your life as a single flowing event. From your first breath to your last breath, one seamless flowing event. If you step back further you will see that your life is part of an immense picture, the great flowing event you call the universe. You have a right and ability to harness and experience that energy of universal flow. This harnessing can only take place from responsible and not victim. This awareness alone is transformational.

When you see that your life is one seamless event, you can see how important this single moment is. In this moment is the power to transform your future. This moment is a microcosm of the whole universe, part of its ceaseless flow, its limitless potential, and as such, in this moment resides an infinite realm of possibilities.

Only in being in this moment does the power reside to declare a self designed future, no longer based on the realm of interpretation and the past. This is the essence of responsible. From this point of view, it is so important to learn to "be in the moment" in order to experience the genius you really are - able to experience the infinite. There is a bigger picture out there, it is up to you to acknowledge that you are a part of it.

The energy most abundantly available to be harnessed from the flow of life is the energy of love. This is the most cost effective expression of the Principle of Flow - unconditional love. Nature's rhythm, unconditional love, operates from a realm of abundance and expansion. To fight this rhythm is to operate in a realm of fear, doubt or distrust; causing life to contract and retreat. Unconditional acceptance or love, when given or received, continues to expand and pays us more than it ever could cost. Judgment and resistance, on the other hand, costs us more than can ever be received back.

Path of Least Resistance

There is a natural rhythm and flow to the universe, and it is called the "path of least resistance"; affording the most payoffs with the least prices. This is available to experience - if you choose. Small children have such an abundance of energy and enthusiasm. Notice how little time, compared to adults, they spend in resistance and judgment. This is a clue!

The "path of least resistance" is the natural flow of life, a path of love paved in whole by the quality of acceptance. Acceptance is one of the primary keys to experiencing this "path of least resistance"; an acceptance of things, circumstances, people and events experienced in the flow of your life. When you start to walk the path of least resistance in your life, you accept and appreciate others more fully and experience yourself as the genius you really are, in harmony with the natural flow of all life. Learning to walk the "path of least resistance" is essential to effectively living on the edge.

When you become ego-centered, operating from a realm of fear and defensiveness, you fight the natural flow of the universe and harness the effects of discord with this rhythm. Pushing against the entire flow of the universe; poverty, struggle, abuse, addictions and other resistance become your experience.

Your ego's "need" for love, or acceptance, or approval, or control, or to be right, become more important than your heart's desire. So you begin to sacrifice the dreams in your life, and settle for fulfilling your ego's "needs". You can become judgmental and bitter. You fight and defend, you go into complete battle with the universe. Remember, the universe doesn't care. You can battle with or harmonize with, they are both manifestations of this principle. Appreciation or judgment, the choice is yours, they are both included in the Principle of Flow.

The Butcher and the Ox

In the Spirit of Tao there is a story about a butcher cutting up an ox for a king. The butcher felt with his hand, leaned in with his shoulder, stepped in and with his cleaver the ox fell apart effortlessly.

The king seeing the perfection of the butcher's technique commented, "Yes! It seems as though you have perfected a technique unsurpassed in my kingdom!"

The butcher put down his cleaver and replied, "What I experience is the Way, which is more advanced than a technique. "When I first began my trade all I had was technique, for all I saw was an ox. Even after years, I had still not seen the whole ox. Now I greet the ox with spirit rather than look at it with my eyes.

"When my senses stop, my spirit is able to act. Going by the natural flow and rhythm of the ox, I separate the ox according to its natural formation. This way I never cut into resistance from the ox. I never meet bone nor gristle with my cleaver.

"A good butcher must change his cleaver every year because of damage. A mediocre butcher must change cleavers every month because of damage. I've used this cleaver for many years, and it has cut up thousands of oxen, and its blade is as though new."

Resistance dulls the blade. Strive to experience the path of least resistance paved by acceptance and appreciation. Let go of the battle.

Remember, the most cost effective form of this universal flow is unconditional love. Strive to accept more and appreciate more. The critical step is to notice that all life has a rhythm and you are part of that rhythm. To experience this principle is to experience the rhythm and flow of all things. Your breath has a rhythm. Your heart has a rhythm. Start with listening to your body. Then fill yourself with an unconditional love and appreciation. Expand your awareness outward from there. Let your awareness fill the room with this love, then let your awareness fill your house, then let your awareness fill your world. It has been said that those who don't learn to look within, will have to learn to live without.

Buddha said, ""When a man is in a house and opens his eyes he will first notice the interior of the room and only later will he see the view outside the windows. In like manner we cannot have the eye notice external things before there is recognition by the eye of the things in the house." Know first the rhythm and flow of yourself then you will more clearly see the rhythm and flow all around you.

Start by looking within. Be quiet and you will hear the deafening roar that is your life. Know the flow, the rhythm of you and your life. This will lead you to the path of least resistance - a path of love, acceptance, appreciation and responsibility. Quantum leaps of awareness and results await those who experience the Principle of Flow in their life and as such, experience themselves as the genius that they really are.

Cultivate the following to more effectively live on the edge:

1. Quit resisting. Life is the way it is, your attempting to control it will not make it be the way it "should" be.

2. Acceptance and appreciation are the fastest paths to self-actualization.

3. Learn to see a bigger picture of flow and rhythm in your life.

4. Meditate and look within.