Lately, I’ve been teaching a monthlong mentoring program for the men entitled The Metamorphosis Program.

We keep a certain amount of material in the course secret for two reasons: it works better when it comes at you as a surprise; and mystery makes the course look cool.

Kidding aside, I do want to share with you one thing that I teach in the course.  Namely, the answer to the question, “Who are you really?”

One of the three answers I suggest is “You are a conduit for the abundance of the universe.”

If you’re sufficiently confused by that answer to be thinking, “Umm, English please, doc,” then you’re on the right track.

Allow me to illustrate by continuing the story.  If you’ve ever been to Trader Joe’s here in the US, one of their nifty features is that they always have a ‘freebie corner’ where they’re giving away free samples.

Most of the time it’s something that I don’t eat, but on this particular afternoon, they had samples of a chicken tikka masala.  And it smelled gooood.

So I stood in line, and right behind me was a mother with her toddler sitting right in the shopping cart.  The kid was getting a little antsy about the food, and mom was doing her best to calm him down.

My turn came, and the Trader Joe’s lady handed me my small plate with the free sample.  And, seeing how I was not in a hurry, I handed it to the mom: “Here you go.”

The mom totally lit up with a heartfelt ‘thank you’ that I felt in my bones, all out of proportion to the gesture . A few seconds later I had my plate (delicious, by the way) and we were both on our merry shopping way again.

Now it’s not like I donated a zillion bucks to cure malaria here and Pope Benedict is going to fast-track my application to sainthood (which would actually require that I die first, so really – no thanks).  I just passed on a free sample to someone who was behind me in line, who would have gotten it anyway in about 30 seconds.

But the reaction I got was all out of proportion to the deed – and it made *my* day.  And perhaps made her feel good, too.

Now this story is a perfect demonstration of your being a conduit for the abundance of the universe.  Let me explain.

The chicken sample was not really mine.  It was a free sample to begin with.  So I never really owned it.

By giving it away, I wasn’t losing anything, because I knew there was more of that where it came from.

And, lo and behold, when I gave it away, more did come my way, with interest: the mom & kid’s gratitude, and the little warming of my heart.

Well, guess what, boys and girls: that’s true of any kind of possession and giving in life.

You think you own stuff?  Think again.  You’re born naked and you leave the same way.  Can’t take it with you, chief. And if the economic crisis of the past year has taught us anything, it’s “easy come, easy go.”

You can’t own stuff.  But stuff can definitely own you.

Even if you had paid for the chicken, what makes it ‘yours’?

So the next time you’re thinking ‘my car’, ‘my house’, ‘my boyfriend’, ‘my girlfriend’, as if somehow there’s a stamp of ownership burning your name on that thing, you may wish to reconsider.

Because when abundance comes your way, you know that it’s just like that free sample – the bounty of the universe presenting itself to you through sheer luck.

Just as it would be silly to get too possessive of that morsel of free food once it lands in your hand – “this is my chicken now” – it would be equally silly to get hung up on any of your so-called possessions.

There is no fortune made on this earth, not one, that didn’t have to do with crazy, insane luck.  So there’s no point in getting too attached or proud about what came to you through near-miraculous accident.

By realizing that you are a perpetual conduit for this abundance — a pipeline for the bounty of the universe — you keep yourself from gumming up the works and getting in the way of your own access to abundance.

Because the abundance is infinite!  There’s far more stuff than you could consume in 10,000 lifetimes.

We’re not saying that you should make like Diogenes and give away all your earthly possessions and wear a barrel.  And by all means, protect your garden fruit from the varmints.

Just don’t get *hung up* on stuff so much that its loss can make you unhappier than its presence can make you happy.

I always find it funny when people on the road (including myself) won’t let somebody in who’s trying to merge.

What, like we’re going to run out of road or something?  Or you might get somewhere 4.3 seconds sooner?

There’s plenty of road to go around.

Now some of you who are reading this may be in tough spots right now.

And what I would say to you is act as if you really are a conduit for abundance.  Don’t let this temporary state get in the way of your generosity, your open-heartedness, your openmindedness.

Get the wheel of giving turning, in whatever small way you can, and the wheel will inevitably come back to you.  As my pastor likes to say, you can only have what you give away.

So start giving away more of that which you’d like to have! (‘Cause if you’re giving something away, it must mean you have lots of it, right?  Twisted logic, but kinda true.)

And those of you who are not experiencing privation but are still feeling constricted – let’s get you re-started here.

Start by smiling at passersby.  Then work up from there.

One of the most eloquent passages on giving comes from Kahlil Gibran’s The Prophet:

“Then said a rich man, ‘Speak to us of Giving.’
And he answered:
‘You give but little when you give of your possessions.
It is when you give of yourself that you truly give.

For what are your possessions but things you keep and guard for fear you may need them tomorrow?
And tomorrow, what shall tomorrow bring to the overprudent dog burying bones in the trackless sand as he follows the pilgrims to the holy city?

And what is fear of need but need itself?
Is not dread of thirst when your well is full the thirst that is unquenchable?

There are those who give little of the much which they have – and they give it for recognition and their hidden desire makes their gifts unwholesome.

And there are those who have little and give it all.
These are the believers in life and the bounty of life, and their coffer is never empty.

There are those who give with joy, and that joy is their reward.
And there are those who give with pain, and that pain is their baptism.
And there are those who give and know not pain in giving, nor do they seek joy,
And there are those who give and know not pain in giving, nor do they seek joy, nor give with mindfulness of virtue;
They give as in yonder valley the myrtle breathes its fragrance into space.

Through the hands of such as these God speaks, and from behind their eyes he smiles upon the earth.’”

And that’s everyday grace, my friends.  Resolve to give of yourself daily and practice being what you really are – a conduit for abundance.  The rest will take care of itself.

The power is within you
Dr Alex

PS: Want to practice some giving right now that ain’t gonna cost you anything?  Forward this message to someone whom you think would benefit from it.

Especially if you think you’re in a slump, down in the dumps, at the end of your rope, or embroiled in some other metaphor you don’t like, I encourage you to take a lesson from Warsaw. Renewal happens in an instant, and as the saying goes, today is the first day of the rest of your life.

As usual, if you like the video, please show me you’re alive! Rate it, comment on it, share it with friends via Facebook and Twitter, and embed it on your own website. You never know whom you’re going to touch with exactly the message that they need to hear at that moment. Here’s the link to send it along: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dnZyLjthOqM

A few weekends ago I had the privilege of attending The Soul of Success seminar with Marianne Williamson and Deepak Chopra in Los Angeles.

In these times of economic uncertainty, Marianne and Deepak had decided to transmit a message of spiritual and economic empowerment to their audience.

As a vivid demonstration of their commitment to helping their students, they offered scholarships to those who requested it. Several attendees had taken up the offer from places as far-flung as Florida and Tennessee.

Marianne has always believed in accommodating those seeking her teachings regardless of their finances, and she certainly practiced what she preached in this workshop.

I only had a vague idea of what the workshop would entail, but having had both Deepak and Marianne as teachers for many years, I implicitly trusted their message and method.

Marianne began with a powerful prayer and a 90min lecture exhorting us to cultivate a profoundly spiritual approach to success. Drawing upon the Course in Miracles, she reminded us that there is only one problem in life, and that is separation from god (or source, or Brahman, or universal good, or whatever you prefer to call it). There is no sunbeam that is separate from the sun, and so there is no person who is separate from the source. ‘Ego’ is simply the false belief that we are separate beings.

Depending on whether we feel separated from or connected to source, we will harbor different sets of beliefs. The former state leads to beliefs that problems loom large and are insurmountable. The latter state leads to beliefs that we are in the presence of a being that can erase any problem in a minute. As Marianne put it, “Don’t tell god how big your recession is; tell the recession how big your god is.”

Since “the vision of one world costs you the vision of another,” it’s of paramount importance to practice good mental hygiene. The Course in Miracles says “You will be at the effect of the rules of the world you believe in, so have faith in the world you want,” as opposed to the one you may see unfolding around you.

Do you believe that you inhabit a world of abundance and joy? Then that’s what you’ll experience. Do you believe that you inhabit a world of scarcity and pain? Then that’s what you’ll experience.

The idea is to become, through accumulated repetition, the kind of person who sees things differently. When that happens, your world will have no choice but to transform. As the Course in Miracles says, “moving mountains will be small compared to what you will do.” And so the ‘big question’ becomes ‘Dear god, how can I be the person that I’m capable of being?’

To enable real success in your life requires a little bit of letting go and letting be. This involves two steps: 1) Becoming the person who’s willing to receive the plan and 2) Becoming the person who’s willing to implement it.

At the same time, a little bit of humility is in order here. Marianne said, “You can’t go all the way yourself. You can go to the point that ego can take you, and then god lifts you up the rest of the way.” This goes along with her mantra that “you are the faucet, not the water.”

This was one of the most powerful points of the seminar: when you encounter fear of success, it’s only because you’re making it about you. Well, it’s never about you. It’s about serving the world. Success comes when you remove your own blocks to love.

Marianne ended her segment with a written meditation on our perfect day. We wrote out what a perfect day would look like for us — what we would be creating, how we would be serving, and what we need to have taken away from us to make it all possible. Now that I read that meditation, I realize how powerful it was and how seldom we engage in this kind of positive visualization.

The afternoon segment was with Dr Deepak Chopra. He started out by saying that ‘The Soul of Success’ has two components to it: soul and success. So we should think about each component. First, we discussed success.

We then did an exercise to define success for ourselves by creating a mind map. This mind map looked like a hub-and-spoke diagram, with ’success’ as the hub and its components as the spokes. As a group, we came up with some good components: love, purpose, peace/happiness, abundance, connection to source (plus an extra one for me: self-actualization). Then we came up with spokes to those spokes — in other words, the true actionable meaning of love, purpose, happiness, abundance and connection to source.

But what is purpose really? “If you had all the time and money in the world, how would you express yourself? That is your purpose.”

To motivate the discussion of the soul, he cited Wilder Penfield’s open brain experiments and the idea that your mind has a choice-maker and an interpreter that can’t be found anywhere in the brain. That’s the soul part of you: “Your soul isn’t in your body — your body is in your soul.”

From here, Dr Chopra went into the vibratory nature of the universe, oscillating between on and off. In the ‘off’ there is the discontinuity which has “infinite possibility, knowledge and creativity and the power of intention.” This is the realm of pure consciousness where the soul resides.

From this arose another useful exercise: mind-mapping your Soul Profile. Dr Chopra broke it down into seven components: your life’s purpose; your contribution; your unique skills and talents; what you look for in a good friend; peak experiences; what you bring to a relationship; and archetypes.

The archetypes, “the fundamental blueprint of the self,” were particularly powerful: “You won’t achieve greatness unless you embody your archetype; your life will be ordinary.”

For women, some of the archetypes were Athena (wisdom), Demeter (earth mother), Aphrodite (love and sensuality), Persephone (sorceress) and Hera (Power). Consult this excellent book by Agapi Stassinopoulos for more on female archetypes. Archetypes for men were the Redeemer (Buddha, Jesus), the wise seer (Merlin), and the Warrior (Mars).

Finally, as a technique for calming the mind and accessing the soul of success, Dr Chopra introduced the mantra (from Sanskrit man = mind, tra = instrument). By repeating a sound like ‘om’ or ‘rama’ with no history and therefore no karma, you can cancel out thought and achieve pure consciousness.

Altogether the day spent with Marianne and Deepak was worthwhile and deeply transformative for me. Here’s a story from a fellow participant:

Prior to attending the seminar, I was trying my best to get work so that I could pay my bills and rent. No matter how hard I tried or how positive an attitude I kept, nothing was working out for me!

Then I sat down in the room, and simply was! Too many wonderful things happened that day alone to describe it all here.

My focus is now in alignment and I’m excited about each step of the Journey. I’ve been energized and inspired. Deepak talked about detachment. For the first time I truly understood what that meant: it’s not about the destination, it’s about the Journey. Once you get that… everything else falls into place!

Marianne Williamson and Deepak Chopra are two teachers with sterling intentions at the forefront of helping folks elevate their consciousness. I encourage you to see them live the first opportunity you get.

Join me on Facebook
email: dralex(at)thetaoofdating.com

It’s by Jonathan Haidt, and it’s called The Happiness Hypothesis: Finding Modern Truth in Ancient Wisdom. If you’re fascinated by the science behind how humans tick and how it relates to ancient wisdom, I highly recommend that you read this book.

Haidt mentions that in all cultures, human societies have been organized along two dimensions: hierarchy and closeness/liking. Call one the x-axis, the other the y-axis.

Hierarchy is simple enough: people have status according to their power, title, wealth or fame.

And closeness — what I will call kinship — is also straightforward. Society is organized according to friends, family, co-workers, acquaintances and strangers.

Haidt then introduces a third dimension: a dimension of the divine. All cultures seem to recognize some things as nobler, purer and more divine, and other things as profane and impure.

He calls the emotion associated with the divine and moral beauty as elevation. More on that in a bit.

This got me thinking that human attraction occurs along these three axes as well.

Hierarchy is simply the status game. A woman will be attracted to you if she perceives you as being cool, wealthy, well-known, powerful, or otherwise high in the status hierarchy.

She has unconscious mechanisms for finding those features attractive. They’ve been operating at an unconscious level for hundreds of thousands of years, and they essentially serve to enhance the survival of the species. A high-status guy is more likely to have the resources to provide for her and her babies.

Now let’s think about kinship. A girl is more likely to be attracted to you and go out with you if she feels close to you. Classmate, friend, co-worker, relative (though not too close) — we all know people who have dated or married within those categories.

Even a proxy for real kinship often has a positive effect on attraction. Two immigrants from the same country meet in the U.S. Alumni from the same college. Displaced people from the same hometown or home state.

Nobody really knows how this works. After all, in real terms, it shouldn’t mean a whole lot if I meet someone else from, say, Massachusetts. But there it is, the instant bonding. We like people who are like us.

It’s possible that there are ancient mechanisms being activated here as well. In the old days, when people lived in tribes of 50-150 in size, chances were that if you knew someone, they were kin. We share genes with our kin, and if we believe that our genes work to perpetuate themselves, then we have good reason to be attracted to kin.

The third dimension of attraction is elevation. You’re all familiar with the feeling of elevation. They’re similar to ‘peak experiences‘, which Maslow described in his classic ‘Religion, Value and Peak Experiences’.

Here are some characteristics of peak experiences, as described by Haidt: “The universe is perceived as a unified whole where everything is accepted and nothing is judged or ranked; egocentrism and goal-striving disappear as a person feels merged with the universe; perceptions of time and space are altered; and the person is flooded with feelings of wonder, awe, joy, love and gratitude.”

Some people call it spirituality. Some call it moral beauty. You can call it whatever you want. The key thing to remember is that it’s real, it has correlates in the human mind, and it makes girls like you.

Really?

Oh really. And how.

In fact, Haidt conducted a brilliant experiment to figure out what the physiological effect of elevation. What he found out was astonishing — and highly relevant to your dating life.

I’m going to spare you the details of the experiment, but the results are basically this: elevation promotes massive secretion of oxytocin.

Oxytocin, you may recall from previous articles, is the bonding chemical. It’s produced at very specific times: childbirth, lactation (nursing), and orgasm.

All three of these events are associated with bonding with another human being. The massive does of oxytocin produced to promote uterine contraction during childbirth cause the mom to be in love with the child for the rest of her life.

Oxytocin production during lactation promotes and prolongs the bonding. And oxytocin production during orgasm cements the bond between the two lovers.

All of this means, as Haidt puts it, that “elevation may fill people with feelings of love, trust, and openness, making them more receptive to new relationships.”

Now, let me ask you this: would it be useful for a woman to feel love, trust, openness and receptivity to new relationships in your presence?

Can I get a hallelujah?

In fact, there’s reason to believe that elevation is more powerful than the effects of hierarchy and kinship. It just hits at this deep, deep level which the other two don’t get at.

Elevation is the z-axis to the x-axis of hierarchy and the y-axis of kinship. It rises OUT and ABOVE the plane.

And when you are the one guy who can provide the feeling of elevation, my friend, you will rise above the crowd as well.

Now here’s the thing: any one of the axes of attraction is enough to bring a woman into your life. If you’ve got two, then you’re in REALLY good shape.

But if you’ve got all three — oh man. You are unstoppable. Because now you’ve got 3D SuperAttraction.

The girls WILL be banging down your door at odd hours of the night. And that may be more than you can handle. So go easy, man.

Seen through this lens, it becomes very clear why certain types of men are attractive, and why certain kinds of methods work.

It also became clear to me why I incorporated so many spiritually-based exercises in the Metamorphosis Mentorship Program and the Transformation Weekend. Unbeknownst to myself, I was giving the students a heavy dose of elevation training.

In the fine tradition of Tao of Dating articles, now that I’ve given you the what and a little bit of the why, I’m going to give you the how.

So this is how you turn your attraction into 3D SuperAttraction:

1) The Hierarchy Axis.

We’ve talked about this before, and most dating advice products out there operate primarily at this level.

The simple way to accomplish this is to be rich, famous and powerful. If this is not accessible to you, then the idea is to be ‘cool’, or at least cooler than her. You do this through routines, jokes, funny stories, and the right attitude.

In The Tao of Dating, I talk about this attitude as the ‘picky buyer stance’. If you have The Tao of Dating, you need to go read that part again so you REALLY get it.

You also use the technique of ‘conversational scaling’. By gently teasing her and giving her a hard time, you are tacitly conveying that you are higher than her on the social hierarchy. This is the opposite of groveling, asking for her permission, or trying to ingratiate yourself.

Let there be no doubt: this works. However, it can also backfire, especially if you take the devil-may-care and cocksure attitude too far. There is a fine line between giving her a good-natured hard time and hurting her feelings and thereby turning yourself into an asshole. Don’t be the guy who crosses that line.

Also, some women out there aren’t just looking for a one-night stand, believe it or not. And they are very, very smart, and see right through some of the smooth, ball-busting guys as players and guys who are only looking to score.

The truly awesome women who know their own worth and can get that guy any day of the week will pass, and hold out for something better.

Sure, every once in a while the routine will work and overwhelm a woman’s better judgment. But let’s say, best case scenario, it DOES work. How long can you hold the routine up? 2 hours? 5 hours? How about two weeks? Six months?

The cocky-funny-teasing routine requires high energy. And unless you naturally are that guy, it’s going to be difficult to sustain long-term. There ain’t no pill to keep this one up so eventually, you have to let it up, the real you will have to surface, and the basis of your attraction will be lost. And you may feel like a bit of a fraud in the process.

So don’t be a one-trick pony. Have genuine strengths. Add a little bit of the other axes. Which brings us to:

2) Kinship

One way for this to work is to have a pre-existing relationship. You work together (or used to). You are schoolmates, or even better, classmates. You move in the same circle of friends or relatives.

There are attractive women who already exist in this sphere, which means that this axis is already in play. You already have a leg up! So go and associate with them already.

But can you also manufacture kinship? In a short amount of time? Why yes. It’s the second way. It’s called rapport, and I spend a whole lecture in the Tao of Persuasion course talking about it.

That lecture is available to you for free, so you have no reason not to LISTEN TO IT NOW: www.taoofpersuasion.com. It’s all the way at the bottom. Download it and listen to it to your heart’s content.

Rapport works on the very short term. The ‘two-hit’ technique also creates a micro-kinship in a short amount of time, since we tend to think that people we see often are familiar, even though we may have little real information about them. You see her once, say hi and get her name, come back a few minutes later and continue the conversation — simple as that.

Also remember that by listening to a woman and drawing her out, you can find points of real kinship along the way. Amongst data points like your alma mater, city of birth, where you grew up, circle of friends, favorite movies and favorite books, chances are very high that you’ll find points of overlap.

In fact, using a utility like Facebook.com, you can instantly find out whether your respective circles of friends overlap. “Omigod, how do YOU know Jenny Dennehy? We’re, like, best friends!” Incredible.

There are scenes in the immortal classic “Wedding Crashers” in which the characters played by Vince Vaughn and Owen Wilson manufacture stories of kinship right on the spot. Hilarious stuff. You can also play with that — “Gosh you remind me of my little cousin”. Just remember that the real version works even better.

A third way is to set out deliberately to create new circles of kinship. By becoming the social impresario, you are bringing a group of folks together regularly, with you as the hub (which brings a little Axis 1, Hierarchy, into the mix as well). I describe this in detail in the Tao of Social Networking.

This is a longer-term play that takes 2-6 months to set up. But you know what? It pays off handsomely and for a long time to come. Well worth the investment.

A fourth way is to use the power of self-marketing. The more frequently you’re in touch with a woman, the more she is likely to know, like and trust you. With email and text messaging, you can do this in a totally non-intrusive, discretionary, fun manner that doesn’t take so much of your time. I call it ‘pinging’, and it’s a good technique to add to your repertoire.

3) Elevation

Ah, finally — the meat of the matter.

The whole idea behind elevation is to send her up the ladder of divinity, or inspiration, or peak experience, or whatever you wish to call it. Three ways I can think of doing that:

A) Tell her a story.

In my seminars, we spend some time working on your Signature Story. This is a story with a beginning, middle and end, preferably about you and some cool episode in your life revealing your character, courage, zest and other cool things about you.

If you make the story inspirational enough, then it can be your elevation module. But you know what? It doesn’t even have to be about you. If you can tell a good elevation story, she will come to associate that story with you since you’re the one who told it to her.

B) Share an inspirational peak experience.

If you have a peak experience together, then that’s real elevation right there. Do some local hill-climbing, and at the end you will literally be elevated with a peak experience.

To have the oxytocin secretion (and therefore the bonding, trusting experience), Prof Haidt found that the experience has to involve ‘moral beauty’ and not just virtuosity. Watching Michael Jordan play basketball (which is what they actually did in the experiment), though awe-inspiring, won’t do it. A speech by the Dalai Lama may work better. And take a copy of Walden by Thoreau to read together when you get to the top of the mountain.

C) Do public service together.

This is similar to B, and it makes a heck of a first date as well. Go to volunteermatch.org to find a local organization worth your while.

D) Attend some spiritual service together.

If you’re the churchgoing kind and you know a pastor who gives a great sermon, go there. If you’re of the same creed, even better. Everybody’s going to be friendlier and more trusting after a good service, and now you know why.

So that’s the whole story, gentlemen. In a nutshell, if you are able to incorporate the 3D triad into your dating interactions — tease her good-naturedly, establish deep rapport, and tell a good signature story — your dating success will have no choice but to SKYROCKET. Let me know how it goes.

The power is within you,
Dr Alex

Before, I associated spirituality with some guy in a long robe spewing stuff about crystal power and channeling dead ancestors and whatnot.

But here was this book — the Tao Te Ching — which gave you these paradoxical-sounding concepts that made your life better when you applied them. Crazy, huh.

Now, I’m a practical kind of guy, you see. Which means that I start out as a skeptic, test an idea, and see if it gives me results.

If it does, then hallelujah. Game on. That’s how I got into hypnotherapy, and that’s how I got into Eastern wisdom.

I call this ‘open-minded skepticism‘, and I encourage you to try it on for yourself.

This monthlong mentorship program that I started utilizes a lot of seemingly esoteric concepts derived from Buddhist, Hindu, Tantric and Taoist traditions.

My job is to bring them down to earth and make them eminently usable. To give you results here, now, on this planet.

Not only actual babes in your life, but also a sense of inner peace and real power, which interestingly enough, makes it a lot easier to have more babes (or that one special babe) in your life.

So let’s talk about this notion of no-self, or ‘anatta‘ as it’s called in the Buddhist tradition. For the scholars out there, ‘anatta‘ is the Pali word; ‘anatman‘ is the Sanskrit term.

You’ve probably heard from a variety of sources that ego bad, no ego good. And by the way, there is no ego.

What the heck does that mean? And how do you make it work?

Well, there’s the old metaphor of the river. If you’re looking at one, close your eyes and open them again, it may look like it’s the same river, but it’s not. Every water molecule in it has moved, the banks have shifted by some minuscule amount, and it’s not exactly the same river as before. It’s like it’s brand-new every moment.

The ancient Greek philosopher Heraclitus said it thus: “You never bathe in the same river twice.”

And so it is with you. Just now, you took a breath, and trillions of molecules of air exchanged in your lungs. Millions of neurons fired as you just read that last sentence, and you’re effectively different from what you were five seconds ago.

So this is not just metaphor — it’s real. Granted, some structures remain stable, which allow people to recognize you from one day to another. But fundamentally, there is no fixed ’self’ to anything.

Everything — and I mean EVERYTHING — is in a constant state of flux.

Now what happens with us people is that we tend to get attached to some notion of a fixed self. “I am a certain nationality. I am a certain ethnicity. My name is Dan. I’m a fan of so and so team. I’m not a partying kind of guy. I like this. I’m offended by that. I’m this kind of person. I’m not that kind of person.”

Oh really.

What if I told you that you could give yourself permission to suspend that notion of a fixed self — just for a little while? And that this suspension would allow you to get better results in life and have a lot more fun?

Since these articles are about dating, let’s examine this concept of ‘no-self‘ in the context of — what the hell — dating.

Once again, I introduce to you gentlemen the concept of the Dating Pipeline. Briefly, the seven steps are:

1) Find. Are you going to the places where there are women  who are interesting to you? What is the size of the total pool of women in your living area that you could potentially date?

2) Meet. Of those that catch your fancy, how many are you actually saying ‘Hi’ to?

3) Get contact information. Okay, now you made the first contact. Did you get  a phone number or email?

4) Follow-up. Did you actually call or write her in a timely manner?

5) Second encounter. Did that follow-up turn into a date?

6) Progression to intimacy. Did you make out — or more?

7) Third encounter and beyond. Were there repeat dates after the first?

Now let’s apply the concept of no-self to each of these steps and explore the ramifications. Shall we? Oh goody.

1) Find

Now that you are free from the notion of self, you would be willing to go more places and try more things that you would consider “out of character.”

For me, that would be going to sporting events. Or the racetrack. Or to a pottery class.

Let me ask you this: do you like beer? Or sushi? Chances are you’re a fan of at least one of those things.

Well, I’ve got news for you. As a physician, I can tell you that no child is born liking beer or sushi. It’s just plain icky — UNTIL you try it out and develop a taste for it.

And so it is with the fixed notion of self. When you lock yourself into who you think you are — sometimes at the tender age of 20 — then you have LIMITED your world, who you are and what you’re capable of doing.

The fact is, the more places you’re willing to show up, the more activities you’re willing to try out, the more chances you’ll have of meeting interesting women.

And, incidentally, of having a rich and interesting life.

So you don’t think you’re the dancing type? Well, why don’t you sign up for a dance class and find out (by the way, one of the easiest and most effective ways in the world to meet women — they have no choice but to hold on to you, geez).

This is the top of your pipeline. And you can totally blow it up by trying on the idea of no-self and experimenting with new versions of you.

2) Meet

This is perennially the area in which most guys are looking for a better way.

She’s hot, she’s standing there, there’s no Plexiglas shield around her, no Dobermans to attack you — and yet you can’t go up and say hi.

What’s the deal?

Some guys say, “Well, I don’t want to offend her.” As if it’s HER feelings they’re concerned about. And saying ‘hi‘ would be somehow offensive.

Nice try, buddy. The truth is you’re chicken, because the all-powerful goddess babe could make you feel like a gnat by dinging you. Ohhhh no.

It’s not about her. It’s about your ego. And how it could potentially get bruised in this interaction.

Now if there’s no self, then there’s no ego. No ego means no bruising, which means now you have no fear.

Oooh! Suddenly you’re bulletproof. And it’s not because you’re ‘confident’. It’s because you moved to a level BEYOND confidence, where confidence doesn’t really matter anymore.

I’ve always had a problem with the whole notion of confidence. “Hey man, to get chicks you just have to be confident.”

A whole buncha nonsense.

To me, confidence is like a wall. And for any wall, there’s a battering ram, wrecking ball or bunker-busting tactical nuclear weapon that can destroy it.

Confidence can be broken. I want you guys to have something that NOTHING can break.

The idea of no-self is like water. Can you cut water? Can you break it? It simply flows around any obstacle and re-forms as if unperturbed.

That is no-self, my friends. It’s what confidence wants to be when it grows up.

3) Get contact information

Again, when there’s no self, there’s no ego, and there’s no fear of rejection. So you’re much more willing to just go up to her, do what it takes to get the contact info, and run along your merry way.

This is known as ‘Te‘ or right action. And when there is no self to get in the way, you become a conduit for Te. And you get crazy awesome results.

4) Follow-up

Guys ask me, “When should I call her?” And I say in the Tao of Dating, sooner is better than later. Follow up within 24-48 hours whenever possible.

But the real answer is that you should do it when it feels right to you. And when there is no self, then you will act less on fear and uncertainty and more in consonance with your instinct.

You feel like calling her the next day? Do it! Who cares about protocol. You’re afraid of screwing up on the phone? Well, there’s no self, so there’s nothing to screw up. Just do it.

This whole no-self idea can be pretty liberating, eh.

5) Second encounter/first date

Here’s a biggie. You’re on your first date. What do most guys do?

Blather nonstop about themselves, that’s what. Partially because they’re uncomfortable with empty air time, and partially because they’re trying to boost their own ailing ego by showing how cool they are.

Well, if you had no self, then you wouldn’t worry about empty airtime and you’d have no ego to boost. And instead, you would do the single most attractive thing a man can do in the presence of a woman:

LISTEN TO HER.

Yup. Just hear her out, brother. Be genuinely interested in her. Ask her “What do you mean by that?”, or “What’s important to you about that?” Draw her out.

Your expert execution of the concept of no-self will also look to her like you’re a creature of utter mystery — which means tremendously attractive.

Also, you can’t possibly get ruffled or annoyed by anything she does or says. There’s no self for you to get annoyed! This will make you seem imperturbably calm — which is also very, very attractive.

6) Progression to intimacy

Guys tend to get all worked up in this phase. “When should I kiss her? Should I wait till the end? Should I use TrendyBoy’s Reverse Devolution Triple Whammy on her? Or the Alias Hair-Twist and Yank?”

Take a deep breath. Relax. And realize that any anxiety you have about the first kiss is really anxiety about having that first kiss thwarted. And that’s all about the ego.

When you toss that ego aside, then it’s like you’re clearing out internal blockages, allowing your natural feeling and instinct to surface.

Listen — three MILLION years of evolution have put exquisitely sensitive and accurate circuits in your head and body to let you know when you should kiss her. The very survival of the species depends on it.

When you are self-less and therefore calm, cool, and collected, you immediately know what that look in her eye means. And you will go for the kiss immediately, without any hesitation, because you are fully present. No manuals necessary.

And further on down the line, when you get more intimate, you’ll enjoy your togetherness more as an act of sharing and less about some kind of performance. Which, paradoxically, will improve your performance.

Ready for one more?

7) Third encounter and beyond

From the outside, no-self looks like you’re just one solid dude. Imperturbable. Solid backbone. A stand-up guy. Women like that. And they will come back for that, again and again, because it’s so damn rare.

Also, no-self allows you to be a conduit for love.  Because you’re not with her to try to get something from her. You’re not with her because it gratifies your ego. You’re not with her because you don’t want to be lonely.

You’re with her out of choice, and for the mutual flourishing of spirit. And to have a great time together. And when time comes to part, no-self will allow you to do that with greater grace, too, since you won’t take anything personally.

The power is within you,
Dr Alex