As I complete Week 13 of Year 3 of Project 52, here is an update on my progress and some reflections on the path forward. This newsletter is divided into 3 parts:
Part 1: Abundance, Leverage & Love
Part 2: Getting into the Right Relationship with People
Part 3: Situational Assessment
Part 1: Abundance, Leverage & Love
My intention this year is to tap into abundance through leverage, with love. At the end of Q1, I feel like I’ve made this intention my own. I started with an intellectual understanding of my intention based on what I had read about abundance and leverage from others. But now, I feel like I have started to embody it.
What Abundance & Leverage Mean to Me
Abundance to me is the spaciousness and freedom to do what I want with my time because all my needs and desires are met automatically and effortlessly. Leverage is what allows me to tap into abundance by helping me meet my needs and desires automatically and effortlessly. I can have increasing or decreasing amounts of leverage over time in different areas of life.
Categorising Leverage — Internal & External
I’ve found better ways to classify leverage. I had taken inspiration from Eric Jorgenson’s work on leverage for my manifesto. I found August Bradley’s classifications to be more well thought out. But here’s my version — I think that there are 2 types of leverage: internal and external.
Internal leverage involves mindsets, mental models, spiritual practices like prayer, psychological and physical health, knowledge, and wisdom. Internal leverage makes you wealthy in terms of your internal state and also allows you to use external leverage more gracefully. Tapping into the abundance that internal leverage offers is the key to a fulfilling life.
External leverage involves other people, the timing of our actions in the world, tools that extend our capabilities, the media we create, tools that replace our effort, and capital or money. External leverage makes you wealthy in terms of your financial earnings, impact on the world, and influence on others.
What Does it Mean to Be Leveraged?
You are (absolutely) leveraged when your skills, effort, judgement, and time are no longer required to generate abundance. You continue to grow your earnings, impact, and influence, even in your sleep.
While it’s possible to fully automate wealth generation in some areas of life, other areas will require some level of input. For example, a good financial investment or a business that you own can generate money for you with zero effort required from your end. On the other hand, a good fitness routine or a meal plan will require your effort — but it’s still a form of leverage because you have refined and perfected the routine or plan to maximise results from your efforts.
The Impact of Leverage on Time
Ultimately, leverage compresses the time taken to get your needs and desires met. It makes you wealthy by giving you all the time you need to do anything you want to do. No matter what need or desire you have, thinking in terms of leverage involves asking the question — how can I get this faster and with the least effort?
But to be clear — this doesn’t mean taking shortcuts. Karma can still be a bitch and you don’t want to accumulate energetic baggage as you go about tapping into abundance. You will end up creating a nightmare for yourself and those around you if you go down this path.
The Paradox of Abundance
This nightmare is exactly what’s happening in the world right now. While we have created abundance for an increasing number of people over the last century, we have taken plenty of shortcuts. The price we’re paying is in terms of pollution and extreme weather on the outside, while stress and depression wreck us on the inside.
This is one aspect of the paradox of abundance — that while we live with increasing material abundance, the cost of generating this abundance has been externalised.
The other aspect of the paradox of abundance — as pointed out by David Perell — is that the abundance we create itself is not necessarily good. In fact, most of it is qualitatively poor. Take examples of food and information. We have an abundance of both these days. But the vast majority of it is greasy burgers and celebrity gossip — qualitatively low in nature.
But this abundance also means that the conscious and discerning consumer can find healthy food and nourishing information. The only difference is that, unlike the average consumer, the conscious one is not driven by impulse and is not looking for shortcuts. Instead, the conscious consumer is anchored in the light of awareness.
Doing What is Right, Not What’s Easy
In our world of increasing abundance, there’s going to be plenty of the good, the true, and the beautiful. And there’s going to be a whole lot more soul-destroying shit. And it’s going to be easy to take shortcuts, both individually and collectively. But we must do what’s right, not what’s easy.
Doing what is right is possible when we are anchored in love and wholeness. To make this shift, we need to digest/defrag our fear and fragmentation. As I’d written in my manifesto, love is what enables the right choices in a world of abundance. And each day, our choices are becoming increasingly consequential.
Part 2: Getting into the Right Relationship with People
The most fundamental form of external leverage available to us is other people — even before we had tools and money and media, we had other people. It is — first and foremost — through other people that we can expand our outcomes — be it our earnings, impact, or influence.
In my own life, I’ve been making slow progress on expanding my outcomes. I believe that this is the result of not being in the right relationship with people. That is to say, the way I regard and relate to people in my life is not conducive to tapping into abundance.
This realization has been unfolding in my mind over the last 2-3 years and it really solidified in the last few months. I realized that I’ve been trapped under a pattern of “other people are a burden” and “I’ll just do it by myself”.
I have very high standards and I am very discerning. Put differently — I am a bit arrogant and pretty judgmental of others. I thought that this way of being would keep the drama out of my life and would bring the right people to me. But being clear about what I don’t want wasn’t enough.
Over the last several years, after a lot of drama (that I wanted to avoid in the first place), I just ended up being alone, having failed at everything I’d tried to build. Then in late 2019, I went back home to live with my parents.
The Right Relationship with My Parents
In the 3+ years I spent at home, I noticed how I was seeing my mom and dad as an obstacle on my path — a hindrance to my mission. This pattern was severely disempowering and I decided to not give it any energy. Instead, I chose to see my parents as embodiments of the divine and to see that my relationship with them as an important part of my journey. I chose to get into the right relationship with them. And before I left home a few months ago, I completed that process.
Your relationship with your parents is your root relationship. It is essential that you feel complete about this relationship. This doesn’t mean that you have to make your parents happy or that you have to fulfil their wishes. This also doesn’t require your parents to change in any way — it just requires you to change. It requires you to acknowledge that you’ve come into this world through them and that you are their flesh and blood. You are part of a lineage and they are the nodes that birthed you.
Being in the right relationship with your parents means that you are grounded in love and respect for them — while remaining sovereign as an individual with your own values and destiny. Now, this might not be true for everyone, but I feel that it’s true for me.
I also feel like I’ve found my life partner (soon-to-be wife) only because I’ve sorted out my relationship with my parents. In the last few months, I’ve noticed how it’s impossible for me to see her as a burden or hindrance. She is the embodiment of my path. And that has led to a larger revelation — that the people are the path.
The People Are the Path
I’ve had this abstract notion of the path that I’m on — to engineer paradise and create heaven on earth. And I have often looked at the people in my life as obstacles. But in the last few months, I’ve realized that this path lies in the people around me. I move forward by being of service to those around me. I can still have high standards and be discerning, but those skills are to be used in service of people — not against them.
I’ve had a pattern of focusing too much on people’s weaknesses and telling myself that they will be a burden. Often, I’d talk at people instead of talking to them. So in the past, I only attracted people who ended up being a burden on me. But these patterns have been dissolving now and I am starting to see the best in people. I trust that this way, I will find the people with whom I will engineer paradise — and that they will find me.
I know that I am capable of being a leader and bringing people together to work towards shared goals in a meaningful manner. But this requires that I see people as they are, trust that they are in my life for a good reason, engage with them from my heart, focus on their strengths, and help them bring out the best in themselves.
I need to see that the people are the path.
Releasing the Disempowering Patterns
In Mother Nature, For Father Future…
By your grace and with your blessings, I hereby release these patterns from my life…
That other people are a burden and a hindrance to my path.
That I need to do everything myself and that I cannot rely on others.
Of being arrogant and judgemental towards other people.
Of not trusting and focusing on the worst/weakness in people.
Of failing to see the divine at work through other people.
Inviting New Empowering Patterns
In Mother Nature, For Father Future…
By your grace and with your blessings, I hereby declare that…
The people are the path. It is in being of service to others that I make progress.
I am building a network of reliable and inspiring collaborators in creation. I find the right people to engineer paradise with, and the right people find me.
My discernment and perspective are used in the service of people in my life.
I see people as they are, trust that they are in my life for a good reason, engage with them from my heart, focus on their strengths, and help them bring out the best in themselves.
I see that the divine is at work through the people in my life. I am increasingly open and accepting of the guidance that comes my way.
I expand my outcomes — I expand my earnings, impact, and influence — through the people around me. And I invite my loved ones to do the same.
Part 3: Situational Assessment
Finally, here is a situational assessment covering things I’ve been working on and some things that I intend to pick up in the second quarter of Year 3.
Vault of Levers: I want to build a vault of levers that catalogues the various forms of leverage in my life, the input or effort they require, the point of leverage inherent in them, and the output or outcomes I can expect from them. The goal is to move in the direction of a high output/input ratio for each of these levers.
My prayer is the most important lever in my vault. It helps me embody frequencies that are in alignment with my truest truth. Year 2 of Project 52 resulted in the bulk of my prayer being crafted. Now, I add to it when I go through the right relationship process (like above) or modify it when inspired to do so.
Practice Tracking: In Year 1, practice tracking was directly correlated with Project 52 — my intention and my practices matched directly. But now, my ecology of practices is mostly aimed at setting the foundation for my overall well-being and only some practices are directly related to my intention for the year. Practice tracking is something that runs parallel to Project 52 and I’m also positioning it as a standalone offering for my clients. I’m also considering co-creating a course on practice tracking with my partner.
Project 52: I’ve realized that setting the intention at the beginning of the year, holding it in my heart, reminding myself of it regularly through visual cues, integrating lessons learned on a regular (at least quarterly) basis through writing, tracking practices related to it, and ultimately, trusting the universe to work its magic — is the recipe for a successful Project 52.
Paradise Engineering: My mission is to create heaven on earth. I’m currently playing this mission by working 1-1 with my clients, helping them figure out what heaven means to them and showing them how they can realize it. The process involves releasing Karmic baggage, inviting Dharmic alignment, and performing your Yajña — which is your offering — with your whole heart. When you are able to do all 3 consistently, you move into being in Yoga — which is a state of wholeness and union. I believe that Paradise Engineering is best thought of as a game — the game of life itself. I’m currently working on articulating the storyline and integrating the gameplay into a single system.
The Art of Manifestation: The art of manifesting your dreams is something I’ve always wanted to explore. I’m currently in the middle of researching techniques and strategies for the same — and I’m excited to put this into practice. I feel like I’ve started exploring this at the perfect time in my life. Having done a lot of the essential shadow work, I feel like I’ve earned the privilege of using the light work approach to live with ease and grace.
Information Diet: Progress involves subtraction as much as it involves addition. I’ve been completely off Instagram, Twitter, and YouTube for almost two weeks (as of publishing this newsletter) and I intend to continue this in some form going forward. I’ve also limited the amount of news that I consume. The intention is to starve my brain of the usual infotainment and free up my consciousness to focus on more important things. Even if there’s nothing to occupy my mind, that is better than consuming content mindlessly.
Energy Management: The information diet is part of a larger Energy Mangement protocol that I’m exploring. We give our energy to feelings and thought forms that are not our own and that are not in alignment with our highest potential/truest truth. I’m not saying it’s bad to feel these feelings or think these thoughts, but giving energy to them over and over again is counter-productive. When we do that, our energy field gets polluted. We create more friction and less flow. I believe that we’re in the middle of a spiritual war and we need to be conscious of how we channel our energy. We need to serve the greatest good to the best of our abilities. In the coming months, I want to explore Energy Management further and see how it intersects with Paradise Engineering as well.
Releasing the imprint of ancestral trauma: Our bodies carry the imprints of the trauma endured by our ancestors. In my lineage, it is the trauma of displacement, colonisation, and persecution. I am beginning to see how these forms of trauma trap me in certain ways. I want to explore and understand this trauma more deeply and work towards releasing it — for myself, my family, my community, and for the generations to come.
One thing that stood out for me from my manifesto was the idea of Dharmic leverage: when I perform my Yajña in alignment with my Dharma, I can trust my Karma to lead me into being in Yoga. When I live a life of devotion in alignment with my highest potential, I can trust that life is happening for me and that I am anchored in wholeness and love at all times.
As I step into the second quarter of Year 3, I pray that I move deeper into Dharmic alignment, that I perform my Yajña to the best of my abilities, that I release Karmic baggage consistently, and that I’m always anchored in the wholeness of Yoga.