Perhaps "Ho Hum" is your initial inaudible response. "Here I am using my valuable precious moments to read about this guy's fortune cookie!" Your left index finger prepares to hit the eject key.

"WAIT!" I virtually plead from behind this electronic mirage. "I have something to tell you that you may or may not want to read or to learn."

The easy part of what I need to say is that I am "about to start something new": in a few days I will move to south Florida, to begin a new chapter of my life - living in a spiritual community, an intentional spiritual community, in a monastery.

This move is on a trial basis, for both the monastic community and myself - if either the community or I decide that Jim is not "monk material' . . . I exit the community.

The more difficult part of what I need to say is about "thoughts, purpose, will, feedback, the universe."

Again you reach nervously for the eject button! "WAIT!" again I plead.

In such a brief space of time and page, I would never attempt to fathom the depths of such immensely vast and intellectually challenging subjects. At best, for now, I might only attempt to explain the personal significance of the Fortune Cookie's message.

1. You are what you think! Your thoughts have a type of power which most of us take for granted; or, ignore; or, are totally oblivious (unaware) of. It is axiomatic (self-evident) that thoughts are the seeds of reality - whether our own or those of (as yet) barely understood higher forms and levels of consciousness. We should both acknowledge that our thoughts do not completely control, dictate, or predicate all aspects of what we experience and live. Think positive, life affirming, happy, loving, peaceful, successful, and forgiving thoughts . . . and you astronomically increase the probabilities for those to manifest within your life! Think the opposite, get the opposite!!

2. Your life has purpose! You began life with the instinctual purpose (goal, aim) to survive - and you had no control or awareness of this purpose. As you matured, you developed the ability to set goals, a reflection of purpose, of conscious decisions. Purpose(s) are threads within the fabric of being, of existing. In my opinion, life offers you choices and you decide for what purpose(s) you live.

3. You will what you live! In its most direct, personal and ordinary form, your will (power) is "the mental faculty by which one deliberately chooses or decides upon a course of action." One school of thought about will power (freedom of will) is its opposite: predetermination - the act of determining or ordaining in advance what is to take place. In my opinion, our lives incorporate both will power and predetermination, and when we are the happiest, the most successful, the most alive - there is unity and wholeness; they are one and the same.

4. You live in a feedback loop! You drive through a 'red' traffic light enough times and eventually you get a ticket or create a traffic accident and get a ticket. You eat too many candy bars for an extended period of time and you deform your body and compromise your health. You think that you are sick and weak for an extended period of time and you are sick and weak. You think and do things which make you happy and healthy and you are happy and healthy. All of these are examples of 'cause and effect'. What about a cause and effect relationship between emotions and soul? One school of thought on the relationship between emotions and soul states that experiences affect emotions, and emotions affect experiences. Think something, do something, that is good for you, and your emotions will respond with positive, good, confirming feedback. In my opinion, at least a portion of this feedback originates from sources external to our own life and experience: the universe is integral to our emotions-soul feedback loop.

5. The universe communicates with You! Most traditional scientists describe the universe in terms that a bulldozer operator, a land surveyor, a lawyer, almost everyone understands; yet, ever increasing subsets of those same scientists have recently begun exploring and confirming the existence of 'things unseen', of '12 or more dimensions', of 'multiple realities'. None of this is actual news to most Christians, Jews, Muslims, Buddhists - almost every branch of religion has sacred texts, documents, which describe a reality that is not the same as our everyday earth-based reality. In my opinion, there exists a constant and perpetual connection and communication between our normal and everyday reality and a supernatural and cosmic reality. All of this may be too foreign, strange, magical, mystical for you to accept. I simply know that such connection and communication exists!

6. The Fortune Cookie! Having said all of the above, I will admit to believing that the Fortune Cookie message - "A good time to start something new" - was not simply coincidental: it was confirmation that I am making a positive and good decision, that I am headed in the right direction.

You are entitled to your opinions and beliefs, as am I. I might even be able to reject, discount, ridicule everything I have said above - if I could turn back my life clock sixty-one years.