. good morning. and welcome to mosaic. i'm ron swisher, it is always a privilege to host mosaic on behalf of our producer hugh burroughs and cohost elizabeth edale. we are also blessed to have live in our studies, hugh's wife gayle and grandson, teddy. so, we shoutout to hugh is recovering and we hope to see him back soon. in this new year, i know people have said resolutions, they probably have objections or goals have you set that you

want to fulfill. i our guests this morning says one of the goals that are probably innate to us, in ain't to us in our dna is -- inherent to us in our dna is happiness. aristotle says the meaning and purpose and aim of life is happiness. and we are going to explore that with their new booking the ' earn ital quest for happiness. it's my privilege to have long time friends as well as friends of mosaic with us this morning. >> thank you for having us. >> great to have you both. >> thank you for having us. >> you have been with me a number of times over the years. this is my 16th year. >> wow!. and have you in previous times been with me. it's been a couple years now. so to see that you are still on the scene and writing books, tell us what you have been

doing these couple years, you used to host martin luther king, junior service. you used to healing connection that you founded in 1989. >> that is correct. >> tell us what else you are doing. >> what is new to your listening audience is we've been doing mirrors,. >> that's right. >> we partner with schools that we have programs and the teacher come up with a vision, what kind of community they like to live in. and so that is new to our listening audience that is beautiful. i have seen pictures of them. >> yes. and what is truly incredible about the vision that the children come over is that they create themselves as super heros to come and solve the different challenges we face in the community. and so it's truly truly

inspiring. and we invite all your listeners to come to oakland and do a tour. so far we have completed four murals. >> four, i was going to ask how many you have done and how many to do. >> two more to do. the city has commissioned us to complete two more. one is on another one on market street and another one on martin luther king. so that will be murals. >> they are inspiring. >> and then january 12th we'll be doing unveiling for the fourth one. so people can come out and view that one. and another thing we continue to do and a lot of people think it's news, we do racial healing circles. so, we have a video that's coming out called imaginary walls. >> okay. >> so that is new. >> do you remember your book beyond fear. >> yes, uh-huh. >> racial healing.

that was written in 1998. >> and it's still around. >> and it's still around and it's still an issue. >> very needed some that is something. and we also just completed our eternal quest for happen hi necessary. >> i enjoyed reading it. before we start, this first segment, one quote you use i just love i think it's by the persian poet, and he says, you know, since i heard -- no, since happiness has heard your name it's been running in the street trying to find you. and, happiness has found you guys because you radiate that happiness. mary williamson in forward talks about how happy you are and how much joy you bring. but you have gone through struggles and you deal with the issues. it's not some idyllic, you know, roman i can view of

happiness. -- romantic view of happiness. it's concrete, down to earth and i appreciate that. >> he said that 0, because after many years have searched and reading and researching, we've come to the conclusion that we are happiness. and that is rooted in the wisdom that if, in fact, we are children of god, which we all -- or most people agree, that we are children of the most high. and god is love then we are love. so, that is the premise that we are coming from. and making our case in our new book. and it is quite amazing that even though we have -- we have

faced different challenges, at one point i was living in oakland hills, one sunday afternoon i -- to come having lunch with her. and twice i was resistant. but the spirit said, just -- just obey and go. so i went down to have lunch. while we are having lunch, we had a lot of and the cloud was filled with smoke. we find out the air where i live in the hills was on fire. >> that's right, have you it in the book. >> yeah, we talk about that story and we shared that in the book. and what is truly telling is that, i couldn't go home because they block all the rules to go into my home. -- they block all the roads to go into my home. and i stay and i could never go home again. we are going to get into

that book because have you wonderful stories. >> thank you. >> thank you. they are so time less. >> yes. >> and thank you for being here. you contacted me earlier last year, and i'm so glad you were available. >> thank you very much. so please join us as we continue the quest for happiness.

welcome back to my sake, i you have been with us referring to this great book, the eternal quest for happiness by these two great thinkers and activists in our community. and we want to talk further about that. now, tell us a little bit, what is happiness and why is it such an eternal quest? and what does it mean to us? >> we talked about we are all like a cat chasing its tail. and we are going around and around and around and looking for happiness. our constitution says we have to be in the pursuit of happiness. and i realizing that we are the thing that we are looking for. so, happiness is all laughs and joys. it's all of it. it's two sides of the same coin. can you see from our stories, some of them are really

heartwrenching. >> right. >> but, you know, you come out of that. you are like a phoenix that come out of the fire. and the fire that we talked about, i had a fire in my life and i was walking through the house and my house was burned down, i picked up one little bear, and i touched the bear and the bear said keep a sense of humor. and so we forget many times that we are the thing that we are looking for. and if we can just laugh about it. but it doesn't mean we don't be active, we don't protest. but it does mean we are not really letting that thing immobilize us. i think the worse emotion that we can have is to be able to -- is to be in a place that we are inactive. for example, right now we have donald trump as our president. and most people are just upset about that. realizing he is showing us things that we need to deal

with. we beyond beyond fear, 12 keys to spiritual healing. nobody wanted to deal with the issue of race. now people are coming, everything is calling, everybody is saying oh, we didn't know we had this issue. let's be joyous and look at the things that we need to heal. so i think the many times we forget that we are the thing that we are looking for. >> that's good. >> happiness is the ability to be able to understand who we are as human beings, as human beings we have all these sides to us and accept that all of these emotions, anger, fear, all of these emotions serve us. but how can we begin to really accept that? >> why is it so difficult to deal with racism? >> it is difficult, i learned a valuable lesson when i was doing my graduate work is that

racism is not going to go away because it's about money. because if we were to divide people, then of course what happens then is that each person will have to be on their own -- if we were to use the united states as a market economy, that each family living under the same roof, they have their own television, for example. so when you look at the concept of a racism, it's not going to go away, that is one point to look at it. the other way to look at it is that it's a spiritual misunderstanding that as humans we don't want to work together, do things together. the main reason is because we

just do not understand, because we look at nature. for example, 150,000 different kinds of orchids. we look at the rose pedal, rose flower for example, we have so much diversity, you know, in nature. but when it comes to humans we don't want to -- we don't want to accept the fact that it is our diversity that are our true strength lies. so, that is why racism is not going to go away. and it's not something new. in the biblical books, paul talks about wisdom with the i didn't know think ans. he used the powerful analogy, we should look at the human race like a tree.

that the roots, they are not, you know, separate except from the branches or the from the flowers on the tree. and so here we are 2000 years later, we still dealing with this issue of race. and so we talk about this in our first book beyond fear, we talk about healing that we have to come from that perspective of spirit. but that remain -- we have to embrace always, we have to work with all people because each race come with their own wisdom and their own mortality. >> again, how is happiness fit into that? >> i think happiness fit into that because once you start realizing the concept, the whole idea of race it doesn't exist among the human beings because it's -- we made it all up. so we have to be able to have a

sense of humor. it's like me walking through the ashes and i picked up the little bear and the little bear i touched it by accident it said keep a sense of humor. happiness is who we are. and that's something that we have to accept. it's just like as human beings we begin to accept the fact that we are human beings, the concept of race really doesn't exist. >> you make reference about god is love. >> right. >> and that is what some people seem to believe. but other people think that god is a punishing, punitive, petty and so they go around -- and condemnation and judgment and not the joy and happiness. >> i think it's important for us to accept the fact that we are searching that person. as long as we can understand it, everything that we do serves us. >> that is interesting. >> and so, as soon as we get out -- get out of the belief

that this is not serving us, then we can let it go. but as long as we feel like this is really really working in my life, then we are going to hold on to it. if you try to take something from a child, that child is going to scream and yell and holler. because that child sees value in that. and so once we begin to understand that as human beings, as long as we see value in something we are going to hold on to it even though it might hurt us. >> let's come back to that. please, join us in this next segment as we continue our quest for happiness.

i'm ron ron. it has been a great privilege to host mosaic. and as we -- ron swisher, it has been a great privilege to

host mosaic. and this design here is unique and i think you said your daughter has done that. >> yeah, she is executive director of attitude healing connection. and she did that design for the -- to show the quest always looking for happiness. >> what are some of the practical methods? now, you make reference to silence. you make reference, of course which we already alluded to, attitude has a lot to do with it. i think of poor john milton in paradise lost he talk bus our minds can determine heaven or hell or hell and heaven. what are some of the ways in which we can i can't she that in our inner life as well as outwardly? >> this goes back to your other question, what is happiness. >> okay. >> and that we in our book discussed different ways for us

to actualize happiness. and the main reason is that we are lost. and to actualize our happiness we have to come from our inner peace. so, in our book we talk about getaways and the gateways are different ways that we can retain to our inner sanction tum. one is sitting in silence. without saying or doing anything, that we are achieving a goal then god knows our needs. so as he said in the biblical book, be still and know that i am. that is one way. >> psalm 46. >> that is correct. another way is through prayers. again, you know, in the biblical bible, in the beginning was the word, and the word is with god. so if you were to speak, if we

were to speak whatever we want our wish to be, that will be another way to take us back home. now, you guys very very popular in the united states, so people can do yoga practice, yoga the medium of yoga or the practice of yoga is a very good way to take -- >> do you both practice yoga? >> i do. but not aisha. >> i commune with nature. >> various ways. >> very different way. and we did -- we actually did two chapters on this topic, different ways that people can actualize their inner peace, to re, you know, invent or revisit the happiness again. and so one is mindfulness practice. mindfulness practice come in different forms. for example, about 15 years ago

i wrote a book called mindful drumming. and the concept is synchronized rhythms. if three or more people come together and synchronize their retirement 'ems together, it will actualize a happiness. another way is mindful walking. if anybody go whether you walk in nature or just go for a walk and just bring your consciousness on your otthat can also actualize that. >> we couldn't get you drum up here, but we know that the mindful drumming has been a part. in fact when we started all of our martin luther king, junior services for 12 years you began with a mindful drumming. you have a quote in the book about that once you get to the river, many roads to the river but it's the same river once you get there. >> yes, this is a quote from

dr. fox. and he is telling that there are so many ways going, you know, to the ocean. there are so many ways going to the ocean, but in the end we all end in the ocean. which we are all trying to go to spirit. we are all trying to go and reach god. and there are so many ways to reach god that some people will have to do mindfulness, some people would like to do meditation, some people like to sit in silence. >> in prayer and worship. >> and worship. >> we are going to have to come back. we ran out of time on this segment but we have one more that we can nail down this happiness. i am going to leave here happy. >> thank you. please join us in our last segment.

welcome back to mosaic for our final segment. this has been a great book. i want to ask you, what makes it different from other books on happiness. there are so many other books. >> this book is different because this is about our stories, it's about our struggles, looking at ways we can look at happiness in a

different way. it's not just a feel good thing. but it also is about acknowledging the pain that one may go through. so, that's the difference between most books on happiness and our book. because you still are looking at ways that you go through things. when you get to the other side then you look back. so it's like walking backwards. you look -- you go through the other side then you look back, wow, i came through that. and so that is the beauty of it all to look at ways -- to look at life differently and know that who you are your essence is love. that you can choose and direct, can you choose peace, or you could choose joy or you could choose pain. the power to choose and understanding your power that you have this power that you can choose. >> like when i read it i can tell it's not unrealistic because people think happiness is remote and distant, but you deal with real issues.

>> uh-huh. real issues and you begin to understand the value that, you know, to keep going, to know no matter what you keep going tenacity and consistency, these these are values and understand that life is about really having a set of values that you can adhere to. i think that is the beauty of it all. >> detail about having your car stolen. >> oh, my god, i was so attached to that car. >> you get attached to things, i didn't want another car. i wanted my old car back. but it was gone. that's the boughtee of it all to really know that sometimes you lose things. >> that's true. >> but it doesn't mean that that's the source of your happiness. >> right. >> that the source of your happiness has nothing to do with things. >> finally, where can we find the book? >> you can go on our web site

barnes and nobles have our book. >> great. >> and we are looking at -- right now we are saving up -- since the book is annually released, we are setting up a way of new book signings. >> okay. great. thank you for being here. >> go on our website aec- oakland.org. >> we'll find that book. thank you for being with us. and

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