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The Secret of Prosperity
An Interview
with Irish Author, Mick Quinn
Question: How do you define prosperity?
MQ: For me prosperity is freedom from
emotional and psychological suffering.
Question: But, so often, we associate
prosperity with money, travel, and good times?
MQ: This is true. But there is a strange
discovery made by all of those people—and I
mean all of those people—who attain a certain
level of world success, meaning they have a nice
home, a family, a good job, good friends; this
discovery is that joy, purpose, or just simple
day-to-day contentment can seem to be fleeting. So The
Uncommon Path takes a different approach on
prosperity, which sometimes surprises people.
Also, I find that many people are unable to even
accept the possibility of freedom from suffering
and the end of personal conflict. This acceptance,
curiously, is the first step to prosperity.
Question: So this new approach is based on
your own background; could you tell us a little
about that?
MQ: Sure. I was born in Ireland. Growing up
there sometimes looked like a scene
from the movie “Angeles Ashes” [laughs]. Somewhat
out of desperation, I emigrated to the United
States in 1986. After seven years of living illegally
I won a Green Card. I returned to college in New
York City and shortly thereafter began to study
Buddhism and Zen. I also got involved in several
business startups. One of these companies became
very successful and after a few years, we were
generating $25 million per year in sales. At
one time, both my work and home address were on Fifth
Avenue, but even with all this prosperity
something was missing.
Question: Ease and contentment?
MQ: Exactly! You see, all these years I
followed what I was conditioned to believe would
lead to happiness. First, I went to college, then I
studied on the weekends, and read lots of books
on business and personal improvement. I did
visualizations, developed a good business network, was
spontaneous, and always open to new things. All
of this brought prosperity for sure, lots of money,
friends, cars, nice houses, good vacations and so
on. But, curiously, as I sat in my brand new sports car
in the middle of New York City after a show where my
girlfriend was the star… I was lost, lonely,
and confused!
Question: Is this when the idea for the book
started?
MQ: No, not at all. In those days I still
figured if I had more money, a nicer house, or a
new relationship, that the pain would heal. So I
continued to start businesses and live the good life.
I also began to get more serious about a spiritual
search that had started some years earlier. Now I
would visit various teachers who would come to
give lectures in the city and I would go on weekend
retreats and practice
meditation when I had the time.
Question: So you were on the spiritual
path?
MQ: Well, not really. I just thought I was
[laughs].
Question: Now I am the one who is
confused. I thought that being on the spiritual path
meant we read books, did meditations, and went to see
spiritual teachers.
MQ: Yes, that is a common misperception,
probably one that keep more seekers
lost or fewer as finders of the way. It was not until
2001, after I had convinced
myself that I was on a spiritual path for 10 years,
that I realized that the way I was
living was never (repeat, never) going to lead to the
kind of prosperity we are
discussing here: freedom from emotional and
psychological suffering.
Question: What happened in 2001?
MQ: I had what is commonly referred to as “an
awakening”. I was in France on a meditation retreat
when, for the first time, I realized the incredible
force of individual and collective conditioning and
the absolute ease and contentment, which is our
natural state. This is where the idea for the book
finally took seed.
Question: How did this realization affect
your life?
MQ: Spiritual experiences always fade with time
and the only way we can know if we interpreted
them correctly is to look at how our life changes
because of them. Up to that point I had a life
that most would consider full, normal, and successful. But,
from this new perspective it now seemed a little
shallow and false… well maybe a lot
[laughs]. I realized, too, that prosperity was not to
be found at the bottom of the wishing well, in
the gaze of superwoman or in the new religion of the
West: scientific materialism. I also realized
that so many seekers of the way are still lost
because their teachers have yet to transcend their own
conditioning. The Uncommon Path on the other
hand, describes four steps to prosperity that show you
how to identify the illusions of the ego and
concealed conditioning. This work also reveals that
a passing interest or even a deep intellectual
knowledge about meaning and purpose will be enough to
bring ease and contentment into your life.
Question: You said “the ego”. Can you
tell us what you mean by that?
MQ: The ego I refer to in this case is not the
Freudian ego, which is the self-organizing principle
of the psyche, but it is the part of each one of us
that, mostly unknowingly, enjoys pain and suffering.
Strange as it may seem, we all have this part. So the
ego is individual and collective conditioning. Such is
the complexity of the ego that many spiritual seekers
are completely unaware that the content of their
spiritual seeking is designed, developed, and
orchestrated by the ego.
Question: And how does the book deal with
this?
MQ: In the beginning of the book I talk a lot
about the ego and how to recognize it. There are
exercises to reveal its presence in conversations and
in your relationships. The key to prosperity is
to learn to recognize overt and concealed conditioning
and then let go of its appearances in your life.
Question: Can you describe the four steps,
or The Four Insights as they are called?
MQ: Sure! The assessments in the First Insight
help you uncover a significant number of
conditioned motives previously hidden across all
aspects of life. They are the subjective: Thoughts,
Emotions, and Spirituality, the inter-subjective: Relationships,
Family, and Beliefs, the objective: Home,
Health, and Knowledge, and the inter-objective: Career,
Money, and Social Status. These are based on Ken
Wilber’s “Four Quadrants”.
The Second Insight
reveals that to be free of all unnecessary suffering,
you can no longer live by a decision-making process
given to you by a world that is still suffering
terribly. Though you mean well, inherited values
and the way in which they are arranged cannot support your
purest aims to awaken. There is a great exercise in this
chapter to help you determine your values and align
them with your intention to awaken to prosperity.
The Third Insight is about
meditation and offers an instruction that is so simple
that even people who have been meditating for 25
or 30 years find refreshing and effective. Imagine
a strike of lightning on a moonless night, where in
that flash, you see true reality, if only for a
few seconds. Here the darkness of a moonless night
symbolizes a way of living that is just full of
apparent and hidden ego-motives. The short flash
represents the ever-present oneness and completion
that is revealed when mind and body are poised in
stillness. The Third Insight is all about your
practice of stillness meditation.
The Fourth Insight is a way of
being that spontaneously unfolds in direct proportion
to your engagement with the other three Insights.
There is no limit to the expression of the Fourth
Insight; its greatness is entirely dependent upon you.
The integration of the first three Insights into every
aspect of your life creates the conditions for the
natural emergence of your full potential in the
fullness of ease and contentment. Individual
transformation is a prerequisite to world peace.
Question: This seems like quite a lot of
information to digest?
MQ: I believe the readers are more than ready
for this and what are we going to do? We can live
a relatively exciting life but forever be running from
confusion and anxiety or we can stop and smell
the roses while making time to look into this work,
even if that is only for five minutes per day.
You don’t even have to “believe” in spirit or
consciousness.
Question: Seems like a clear choice to me.
MQ: Indeed, prosperity is a choice.
Question: So, how would you describe The
Uncommon Path in a nutshell?
MQ: The Uncommon Path
is the softness of The Power of Now by Eckhart
Tolle mixed with the storytelling of Jorge Bucay,
and the teachings of Andrew Cohen, Ken Wilber,
and Genpo Roshi. It is a deep and practical guide to
contentment, which presumes that you are ready to
allow a little transformation to occur in your life.
Question: Do you give seminars and do
workshops based on the book?
MQ: Yes. We currently have a teaching schedule.
My wife Debora is certified Big Mind / Big Heart
Facilitator
Question: How can the readers find the book?
MQ: Advance orders are available on the
website. Publication is June, 2009.
©Excerpt based on the book: The Uncommon
Path, O-Books, June 2009.
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© 2008
Mick Quinn, All Rights Reserved
Mick
Quinn is the author of The
Uncommon Path and Poder Y Gracia
and the founder of Choice
for Enlightened Living Foundation. Mick's work
is quoted in The LA Times, Yahoo!, CNN
Living, and Woman's World. Gary
Renard, the best-selling (Hay
House) author said this book is "informative
and gripping". Raquel Torrent
– Psychologist and Founder of the Spanish
Integral Association said, “Mick Quinn’s style is
clear and direct - like silence making music”.
Mick lives in Utah with wife Debora. For upcoming
events visit: www.mickquinn.com
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