James A. Cusumano is the author of the book Life is Beautiful: 12 Universal Rules. His other books include I Can See Clearly.
Q: What inspired you to write Life is Beautiful?
A: For me and for others, I wanted to identify specific rules that would help anyone create and enjoy a life of fulfillment, joy, and happiness.
However, my interest went beyond this.
For several years I have been developing a strategy for writing books that would reach a broad readership and enable me to more effectively follow my Life Purpose—which is to share my learnings from decades of diverse and eclectic experiences in my personal and professional lives, with the prime objective of helping others find their Life Purpose and a sure path to personal fulfillment.
To do this I felt that an effective means was through what I call “Wisdom Fiction”—writing novels which simultaneously, entertain and inspire. I have sought to do this by subtly weaving throughout the narrative of my novels those learnings I mentioned above. I Can See Clearly: Rise Of A Supernatural Hero is the first of these novels, and the first book of a trilogy series.
I Can See Clearly is the story of Luc Ponti, a talented teenager seeking the Meaning of Life and his Life Purpose, while simultaneously fighting the grip of the CIA, which seeks to exploit his superpowers.
As a 16-year-old star basketball player, Luc wins an important tiebreaker game for the Palo Alto Vikings during the last few seconds of play. He’s simultaneously critically injured by a player from the opposing team. Luc dies for several minutes but is revived after having a near-death experience (NDE). He inexplicably begins to develop superpowers, which change the course of his life and have a profound impact on the world.
Q: Did you need to do much research to write Life is Beautiful, and if so, did you learn anything especially surprising?
A: My research for Life Is Beautiful was done over the past several decades and was centered on learning the following from both ancient and modern Wisdom Seekers—the fundamental underpinnings and function of the Cosmos, namely; the intricacies and types of Consciousness and how they are accessed; The Meaning of Life; Life Purpose; the connection between mind and Consciousness; accessing altered states of Consciousness through meditation and pranayama exercises; and the nature and purpose of the Cosmos and our connection to it.
You might say this has been a life-long research exercise—and it’s still going on! My task has been to distill and focus what I have learned over the years, to a set meaningful rules and guidelines, easily accessible to everyone.
Q: Early in the book, you discuss the idea of "Cosmic Consciousness." How would you define that term?
A: Cosmic Consciousness is an infinite and eternal energy field of knowledge, information, and wisdom. It is the repository record for every thought, word, and event that has ever occurred and will occur.
Some philosophers have referred to it as “The mind of God,” as Einstein once did when he said. “I want to know God’s thoughts. The rest are details.” Wisdom Seekers of millennia ago referred to this infinite field and repository of knowledge and wisdom as the “Akashic Record,” today known as the “Akashic Field.”
Cosmic Consciousness is an intimate part of your Essence—your true reality, and not your five-senses, physical, body, which navigates our three-dimensional world.
The chaos of our everyday world creates a “fog” between your mind and information existing in Cosmic Consciousness to which you have access. It is through altered states of Consciousness—raising its level through deep meditation—that you can connect with Cosmic Consciousness, a source of high-levels of creativity for finding ultimate truth and the solutions to challenging issues.
Guided by the rules defined in Life Is Beautiful, it is also a means to manifesting into your life those things you seek for a life of fulfillment, joy, and happiness.
Q: What do you hope readers take away from the book?
A: If they have not yet discovered their fundamental Essence, the Meaning of Life, and their Life Purpose, I hope this book provides some help for them to do so.
Q: What are you working on now?
A: I just finished the first draft of Book 2 in the Luc Ponti Trilogy, Seagull’s Revenge, which will likely be published this fall.
Q: Anything else we should know?
A: Our world is faced with a number of critical challenges—climate change, pollution, nuclear proliferation, pandemics, toxic leadership, social inequality, mass migration, and more.
Some of these, e.g., climate change, are potential existential threats, challenging the very existence of humanity. Not the planet, it has suffered five species extinction events over the last 500 million years and has always come back. But we cannot predict the same outcome for the human species.
I believe that deep down, everyone dreams of making a difference in this world. I also believe that the more people who do this by finding their Life Purpose, the greater the prospects for long-term sustainability of humanity, by diminishing the extent of the abovementioned threats to its existence.
The reasons for this are twofold.
First, finding and following Life Purpose means a greater number of fulfilled, joyous, and happy people contributing to a better world.
Second, increasing the number of people following their Life Purpose enhances the emergence of more Inspirational Leaders to help lead humanity in the best direction for long-term sustainability. They also diminish and can eventually eradicate the influence and power of toxic leadership.
Examples of Inspiring Leaders: Winston Churchill, John F. Kennedy, Martin Luther King, Jr., Nelson Mandela, Albert Einstein, Abraham Lincoln, Mother Theresa, Stephen Hawking, Bill Gates, Oprah Winfrey, Rosa Parks, Sandra Day O’Connor.
--Interview with Deborah Kalb
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