Interview with Andy Greening, Arrowtown – New Zealand

What is tranquility?

Andy Greening

Tranquility for me means inner peace. From my point of view tranquility is when you turn down the noise of your ego and concentrate on your innermost heart and start to get to know the real you. I am trying to gather my own world view, shifting paradigms. I plan to share my experiences and those of others via The Tranquility Project and connect with people who are at similar stages in their lives. As I see it there are 3 stages along the journey to inner peace:

First there is the about me stage. Take a look at most websites where it says: about me or about us. The majority of people talk about their external perception of themselves. I am a mom, I drive a Mercedes Benz, I have a nice house, I have children. In my view all this is not the real you. The real you was born 30/40/50 years ago as pure genius, and after that slowly grew away from genius. We grow away from that genius by conditioning through our parents, relatives and by taking on the beliefs of our peers and those close to us – this all adds up to build the illusion of who we are. Then we start to play roles. For example: at work you are an accountant, at home a loving father, on the netball court an aggressive network player, on Saturday afternoon a karaoke singer! By playing all these roles we get confused of who we are. Eventually it gets tiring to keep on playing these roles.

In addition, there are habitual behaviors grown from what you think you enjoy doing because you have been doing it for so long. Drinking, feeling sorry for yourself, telling yourself “you’re the best”. Repetition becomes you. At the age of 35-45 the majority of people start to ask questions about themselves like “what is the purpose of life”. Some see that as noise and turn it off to continue their lives as before. Others take the questions more seriously and start looking at themselves. There is a real human need to return to that genius that we all are. There are tools that can assist us. Meditation is the main tool for me. Awareness is huge help. Being conscious of your inner tranquility is a must. Our children, who are sent to us as a mirror, can be of great assistance if we are brave enough to confront our own behaviors. We can see our bad habits, beliefs and conditioning reflected through our children.

Once you become aware of this false self, you can start the “journey home” by forming new habits. Live in the now.  Stop being burdened by the past or constrained by hope of what is going to happen in the future. Just BE. To a certain number of people the Buddhist way allows them to get their inner peace. I am not a Buddhist but I understand at a high level the principles of observation the mind and knowledge that all things are independent etc. When you implement these new habits you get a new, more balanced, outlook. You start to ask questions: “What do you want out of life?”,  “What is your purpose?” Some of us get this outlook when they are ill, some get it on their death bed, some lucky people get it in midlife and very few get it earlier in life. There is a whole generation being born at already at this knowing stage. We hear them being are called different names like Rainbow children and the Children of Now.

Tranquility is the ability to recognize what quantum physics have found out already: that underlying everything there is a single consciousness. We all come from pure consciousness. At a deep level you and I are one. Living in the now, appreciating what you have, connecting with nature on a daily basis, listening to music, all helps to connect to a higher vibration.

When I see pictures of the beauty of New Zealand you post on Facebook, it all looks so peaceful. Do people in New Zealand really need tranquility?

One thing about living in beautiful surrounding is that you don’t appreciate them. What amazes me is the feedback I get when I post photos of my surroundings on Facebook. People tend to look at them externally. But I am sure, for a number of them, when they walk out their own door they would have the same beautiful environment. However, you get blasé and forgetful when you are surrounded by beauty. But here too we live fast and busy lives. There is a saying: ‘It is not a rich life in the mountains but it’s a rich life in the mountains’. New Zealand is a first-world country, but it has a lot of external influences and a lot of people don’t take time to appreciate what they have. As elsewhere, there are not that many people in New Zealand that have found Powerful Inner Tranquility. Maybe find on a Saturday afternoon in nature or on a Sunday morning when they are with their family. If you spend half an hour in nature and look around you, you can become aware and appreciate that we live in a world of constant change.

Can we have a sneak preview of your tranquility project?

No It is evolving on a hourly basis. But I can tell you where the idea of this project came from.

When I was a stressed-out executive, I found it hard to find the high level information about I was looking for. If you Google questions on topics like ‘Self-help’ it is difficult to find something that suits you. Of course, if you want a quick fix you can buy a law-of-attraction book of attend a weekend course – but the true journey must start from within. When I first started becoming more aware, I found a lot of power in inner tranquility. My aim is to help people that hit that midlife crisis and show them that there are other pathways.

My view of the project is that it is ongoing. We will encourage others to add short video and contribute with their view/opinions. I’d like to interview people from different areas: life coaches, yoga masters, Buddhists etc. and get them to discuss their current world view. Also the man in the street; to ask him how he gets to a more peaceful place of his life. The Tranquility Project is an attempt to be authentic in a commercial world, to provide information in an area that is lacking tangible guidelines. My hope is that it becomes my own authentic playground.

You also work as a trader in the forex business (forex means foreign exchange). How can you be spiritual and trade at the same time?

Forex (and the financial markets in general) are a reflection of humanity. A lot of people see trading as a way to get rich quick. There are a lot of scammers out there and many popular misconceptions. Once you peel back the many layers of greed and mischief you will see the real trading. Trading professionals don’t look externally for solutions but internally. They see that the main asset of a trader is to look at their own inner behavior. To become a good trader you need to know who you are. I learned more about myself through trading than from anything else. My challenge to explain the apparent contradiction. Trading is what I do to put food on the table; it is not my goal in life. Both worlds (personal development on the one side and trading on the other) are crying out for authenticity. Instead of telling people ‘I have the answer’ it should be more ‘you have the answer, the answer is within you’.

What is your vision of the world?

We are at a time of great change. The world is shifting towards collaboration, away from competition. Old ways of thinking and acting will become difficult to maintain. This religion versus that religion, women versus man and old versus young…  this duality approach is dead. The sooner people realize this, the healthier the world will be. In the week after the death of Bin Laden, the adults of the world missed a huge opportunity to show leadership to the younger generations. Some really good blogs were written about this – all ignored by a mass-media interested only in selling separation.

We are all one humanity living on a green planet in the middle of nowhere; we can either collaborate or compete. Accepting we are all one is the key to go forward. Let the children that are coming through now have their influence on the world now. We need to get away from this hierarchical view of ‘I am older so I am wiser’ and celebrate this coming generation’s uniqueness.

More about Andy Greening, Follow @Andy, @TQ_Project and @TQ_Trader on Twitter