I came to this world in 1964, near Paris. 37 years later in 2001, I became the happy dad of a little boy, Estéban. His mom and I live separately in loving friendship. I live in Provence, South of France, and I have the French nationality. However I see myself as an open source earthling. Where do I have my home? Here, inside myself. A little bit like the turtles.
I consider myself as my first subject of research and creation. I cultivate the art of joy and happiness.
My main activity consists in thriving. Indeed I have no other real activity. I play my own instrument of self.
Here I make a clear distinction between “my being” and “Jean-François Noubel”. Jean-François represents a temporary human being. He has his body, his traits, his story, a location in space and time. He evolves in a culture and a society. He has a personality, a structure, strenghts and weaknesses, some light and shadow, a specific tone, exactly like a music instrument. Like a wave on the ocean, he raises, grows, moves in the society of waves. When time comes, he will melt again in the great ocean.
My being experiences itself as the whole Universe (Brahman) as well as an atemporal conscious-form, a divine and omniscient singularity, a unique manifestation, local and ubiquitous (Atmân). Some would call “soul” this being I describe, it works for me too. However I tend to use the word “soul” parcimoniously because time as eroded it and infused it with clotted cultural schemes. Seasonned with Christian and dusted with morals, the popular meaning doesn’t have much to do with the experience I have of soul. Although I see the necessity of it, I don’t want to go into the engineering of consciousness here. I rather simply talk about myself.
A morning of September 2009, the Vow of Wealth blossomed in me. If you have questions about it, please check the FAQ.
I don’t possess many things because I decided that I own nothing. Not even the thoughts that suddenly come to mind. Liberated from the artificial boundaries imposed by property, the whole universe open its arms. I live in generosity. Everything I can offer, I offer it — experience, joy, time, energy, objects and work…– to people, to the living beings, to the world. All this in the heart of a market economy in which nothing flows without a counterpart.
Living in systematic gifting throws many people, myself too. So far it has always lead me to the right place at the right time. Therefore I have no reason to stop. 😉
People often ask me how I survive. First, surviving doesn’t interest me. I came to this world to infuse myself with a contagious joy, not to just “survive”. Life comes as a gift at birth, why should I earn it? Giving joyfully leads to receiving joyfully, concretely. Hence I live with the gifts I receive, because of gratitude, kindness, sweetness, as a thank you, sometimes because of a simple reciprocity. These presents, I have learned to welcome them with simplicity: a meal, money, a know-how, time, a roof, a train or plan ticket, a new skill, a thanks or a smile…
Each gift always comes at the right time, in perfect match with my needs at the present moment. Neither do I need to calculate, nor to hoard. A practice that teaches how to soothe the agitations of the mental and the ego with their endless short term forecasts. I became a sicada wiser than the ant. I learned how to understand the flows of the world, more specifically those of wealth, as I closely listen to the laws of providence.
Providence? We often hear the word serendipity. Providence or serendipity, it doesn’t matter, I live with them and through them. Mysterious for many, they emanate from an inner rapture that places me with the most beautiful symbiosis with the universe. We call it celebration. Everything becomes erotic and joyful. The universe? I mean the reality that sets itself up as a mirror of my thoughts. Thereby the inner happiness leads me to give the best of myself, and receive the best from the world thanks to the creative alchemy of my thoughts. Everyting happens in our mirrors. It makes me an artist. I just have to know what I want to create. I consequently live as a creator and attractor of everything that happens to me. Everything. No exception.
I always tell the truth, as far as my consciousness goes. Precisely, the exercise of truth extends the frontiers of our consciousness. Truth diverts us from external power because it gives us internal power. Truth makes us divine beings.
Institutional power doesn’t interest me. Indeed, I have no social status. No title, no function, and I do my utmost to keep it this way.
Moreover, I have no duty, and no morals. I live in an amoral dimension (meaning out of morals, not to confuse with immoral). What? Let’s think about it… this leaves a complete space to creative joy. If it always leads to the right place, why would I lock myself in the oppressive suburbs of morals? What about your son? some ask. As his father, don’t you have a duty towards him? No. Not even with him. I let go every idea of duty. It gives he and I freedom to joyfully invite all the experiences, all the crazy things we would like to live together. When two beings have so much joy to share, why would they need duties?
I also see myself as someone completely useless. I mean “not usable”. Having no function and no role as a tool, it gives the floor once more to the creative joy. From the feedback I get from others, it seems they like me this way. 😎
The masculine and feminine wave inside me, I live in an androgynous state. I exist in the plenitude of the union with myself, in myself. The universe plays a gigantic orgy. Every breath vibrates with eroticism.
I love sex. Sex at the altar of Eros next to Agape. Free beings consent to each other to celebrate life through the body that carries it. There, nothing can blossom by just depending on the other. Love manifests itself because of consenting freedom and mutual celebration, not because of padlocks.
Wonderful women have thus illuminated my life, inflamed my being, and initiated me into secrets unknown to my conscience.
Today I met the woman to whom I can offer my complete adoration and devotion. Together we celebrate life, we share our joys and sorrows, we offer each other our light and our strength where our shadows and weaknesses lie. We experience the magic of this feeling that we have known each other forever.
A discipline that studies… collective intelligence, this extraordinary property of living systems that manifests everytime time living beings collaborate. Plants, insects, viruses, bacterias, human and non-human animals… everywhere collective intelligence, intra or inter-species, enlivens the universe.
In this very moment, our species evolves. Very fast. I like to explore this and tell the story to my contemporary fellows. As I wrote earlier, I made myself my first subject of research and development, and my first lab. Living as a 21st century human involves an action at every moment, here, now, without any ideation of self. I just have to listen to the sudden intuitions provoked by the joy to exist. I believe this contributes to the arrow of evolution.
On a daily basis, my work varies a lot. From a conference in South Korea to Morrocco to a shamanic ceremony in Mexico, from meditaton to building the next currency systems, from narrative writing to musical composition, from martial arts to deploying new ontologies, from social media to conscious breathing, from coaching leaders to the evolution of our species… every day involves all my being, physically, emotionally, intellectually, spiritually. Unless I get hit by some hard jetlag, I don’t have any efforts to make to get out of bed in the morning.
I have practiced martial arts since the age of 16, and I have taught them for many years.
Although this may look paradoxical to some people, the way of the warrior leads to a path of peace. I enjoy training almost everyday, it doesn’t matter the place and the context. I love to offer the body its freedom of moves, emotions, expression. I want to free it from social codes, knowing that many of them serve to maintain a separation between the being and the body. For me the body represents the place for all learnings, a space of ultimate knowledge, because the whole universe operates in it. The body carries the infinites.
I only eat plant-based food. Therefore I belong to the great family of ruminants.
For the people who don’t really know me (or who feel safer in judging), my diet may look Spartan, monastic, orthodox, even masochist. So wrong! These choices came out of years of research that lead to an optimal balance. I have a great energy, I feel well in a body eroticized by this great food.
I just feel great by eating and dressing without killing. I don’t consider that munching a salad or an apple has the same consequence as bleeding a pig. Not contributing to the institutionalized slaughter of animals with whom I live a profound loving relationship aligns me with my humanity. We often hear “we are what we eat“, I also think “we eat what we are“. It reflects the maturity of our consciousness.
We can see the organic plants-based diet as a joyful and liberating practice. It gives me a clear, vast, light consciousness that I don’t meet with those eating animal flesh and conventional food. I love the state of absolute soberness that connects me to my essence. I don’t know a better drug.
I barely get sick. My vitality gives a hard time to microbes, bacteria and other viruses. Indeed health relies on other factors that the sole diet, nevertheless food plays a key role.
This ‘about’ will continue to evolve with time. Come back soon!
