Rancho Feliz is not a charity

“Gil - as the Founder and President of Rancho Feliz could you give me a quick description of the organization?”

I hear this question often so I thought it might be a good starting place for our blog. To me, though we do charitable things, Rancho Feliz is not a charity - it’s a philosophy - a state of mind. Rancho Feliz is not about helping others – it’s about helping ourselves with the wonderful concomitant benefit that others get helped in the process of our awareness.

Existential in its roots, Rancho Feliz’s “Guardian Warrior” philosophy provides us with a clearer view of the way life really works - now - for we humans with our instinctual reactions and our clever and unruly minds.

We must never forget that in the arena of the mind – what we believe to be true – is. So seeing things as they appear and not as they actually are often creates false thoughts which in turn create false realities. This results in our living out of alignment with the truth which can only result in bad decisions and unhappiness.

However, seeing a situation accurately allows us to make correct decisions and to better negotiate our daily lives. This in turn empowers us to avoid many of the pitfalls of habitualized human behavior. The end result – a happier life – now. (There are additional more esoteric powers at play that we will address in future blogs.)

Common response: “So let me get this straight, you help others with the intention of improving your life? Isn’t that selfish? Doesn’t that make your charitable work conditional?”

And my response is always a resounding and unequivocal: “Yes!”

The philosophy works. Let’s look at our Rancho Feliz actions and not just our words (always good advice). As a volunteer-based organization, neither me, or any of our Board of Directors have ever been paid a dime, yet we, and our volunteers, have raised over $10 million in donations, built entire neighborhoods, learning centers, child care facilities, volunteer dormitories, funded scholarship programs, computer centers, food distributions, medical procedures, etc. See our web-site: www.ranchofeliz.com.

It’s an aggressive, maverick philosophy. But for the hundreds of Rancho Feliz volunteers, and the thousands of people we have served since 1987, it works.

More on how it works to come.

~ Gil