Four Types of Yogis, One Yoga

 Yoga is an ancient art based on an extremely subtle science, that of the body, mind and soul.  The prolonged practice of yoga will, in time, lead the student to a sense of peace and a feeling of being at one with his or her [their] environment.

B.K. S. Iyengar

What type of yogi are you?

There are said to be four types of yoga...that path that can take us to full realization. They are: Bhakti, Jnana/Gnana, Kriya, and Karma Yoga. I believe  a yogi, someone committed to the practice of yoga, will travel through all four paths at some point in their journey. All paths are required. I know, I have been down a few of these paths and continue to travel on them. 

I, like most westerns,  started out with  one of the limbs of Astanga called Hatha...that which we do on the mat.  I was not looking for "yoga" when I began...just a way to tone and stretch my muscles.  I was missing so much of what yoga is. I actually resisted, at first, the pranayama, meditation  and mudra practice  which was probably the only "real" yoga I was doing in these early yoga sessions. It was not until I began to embrace them that I began on the first path to becoming a real yogi. Kriya yoga is a means of using breath, body position and chanting to help release and stimulate the flow of Shakti energy in the body and mind rapidly. The great Yogananda said that one kriya achieves in a half minute  what it would take other practices to achieve in one year. Am  I a proficient  Kriya yogi? Definitely not but it is a part of my practice.

I then advanced to studying everything I could about yoga and self realization, taking my truth seeking beyond yoga to other spiritual masters and texts. I was on the path to knowledge and wisdom and becoming a Jnana Yogi. This is the path I spend most of my time and energy on. This also lead me from the texts to the internal inner wisdom. Even though I still read whatever I can get my hands on and devotedly listen to wise teachers,  I started going inward to examine and explore my mind and to seek to realize directly what it is I am to know about self and Life. I find this path absolutely captivating and it is why I write to you today.  I am indeed, though  a novice, and very, very immature and underdeveloped, a Jnana Yogi. 

I have begun from here to take steps along the Bhakti path of love and devotion. Though I have always had a deep love for God, my understanding of "God" in conceptual terms has changed dramatically since I started on the yogic path. My love and devotion has grown.  My heart is now open to what is and no longer closed by narrow minded conditioning and belief. Buddhism and Taoism have helped to take my Christian understanding and the glimpses of Hindu understanding I have been exposed to on my yogic journey to a whole new level of love and devotion to Life. I am also becoming a Bhakti yogi.

Now, I find myself on the Karmic path of selfless action...even though I am far from self less at this point and have no idea what my karmic dharma is supposed to be...I am embracing the karmic path. I so want to be a Karma Yogi. 

So I don't know about you but when I ask myself , "What kind of a yogi are you?" , I find myself answering, "I am simply a yogi, seeking to be at one with my environment".

All is well.

The Art of Suffering Well

 The art of happiness is also and at the same time the art of knowing how to suffer well... 

Do you suffer well? Or Are You Drowning In It? 

It is possible to get stuck in the "mud" of life. It's easy enough to notice mud all over you at times.  The hardest thing to practice is not allowing yourself to be overwhelmed by despair....But we must remember that suffering is a kind of mud that we need in order to generate joy and happiness.  Without suffering, there's no happiness.  So we shouldn't discriminate against the mud. 

Discriminating Against the Mud

I read those words of Thich Nhat Hanh's from, No Mud, No Lotus,  last night and they resonated in me. I know I have been "stuck in the mud" and all I have been noticing is mud. Life somehow felt "wrong, bad, shouldn't be."  I fell into those judgements of it and began discriminating against the muddy/painful life circumstances that were simply enfolding in front of me. All I could see and smell was mud and I did not like it. 

 Everyone knows we need to have mud for lotuses to grow.  The mud doesn't smell so good, but the lotus flower smells very good.  If you don't have mud, the lotus won't manifest. You can't grow lotus flowers on marble.

No Mud, No Lotus

Part of me wants a life without any suffering.  I catch myself saying out loud, "Just for a bit...let me be free from suffering.  Let the circumstances flow freely.  Let all suffering end!" 

Then I am reminded to question , once again: Without suffering how would we know joy? Suffering and joy, I am reminded,  go together. 

Thinking we should be able to have a life without any suffering is as deluded as thinking we should be able to have a left side without a right side ...If we can learn to see and skillfully engage with both the presence of happiness and the presence of suffering, we will go in the direction of enjoying life more.  Everyday we go a little farther in the direction, and eventually we realize that suffering and happiness are not two separate things....If you can recognize and accept your pain without running away from it, you will discover that although pain is there, joy can also be there at the same time. 

Slipping

I feel like I have gotten quite far in my realization that suffering and happiness are not two separate things.  For a great part of the time, I stand  on the shore watching them float by...aware of the putrid yet earthy  smell of the mud, and the sweet and sometimes sickening smell of the lotus flower.  I see how interdependent they are. I see that apparent opposites are nothing but the same thing when I remove duality. I recognize and accept my pain. I can look at it calmly and objectively. I  think I am "there!"

Then ...all of a sudden the ever changing  winds of life  stirs up the mud, I lose my footing and  I fall into the muddy water again.  While I splash around in it, all I see and feel is the heaviness of the mud. It is like I am drowning in it. I do not  notice the lotus flowers as they float by. I am too busy splashing and thrashing in my attempt not to be consumed by this suffering. 

Surrender to What Is

It isn't until I stop resisting and allow myself to be still, surrendering to what is, allowing the pain and the mud to be a part of my experience, that I am able, once again, to notice the lotuses that were always there. Those lotuses that would not be there, if it wasn't for the mud. Stillness brings insight. But becoming still when you think you are drowning is not easy. Yet, that is exactly what we must do...surrender to what is. Life will blow the lotus in front of us, life will stir up the mud.  That is just the way it is. We can notice and allow it all. 

Suffer Well

We all have seeds of anger, sadness, frustration and despair within us that get stirred up by the circumstances of life.  We also have seeds of compassion, mindfulness, insight. We can use those seeds to help us embrace our suffering so we ...do not escape it or get drowned by it...but learn to suffer well.

We have to learn how to embrace and cradle our own suffering and the suffering of the world, with a lot of tenderness. 

All is well.

Wise words from:

Thich Nhat Hanh (2014 ) No Mud, No Lotus: The Art of Transforming Suffering. Parallax Press (Kindle Edition)

Wanting To Be a Karma Yogi

 My Life is my message.

Ghandi

Do you want to be a karma yogi?

I want to make my life my message, regardless of what I accomplish or achieve. Like Ghandi, I want to follow the path of Karma Yoga. 

Karma yoga, according to the yogapedia  is the path of  action, or selfless service toward others. Again we get into this "self-less" conundrum. Ram Dass, in the below linked video, tells us that Karma yoga is doing what you do for others with the intention of doing it for self. It is we who benefit when we help others...but then again..."other" and self do not really exist. 

He also reminds us that we are all just beings in different costumes...sometimes we see ourselves as the apparent "doer" and other times the "apparent" receiver of the doing but we are truly neither of these. We are not what we do, the jobs we have, the roles we play. We are not the actors doing the action or those receiving the action. We can simply witness and observe the action getting done without attempting to own any of it because we are not that. We are the beings, beyond the doing.

Some people would look at Mother Teresa, Dass explains, and see that what she was doing was good and noble.  She, on the other hand, would see it differently...just as something that served her and her "dharma" . Mother Teresa was simply administering to her beloved Christ through the distressing form of the  leopards and that served her.  

We would benefit by approaching our "doing" without attachment to outcome...understanding that Life is the process, not the product. Karma yoga  isn't about the action getting done...it is simply the doing, the serving with "being" in mind. Ram Dass   reminds us that we serve others in order to serve self and  by serving self we serve others. We do so without expecting or needing to get it done.  Each step of this action, in the here and now, is the karma.

Reminded of these words and am not sure who they were from:

It is not what you do that matters but how much of you is in the doing.

We can live this moment fully with all of it present. 

How about a place quiet inside where you can look at it all and say, "yes......there is suffering and there is joy. My dharma is to do this. I am doing it. I am at peace with the universe. It is what it is.  It includes horror and beauty and it is all unfolding and I am part of it.  I am part of it, like the winds, the mountains and the rivers. I am a part of it. And I am at peace."

 And the actions, and every action that catches you is another action to awaken and see how it caught you and to bring you back into a center. Then you are a karma yogi. Then you a karma yogi.  And when a karma yogi, a real yogi meets another yogi it is only itself meeting itself through all the different forms of the dance, of the dialogue between two parts of itself...  

Ram Dass

All is well

Ram Dass/Be Here and Now Network (n.d.) Ram Dass: Getting Free With Karma Yoga,Part 1https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IEHx5B0fuPc

Yogapedia ( Aug, 2020) What is Karma Yoga? https://www.yogapedia.com/definition/5020/karma-yoga

What is Going On With This Site?

 Need Your Help for Admin Issues

My readership has been way, way down for a bit now and I was just informed by someone that they were no longer getting my posts through email? I am not sure why or what is happening. I apologize for any inconvenience. 

Since I began this blog years ago my stats have consistently registered "no followers" but I have had followers. Comments from others, I am told, also often do not come through. 

I did not realize that since mid-July I have not been receiving any emails of my posts either...meaning that all automatic emails have ceased. 

I went to settings and seen that email was disabled.  When I opened that up I noticed a bogus email address attached to  @ blogger.com??? That was done without my consent. Was this an administrative thing and why did they add such an account? I am unable to edit that email address. 

I have asked others to resubscribe but they cannot do so unless they have a yahoo, netvibe or atom account? 

I cannot see where I can contact the administrator for help? 

I have been through a lot and I am not overly trusting as a result.  This may merely be an administrative thing, but it seems very suspicious to me.  What could be happening and why? 

If you tap into this incidentally, and I am assuming that that is the only way you will be able tap into it and you have an idea of what is going on please let me know in the above mindful serenity address...I appreciate it.

All the best ...

 all is is well. 

Loving One Self into No-Self

 The first love of oneself has to rise in your own heart. If the love has not risen for yourself it cannot rise for anybody either. One has to love one's body and one has to love ones soul. The person who loves himself is bound to become more silent and meditative, than the person who does not love himself. If you love yourself you will be nourishing yourself. When you love yourself you will discover that others will love you. Nobody loves a person who does not love himself. To love yourself is of immense spiritual value. 

The person who loves himself will find that there is no self in him. Love always melts the self. Whenever you love, the self disappears. Ego and love cannot exist together. The less a person is loving himself, the more egoistic a person is. The more you love yourself, the
more you will find that the self disappears. For moments, you will find that the self is not there and only love is there. ”
― Swami Dhyan Giten, The Call of the Heart 

From: Good reads:https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/tag/no-self#:~:text=The%20thoughts%20of%20the%20mind,mind%20thinks%20us%20into%20creation.%E2%80%9D&text=%E2%80%9CIf%20you%20love%20another%20person,have%20to%20become%20a%20nobody.

Hmm! I was looking for wise words that would clear up my confusion. Not sure if those words above help me to get past my conundrum or if they confuse me more. Sigh! 

It is obvious , as others have pointed out, that I, like many others,  do not love "myself"  enough. I never really did.  Other people's needs have always seemed to be more important than my own.  It always felt like I was here to serve others, make others happy, deny myself etc...like I am supposed to be always available for others to lean on but I am never supposed to lean on others, that I am supposed to always give but never take. So that is how I operate. That is how my mind works for a hundred different reasons. Is that spiritual or is that sick?

It seems like I do not love myself but it feels that I genuinely love others, deeply and profoundly, so I must love myself? If the love has not risen for yourself, it cannot rise for anybody either. What about you?  Do you love others and therefore yourself?

I do love my soul but I just don't tend to view it as "my" soul...it is just soul.  I appreciate my body / this body that the  soul is in but maybe I don't love it enough.  That could be true. Do you love your body and soul enough? 

I am more silent and meditative than most people I know but I also share the secrets of "my" heart very freely. Are you silent and meditative in your self love? 

I do not, however, nourish myself in the ways others tell me I should. I have no interest going to a spa or  going for a mani-pedi or even a haircut...couldn't afford it anyway. I am not even sure what nourishes me and what part of me needs to be nourished. I mean writing nourishes the soul...so I write.  Time with "my"  grandchildren nourish the soul...so I try to spend time with them. Solitude and nature nourishes soul...I have not spent enough time lately in nature. Do you nourish yourself...I mean your soul? 

I know people love me, conditionally, but do they love me for who I really am beneath what I can offer to them?  I don't know.  The above words say unless I love myself I will never truly realize that I am loved by others.  Is that the way for you as well?

To love yourself is of  immense  spiritual value?  We are to love "self" then, this thing that does not exist as part of our spiritual practice? We are to love that "mara", that obstacle on our path to understanding?  Why? 

So when we love ourselves , we discover there is no "self" within us? Does that make sense to you?

And for the next part: When we love, self melts away, but we cannot love unless we love this self that melts away?? So we need to love our ego just so that it disappears?? Yet ego and love cannot exist together??

So is the author saying that the more we love our ego...the illusion of "self"...the faster we make it go away, that true love begins with loving that which is so unimportant...our own egos? 

Maybe Love, loves itself through us and our realization that there is no "self".

Good and confusing, eh?

Anyway, all is well in my world!

The Breaking Point and No-Self

 

Giving It All Away

Who is it giving it away?

Slipped again into the muddy waters of life circumstance. Once again, I lost my footing in the calm, nonjudgmental, non reactive part of my being and  became overwhelmed.  I had a mini breakdown. I cried, I got mad at others whether they deserved it or not, I literally fell to my knees crying out to the world, "I can't take any more." Only to be given more...big stuff more: another loved one had another psychotic break, needing more of me than I could give. I had nothing left to give him except an hour of my listening time and sound advice that psychiatry and medication was greatly needed. I could not give him my space or any more of my energy than I already spent on him over the years.  I mean...I am bone dry on this side of the damn...I am completely, completely  dry and that is a scary sensation.  I feel that I cannot water, nurture, give to others because I have nothing left to give. But there the others are, frightened and in pain, holding their cups out to me and there is nothing in me to pour. I felt the pain of that dryness, that frustration, that guilt and yes that "self-pity".  I was also resentful and angry with this "idea" I had that "others"  and life were demanding every ounce of " me". 

Crying Up and Breaking Down

Whose drowning?  Who is dry?

The emotional energy reached a peak. The damns that were keeping these turbulent waters in "me" let go a bit and I was glad for the release. It was much needed. There was way too much pressure building up on the other side. Doing so also made others aware that "I" (whoever "I" is or "me" is) was drowning on one side, dried up and shriveling on the other (whether that is ultimately a "good" thing or a "bad" thing, I don't know) in these waters of circumstance.  In psychological terms, the realization that I was reaching or have reached the breaking point was suddenly obvious to all. To me, it was a big "Ohhhhh!"

The Story

Who is telling the story? Who is starring in the story? What is this story?

 So I took the "story" form of this...all the objective data, the physical circumstances, the events, the sensations and feelings this form and mind of mine is experiencing in reaction ( and I do know it is reaction and resistance...not response and allowing...that I do when I get caught up in story) to others with the soul purpose of telling my story, partly to create a dramatic effect. I was caught up in the story I was insisting that I was simply starring in  and I wanted to tell it.  I wanted them to see the story events and not the person creating the story as the source of the "problem".   I wanted others to step in and rescue this tragic heroine from her dragons...from what others and life were doing "to" her. At the very least, I wanted them to validate and support the pity I was having for this character.

Others kindly validated the dramatic nature of my story.  They stressed that, as a human being, I have  waaaay too much on my plate at one given time.  Empathizing with my ego, I suppose, they gave some very sound advice, "You need to look after yourself...you are burning out and getting sick with your attempts to "help" others.   You are not thinking enough of yourself."

Who is the "me" who needs to look after "me"

That is the sound advice any therapist would give a person presenting the story I presented. "You need to put your oxygen mask on first!  You can't pour from an empty cup.  You need to be more assertive and say "no" in order to preserve your "self" so you can later give of self.  You need to look after you."

From a psychological perspective that makes perfect sense.  So why can I not do that?   Besides the fact that I operate from deep core beliefs of my own unworthiness for self care and self compassion...there is a deeper reason.  My spiritual practice gets in the way of  "me" looking after "me."

Why do I look after "me" and how do I look after me? Who is this "me"? 

I am learning in my spiritual practice that there is no "me"...That character in that story I recently shared with  others is just that... a made up, fictional fairy tale character.  Life fluctuates between a fire blowing dragon burning this main character to embers when she is "bad and deserving" and a fairy tale God mother bearing gifts when she is "good and deserving". ( Must admit that lately there seems to be very few pumpkin changing beings in my s story and a lot of  hot-breathed dragons) . It is all just story!!!

This "me" is just part of a story...an idea created in my mind.

There is no "me"...just an "idea" of a "me", an idea of what that me needs, wants and must deny. There is no real "problems"...just an idea of what stepping  stones and obstacles are put in place  for this character so she advances or is rescued.  There is no time There is this idea of time as a "Once upon a time, a long time ago" and a "happily ever after".  There are no "problems"...problems are just ideas/ judgements and  perceptions created in the mind that lead us to resist Life. 

How do I prioritize and look after that which is only an idea in my mind?

So how do I think of me" first?  How do I put the oxygen mask on "me" first? How do I stand up to dragons and say "No" when there are no dragons?  How do I  depend on or wait hopefully for  the Fairy God mother to bless me and rescue me when there is no Fairy Godmother? How do I go back to "once upon a time" or lean towards the "happily ever after" for my fulfillment when they do not exist...There is just this moment now. 

Why do I keep telling and getting stuck in a story that is nothing more than a creation of my mind?

Hmm! So when I get the very sound and reasonable advice to start looking after my self or make myself the priority in life I question, 'How do I do that when there is no self?  How can it be draining for "self" to give t all to others when there is no "self" and therefore no "other"?

Psychologically this advice I received makes perfect sense but spiritually, it makes no sense.

I am just a bit confused.   It will all come.

All is well in my world.

Mindfulness and Meditation

 Mindfulness is awareness that arises through paying attention, on purpose, in the moment, non-judgmentally...And then I sometimes add, in the service of self-understanding and wisdom.

Jon Kabat-Zinn

Kendra Cherry, in her article, What is Meditation?,  in Very Well Mind, defines meditation as a, set of techniques that are intended to encourage a heightened state of awareness and focused attention. Meditation is also a consciousness changing technique that has been shown to have a wide-range of benefits on psychological well being.

https://www.verywellmind.com/what-is-meditation-2795927#:~:text=Meditation%20can%20be%20defined%20as,benefits%20on%20psychological%20well%2Dbeing.

The Real Practice: Inviting, Not Fighting

 Every second  of your life you have an opportunity to go to God by letting go of your garbage.

Michael A. Singer

I am truly starting to see what is so necessary for our mental and emotional well being, for our ability to feel joy and to move away from the limitations of the ego to deeper consciousness...and to "Go to God", or as it is referred to in yogic terms, to be at one with everything. We need to let go of "our stuff"',  let go of our garbage that blocks the way. I used to think that meditation and studying  the truth through wise masters was the most important part of "spiritual" practice.  But now I see that the real practice is in understanding how " our  stuff" is getting in the way, recognizing when it comes up  and learning to release it. 

If you can control the rising of the mind into ripples, you will experience yoga . 

Patanjali

Michael Singer, in the below linked video ,  speaks about these "Samskaras"...this stored mental junk, (often unpleasant  emotional energy), that we have stuffed down inside our minds. This storing and stuffing creates ripples, and  mental modifications that block the Shakti (pure energy) from coming to our awareness so we can experience its joy, its freedom,  as we are meant to.  When we judge and determine which types of emotions or thoughts  we will experience in reaction to life events so that certain emotions do not come up to the surface, we  do not "escape" these emotions or put an end to them. We just hide them inside, beneath a thick mental barrier that is so challenging  and exhausting to maintain. We create a block or a barrier between these emotions, thoughts, memories, strong sensations  and then spend our lives struggling against their coming to the surface as all energy is meant to do. We go about the external world determining what will trigger them to come up and we do our best to avoid those situations, people or events.  We blame the outside world  if they do come up.  We determine what will help to keep them down and we go after those things, grasping and clinging.  

By fighting, suppressing and repressing, numbing from and avoiding these "unwanted" mental modifications, as Patanjali referred to them, constantly pushing them back down, we keep down all that "wanted" energy as well...the positive...the Shakti. We are setting ourselves up, not for freedom and joy, when we do this...but for a lot of unnecessary suffering! 

Samskaras are Mental Formations

Thich Nhat Hanh tells us  that samskaras are just  formations. (see linked video below).  He also says that many conditions must  come together to create the formation or samskara be they physical formations like a flower depending on the conditions of rain, soil, sun to help it grow or a mental formation like anger depending on  a painful memory, association, assumption etc to make it grow.    Mind is made of mental formations, like a river is made of drops of waters.  In Buddhism there are 51 categories of mental formations/samskaras that can be either positive or negative or both. 

Store consciousness and mind consciousness...

The seeds of these formations lie in store consciousness in the form of "particles" like anger or compassion.  These seeds are always there waiting to grow, to  come to the surface.   Even when we are not experiencing anger at the time, for example, the seed of anger is still there in store consciousness waiting to be watered by some external event and then it will grow into a "citta samskara" , a mental formation or modification in our  mind consciousness or conscious awareness, 

Barrier and Blocks

If we try to repress and suppress that anger or push it down, we create  a kind of barrier or block as between mind and store consciousness but the roots of that feeling are still there  just waiting to be watered. The more we hold it down...the stronger and more determined those roots are to push the emotion back up.  We often do this "pushing down", this suppressing and repressing, Hanh reminds us, by consuming with substances we put into our bodies or mental distractions we put into our minds. We create a thick  barrier between store and mind consciousness  preventing a free flow of circulation of all emotions...We are "blocked" by Samskara and this barrier can even prevent the positive seeds from growing and coming up into mind consciousness. It can lead to mental illness, according to Thich Nhat Hanh. 

Emotion is just energy, right?  It is meant to be experienced, all of it,  as is all of Life.  Things come in to our experience, then they leave our experience. We are not meant to cling to any of it which we intentionally and unintentionally do when we judge and then repress and suppress. We are just meant to allow it all to flow through. We need to allow the energy of our emotions to manifest, to experience them and then let them go

Restoring the circulation of the mind. 

Our practice then is about getting rid of the stored stuff but  first we need to stop adding to the junk piles in our minds. Michael Singer tells us we must stop putting more stuff in.  If you want to clean out a closet you don't keep filling the closet with more stuff, right? So our practice begins there...in simply becoming aware of our tendency to judge what it is we want to experience in our awareness and what we don't.  Notice when we judge something as unpleasant, notice when certain external things trigger us, remembering it is not the external thing that is the problem...but the stuff inside.  Do not add that "new stuff" to the pile. Let that go first.  Relax and release into what ever shows up in front of you....with the willingness to let go of what is stuffed inside.

Don't Fight-Invite

Then, Hanh tells us,  we must become aware of any mental formation that manifests in mind consciousness.  It is good to recognize when these formations come up and to call them  by their true name. We need to remember that there are many seeds of mental formations that are wholesome and positive and healing within our stored consciousness too...we want these to manifest. Mindfulness, compassion and kindness can be called upon when the less than positive manifests.  We can surround the anger, the resentment, the depression, for example, with these positive manifestations, these positive formations. Instead of resisting or fighting what might be deemed as an unwanted or unpleasant emotional energy, we might instead invite the experience into our mind consciousness, into our awareness. We wrap it in mindfulness, compassion and kindness, rather than resistance. 

Embracing the Painful

"Hello painful emotion ( whatever it is). I know you are there.  I will take good care of you. 

After being embraced by mindfulness, compassion and kindness the pain inducing  mental formation will lose its strength. Like a crying baby, being rocked and soothed by its mother, it will suffer less and eventually stop crying.

The Practice

So we all have samskaras within us blocking the flow of healing Life energy from flowing through us. Our practice of healing and becoming more "spiritual" is such a practical one really. We do whatever we can to remove the blocks and barricades. We do not look outward  as the source of  these blockages...we look inward.  We become willing to experience all Life has to offer including those mental formations  we repressed and suppressed because we deemed them as things that "shouldn't be". We learn to stop adding to the pile and relaxing and releasing into the uncomfortable...mindfully embracing our pain as it surely cries itself to sleep, so the energizing, healing flow of Shakti can come through. We need to "let go of our stuff" to get to God.

All is well. 

 . 

Thich Nhat Hanh (January 11, 2022) Our Mind and Mental Formation. https://plumvillage.app/our-mind-and-mental-formations/

Michael Singer/ Sounds True. (n.d.) Michael Singer Podcast: Giving Meaning to the time between your birth and your death https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GgNZs6_GmQs

Fleeting and Uncertain

 The world is not here to make you happy.  It is here to make you conscious by challenging you.

Challenges help us to become free of the human illusion that there is something wrong when Life becomes difficult...[Truth is],Life is fleeting and uncertain. 

Eckhart Tolle

Nonjudgmental Observation and Peace

 If we observe ourselves truthfully and non-judgmentally, seeing the mechanisms of our personality in action, we can wake up, and our lives can be a miraculous unfolding of beauty and joy. 

Don Richard Riso

I did up this video with others in mind but as I review it I realize I can learn from it. (Well that is a good thing ...at least someone will lol...my readership is down to the wee, wee numbers again.). I have been lost in mind and consumed by a heavy negative emotion lately.  I might have been feeding my personality.  Time for some mindfulness practice.  I cannot say that, at this point, I am experiencing a "miraculous unfolding of beauty and joy", but I always feel a certain peace when I do come back to my moment.

So there is a disidentification from the movement of thought and the fluctuating emotions. There is a stepping back.  You are not repressing anything. You are allowing it. But you can only allow it because there is an awareness. And that awareness is you, ultimately.

Eckhart Tolle (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9wd2CMXhU0s)

All is well.

The Drowning "Me"

 No matter what type of challenges or difficulties or painful situations you go through in your life, we all have something deep within us that we can reach down and find the inner strength to get through them.

Alana Stewart 

There is a bit of a conundrum that I am experiencing lately.  Maybe, in your own awakening, you are experiencing the same? There seems to be great discrepancy between what I "seem" to be experiencing and what I am coming to know as real. There seems to be a battle going on between the physical world and the deeper one as to which one gets "my" attention. I am so physically and emotionally exhausted, I am afraid the physical world is going to win. Sigh.

 I am hit, it seems, with one external challenge after another, to the point I feel overwhelmed with emotion, thought, stress, physical pain and exhaustion ...so much so that it feels  I am drowning in the suffering of  myself and others. (It takes a lot of external stressors to get me to this point these days...there has been a lot of "big" external stressors). That is an indication that I am being sucked in again to the waters of Life passing in front of me.  I am slipping from the peaceful center, from the shore/seat of Objective Observer.  When I am lost in believing I am in those waters,  rather than on shore watching, I feel myself  just thrashing around trying to keep my head up over the surface. The "me" is just trying to survive in the physical realm and having a hard time doing so.  My physical form and my mind (as a tool) is needed by others yet there this "me"  is thrashing around trying to keep it all from drowning. On the physical level, I am devoting so much of my time and energy to helping others but because of the complexity of the situations I am  not sure if I am helping them or not.  I worry that I am enabling more than helping...while my own "personal" affairs continue to fall into taters ( to the degree that that alone would drown a " person" in the physical realm) . Yet so much seems to be required of "me" for others as I take gulp after gulp of water into my lungs. In this physical reality, there is so much to deal with...stuff that cannot help but to draw me in. All absorbing, it seems.  I feel like the personal  "I" is drowning in it and the line between "me", "my" needs and "others" and "other"  needs is getting blurred. So I wonder ...do I even bother trying to swim to shore?  Or do I just let "myself" drown? And what would that drowning entail?  Letting my body go to the point of illness or death? Letting my mind go to the point of illness or death? I don't understand!

Now, I ask that because the deeper part of me says that losing self is a wonderful thing.  The practice I have been throwing myself into over the last few years was all about letting go of the "me" and the "my" and the "myself"...So this sense that "me" is  drowning in the waters of physical world stressors may be a good thing?  It does not feel like a good thing though! Let me tell ya! I am perfectly okay with letting my personality go and many of my so called "personal" desires and needs go for the sake of others...yet I do need my body and my mind, and some form of "hope", don't I to awaken...to go farther on this journey of "being"? 

Even without the giving of self to others, the external world sucks me in because there is so much pull to it in the form of "survival" stressors.  I imagine I would probably drown regardless. Then I ask, why?? Why...why is there so much stress in "my" life? What have I done wrong or what have I got stuck inside me in the form of conditioning and belief that is pulling me down?   I mean I accept full heartedly that Life is our greatest teacher, offering us the learning challenges we need to grow but at the same time I can't help but feel like a grade two student in an advanced calculus class. I have been sitting in that class, it seems, for decades and the lessons keep coming and coming and coming. I am overwhelmed by the complexity to the point I feel like I am being punished.  It is like just a big, "Duh? I can't learn under this much pressure. Why are you doing this to me?"

When I hear people speaking about the notion that we cocreate our lives, when we fully believe in the goodness of Life, when we trust in the universe and let go of all our skeptical doubt, when we are at the wonderful point of surrender Michael Singer speaks about...  everything  will flow smoothly, I  feel such a twisted knot in my gut. It is my main life purpose to be there ...yet there is no smooth about it on my path.  If we can truly manifest all that we ever wanted and needed, with the right spiritual attitude, what is wrong with "me"? I mean I know that "things" of the external world will not make me happy ...I do... and it is not necessarily what I want.   I am asking for so little of external world cooperation...just enough to get by and a little more peace in my external events, a little less suffering for those I love, and maybe a little more "hope"(though I am not too fond of that word.  My goal is peace and awakening ...no matter what...but in the meantime, I feel I need the challenges to be diminished just enough to catch my breath. Why can I not get that? That is a question I have asked so many times over the course of the last few years.

Then I feel such shame and failure for asking that out loud, like I am failing in my practice. I know there are so many out there, who suffer so much more than I do, whose circumstances are far more challenging.  Still, I continue to ask, why can it not be just a little easier externally or at the very least, why can I not find the peace I long for regardless of what is happening around me? It looks like the peace no matter what is my safest goal right now. 

I am just confused ...and I share that confusion because I know I can't be alone in this conundrum. I tell myself that this, what I am experiencing, is normal for someone at this stage of their evolution...the challenge is all there for a reason.  So I take my deep breaths, I bring myself back to the present moment whenever I catch myself swimming and thrashing around and I do my best to "float" to shore and observe it all happening from there.  It isn't happening to "me", I tell "myself"...(whoever that is)......it is just happening.  I breathe in whatever air I can, filling my lungs while on shore, knowing that I will fall in again and again and again. Maybe some day, just maybe, if circumstances do not change for the better I will discover the trick to spending more time on the shore than I do in the water.

All is well! 

Martha and Mary; Doing and Being

 "Martha, Martha, You are worried and distracted by many things, but few things are needed-indeed, only one. Mary has chosen the better part, which will not be taken away from her." 

Luke10:41-42

Back to the Videos:

I know, I know.  I said  was only going to come here every second day but I am here sometimes twice a day.  I guess, this is my vice, my addiction...my coping mechanism. Things are a little topsy turvy and adding this to my practice on a daily basis helps to stabilize me and balance me a bit.  It is so easy when we are "stressed" to become so "me" focused that we fail to see our connection with others outside the immediate situation we are dealing with.  Our worlds become small, narrow and confining.  Doing this writing and sharing as part of my practice is not only my "psychotherapy" but it also offers an attempt to extend outward away from "me-ness".  I am reminded of the "inter-beingness" of everything when I come here. 

With that in my mind, I was drawn back to the practice of answering questions that I began a few months ago.  The "50 ten minute answer" exercise that I participated in...more for my sake than others  allowed for this sense of "inter-beingness" to be established in my version of Life again. Even though I don't do much with these videos to promote or advertise...I still put them out there in the hope that they may also be of benefit to someone who may be looking for such an answer from a "non-expert". I let the universe decide how they are received.  :) 

Anyway, so here I am, answering questions once again in my imperfect, non-expert way.  The videos are also imperfect being that I do not have a video editing program on this new computer.  So they are coming to you fresh off the camera. 

Martha And Mary / Doing and Being

The Question: What is the parable of Martha And Mary all about and what has it got to do with mindfulness? 

From a spiritual point of view, the difference between Martha and Mary in the biblical story was that Martha was distracted by preparing what was needed for Jesus while He was visiting them, and Mary chose the "better part" by sitting at His feet and listening.  Being mind is the contemplative life path, and doing mind is the active life path.

Marsha Linehan, from the DBT Skills Training Manual: Second Edition, page157. (2017, Guilford: New York)

All is well in my world.

Beyond The Thinking Mind

 As water cannot rise higher than its own level, thought cannot think what is higher than thinking. It cannot conceive the mind which  thinks and still  less the power which generates the mind... 

...when the human mind gets out of its depth it drowns and vomits up a lot of dead ideas.

Alan Watts

I right now am once again dipping into Hindu teachings...indirectly through Alan Watts and Ram Dass as they speak to the wisdom of the Gita and to Rabindranath Tagore as he speaks mainly to the wisdom of the Upanishads. As a person brought up very strongly in Christian teaching, it felt very strange to me, almost blasphemous,  to read these classic scriptures, let alone study them in the way I first did years ago...but something drew me in. (My father would be making the sign of the cross on himself if he were still alive and  heard me saying that.) But like everything that has great wisdom in it ( I don't mean knowledge...I mean the kind of stuff that taps into some true knowing within) I feel compelled to go back again and again. I have done that with the bible too, if you are wondering. Lately, I kind of just fall into whatever shows up in front of me in the form of teaching if it feels right. The audio book, Shadana and these lectures from from Watts and Ram Dass showed up and they feel right. 

A hero of mine...well of most people, I suppose, Mahammad Ghandi, relied heavily on the Gita which is quite strange being that he was a man of nonviolence and the Gita is actually a story about Lord Krishna, the embodiment of Vishnu/God, disguised as a charioteer on a battlefield, talking a reluctant warrior by the name of Arjuna to go off and kill his kin. Quite violent, right?  Certainly not representing, it seems, the "turn the other cheek" teachings from Christ.  Or is there some actual similarities in the wisdom shared between Christian and Hindu teachings?  The more I study and compare the two, the more I see the similarities.  As far as the level of violence in these ancient scriptures, we have to remember that the Old Testament beats the Gita any day on the amount of violence in it. 

Of course, the differences lie mainly in the idea of soul.  Christians, Watts reminds us, see the soul as individual and Hindus tend to see the soul as universal.  In Christianity it is blasphemous to consider ourselves anywhere near God-like, while in Hinduism we are reminded that Atman ( soul) is Brahman.  The other "apparent" distinction is that of reincarnation.  And I use the word "apparent" because many great scholars propose that the original bible included the possibility of reincarnation in it but that part of the bible, along with the Gospel of Thomas,  was removed by one of the popes prior to the middle ages.  

What I like about the Gita and the Upanishads is that they touch that deep seated wisdom in  all of us if we are open, that I am just beginning to tap into. They offer a living wisdom...a way of approaching Life with  non duality  and detachment, much like the Buddhist teachings offer. As a yogi, of some kind just beginning to understand the other limbs of yoga that exist beyond the Hatha component...I like the reference of yoga throughout the Gita in relation to action...

...treating alike pleasure and pain, gain and loss, victory and defeat, engage in the battle, for the sake of the battle, and thus you will incur no sin. To action alone has thou a right, not at all to its fruition...fixed in yoga, do thy work...abandoning attachment, with an even mind, in success and future. Evenness of mind is called yoga...Yoga is skill in action.

I still get a little weebie-geebie when I read the part about engaging in battle but am called to understand it.  If Ghandi, the most peaceful man who lived in our recent past, could find solace in these words they must be pointing to something deeper than I can understand...and that takes me to the above quote again from Watts. 

And these words of wisdom from  Chapter Three of Sadhana...remind that there is so much more to this than what appears...

• every so called evil or imperfection will be corrected by the greater all
• what is immoral is perfectly moral [this needs to be explained]
• We can partake in life with disinterested goodness
• Man’s individuality is not highest self
• Man’s deepest joy is in  growing greater and greater in union with the ultimate
• The most important lesson we are to learn is not that there is pain but that it is up to us to transmute that pain into joy
• Accepting pain as an element of our joy is what we are here to do

·  

·

·          I don't know...just rambling because I am rumbling with these idea, I suppose. I know that what we are to learn goes way beyond thought and mind, so how can it be put into words, especially with my meager ones?

All is well

Be Here and Now/ Ram Dass & Alan Watts .Essential Teachings of the Gita: Being in the Way, Ep.11. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ww8DdVhIPWQ

Greatest AudioBooks/ Rabindranath Tagore. Shadana: The Realization of Life. 

A Commitment to Grow In Consciousness

 To really grow you have to decide that, that is what your life is about, nothing else. ..If what you are doing is living for growth, living for liberation, living for freedom, the rest will take care of itself. If what you are doing is living for the rest...living for your name, fame, finance, relationships.... neither they will evolve very high and either will you...you have to devote your whole life to your evolution...

Michael Singer 

I have decided long ago, that I want growth over everything else. I just want to do the work of letting go of  what is binding me!

Life is not the problem.  I am!

I have come to realize that it isn't the world and all its conflicting events that pass before me or through me that is the problem, if I feel I have one,  but my mind.  Though Life is really, really challenging at times, especially lately, I am committed to learning and growing from her. 

...if the world is disturbing you...there is nothing wrong with the world...there is something wrong with you. It is always coming from you...A being that wants to grow uses every single moment of life for that purpose.

Neutral Focus

As I tried to do in the little, far from perfect, mindfulness video I added a few entries ago, bringing our attention to the "neutral" as we experience  the life unfolding in front of us, is so important. When we are not committed to the practice of using Life as our teacher, we tend to look past everything that is neutral...meaning it does not evoke a reaction in us...in search of those things, events, people that  are either attracting us or repulsing and disturbing us. We bring our attention to that which the mind deems as pleasant, and that which the mind deems as unpleasant, not seeing that the objects of our attention are only pleasant or unpleasant because we deem them to be in our minds.

We need to notice the neutral that exists between our "likes and dislikes", our judgements of "good or bad; right or wrong, should be or shouldn't be". We need to observe that which does not create change or reaction in us. Doing so will help to create  a balanced state as we observe the neutral experience with cool, calm detachment.   We then expand our attention to all of that which unfolds in front of us, trying to create that sense of equanimity with all that Life provides...grasping none of it, pushing away none of it...and allowing all of it. Here we are being aware of what simply is...

A Practice Of Working on Self

But doing this is a process, a committed practice that involves working on self instead of working on the world.

Yoga is about saying that I only have time to work on coming to the realization that "I can't solve problems by working on things outside."  You want a state where you are at peace with everything in the universe....so that all things in life have this peacefulness, this neutrality... [On doing so]you will feel a depth or fullness that people seldom feel

The yogi comes to realize that all of life is beautiful, all of life is fulfilling, every single moment and if it isn't, it isn't because  there is something wrong with it,  it is because there is something wrong inside of you . If you want to fix that you have to fix what is  wrong inside of you. There is nothing wrong with life, there is nothing right with life...it just is.  Michael Singer

We need to stop putting all our energy in determining how life should be and going off , attempting to make it so. We need to work on ourselves.

You work on yourself every single moment of every single day no matter what you are doing or who you are with.

The Real Work

We work on ourselves by sitting in stillness and silence, by meditating and being mindful, by learning from the great teachers...but it is so much more than that. We don't just observe ourselves being peaceful and calm...we need to observe ourselves reacting to Life...slipping out of that peaceful center, again and again and again. It is more important to understand what takes us out of the peaceful state than it is to understand how to go there, according to Singer.  We need to notice what is happening inside us as we experience Life. How else can we fix what is broken. We cannot stay in meditation forever. 

True yoga is about watching yourself in your everyday life...Michael Singer

Life Is The Pathless Path

How do you work on yourself in this pathless path, the path where  life itself is the path, the guru, the teacher....all the circumstances are attempting to liberate you and free you? ...The continuity of consciousness across the experience is the real work Michael Singer.(somewhat paraphrased) 

The goal is to stay deeply centered in all situations without getting lost...

Life will get thrown away...it is constantly getting thrown away...circumstances, and  events  will come into our experience, pass and be forgotten.  We need to stop clinging to any of it, running from any of it and see it all as neutral so we can practice maintaining consciousness in every given situation.

Life is spiritual therapy

Improving The Gap

I don't know about you but I still get lost all the time despite my commitment to practice. I get sucked in and pulled away.  I still catch myself pushing away and squishing down that which I don't want to experience too.  I neglect and ignore the stabilizing neutral when I am so lost in this tendency. But I am catching myself doing that again and again and again.  When I realize that I allowed myself to get pulled away from center, I pull myself  back to the moment with breath or my attention on what is right in front of me.  I can release my focus from the object of consciousness and put it back on consciousness...becoming aware, once again, that I am aware. I begin to look at what took me away and why...the roots of it all...and I begin my practice again. I need to ask, as Singer suggest we do, why do I prefer things...why do certain things make me comfortable and why do things disturb me. Then I continue to work on myself. 

  That act of losing your center and then coming back is a very spiritual thing ...It is the core of your practice. 

What it means to work on yourself is to do whatever is necessary  to prolong the period of time before you get sucked in  and then shorten the period before you come back out.

Care More About Consciousness Than Anything Else

For the most part, I do care more about being conscious than anything else but that doesn't mean it is easy.  Oh man, no.  I often find myself running after or running from certain things out there.  My focus still too often goes onto the objects of consciousness rather than the consciousness. I did get sucked into the challenges I have been experiencing lately...big time...  and they seemed to be far, far from neutral to my experience of life. I probably dwelled there longer than was healthy and it took me a little longer to come back, if I am completely back, that is.  But I know that any sense of hardship and struggle I feel right now,  has nothing to do with Life and  everything to do with the fact that I am off center. I am off center. I need to get back to center. These challenges offer me a wonderful learning opportunity to help me master this skill. 

Your life is for the purpose of your being able to remain centered, clear, calm, filled with spirit and awareness and consciousness while all of the events of your life pass before you and while  you interact with all of them. Michael Singer

Well, that is the way I see it and Michael Singer's words of wisdom have reminded me of the importance of my commitment.

All is well. 

Michael Singer/Sounds True. Michael Singer Podcast:The Commitment to Stay Conscious. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=auQcBg4SY5A

Stages

 Spirituality and the spiritual path is way more simple than people make it. In fact, it is the most simple thing you can do with your life, everything else is just complicating the issue. 

Michael Singer

I think we are all on a spiritual path whether we know it or not, whether we call it that or not.  I think the term "spiritual" trips a lot of people up and they tend to walk on tip toes around it.  Still we are all on this path. We are all attempting to feel okay. The "spiritual path" (just a label) is simply  a destination derived from wanting to feel okay. It is the only way we can feel truly okay. 

The Wheel/ The Wrong Path

 Instead of owning that natural and healthy desire to be okay, however, we tend to look to unskillful and unwholesome desires. We  grasp for and cling to things out there. We pull in what we "believe" makes us feel well and push away that which we believe makes us feel bad. Our mind becomes preoccupied by that motivation....it becomes hyperactive in trying to get us what we want and avoid what we don't want.  All our energy becomes involved in controlling, manipulating, fixing the external world so it gives us what we want and protects us from what we don't want.  We externalize the truth that we want to be well. This makes us crazy! 

When we realize this way is not working in making us feel okay inside, that our desiring and our averting is not getting us anywhere closer to our goals, that it doesn't make us happy. ...we begin to question if there is another way. There is another way...there is the spiritual path. 

What happens when a person becomes spiritual?  They give up on their wants and not wants.  They get off that hamster wheel, Singer uses as analogy,  that exhausts them without taking them anywhere. So there is a process...a series of steps that Michael Singer shares in The Stages of the Spiritual Path that I hope to relay in the way they were intended to be relayed. 

Stage  One :  Realizing That What We Are Doing Is Not Working

This stage is all about  realizing that the hamster wheel is not getting us anywhere but crazy and exhausted. We realize that there is something wrong with the formula we have been using all our lives. There is something wrong with working nonstop, thinking and planning non stop all of our lives at something that is supposed to get us somewhere and give us what we need...but that never gets us  there.  Isn't there? 

Stage Two: Let Go of the Mind!  

Once we  realize this " you relax in the face of what your mind is saying" . We stop listening to the mind.  We decide not to go that route anymore.  We get off the wheel.  At this point we may have no idea where we are going.  We are not thinking about "spirituality"...we just want to feel okay and we know our past ways of getting there were not working.

We might say:

"I have no idea.  I am just not doing that because it doesn't work. 

The mind may throw a tantrum...in an attempt to  keep us doing what we have been doing. It will do whatever it can to convince us to get back on that wheel. It is important here not to listen. We relax into it and refuse to fall into its attempt to convince us that it will give us all we want and protect us from all we  don't want. Just relax and  watch the temper tantruming mind  as we watch what is happening around us

The mind is just a thing in the universe...it is not yours. Everyone has one.  It just says what it says because it is programed to do so. 

We need to  relax behind it and let it be what it is. When the mind says "I want this and I don't want that!"...just relax.

Commit to not Listening to what the Mind says.  Just observe and begin to see yourself as the observer. 

We let go, here,  of clinging to the idea that life should be a certain way. It is our will that has been getting involved in the mind. We have believed, identified and got lost in the mind's tendency to grasp and avoid. We must see that we are not that.

Don't listen to any of the mind.  First learn who you are and relax in the state of whatever the mind has to say...you will start to be aware you are there. 

Step Three:  See who you are

We will, in this stage, begin to see that we are  "Solidly seated in the Seat of Self" and not scattered around as we  were when we followed the mind. 

When we are solidly seated in the Seat of the Soul we have traded neurosis for peace. From this place, we start to feel love, joy and enthusiasm emerging from within us because the energy that was once directed towards getting us to  do what the mind was telling us to do... is now  free to flow through us.  We no longer get so disturbed by what is happening out there. 

Relax deeper...be aware of our experiencing without trying or effort...noticing and allowing what is in front of us.

You are beautiful...not your mind, not your personality...you...the person that is in there. 

As long as we don't get involved in what the mind is saying...we are happy and at peace

We appreciate and settle into the spiritual life...living in the shakti flow...needing nothing...

Other things and ppl are not needed to feel okay but  they allow the flow of love to  keep getting stimulated

From here we learn to say: "whatever is unfolding, I will get involved in"

We become detached to external circumstances.  We realize we are in the world but not of it...

Stage Four: Leaning into the Energy

At some point  of feeling good, we  will wonder where the  energy is coming from. We may lean back a little further to  feel it flowing in behind us, pushing on us.  In this stage we learn to lean back into the energy and just rest as it expands around us

Up until now consciousness was settling down into a focal point but now it is getting beyond focal point. We recognize the expanding consciousness and begin losing "self"  as we fall into the source of all this shakti...We are still "me" bathing in ocean of energy. This is the beginning of samadhi

From here we can learn from great masters...those who have leaned back as far as a person can lean, losing  all sense of  duality, finding "yoga" or union...and may decide to follow their example.

Stage Five: Lean Back as Far s You can Go.

In this stage we let go of  the need to be separate.  If we fall back far enough we will see it is  not us experiencing the energy...just energy. 

Imagine  a drop of water falling into the ocean from an eye dropper...find it"

We become one with everything.  We tap into the reality of Einstein's unified field of energy...We have attained complete enlightenment in a continuum of relaxing away from what you were experiencing. This is a true letting go. 

This enlightenment does not change the outside of us.  We go on playing our roles:

There is a role for you to play in life...it will unfold in front of you...Don't sweat it...just let it go...it will unfold before you.

Well that is how I see the stages of spiritual awakening after listening to the linked podcast below. Key point?

Use every minute of your life to let go of that which is trying to get you to not let go. 

All is well!

Michael Singer/Sounds True . The Stages of the Spiritual Path: A Continuum of Letting Go. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W23Qob0d6rA

Allowing the Infinite In

 We are in misery because we are creatures of self.  The self that is unyielding and narrow, reflecting no light, blind to the infinite.  Our “self” is loud with its own discordant clamor. It  is not the tuned harp whose chords  vibrate with the music of the eternal. Our souls sigh with discontent. Weariness of failure, idol regrets for the past and anxieties for the future trouble our shallow  hearts because we have not found our souls and the revealing infinite spirit has not been manifest within us... It is a stifling shroud of death, this self gratification, this insatiable greed, this pride of possession, this insolent alienation of heart. 

Rabindranath Tagore (quote may not be exactly as heard)

I am reading(listening to) Rabindranath Tagore's Sadhana: The Realization of Life. I came across a few things that  resonated within me. I began reading this book of essays because  I love Tagore's poetry.  Wrote my take on A Moment's Indulgence. See link below.  I am not sure if it is ego referring you to that article or not...the part of me that still wants to call my self a writer...or the deeper part of me that wants to share what I learn.  I don't know. Anyway, I am getting to the point I am ready to let go of the remains of my "little me" that is struggling to get by.  And this book shows up. He is very wise.  Hmm! 

There was this prayer that was recited that I scribbled down and it too may not be exactly as heard. 

·         Thou self revealing one, reveal thyself in me. Oh thou awe filled one, save us with thy smile of  grace ever and ever more. Oh thou awe filled one, rend this dark covering twain and let the saving beam of thy smile of grace strike through this night of gloom and awaken my soul.  From unreality, lead me to the real; from darkness to light; rom death to life.

Anyway...all is well. Why?  Because all is as it is. 

Rabindranath Tagore/ Greatest Audio Books. Sadahana: The Realization of Life. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LVE9mV0ZYb4

The Mindful Word https://www.themindfulword.org/2017/learning-tagore-take-break/

Nonjudgmental Mindfulness

 Mindfulness has to do with the quality of awareness or the quality of presence that a person brings to everyday living.  It is a way of living awake, with eyes wide open. As a set of skills mindfulness practice is the intentional process of observing, describing, and participating in reality nonjudgmentally, in the moment, and with effectiveness.

Dr. Marsha Linehan

The Neutral

This video is purposefully what the judging mind would refer to as "bland" and "boring".  It is a "neutral" scene that would often  pass by our awareness without notice. We can learn to focus on the neutral that which exists between our likes and dislikes, our judgments of pleasant and non pleasant, that which we may not even notice let alone judge, so we can build our nonjudging habits. From here we may experience a state of nonreactive acceptance  that we can take with us into the experiences we would normally react to. 

Worldly neutral feelings are conditioned by the blandness of the object; nothing stands out, and so they go unnoticed. Unworldly neutral feelings are born of equanimity, and they become very strong in the fourth absorption and in the insight stage called "equanimity about formations". At these times of great refinement of mind, the neutral feelings actually bring more pleasure than pleasant ones. Joseph Goldstein, page 93

Non -Judgmental Observation

In hope of helping a loved one I have been absorbing the work of Marsha Linehan since the type of treatment she offers cannot be found around here, ( at least not in the way she insists it be).  Of course, there is so little I can do as I am not professionally qualified...but...a large part of her treatment plan is centered around mindfulness. That part I can handle :) 

Nonjudgmentalness is describing reality as "what is" without adding evaluations of "good" and  "bad" or the like to it. 

Marsha Linehan

Joseph Goldstein (2016) Mindfulness: A Practical Guide to Awakening. Sounds True: Boulder, CO

Marsha E. Linehan (2015) DBT Skills Training Manual. Second Edition. New York: The Guilford Press.

Wise Mind Sets Us Free

 It is the mind that makes one wise or ignorant, bound or emancipated.

Ramakrishna

As I mentioned,  I now am in the possession of a Meditation and Mindfulness Teacher Certificate as well as a Positive Psychology Practitioner Certificate, Both  were received from the School of Positive Transformation. ( I love the name!)  I was very impressed with the program taught by university professors, all  with PhD's in psychology with the exception of Matthieu Ricard who has a PhD in molecular chemistry ?? I believe.....but man...Matthieu Ricard. Very science and research based for those of us who are still in need of "evidence" to support our learning. Anyway...I am not sure what exactly pulled me to the learning but that is where I went and the certificates are now what I have and can put on my wall. The learning was invaluable as is all learning in this area.

So I am in the process of creating Guided Meditation and Mindfulness practice videos and I will be sharing some here. They are long and far from perfect but they will improve and get more to the point over time.

Enjoy!

All is well

Letting Go of Personal Self's Reflection

 At some point there is no more struggle, just the deep peace that comes with surrendering to a perfection that is beyond your comprehension.

Michael Singer

When will I finally get it...I mean, really get it to the point that understanding is my reality.  When will I just know beyond a shadow of a doubt that Life is not attacking "me" nor is it there to "support and please 'me'"?  When will I truly see that there is nothing personal anywhere but in my mind?  

Michael Singer tells us, in a paraphrased version, that what is going on has nothing to do with us.  There is just this ebb and flow of experiences going through Life.  If we want to get to know Life, we do not look into the lake and see ourselves, we simply stop, observe and feel her pulse. 

I have come so far on this journey, have gained remarkable insight and have tapped into some amazing wisdom ( that which we all possess inside us) and still I get all tangled up and caught in the dramas of what I have come to see as "my life". I got caught up in my circumstances again...still saying "my" lol.  I got caught up in the circumstances and experiences that were unfolding around me.  They were just circumstances and events that really had nothing to do with "me"...even if  some of them are unfolding in my body or impacting some of 'my roles' as parent and partner. It isn't personal. Yet I look at this which is unfolding and I don't see Life...the clear and spacious lake...I see myself.  And I am disturbed by it.  Why?  Because I judge that which is perfect as "bad, wrong, shouldn't be!" .  To what is it 'bad, wrong shouldn't be'? To my personal self, to this thing I call "me".  It is this self that judges what it sees and becomes disturbed by it.  It is not Life disturbing it. Hmm! I need to surrender.

...the practice of surrender is actually done in two very distinct steps.  First, you let go of the personal reactions of like or dislike that form inside your mind and heart; and second, with the resultant sense of clarity, you simply look to see what is being asked of you by the situation enfolding in front of you. 

Michael Singer

In essence, what the great spiritual step involves is dying to our self.  As Jesus put it, "Truly, truly I say to you.  Unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains alone; but if it dies it bears much fruit." John 12:24 ESV.  I see this as meaning unless we let go and become one with "the earth", everything and everyone, with Life,  we will be suffering "little mes" but once we let go of personal self and die...we will be reborn and will bear the fruit of peace, love and truth. We gain the wisdom needed to do what Life is calling us to do in each moment. We need to let go of our personal, preferring self for the universal Self.

Everything there is, everything there ever was and everything there will ever be...is God. ..Life is God made visible...Look into the Lake of Life and see God [not your own puny reflection].

Michael Singer

I was so lost in my own reflection over the last few weeks I was consumed by a sense of suffering. In that "personal" suffering  I forgot this truth but listening to Michael Singer today reminded me of it. It brought me back to the non personal nature of Self and Life again.  And our practice is all about coming back, is it not? Again and again and again. 

All is well in "my" Lake

Michael Singer/ Sounds True ( n.d.) Look Into the Lake of Life. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6G1zvgJvm7Y

Being the Witness and Not the Struggling Boxer

 Your only way out is the witness.  Keep letting go by being aware that you are aware.

Michael Singer

A Weakened Boxer in a Ring? 

Challenge, challenge and challenge.  Certainly feeling a little woozy cuz I am feeling like a boxer in the ring with a modern day Mahammad Ali.  Hit after hit after hit...and just when I am catching my breath, that rope I was leaning on...my writing and the hope for it...weakens and frays to the point I am even more unsteady...vulnerable to going down after another hit.  In the midst of all this chaos, I get a rejection for the book I have out there and my readership here is next to nothing. Man...I feel like I am punch drunk and  going down. The rejection means little to me...I have been writing long enough to not be too attached to such outcomes but I had some weird hope in me that my writing would be the thing that would allow me to pull myself up again....financially, socially redemptive wise and as family matriarch who could assist with members in need.   It is obviously not the rope I should be clinging to. :)  My books and therefore my writing may not be good enough to make a living on. 

I think I feel worse when there is no readership here...only because this type of teaching is what I am being called to do and I am just following the call.  Regardless if there are readers or not...this is where I will be...while the hits keep coming. And they will keep coming.  Life will be Life, after all.  I keep telling myself ," if I had the validation that I was at least doing some good here...maybe...maybe I could ground myself...balance myself enough so I can stay upright when the  next hit comes". I do get some positive comments and I am so grateful and at the same time so embarrassed that I am still egoic enough to want or  need such validation. But ego says, " it is not enough"! And I weeble and I wobble. 

Down for the Count

I just don't want to keep getting knocked down because I fear the time will come when I will be down for the count and I won't be able to get back up. Sigh. The hits do knock me down but I have always been, up until now,  one to crawl to the ropes and pull myself back up.  Again and again and again. The ropes are those things I place my hopes in. But the ropes too are really starting to wear.  They will not be able to pull me up forever.  

The Lesson: No Rope, No Being Trapped in the Ring

Hmm! But there is a lesson here. I know there is.  I don't need the ropes because, I, who I really am, am not the exhausted and badly beaten boxer in the ring.  I am a spectator of that which seems to be going on in "my life" and that which  is really going on in my mind. If the ropes break open, I won't be caught in this ring.  I will be able to get out of it and walk to a seat in the audience and sit down.  From there, I can observe and watch instead of wobbling around up on the platform taking these hits, feeling each hit, struggling against each hit, nor will I be desperately seeking and  clinging to ropes that are not necessary or even real. There won't be so much suffering...I mean there will definitely be challenge, and blows, and pain but the suffering that comes with feeling and believing we are the boxer, that there is no way out of this ongoing beating...will disappear when I am seated in the seat of objective observation, in witness consciousness. 

No Boxer, No Ring

When we are able to crawl out of the rings the mind creates and attempts to keep us trapped in,  we will see that Life is not a boxing ring and we are  not the boxers up there taking a never ending beating from Life.  There is just Life, which we are a small but integral part of, unfolding in front of us, doing what Life does.  We do not have to get lost in the drama, the trauma, or the story that goes on in our minds.  We can create some distance between us and it, observe, learn and grow as we watch. Life is not out to punch us or beat us or hurt us.  It challenges us , yes,...but only so we grow, expand and learn to flow with it instead of against it. 

Sweet Surrender

The last two weeks have been extra challenging for all kinds of reasons. For a moment there, I felt like a boxer in the ring trying to stand up to Life...to fight that which I could never win. I believed I was beaten, bruised and bloody.  I was using the support of the ropes to hold me up when I found myself  exhausted from the fight  I never had to fight.  All along, there was another option. I could have thrown the white towel in the center of the ring, shook Life's hand,  bowed my head in Namaste and walked off. I could have taken my seat and watched as Life, like an amazing Bee or Butterfly, danced in front of me. That would have been far less painful, far less exhausting and far more enjoyable.  Hmm! It is never too late to practice what we learn. Life for me, as the objective observer, begins now.

All is well. 

I am so grateful that surrender  has taught me to willingly participate in Life's dance with a quiet mind and open heart.

Michael Singer

Making Conscious Our Strong Emotions

 Until You make the conscious conscious, it will direct your life and you will call it fate.

C.G. Jung

                                                   Guided Meditation for  Allowing Our Strong Emotion

Note: There is some barking in this about 6 minutes in...just be prepared to notice and allow it as part of the meditation experience.

Emotion, which is suffering, ceases to be suffering as soon as we have a clear picture of it.

Benedict Spinoza

The Bare Naked Is-Ness

 Through the pressure of challenge, we are being awakened.

Eckhart Tolle

I am off a bit.  Not at home and things are a bit different for me so my writing has been sporadic and distracted.  Anyway, managed to listen to Eckhart Tolle today and was inspired by the above words. I know I am waking up more and more everyday.

In the video linked below Tolle encourages  us to ask this question, when we are facing difficult situations: 

If I didn't add any narrative to this situation that I am finding myself in, how would I experience this situation?

He tells us if we were able to get out of the story, out of the judgement that " this is bad, wrong, shouldn't be,"  and back into the moment we would be able to experience the bare naked is-ness of that moment...rather than the story, the drama, the problem. We might feel our contact points with the earth or surface...our feet on the ground, our sitz bones on the chair.  We might be aware of what our senses are picking up...what we are seeing, hearing, smelling, tasting and what our skin is experiencing. We may notice our grounding breath and what thoughts or feelings are crossing our psyche without getting caught up  in any of it. The burden of "me" will slip off and we will just be observer of the moment and the moment itself. 

We might actually realize  and say to ourselves "Without the narration, I feel alive."

Hmm! Something to think about.

All is well. 

Eckhart Tolle ( December, 2021) Clearing the "Excess Baggage" of Unhappiness/Eckhart Tolle Teachings. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EiAFK1tAHdI

No Mud, No Lotus

 There is the mud, and there is the lotus that grows out of the mud. We need the mud in order to make the lotus.

Thich Nhat Hanh

I wonder if I can write today and if so, what I will write about? Hmmm! 

It has been a crazy and very "muddy"  few days and I have not slept properly or ate properly.  Got some seated meditation in but have not done a Qigong or yoga hatha practice for almost a week now.  I don't think I even did a round of salutations this week. Wow! Body is feeling a little off because of everything.  I am, however, getting the medical attention I need which I am grateful for.  I really was going to give up on everything but out of nowhere the calls started to come in ( an amazing GP who has the memory of an elephant, I suppose). So though the pain in my side is still there...nothing I can't handle...just there...and I had to wait a month for the ultrasound, it is all good.  Wednesday, I will know if it is the spleen at least.  I started wondering too if it was just the ribs themselves? I don't know...anyway. My eye has been really bothering me, and as I feared  the vision is starting to go  a bit in it but now I know why.  I had an appointment with Ophthalmology this week. Yep...something there...not a detaching retina but something to explain the pressure feeling and it is going to be followed up and treated.  I also had my echo...yeah! Just want one of those once a year. As I age the mitral valve is more likely to deteriorate and I just want to keep up on it. And with all the vasospastic angina I have had over the years, I want to  have heart size and ejection monitored closely. Don't want a stress test...just the echo.  I think that is a reasonable request. I also had the monitor on for forty eight hours but all I had to record in my notes was a bit of shortness of breath when I was playing and carrying my grandson. No chest pain...no wicked runs of palpitations.  Now if I would had it on 24 hours before... that would have been a whole different story lol...but I suppose I would not have noticed anything going on  in my body then.  My focus was definitely not on me. So with all these tests and stuff this week...that sense of helplessness in my health seeking has diminished big time. 

Anyway, what is or is not happening in my body is not all that important.

What is important, is that I have seen the petal tips of a beautiful flower emerging from the chaos and the mud of this situation.  It fills my heart with hope for my loved ones. 

If you feel lost, disappointment, hesitant or weak, return to yourself, to who you are, here and now, and when you get there you will discover yourself, like a lotus flower in full bloom, even in the muddy pond, beautiful and strong.....Masuro Emoto

The lotus flower grows most beautifully from the deepest and thickest mud....Buddhist Proverb.

Anyway...there has been so many steps forward because of this storm and it blows me away to see how transformation comes from times of great suffering and chaos. It truly is from the mud that the lotus grows. I see a lotus growing.  Fingers crossed.

All is well. 

I got these beautiful quotes from:

Jennifer Healey (October, 2016) 20 Lotus Flower Quotes to Inspire Growth and New Beginnings  from https://healingbrave.com/blogs/all/lotus-flower-quotes-growth-new-beginnings#:~:text=%2020%20Lotus%20Flower%20Quotes%20Worth%20Pondering%20,the%20darkness%20and%20radiate%20into%20the...%20More%20