Through the Awful Grace of God

In our sleep, pain which cannot forget falls drop by drop upon the heart until, in our own despair, against our will, comes wisdom through the awful Grace of God.

Aeschylus 

Those are beautiful haunting words, aren't they? What does Aeschylus mean by them, I wonder.  Of course, my interpretation will differ from yours.  This is what comes to my mind and my heart when I hear them or read them. In our sleep: What sleep is he talking about I wonder.   I am assuming he is speaking about the sleep most of us are caught under, a lack of awareness, a lack of mindful attention, a lack of consciousness. Then he is speaking about "pain that cannot forget". Is that referring to those difficult circumstances that bring pain, which  instead of facing and allowing to pour through we suppress and repress into knotted samskaras? (Of course, such suppressed and repressed pain often emerges in our dream states for us to deal with, doesn't it?)  It falls drop by drop upon the heart...It doesn't seem like much at first but after so many drops we feel the  pain as excruciating discomfort , as "suffering" and the heart closes to protect itself?  He seems to be making the distinction between pain and suffering. When that pain becomes suffering wisdom ...truth ( thinking of the noble truths as I read this) comes. This wisdom, this transcendence of our ignorant suffering for greater understanding and awakening comes "against our will".  Little "me" might resist because of its  fear of  suffering and its fear of its own demise. Once we get past that, however, once we get past the "little me" and accept Life for what it is, wisdom will come.  This will all happen through the "awful" grace of God. Thy will, not my will. Why "awful" ? ...Well to the "little me" it will seem awful to be pushed aside. Grace pushes ego aside for God when we awaken.   I also  look at the word as "awe- full", filled with awe...This whole process of transcending, of using suffering to get closer to God is one we cannot help but be in awe of, if we truly understand it.  Suffering seems "awful" but it is also Grace and therefore filled with awe.

I don't know that is what comes to "me" as I read those words based on all my samskaras and previous learning and conditioning. I interpret those words, as I interpret the world at this lag of my journey. What do you hear?

Anyway...these words too are poignant: 

You need a happy mind, a conscientious  mind,  and an open heart; especially you must learn to cultivate the precepts of transforming bad circumstances, the experiences of your suffering, into the very path of awakening.

From a dying lamas letter as  recited by Ram Dass

Do you have a relaxed appreciation of change or are you busy resisting change with everything you have?  Do you have a happy, conscientious mind? Do you have an open heart? How are you handling those "bad circumstances" that are plopping down in front of you? Are you seeing the grace in them and attempting to use those challenging events, to transform them into stepping stones on this path to awakening? Or are you screaming "Oh No! Not that! I don't want that! I want this!" as you run around fighting, struggling against and denying what is? 

Well, according to the Buddha, many wise masters and to Ram Dass in the below linked podcast. if you are doing anything akin to the latter, you are suffering. If you are accepting, allowing, and using these experiences  to grow, you are well on your way to awakening...to transcending suffering. 

As I experience what I experience here in my now, I feel comforted in knowing I have a choice as to how I use this pain...I can use it to "drop by drop" create more suffering or I can use it to get closer to God. I will choose the latter.  It is also comforting to know that my loved ones may be closer to awakening than most people I know because of their suffering.  We just need to stop the mind from clinging to "me".  We need to let go of all we thought we were, for who we really are.  Though we do not ask for more ( oh man, I don't want  more lol) we accept the challenges that unfold in front of us, see the Grace in them and let go of all that doesn't matter, so we can realize and embrace what does!  Suffering can help us do that. Hmm!

All is well. 

Ram Dass/ Here and Now Network ( n.d.) Episode 25- Part One Suffering https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z-vI9zjFe3I

Cleansing the Channel

Yoga is the process of cleansing the channel so life is allowed to unfold as it is and you are at peace with it, you are in harmony with it...[until every single moment that unfolds in front of you is better because it did]. 

Michael A. Singer

 I realize, as I wake up without the urge to bop around saying, "Oh isn't this wonderful?  Isn't this great?"...that Life is not going quite the way I want it to. Though I am reacting to external challenge much less than  I used to say seven years ago and the pendulum is just moving a little bit towards the "not fun" side of my mind as I watch these circumstance unfold in front of me, I am still reacting in a less than neutral way to what Life is offering. Why? Because I am still not okay inside! 

I know so well now that Life isn't personal and that accepting it as it is the only way to approach it. Still, parts of the discriminating, externally focused "me" remains. I know samskaras are leaving the filing cabinets where I had once fought to store them and are making their way up and out, as well. That is a bit uncomfortable and disturbing too...especially so  as I deal with these "big" external triggers. I see how much of a mess I still am inside. It seems that right now there are  things I feel I can't handle, meaning that I have some work to do.

Work?

Yes, work.  I mean, I do not have to work anymore to make things different out there...to make people, places and things be the way "me" wants them to be but I do need to work to keep my heart open, my self centered and the shakti flowing.  I am willing though...I see this as my life mission now.

If I have this stuff inside of me and if it is bothering me, it is going! And no more is coming in. 

It is funny that I randomly answered the question and did this related  video yesterday, only to open up to this today.

Anyway, all is well.  

Michael A Singer/ Temple of the Universal ( August 21, 2023) Letting Go- The Journey from Bondage and Liberation. https://tou.org/talks/

Fruits of Actions

 But those who choose to serve will be undeterred because they are not obsessed with the fruit of their action.

Sadhguru

Shout Out to Singapore!!

As you know I don't promote this blog.  The doing of it has much more intrinsic value than it does extrinsic.  I just feel compelled to come here almost everyday and share what I am learning, as crazy as that may sound. So I am perfectly okay with a readership on my stats of under ten.  I am okay not knowing how many "followers" I have...(this site doesn't tell me..it constantly reads 'no followers' when I know I have some.) I don't really have a goal...like "I want so many likes or so many subscribers or 100,000 page views ( which btw I am close to getting...since inception that is).  I am obviously not looking to, at this point, make money off it.  I am not looking to get famous lol. I am here, I guess, as corny as it may sound, to serve.  Serve who? Serve Self...which may equate to serving others who are travelling along this path and who might learn from another traveller. 

I do, however, check the stats page daily. Sure ego is still lingering around wondering , "Do they like me?" and that may, despite my practice to go beyond "me" , still have something to do with why I check.  But 'I am' also curious.  I do want to know if I am serving in a useful way...if anyone is getting anything from this of value...or if the few talents I may have are being used in the most helpful way. Of course, ego sometimes pops in to ask , "or am I wasting my time?" Of course,  I know that I am not wasting my time.  I will do this regardless of outcome.  The inner  pull is that strong.

Anyway, every now and again I get hit with big numbers on my stats page.  Anything over 100 per day, I consider a big number lol.  Sometimes there is one country or area that is bringing in those large numbers. Over the last week or so that area was Singapore. 

Sometimes, I will get big numbers from areas but obviously see that nothing was read..no recently read posts come up.  (I like to review posts that were read so I can  edit if necessary and it also helps me to review what I have learned.) So I wonder why and what was that all about...bots, highjackers or whatever? 

Well, I see as the numbers come up, connected to Singapore, that recent, and more often, not- recent posts come up.  It looks like someone is actually reading this stuff for whatever reason and many of  those or that reader is from Singapore, 

I want to send out a note of gratitude and connection to whomever is under that "Singapore" label. I also want to send out a note of gratitude for the other loyal readers who have been following me for as long as they have. ...who I may not acknowledge enough.  Thank you. Thank you for being interested in this very important stuff....not for puny little "me"s sake ...but you know....for the world's. ( Corny, I know.)

Anyway, thanks.  

Letting It Flow Anyway It Likes

Life is a series of natural and spontaneous changes. Don't resist them-that only creates sorrow. Let reality be reality. Let things flow naturally forward in anyway they like.

Lao Tzu

Stop using your powerful, life enhancing shakti flow, your consciousness against yourself?

Huh?

Well that is the piece of unsolicited advice I would give to others who are experiencing so called "stress."  Stress , according to Michael Singer, is simply the result of resisting what is. When we resist what is...we seek, struggle, fight to make the world and others in it different....most often than not...unsuccessfully. It doesn't work. We get stressed.  Without resistance there is no stress. 

I had the experience of intense stress this week. I was looking around at the moments in front of me and found myself saying, "No! It shouldn't be this way."  Why should it not have been that way? Because it didn't suit this "me" I created in my head, this psyche which is the sum of all learned experiences this "me" had. It didn't meet "my needs".  So there I was questioning a very disturbed mind as well as the disturbed minds of others..."How do we make this more suited to what "me" needs and wants?" As long as you have needs you are not okay inside. 

Wow! I am really not okay inside. The whole thing is crazy when I think about it...not so much the circumstances as my reaction to then.  People are the way they are, doing what they do for a million different reasons that have nothing to do with me.  The world is unfolding in front of " me" the way it is for a million different reasons that have nothing to do with "me". And here I am resisting it and then trying to change everything so it makes me feel  more comfortable inside and less stressed when I cannot change anything.  Crazy.

The opposite of resistance is acceptance, the opposite of stress is peace and relaxation, the opposite of blocking and closing is opening, the opposite of pushing down and away is allowing in and letting go.  My practice, which I neglected this week because of "stress", is helping me accept, to open, to find peace through relaxation and it is helping me to allow Life to be whatever it is so it all just flows through me. 

I am not this me and the circumstances me is experiencing.  I am the witness watching all this go down.  I just got so caught up in watching the drama, I once again forgot who I was. 

I need to get back to my practice.  I need to get back to the Seat of Self. I need to let things flow forward in anyway they like...not in the way "me" likes.

Thy will...not my will...be done.

All is well. 

Michael A. Singer/ Temple of the Universe ( August 20,2023) Releasing the Roots of Inner Stress. https://tou.org/talks/

Changing the World?

 

Yesterday I was clever, so I wanted to change the world. Today I am wise so I am changing myself. 

Rumi 

I keep saying that the only way to help others is to help self first.  We need to put on our own oxygen masks before we can do any good for the people around us.  I know that and I practice that but I recently forgot.  I got so caught up in the pain filled and dysfunctional drama that is occurring around me that I failed to give myself oxygen and I was suffocating, let me tell ya.  One week without practice....one week of slipping away from my priority...(I was committed to making my sadhanna my priority)...one week of forgetting about what is really important and allowing myself to get pulled down to the negative energy focus of the ego...one week of running around trying to meet the ego needs of others at the expense of my own...and boom...I found myself  bent over and  gasping for breath. I fell into the desire trap of wanting to change  the world when what I really need to do, all I can do really...is change myself. My practice is ll about changing myself, not others... sigh.  How quickly we forget.  Back to the drawing board. Back to working on Self. Back to God.

And where is God?

He dwells right behind your every thought. Yogananda

I need to remind myself of that, the next time I move my attention  away from the Seat of the Self. This week I was so focused on the drama around me  and that "terrible" feeling of being pulled down into someone else's darkness as I kicked and screamed, grabbing for anything I could ( except that which works...my practice). I focused on my resistance to what was as well...and it was yucky...I started saying things like "I need you to do this...I need you to stop doing that...I need things to be different than what they are." My attention and focused slipped out of my yogi center ( the Seat of Self)  and went to the mind to say, "Hey Mind...what do I do here to fix this needy thing?" Mind, of course, didn't know...it is the mixed up cause of all this disturbance yet there I was asking it to make sense of it.  It couldn't.  I really have to fire Mind's ass! 

Anyway, I am ready to go back to what is important.  I really cannot fix or save others as much as I may want to.  That is theirs's.  All I can do is stay calm and relaxed in Witness consciousness so I am there in a way that is truly helpful. 

All is well.  

Michael A. Singer/ Temple of the Universe ( August 18, 2023) Finding Your Way Back to the Beauty Within. https://tou.org/talks/

Dancing With the Sun

 When you understand that thought is the thought of the thoughtless than your singing and dancing is no more than the voice of the dharma, everyday law.  

Ram Dass

In the below podcast recorded sometime during the 70's , Ram Dass tells us it is all a big beautiful dance and that all we can really do for others, while we dance,  is to be who we are at the deepest level.  Our sadhana, our practice of getting there, to the beingness that cannot be anywhere but here or now is all that is important in regards to what we do...the rest is just stuff. We are here to serve...yes.  How do we serve people in their never ending dramas often expressed in "self-pity"? By just being...staying focused on the sun beyond the drama in ourselves and in the other. We recognize the self pity in self or in the other, observe it, examine it and then maybe even be in awe of it as just another part of that "stuff" that makes up the dance of Life. We need to work on ourselves and that is the greatest gift we can give another.  Even a mother...must prioritize working on herself.  She can do nothing of significance for her children until she is free of ego and approaching them as "being".  (That is quite an impactful thing for me to hear right now). 

He offers a Sanskrit mantra that is said to be helpful in keeping us centered  as we dance.

aditiya hridyam punyam sarv shatrus bena shenaam

This translates to: all evil ( that which blocks us from shakti/awakening) vanishes from life for he who keeps the sun in his heart.

That is pretty cool.  I want to keep the sun in my heart and my heart on the "beingness" of who I and others are.

All is well.

Ram Dass/ Be Here Now Network (Sept, 2016)  Episode 23- Shiva's Dance of Life. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yr3zjLhSvT8&t=2636s

Taking the Wheel Back from Mind

 Either you are using your mind, or your mind is using you.

Michael A. Singer

Are you using your mind or are you being used by your mind?  Most of us are being used by our minds and have come to believe, because it is normal, it must be okay.

What are you talking about, crazy lady?

Well, most of us listen to our minds, believe what it has to say, and then proceed to follow its directions.  We do what the mind tells us to do.

Why is that not wise?

The mind is crazy, that's why.  If you take the time to step back and watch it you will see how crazy it is.  It goes on and on nonstop. Never, I mean never, does it  stop talking.  It is telling you what is good or bad, right or wrong, what should be or shouldn't be when it knows nothing.  It bases all of these judgements not on the reality of what is but on what memories it has stored in the past. It thinks it can actually control life and get it to do what it wants.  It does its best to convince you of the same with its never ending, "You gotta do this, change that, go there, avoid this, fix that etc." Not only that but it has a tendency to be very dark. 60,000 thousand thoughts a day, scientists tell us, and 80 percent of those thoughts are negative. No wonder so many of us are miserable!

The mind is a great tool...it can do great things: thinking, planning, solving problems etc but it is just a tool we are supposed to be using. It isn't supposed to be using us.  The mind isn't supposed to be telling us what to do, we are supposed to be telling it.  Imagine your body as the vehicle you have been given to drive in this existence, and the mind as a very depressed copilot that got drunk, then stung by a scorpion.  Are you going to say, "Okay...you drive. You can handle this life better than I can?" 

Well that is basically what most of us do...and how well do you think this mind drives in that condition?  Not very well.  It is all over the road, swerving here and there,  bumping into guardrails and other vehicles in its attempt drive away from this or that, hitting the ditch again and again.  How many times has it rolled? Man, it isn't fun when mind drives, is it? Most of us are  broken up, bumped and bruised as we sit in the passenger side,  our foot glued to  an imaginary brake and our white knuckles clinging to whatever we can hold.  Yet, we let it drive. And the sad thing is...Mind cannot take us to where we really want to go. It just gets us lost. Sigh!

Mind isn't supposed to be driving these cars.  We are!! We need to take the wheel back.  Though we cannot stop the copilot from talking nonstop about its negative view of life, we do not have to listen or follow its directions.  We do not have to follow its advice.  We can keep our eyes on the road in front of us, appreciating the scenery, as we relax and let go a bit into auto drive. There is a force pulling this car along. Trust it and trust yourself behind the wheel of your life. Don't let mind drive! 

All is well.

Michael A. Singer/ The Temple of the Universe ( August 14, 2023) Moving Beyond the Edges of Mind. https://tou.org/talks/

Learning from Hanuman

When the cloud is there I serve Ram, when the cloud is lifted I am Ram.

Hanuman from the Ramayana, as quoted by Ram Dass

Another translation:

 When I do not know who I am , I serve you. The day I realize who I am, You and I will be the same.

In Hindu (and Jain) tradition the story of Ram's most faithful servant: the Monkey God Hanuman is told in the the Ramayana. Hanuman risks his life facing demons  to find the captured wife of Ram...Sita. He does this,  and according to Ram Dass in the podcast linked below, is told by Ram he can have whatever he wants as reward. Hanuman answers "Save me, save me from the tenacles of egotism!"

What are you going on about, crazy lady?  What have monkey gods  got to do about anything that relates to me?

As I have written many times before in many different ways, if we truly want peace and happiness, fulfillment and the experience of true love in this life time, we need to serve something much deeper than ego. Hanuman represents this type of selfless service. As the true warrior of karma yoga, he serves Ram ( God) and in doing  so he serves himself.  What he is seeking more than anything else is enlightenment...to be free of the tenacles of egotism....to have the cloud removed and the duality of "You and I", "God and I" removed.  He realizes that once he is free of ego he will not only serve God, he will be merged in God. Ego is the thing that holds us back from realizing who we are. 

In Karma yoga, we serve all beings. By serving all beings we serve God, and by serving God we serve Self. Whatever we do for others, we do for God. (Whatever your concept of God entails is irrelevant, we are pointing to that which is beyond the concept. ) 

And the King will reply, "Truly I tell you, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me." Matthew 25: 40 NIV

Everyone we approach in life, should be viewed as a piece of God. We should seek the light in them beneath their bodies and their melodramas. As we look out at the world's population of beings we can train ourselves to see:

...life in a series of cloudy veils.  Ram Dass

Every individual has the light of God in them that might be  hidden beneath the cloudy veil of ego and who they think they are.  Serve that light until your veil is lifted and you can see yourself for who you really are...when we do that we will see others for who they really are beyond the veil...extensions of pure light. 

All I have to offer another human being is my own purity...my own being, and I realize the less ego there is the more I have to offer. Ram Dass

 All is well in my world. 

Ram Dass/ Be Here Now Network ( Sept, 2016) Episode 22- How May I Serve You. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yr3zjLhSvT8&t=2635s

Serving the Crazy Ego? oops...lol

 There is no way anyone was ever okay by serving the ego.

Michael Singer

Why?

The ego's goal is quite explicably ego autonomy . From the beginning then its purpose is to be seperate, sufficient unto itself and independent of any power except its own. 

ACIM text: Chapter11: V:4:5 

So there is a bit of a competition going on inside you between the False  You and the Real you.

Say what, crazy lady?

Well, maybe not competition but there are two "selfs" in you .  One that is real and one that isn't.

Huh? 

Of course, all that you can be in reality, is the real you. Many great masters teach, however, that we have created this false sense of self that sits in the way of us realizing who we really are. We call this little fella "me" but it is more easy to understand as "ego".  This ego self isn't real anywhere but in the mind.

The wiser part of us, which is real,  is sitting back watching us create and do what we can to protect and maintain this ego, watching us get so identified in it we come to believe that is who we are, all we are. It watches as ego tells us to get this and get that, push this or that away...to do whatever is necessary  to strengthen it and protect the false self.   The Wiser Self knows what the ego is doing, knows  that it is looking for validation of itself from the external world; that it is trying to prove to us its reality, through other egos,  and that is why we are so concerned about what other's think. The ego is trying to deceive us into believing it is all we are. It is trying to get us to believe in the unreal. 

That is why the ego is insane: it teaches that you are not what you are. Chapter 7: III: 2-6

Wise Self is  watching us believing everything ego has to say; watching us perceiving the life and the world through its eyes; watching us following its misguided directions, and watching us suffer greatly because of it.   As we painfully scurry about in service to this mind created entity, the Wise Self/the true Self/ the Spirit/the Higher Consciousness (whatever you want to call it) sits back with its hand on its chin murmuring, "Hmm! Interesting!" 

This Wiser Self tries to get our attention every now and again though it has no intention of interfering with our "free will", just to say, "Can you see what you are doing?  Isn't it interesting?  You could experience so much bliss and love, as you are here to do, but yet you are choosing this. You are choosing to be bound and chained by something that isn't even real. So, so interesting!" The Wise Self is not judging what we are doing, it is just observing and commenting objectively on it.

All the while ego has been very busy in us, creating this thick and what it believes to be  impenetrable shield between it and Wiser Self.  It doesn't want us to be able to see the Self beneath or to hear it. It wants to be able to control us completely. Its mortal enemy is truth so it doesn't want us to have any contact with it. Wiser Self, of course, the opposite of ego, is truth.  Ego is quite a calculating, deceptive  little entity but the Wiser Self is "wise" , right?  It can see through this veil.  It can see what ego is doing and what we are doing in service of it. We cannot, however, unless we are truly willing to, see through it. The wall has to come down, the veil has to be destroyed, ego has to go if we are to see and  fall back into the Self beneath the self, into who we really are. And because this wall was created by mind...and truly only exists in mind...it has to be dismantled by mind. 

We need to examine our minds to see the ego at work.  We  also need to be willing to see the witness and then to see we have a choice about which of these entities we are going to invest our conscious awareness in.  We can continue to pretend and be delusional that we are these egoic little me's or we can be willing to work our way through the veil to see that we are that which lies beyond it. We can be nothing but what we are, reality, We must remove the veil, the mental clouds in order to see truth.  We really cannot even begin to see truth, until we see the untruth...the lies ego is responsible for.

Reality can dawn only on an unclouded mind. It is always there to be accepted, but its acceptance depends on your willingness to have it. To know reality must involve the willingness to judge unreality for what it is. ACIM Text Chapter 10: IV:2:1-3

All is well.

A Course in Miracles: Combined Volume / Foundation For Inner Peace (2007) Text

Michael A. Singer/Temple of the Universe  ( August 13, 2023) Setting Your Pole Star Higher than the Ego. https://tou.org/talks/

Yoga Beyond the Mat

 Yoga is a journey of the self, through the self, to the Self.

The Bhagavad Gita

Another questioned answered in an imperfect way by an imperfect yogi.

All is well 

Imprisoned by Memory?

 When consciousness realizes it is bound, it yearns to be free again. It seeks to unloose itself from the cycles of the physical. It seeks to break out from the convolutions of the psychological. It seeks to return to a state it dimly remembers- a state no longer inscribed by memory, a state of free intent. It seeks to return to what it once was- a boundless, purposeless unity. 

The Teachings of Adiyoga as posted by Rapook K. Prajapat

Bound? 

Most of us are imprisoned by our psyches which are just an accumulation of memories collected over this life (and others) that we have stored within us in lieu of experiencing Life fully as it is. We have become identified with the illusion that we are seperate little me's with our likes and dislikes and we go around the world trying to manipulate and control all that is going on out there so it doesn't disturb our memories in here. We are a mess. This mess is our karmic prison.

Though we may be comfortable in our prisons and making the best of it...something within us longs to be free.

"Whether your freedom is taken away by a prison, by your own samskaras, or by genetic or evolutionary memory doesn't really matter. Either way, you will find after a while that your life will be permeated by unexplained suffering. You will not know why, but your entire existence will be stifling, repetitive, constraining." Sadhguru, page 64

Everytime we feel the pain of a samskara emerging because of some reaction we are having to to life circumstance is a time to remember this. Samskaras remind us that we are shaped by memory on levels we aren't even aware of...but..." something within a human being deeply resents the loss of freedom." Sadhguru page 63. We long to be free. And we can be.  We can transcend our karma. 

Singer reminds us of that in the below video "Everyone is capable of being unconditionally okay all of the time." 

We do not need to live like trapped little me's in our mind  made prisons. We can free ourselves by realizing and living as  who we really are ... Life itself. 

All is well in my world. 

Rapook K. Prajapat/ Thought Island. (n.d.) Excerpts from Adiyogi-The Source of Yoga

Michael A. Singer ( August 10, 2023) Letting Go: The Path to Unconditional Well-Being. https://tou.org/talks/

Sadhguru (2021) Karma: A Yogi's Guide to Crafting Your Destiny. New York: Harmony Books

On Accepting Life's Challenges

 So it is not the physical situation that causes misery. It is the way you react to it. Your karma is not in what is happening to you; your karma is in the way you respond to what is happening to you. 

Sadhguru, Karma: a Yogi's Guide to Crafting Your Destiny, (Harmony Books; 2021), page 38

All is well!

The Karmic Effect of Belief

 You can't escape from a prison until you recognize you are in one. People who have chosen to live within the limits of their old beliefs continue to have the same experiences. It takes effort and commitment to break old patterns. 

Bob Proctor

What shapes our volition(will and intention) and therefore our karma (how we approach Life and how Life approaches us)?  I believe the key factor that determines how we live  is our  belief.

Belief? 

Our ideologies, our conditioning, our views all stem from core belief's.  What we have learned and stored in our psyches to create this idea of "me", can often be traced back to a few core beliefs. These beliefs are often stored so deeply into our subconscious we may not even be consciously aware they are there, yet they form the foundation for most of our samskaras, our habit tendencies, our dislikes and likes, our volition, our response or reaction to life circumstances  and our karma. 

Identification 

The thing that makes these beliefs so tenacious and powerful is our identification with their message.  For example, if I, for whatever reason have come to believe that I was "bad" and  deserving of punishment as a child,  I will likely identify as a "bad person" as an adult.  It will become who I am at the deepest "personal" level. The habit tendency to get lost in destructive thinking and acting may become strong as I live out a self fulfilling prophecy from within. A "bad person" is who I will become in my psyche's view of self.  I will feel, think and act as a "bad person". Life will then continue to provide evidence that I am a "bad person" : being told such by different people, labelled as such by society, punished as such etc... Depending on how deeply conditioned this idea is, even if I clean up my exterior self ...the self I show to others...inside, I will still feel and think like a "bad person".  I may truly believe that I do not deserve other people's trust or confidence, that I am going to hurt etc. I may punish myself with self destructive behaviours. Regardless, I will endure the karmic consequence of suffering. 

Separate Individual?  

Now, this core belief that I am a "bad person" stems from an even bigger and more deeply ingrained belief that "I am a person". 

Huh?

This collectively ingrained belief that we are separate individuals is the source of our volition, according to Sadhguru in, Karma: A Yogi's Guide to Crafting  Your Destiny. 

...it is your identification with your individuality that determines your volition....If you were not identified with this sense of separateness, you would not be accumulating karma.  Page 31

Why is that belief such a problem for us?  Well as long as we see ourselves as seperate little entities we engage with the world selectively rather than exclusively.  Instead of embracing all that is, as it is, we select what and whom we let into our experience and what we don't.  We get consumed by likes and dislikes. It is the identification with our desires that cause our problems with karma. We are either in hot pursuit of them or denying them. 

The problem is that people have forgotten how to be inclusively involved with life. Since there involvement is selective, they fall into the trap of entanglement.  They either engage with life selectively, on the basis of their likes or dislikes, or opt for life-sapping philosophies of denial or detachment. In both cases, karma only multiplies. Page 33

(Sadhguru has a lot to say about the way we "misconstrued" the idea of desirelessness....thinking it means to renounce all desire which he says is impossible to do as a human, without accumulating even more karma.) 

The thing is, in regard to belief, is that we are not what we think we are.  We are so much more.  We do not have to suffer the karmic consequences of getting tangled up in these limiting beliefs that keep us from knowing who we are.  We have a choice. We can become more aware of the mess we have inside us and see how it is effecting us karmically.  Karma is our doing!  We can examine what types of beliefs we are storing and we can do our best to dismantle them as we release our samskaras and open up fully to Life. With conscious awareness we can be free of suffering. 

your karma cannot turn into suffering without your cooperation. Once you are aware, there is an end to suffering page 42

All is well!

Sadhguru ( 2021) Karma: a Yogi's Guide to Crafting Your Destiny. New York: Harmony Books

The Road to Hell

 The road to Hell is paved with good intentions.

Unknown

I am going to challenge that cliche with what I am learning about karma. 

First of all, let's look at Hell in a non-traditional way. Let's look at it as the symbol of the consequence received for unwholesome actions, the effect of unhealthy causes.  Let's look at is as the intense  suffering we endure because of the choices we make that don't honor these lives we are living now and see it , not as an actual  place we may go to after we leave these incarnations, but what is also happening as we live and breathe in these bodies. Let's look at the Hell on earth, and lets look at it in terms of Karma. 

And though we are striving to someday be  non-dualistic in our view of all that is, we are going to use the dualistic term of "good" that is so important in this cliche, to represent anything that is wholesome, healthy, or  skillful. Okay? 

So is the road to Hell (to karmic suffering) paved with good intentions? In other words ...are wholesome  intentions useless in keeping us from suffering the consequences of our actions?  

No.  We need to remember that....although karma denotes action of body, mind, and energy, it is not about action alone...karma is much more fundamentally about volition.  page 26-27. 

 Intention (another name for volition)  is far from inconsequential. It is essential in determining  if you are experiencing a hell on earth or a heaven on earth. It determines your degree of suffering. 

Our western society tends to minimize the importance of intention. We tend to  praise or punish the result of action more than we do the motivating factor beneath the action.  We are ingrained to believe it isn't so important to know why we do or don't do something, as long as we do or don't get it done. Intention then is useless, the finished action is everything.

The law of karma as explained by Sadhguru, however,  states that the reason why you do something  is even more important than what you actually end up doing.  If intentions are good(wholesome, intended in  service to all, coming from a loving heart) they will take us to heaven ( peace, joy and bliss) and away from suffering. If intentions, on the other hand,  are wrought with ill will towards self or another, motivated by selfish greed, or dishonesty,  they will lead to hell. 

It doesn't matter so much how your actions turn out, as does  the volition beneath the action. For example we may be conditioned to believe that taking another's life is a sin...and a sure ticket to Hell (both in this life and in the  afterlife). We accumulate karma with both.  The mother who instinctively kills an intruder to protect the child the intruder is after out of love and instinct, however,  is not accumulating as much karma (closer to hell), as would the person who spends years  meticulously planning on killing his wife because he hates her and he wants her inheritance, even if he doesn't follow through with the act.  Love is a healthy ,wholesome, and skillful  volition when it comes to karma.  Hate and selfish greed isn't.  The mother had "good" intentions and though she committed an act of murder that she will no doubt suffer internally for, she is not heading to hell (accumulating a lot of karmic consequence...i.e. will likely not be punished legally) . The man who, though he did not commit the actual act physically, committed murder a 1000 times in his head had "bad intentions" and intentions like this are what paves the road to hell. It is also important to note that  how our plans or actions physically turn out, how they are received by another,  is not as important as the mental and emotional motivation beneath them. 

How the recipient of your hatred reacts is not the point. The accumulation of karma is determined by your intention, not merely by its impact on someone else. page 27 

Karma is an inside game, an internal one. When we do injustice to another we hurt ourselves more than we hurt them.  The intruder in the above scenario is killed by the protective mother, therefore released of a certain karma he was carrying and the wife is not harmed by the hateful, greedy husband yet to follow through with his plans. He, however, is inflicting great internal suffering on himself whether he knows it or not. 

...allowing the bitterness to grow and multiply within has even deeper internal consequences. Intention motivated by a personal agenda always accrues more karma...page 28

And what about the  moral, law abiding citizen who puts everyone's needs above their own but at the same time are lost in self hatred and condemnation, constantly berating themselves.  They are not hurting anyone or outwardly hurting themselves even,  yet they are creating a hell on earth for themselves.  They are accumulating great karma which manifests as the consequence of depression. 

if you perform only negative mental karma, there may be no external consequence, but you experience a deeper level of internal suffering. page 28

Though we are taught, in western culture, that the bad things we do may need to be punished with hell fire in the afterlife and suffering here on earth, and though we may come to understand karma in terms of how close we are to that hellish punishment ...the karmic consequence is not a punishment...it is just Life working itself out through us.  Life is not sitting behind a big courtroom bench with a gavel in its hand saying..."Okay that was "bad" and it  brings you a few steps closer to hell...and that was good...and that brings you a few steps closer to heaven".   Life is just doing what Life does. Ultimately life is neither suffering or bliss. It is what you want it to be. It has no inherent quality. page 34 

Life doesn't care about your personal karma...it just has to flow and find its way around  and through us in anyway it can.  If we are closed up in suffering, it has to push through us and that hurts (Hell).  If we are open in our love and freedom...it flows much easier through us.  And we suffer less.(Heaven) . Life doesn't care. You, on the other hand, do.  Whether you allow yourself to be consciously aware of it or not...you know what will close you and what will open you in terms of body, mind and energy action. You know what will create suffering and what won't.    You know what will take you to karmic freedom and what will take you to karmic prison .  What will take you to heaven and what will take you to hell: Your Intention!!!

I would like to rework the above cliche now:

The road to hell is paved with unwholesome, Self/God/Life - denying intention. And the road to Heaven is paved with Love. 

Yeah...you may have some work to do to get rid of the  negative habits of intending wrongly you have accumulated...you may have to do the work of becoming more aware and conscious of these habits...you may need to commit to intending  differently from an open heart of Love, here on in.  But would you not rather be paving the road to heaven than the road to hell? It can be done.

All is well. 

Sadhguru ( 2021) Karma: A Yogi's Guide to Crafting Your Destiny. New York: Harmony Books

Will and Intention to Make Life an Expression of Bliss

 The ability and willingness to change is at the heart of all spirituality.

Michael A. Singer

I would like to talk about volition today, or, more exactly, the  intention and willingness to change for the better. Why do I want to talk about this?  Well serendipity again has led me to a topic.  Last night I read chapter two of Karma: A Yogis Guide to Crafting Your Destiny and went to bed thinking and dreaming of will and intention. Then I wake up this morning to Michael Singer's, Temple of the Universe Talk, entitled, The Willingness to Change. Could I write about anything else, lol?

Anyway, I digress...

Do You Want to Change? 

Are you willing to change?  Or are you determined to keep things as they are in your life because they suit you or are, at least, comfortably familiar and safe? Maybe you are afraid of change? Maybe you want change but feel it isn't your responsibility? Maybe you still cling to the notion that others and situations have to change "out there" for your life to be better? Maybe you are just too tired or overwhelmed to do the work of changing? I understand all that, I do.  I spent most of my life in 'stuck mode' because of those rationalizations. Not anymore. Life slapped me across the face and said, "Wake up! Things really need to change!" 

I want change.  Man I want change.  I want this life I am living to be different and the only way it is going to be different is if I change myself! So I am working on changing my inner world. I am trying to clean up the mess I made of my body, mind and energies. I devote myself now to being a yogi. A yogi is devoted to changing from the inside out.

Working Out Karma

Though I spent most of life so far believing I was a victim or a villain,  assuming I was being punished by some outside force, I now see completely that  life is an internal game, as is change. I am working towards understanding and releasing all those samskaras that are blocking the flow of pure energy within me and that are somehow determining the quality of the life I am living. I am attempting to work out my karma.

What does "working out karma mean"? It means that the play of your life is happening according to your tendencies, not according to some system of right or wrong. Your life simply organizes itself to fulfill your inclinations. Karma is not a punishment or reward; it is just the process by which Life tries to fulfill itself. page 29

Life is trying to fulfill itself through this body, mind and energies but I keep blocking it, stopping it from doing so because of these patterns and tendencies I developed and slapped a label of "me, my and mine" on. Life is trying to pour through "me". Shakti, prana, essence, soul, Atman, Self...whatever way we describe it...cannot flow through if this "me" is standing in the way with all its clinging and pushing away. We can resist and block the flow of Life with our bodies ( through action) but we can also block it with our thoughts, beliefs, feelings, ideas of who we are as separate little entities etc. We can block with our intentions. Infact, our intentions and our volitions have more to do with what we "get from life", in terms of consequences,  than our physical actions do. When we judge, right or wrong, good or bad, should be or shouldn't be,  and select what comes into our "experience" and what doesn't...we are resisting the fullness of Life; we are blocking, we are screwing up our internal energies, and we are creating karma.  We are making a mess of our lives here. 

It doesn't have to be this way.  It doesn't.  We can clean up the mess.  We can heal. We can grow. We can find peace, joy and love within us.  We can change the direction our karma is taking us.

How?

The first and most important thing is to be willing to change. We all have a will within us, the ability to make choices . We need to stop using that will to feed this idea of "me". We need to start using  that will for our freedom? 

What determines  our willingness, intention or volition to live a certain way?

Most of us use our will in the service of the human part of us rather than the "being" part of us. (Singer) 

...volition is shaped fundamentally by your belief that you are a seperate being - an individual....If you were not identified with this sense of separateness you would not be accumulating karma. Sadhguru, page 31

This determines how we  see ourselves and thusly how we interact with the world around us.

The endless oscillation between likes and dislike, attraction and aversion, further hardens their[most people's] sense of serratedness. Overtime likes and dislikes freeze into a personality and produce more karma. Individuality now becomes a prison rather than a privilege. Sadhguru, page 31

Your mind...is convinced it is a limited entity. Therefore any volition based on this limited understanding goes against the fundamental design of the source of creation. Any action that is impelled by such shortsighted and narrow volition invariably means karma. Or in other words,  more compulsive existence. Sadhguru, page 32

We will remain stuck in our "me-ness" with all its habitual and Self/God- denying tendencies until we start seeing that "me" is just a thing we made up. Until we realize we are in a self-created prison and start looking for our way out, for liberation and freedom,  we are not using our will for the best purpose and will continue to act out our tendencies, continue to collect karma. That slap across the face I got from Life woke me up to the fact that I was locked up in a compulsive way of existing.  I then made it a point to use my will, not to keep me stuck, but for freedom.  Only when I am free will I be able to go back to free others. 

What is it we are to be willing to do then, crazy lady?

We must be willing to see, first of all that what we have been doing doesn't work and that we got ourselves stuck in this painful way of existing. We have created our own Karma with the identifications with our actions, our stinking thinking, our emotions, our preferences etc.  We then must be willing to see that it is we who put the bars up and we that are the ones that can get through them.  We must be willing to step beyond the familiar and into the unfamiliar, which can be scary. Our fear  may tempt us to want to retreat back into the habit of resisting Life. Singer reminds us that it is here where we must be willing to persevere... to stay open, to surrender to what is. Change, he reminds us, takes place through surrender.  

Surrender? What are we surrendering?

We surrender this identification we have with "me", this idea of separateness and fall back into the wise Self beyond that veil of "me" we built. From there we surrender this idea that Life should be accommodating this "me" and all its likes and dislikes. We realize that Life has its own agenda and we are simply here to experience it, not control it. Instead of resisting and closing up to any of it...we stay open allowing it all in, appreciating it, honoring it, experiencing it fully before it passes through. 

If we want to change our lives, change the direction our karma is taking us...we must be willing to surrender and let go of "me". 

Every moment you have the right to grow, you have the right to get closer to God by releasing yourself. Michael Singer 

When your actions are no longer about you, when they are simply based on the demands of the situation, when narrow self interest no longer fuels your violation, you have reached the end of karmic production. Your liberation is assured. Sadhguru, page 33

Once this is accomplished, your life becomes an expression of bliss, not a pursuit of it.  Sadhguru, page 31 

Sadhguru (2021) Karma: A Yogi's Guide to Crafting Your Destiny. New York: Harmony Books

Michael A. Singer ( August 7, 2023) The Willingness to Change. https://tou.org/talks/

Note: I am not sure if Sadhguru wrote this book himself or if he used a ghost writer ( maybe one of his 'volunteers') but I think the  the writing is excellent! Just had to say that. 

Karma: The Blue Print for the Life You Have Created.

 Karma simply means we have created the blue print for our life. It means we are the makers of our own fate...It makes each one of us squarely responsible for our own destinies and, above all, the nature of our experience of life. 

Sadhguru, Karma: A Yogi's Guide to Crafting Your Destiny, page 8

I have only finished the first chapter and I already have a better understanding of karma than I did.  I can tie it into what I know and often write about samskaras. It is so cool.

Karma is basically the result of all our accumulated actions on the body, mind and energy level. We, since the time we are born, take on these sense impressions and these impressions settle into our minds, bodies and energies creating certain patterns ( pleasant, unpleasant, neutral? ). The patterns shape themselves into behavioural tendencies ( habits- certain choices, physical actions, preferences, thoughts, feelings, openings and closings?). A cluster of these tendencies hardens over time into what you call your personality, or what you claim to be your true nature. (page 9) This then shapes the way we experience the world around us.  Our karma then is basically the result or effects  of our individual psyches ( minds, egos, sense of "me-ness").  It is basically all we spoke about so far but now we are going to call it "karma."

Things we need to know about this habitual  way of experiencing life is that it is unconscious, compulsive,  cyclical, tenacious,  individually distinctive, attractive to certain energies, and above all else,  it is changeable! 

Huh?

Karma is unconscious.  

We did not collect our impressions, patterns, tendencies and therefore specific life circumstances consciously. We were not aware of what we were doing and how we were reacting to external stimuli, how we were storing our emotional experiences, how we were blocking our energies and behaving accordingly, how we were building our psyches. As humans, we often look to the outside world as  the cause and solution for what we are experiencing. We are seldom aware that we are even responsible for what we got going on inside of us, let alone what is going on in front of us.

Like so many people, you probably don't know why certain situations keep  recurring in your inner and outer  life.  This is because these patterns are unconscious. As time goes on, you turn into a puppet of your accumulated past. page 10

The unconscious mind is therefore a tremendous library of karmic memory. You would find this useful  if you were approaching it consciously. The problem is it manifest all the time, without your permission! You feel like one big mess because you are punching your psychological key board randomly all the time. page 12

Karma is compulsive

Most of the decisions we make to  act a certain way  are a result of  the internal compulsive pull of karma.  It is a result of unconscious habit more so  than conscious action. 

Karma  is cyclical

Sadhguru teaches that karmic information  is encoded into certain cycles. The longer we stay in a cycle the more balanced we become and the more blessed our life experience will seem to be. That cycle we strive for is the  longest  cycle, the solar cycle of 4, 356 days ( 12 years).  (certainly not the karmic cycle I am in lol). If our life runs in cycles lasting only 3-6 months we are said to be in a state of psychological imbalance (:(...probably mine) and if our cycles are lunar and only lasting 28 days we are mentally ill ( my loved ones?) 

With yogic practice, your goal is to move toward the solar cycle so your balance and stability are assured....You no longer wear your karma like a skin-tight garment; you wear it loosely.  You hold it at a distance. page 15

Karma is tenacious

Karma sticks to us and follows us from life to another.  We may die but karma doesn't. If we die before we resolve the internal mess in this existence...that mess goes on. 

You could meet with an accident and die, but your karma is not destroyed. You could break your head and blow all your brains out, but the karma continues! page 15

Karma is individually Distinctive 

Ever wonder why our life situations are so different? The karmic memory in you is totally different than the karmic memory in me.  You did not experience what I experienced.  Did not sense what I sensed. Did not perceive, interpret, label or judge in the way I did.  You stored different junk ( samskaras) than I did.  You like different things than I like.  You may hate other things I love. You make different choices than I make. Therefore your karma differs from mine. You have your own smell and that smell attracts different energies to you than what my smell  attracts to me.

Smell?

Karma is attractive to certain energies 

Sadhguru also describes the vasana our karmic energies emit. Vasana? This sanskrit word can be translated as "smell,"

This smell is generated by a vast accumulation of impressions caused by your physical, mental, emotional and energy actions. Depending on the smell you emit, you attract certain types of life situations to yourself. page 17

I am sniffing under my arm pits right now, wondering if I stink? But he assures us this vasana, this smell, has nothing to do with odor our bodies may emit or breathe in. How rotten are you "in there"? Depending on our vasana we will pull in certain energies.  We need to remove good and bad from our dualistic tendencies, but it may be useful to use them here just to make a point.  If we think "bad", (less than positive, life -affirming)   thoughts based on deeply stored unwholesome beliefs ...guess what happens? We tend to experience "bad" things.  If we feel "good", (higher energy feelings)...we tend to draw in pleasant things.  Do we not? If we do "bad" or unwholesome  things, we tend to suffer in the long run.  If we offer loving "goodness" to the world, we tend to feel "good". Right? What we have stored in the body, mind and energy, what decisions we make in these three areas based on that,  gives off a smell into the universe, like a flower with a certain fragrance. We, as a result,  draw those things to us that are attracted to that fragrance and we unknowingly push away those things that are repulsed by it. What Life gives us, is at least partly influenced by our karma.

One thing we try to change with yoga...is the type of fragrance you throw out into the world. page 21

Karma is changeable

Though we may not be able to change the past actions or change external events we can change what is going on inside us now so karma is different, so the smell we throw out into the world is different, so our experience of Life is different.  We do not need to stay in these old habitual ways of living life. We can break these internal and external patterns. How? By becoming more conscious! 

With a little more awareness every human being can begin to transform habit into choice, compulsion into consciousness. page 21

Wow!  I am impressed by this book so far. Why? Because I am learning from it in a way that resonates with everything inside me.

All is well!

Sadhguru ( 2021) Karma: A Yogi's Guide to Crafting Your Destiny. New York: Harmony Books

Experiencing the Experience

To Experience the experience you are experiencing, that is why you take birth. 

The "me":  I bought another book on Karma. 

The Wiser Self: Why? 

The "me": Because I wanted to know why these challenging things were happening to "me"? I figure, if it isn't some type of a family curse, it must be my karma, some punishment I am living for something I did in this life or another.

The Wiser Self: Without adding any drama or victim description, what challenging things?

The "me": Well I am constantly being reminded of how my children are suffering. It is right there in front of me.  I can't seem to handle it.

The Wiser Self: So you are focusing on the suffering of your children and see it as your suffering?

The "me: Well yes. Duh! They are my kids.  I love them and worry about them. I feel their pain.  Besides, I can't help but to ask:  what do they think and feel about me...do they see me as the cause of that suffering?  Some seem to blame me for choices I made in the past that I thought was for their benefit.  Some blame me for not helping enough or in the "right way"  though I do try.  And what do others think and feel about "me" when they see my children suffering so.  They will assume, and  possibly rightfully so, that I screwed up royally as a mom. And on top of all that....they, my children and myself see that I can't seem to fix this no matter what I do. I  feel so much guilt and shame and remorse thinking I might have  hurt my children in anyway. This is all too much...one thing after another and I don't know what to "do". I am a failure as a mom and every time I feel their pain I am reminded of such. I can't handle this!!!

The Wiser Self: Hmm! Let me get this straight.  Your challenges not only involve experiencing the compassion and empathy you have for suffering others ( which by the way is a wonderful and natural expression of the 'chit shakti' within you), but it also has to do with ego's perception of all this...poor little me's view.  You don't always see your children's pain when you see their behaviours and choices brought about by suffering. Ego steps in and says, "What about "me"; what is this doing to "me"?" It becomes about you and your stuffed pain and fear, not so much about them at times. Doesn't it? That is what makes it hard to handle?

The "Me": Wow! That's pretty harsh.  You are calling me selfish? I love my children and I would die for them!!!

The Wiser Self:  Oh! I know you love them and no doubt you would die for them. That is not being questioned. The way you are reacting is also very normal. Most people would react the way you are ...but it isn't healthy and wholesome. Normal doesn't mean healthy. I see you are loving them with two different parts of you. You are loving them with the ego...that is always selfish and you are loving them with your soul which is never about the "me" in you. 

The Me: Huh? What the fork are you talking about? 

The Wiser Self:  The true you is Love and it is hidden beneath that thick layer of ego you built: your personality, your sense of "meness" which is basically just an accumulation of all your learned experiences, leading to the creation of likes and dislikes that make you who you think you are. Love to the ego is different than Love to the soul. The ego sees itself as separate from everything and everyone and therefore  love to the ego is all about what that other person can do to fill in the emptiness separateness provides. We thusly open when the other is acting and being what we need them to be and we close when they aren't.  It is conditional. It is all about what the other can do for you, the "me". Your children are seen by your ego as an extension of who you are; your ego sees them as there to help enhance it and fulfill it.  The ego is "selfish". The Soul, on the other hand,  sees no separateness. Love to the Soul is all about answering this question:  "what can I do to bring more love into this world, what can I do to open up so more love flows through me and into the world?" 

The Me: Huh?

The Wiser Self: You are opening up and evolving, albeit at your own pace, and the more you open the more you let me in. I am the doorway to Soul.  When you fall back into me you experience the Soul's love for your children regardless of what they are doing.  You feel their pain in a genuine way but you are not as attached to it.   You see it as a part of their journey. When you allow your consciousness to follow the busy and very sick ego, however...your love for your children is contaminated with ego's need to protect itself.  You see the children as "my" children, an extension of your ego. When you see something you don't like in your children's behaviours and choices, this taps into and pokes all those stored and stuffed pains  inside you. It gets very uncomfortable and messy in there. It becomes about you and you don't feel you can handle the experience of their pain on top of all the other pain that is coming up. You do your best to push it down on top of all that disturbed mess so you do not have to feel it. This is unwholesome and disrespectful to the Soul. 

Th 'me": Regardless...I am still suffering. There seems to be one thing after the other thrown in my face that I can't handle. There has to be some reason for all these challenging things stepping in front of me. I would like to know why so I can stop this karma or whatever from taking over my family's life. That is why I bought this book. Are you telling me I shouldn't read it?

The Wiser Self:  No, of course not.  Read it. Learn from it.  It is a yogi's perspective of karma so that might help you to see that karma isn't what you and many westerners  think it is. No harm in this book.  I just want you to question why you feel you need it. You, like so many other human beings,  spend so much of your energy looking "out there" for the cause of the so called problems and for the solutions.  You spend so much time asking why things are the way they are so you can distract yourself from what is.  Does it really matter why ?  It is.  It just is. Your children are suffering. You are right here witnessing and experiencing that suffering as a third party.  It is what it is. 

The "me": Are you saying I do nothing but stand here and watch?

The Wiser Self: No.  I am saying you cannot change what happened and you will never fully understand the thousands of events that led to the so called challenges unfolding in front of you.  You do not need to know.  First of all...it isn't your business and it isn't yours to fix.  Do you honestly think you know better than Life what to do here? You have to let it be and let it go. Then you can "do" what needs to be done, if anything does. 

The "me": How do I do that when it hurts so much?

The Wiser Self: You have to first of all allow it to be what it is.  Stop resisting. You can't change the fact that your children are where they are.  It is...again for reasons that go way beyond you and anything you might have did or didn't do. (That doesn't mean you don't explore or accept anything you are accountable for here ...not so you are consumed with guilt...but so you learn and do not repeat it in the future). You can't change the fact that your past was the way it was, leading to a bunch of stuffed junk that wants to come up from inside you . You can't change the fact that it hurts and it is going to hurt. Accept. Allow it to be what it is. 

The "me": Then what?

The Wiser Self: You relax into what is. Well you lean back and relax into me, creating a bit of distance between the reality of the challenges in front of you  and the personal mind. Relax.  Relaxation is the opposite of resistance. That means you stop holding your hands up to block what is from coming in to your experience.  You stop using your inner hands to push the painful and unwanted down or back down. You allow it all to come in or up and you experience it fully.

The "me": Experience it fully?

The Wiser Self: Yes you observe and experience whatever unfolds in front of you through me.  This is where the clarity lies.  It is from here where we will be clear enough to know if we need to take action or not.  The experience  is ours.  Allow it in. Relax as you observe it. Sit with it,  Feel it. And when you are ready, honor it and be grateful for it with me.  It is all a part of some big process you will never completely understand until you are completely merged in me. But know it is taking you somewhere.  Every experience you let in will eventually leave you.  It will cleanse you and purify you.

The "me": What for? 

The Wise Self: The Soul is here to learn and evolve.  It and me and  you are here to experience for God the joy of living...all of it...with its ten thousand joys and ten thousand sorrows. You, my friend, are often standing in the way.  When you are willing to give up yourself for me and for soul, amazing things will happen.

The "me": Oh no...I am not ready yet.  

The Wise Self: That's okay.  It is a process.  Just learn to allow life to unfold in front of you, lean back and relax into me as you observe and experience it all. If you are called toward some inspired action from this clear place of wisdom that will help you or your children...go for it.  Until then...just sit and experience, allowing what is to be what it is as you relax.  Let Life take care of the rest for you and your children. It's all good.

The "me": Okay, I will do my best to trust you. I will. Not saying I won't screw up but I will try.

The Wise Self: That is all anyone can ask. That you are willing to take a step backwards away from your narrow and sick focus "out there" and towards me.  Chit Shakti is constantly flowing back here ...fall into it and it will bring the peace you long for, for you and your children. 

To embrace Life go through it. Embrace it all. Be one with it all. Ram Dass

Karma is not a creed, a scripture, an ideology, a philosophy or a theory. It is simply the wat things are. Sadhguru

Inspired By:

Ram Dass/ Be Here Now Network (Sept 26, 2016) Ram Dass Here and Now-Episode 20-Embracing It All.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gGPy8q51ZLI&t=1183s

Sadhguru ( 2021) A Yogi's Guide to Crafting Your Destiny. New York: Harmony Books

Michael. A. Singer/ Temple of the Universe ( August 6, 2023) Your Choice: Living for Yourself or Letting Go of Yourself.https://tou.org/talks/ 

Love to a Yogi?

 

Love is patient.  Love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no records of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil, but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. 

1 Corinthians13:4-8 NIV

What is romantic love to a yogi?

I attempted to answer that question in the ten minute impromptu exercise I am committed to for my own learning ( and hopefully the learning of others). It was an interesting question. 

When I got married, as do many catholics, I chose the above reading from Corinthians as part of the ceremony. Caught in a romantic ego mind, I failed then to realize what those words meant.  I know better now.

Love is not attachment and desire as our romantic notions paint it to be.  It is not built on the whims of ego and offered to us externally. It is not blown this way and that by our reactive tendencies. It is who we are!

Anyway,

All is well. 

Moth to a Flame

 

Let your inner pull toward enlightenment lead you so to speak. Let the light pull you towards itself (like a moth to the flame).

Ram Dass

I woke up thinking about a few things.  I was thinking about how I slept in again and was getting lazy with my sadhana/practice; how I wasn't quite feeling it, maybe experiencing a bit of skeptical doubt which is considered to be the fifth hindrance to spiritual enlightenment in the Buddhist tradition, and I was wondering why. I was also thinking about  the Ram Dass book I just finished reading before I fell asleep last night, Remember: Be Here Now. As well, I was thinking about cults, cult followers and cult leaders. I finished the series on Netflix , How to Become a Cult Leader( or something like that) before I went to bed.  So that is how I awoke.  I came out and meditated as I do in the morning, adding the Kriya practice with pranayam to it.  Then I sat with my tea and listened to Michael A. Singer on the below podcast talk about Relaxing, Releasing and Letting Go. As I sat here to write, I asked the question...how do all these things tie into each other and how am I going to write about all this? 

So I begin:

I am questioning my sadhana and the driving force behind it.  My will and commitment is losing its ompf. Why? For several reasons actually but mostly becasue skeptical doubt is slipping in from all around me. I am somehow absorbing some of the dark, pessimistic views of suffering loved ones.  I am seeing myself still stuck in this dark night of the soul despite my practice.  Though I read and hear from many wise ones that this is a normal part of the process, I am questioning: " Is it?  Is it supposed to be going on this long? Should I not be seeing a little positive return on my investment at this point?" 

Cults

Then when I watched the series on cults the doubt deepened a bit. Man, am I just fooling myself like these people were doing? This led me to think long and hard.

I have always been fascinated with cults and I don't know why. Most likely has something to do with my interest and connection with the follower who began as a seeker ( whether they knew it or not) looking for something deeper, something real, something that made sense when the rest of the world didn't, something  that explained why they were here, and something that took them from suffering to peace and beyond.  Sound familiar?  I guess, I could always relate to the follower and developed a great fear about my potential to get swept up into some ideology that promised to save me from my self, like they did. 

The Purity Beneath the Seeking

The messages in these cults are mostly very promising and they touch a deep core truth we all already have within us, I believe. A lot of these teachings are based on the premise of ancient spiritual teachings even if they get twisted around for the leader's benefit.  The teachings resonate because they hit that inner sense of knowing within. To be in a collective of others who are resonating at the same level is a very seductive thing. Look deeply at these people portrayed in shows like this one and you see genuinely happy and peaceful people...regardless if they are living a lie or not.  Something is opening them up to Shakti even if it is a belief brought to them by the leader's deception.  They don't get lured in and "brainwashed" like stupid lost puppies...they are offered the ultimate of gifts: Truth...which is hard to resist at the deepest level. For the most part, it is the spirit within that is being lured...not the psyche or the mind ( though it is to some degree). The inner pull toward enlightenment is taking them there.  And it is in this deep, innate seeking and wanting to serve the spirit, that they find themselves lost in someone's sick ego desires.  It is not so much the cult leader that they come to worship but the message, which is based on a truth that cannot be denied. Even though that truth gets wrapped in egoic fancy to serve the leader, it is doing something for the spirit of the follower. I think that is why it is so challenging for these people to leave. 

They mistakenly honor and serve the leader with their bodies and minds in order to give the spirit a taste of what it is longing for. They erroneously believe through the way the leader manipulates the mind tendencies...that the leader deserves to be honored and served because of the message he/she/they brought to their souls.  Of course, it is only the body and mind that the leader wants. They do what they can  to reduce the self/ego in the follower not for God ( whether they started out with that intention or not) but for the benefit of their own "little me".  Regardless of the reason for it, self/ego/little me in the follower gets diminished or removed and thusly shakti is released.  They have tapped into the state of unconditional well being inside us that has nothing to do with getting what we want and avoiding what we don't want. (Singer, August 2023)

Like a Moth to the Flame

I am not saying go join a cult...by no means.  This show made me question, in fact,  the traditional way of revering guru's in the Indian traditions. It made me question the cult like tendencies of Ashrams, monasteries and even organized religion in the west.  Where do we draw the line between the wholesome following and reverence of a guru/teacher/abbot/ leader and that of an unwholesome following?  I guess, what I am trying to say, is the  following really isn't  unwholesome.  The follower's purpose is clear and pure, usually. Some are led to do some very unwholesome things like in the Helter Skelter murders and the Tokyo  train gas bombings but the motivation which usually involves God and Self realization is wholesome, is it not? That part of cult fellowship is pure? So are there any gurus and leaders out there that lead to wholesome enlightenment processes? Or is all guru following questionable?

And many say there is and were many great leaders. Blindly following your guru is not all that bad if the guru is pure and egoless.  But how many people out there are pure and egoless?

That is why I do a self-directed type of learning and practice.  I listen to the messages of great and wise teachers but I do not revere the messenger.  As long as they have an ego...I do not revere them but I do honor and revere their message. Does that make me a bad yogi? I don't know but that is the type of confusion that arises in me when I look into cults and hear from others who do not practice.  Doubt creeps in. 

Well I guess this is how this all ties in together. As I watch cult stuff and feel my dark night of the soul continuing I doubt.  I question. The human part of me is struggling here but the deeper part of me isn't.  Hmm!

Anyway, it is all good.

All is well in my world.

Ram Dass (n.d.1970's) Remember: Be Here Now. Kindle Edition

Netflix Series on How to Become A Cult Leader.  (Don't have the citing info)

Michael A. Singer ( August 3, 2023) Relaxing, Releasing, and Letting Go. https://tou.org/talks/

Being Conscious

 Eventually you will come to see that it is the presence of consciousness itself that brings joy.

Michael A. Singer

We just got back from a little trip away and I can honestly say it was a wonderful learning experience for the life-long course I am taking, Consciousness 101. Is it merely  ironic that before  I left I listened to the below podcast and made a silent vow to stay conscious throughout the trip? That meant remaining fully away of what was unfolding outside and what was unfolding inside.

Everything you seek through form happens to be your nature

 Escape-minded, we went on this trip away with the intention of "winging it" as much as we could. D. made a reservation at the last minute, at what looked to be a beautiful spot for an unbelievable price. So though we still wanted to 'go with the flow', we approached our accomodation  with a certain degree of expectation.  In fact, I was very conscious on the way there of how "hopeful" I was and conscious of the way I talked to myself when I recognized the hope inside. "Hope?  You know better than that.  No expectations, remember?  Just let it all unfold as it will unfold.The joy is in you already."

when things are the way we want them, the mind settles down and the energy can flow.

 Well what we thought would be a 3 hour drive there turned out to be a 5 + hour drive.  I was aware of what was going on around me as we drove...the beautiful scenery, the blue sky and sunshine, the traffic in areas.  I was aware of the company and the conversations.  I was also aware of the pleasant feelings in me which I attributed to the "hope and excitement" I felt about getting away from the  focus on heavy objects of consciousness for a while.  I was aware of anticipation of what the future held for us...the excitement of  "mystery" of what lay ahead. So I felt a certain amount of "joy".  I was "experiencing"  the joy and  neglected to remember  where that joy was coming from: consciousness itself. I fell back into old habit tendencies of assuming,  it was because of the pleasant. preferable conditions of the outside world and the conditions of my inside world ( pleasant feelings, pleasant thoughts), that I felt good.  So when I caught myself assuming, I would remind myself  (until I fell back into old habit tendencies again) that I was simply open because I was in in the moment, aware, and consciousness.  I was joyful becasue I was open and present.

...we are aware of joy because joy is consciousness

Now we realized it seemed to be taking us a long time to get there.  ...a lot longer than expected and we were travelling away from towns  into very desolate areas. Maybe that is why the price was so good, we thought. I started to question the nature of the booking, as we drove,...something just didn't feel right. I had a bit of a gut feeling that I pushed down. (Supposed to be aware...not follow and not push down ...just notice and be aware, right?).  

...thoughts feelings and forms are just objects of consciousness

So anyway, we finally get there...in what seems to be the middle of no where and we encounter this beautiful place from the pictures and I think, "Well that made the drive worth it." There is this big beautiful property and no cars and I am thinking, "This is strange.  It is already well past check in time". The "owner" drives up on a lawn tractor from  next door and right away he reminds me so much of someone from my past: looked like him, talked like him, acted like him and I felt this instant samskara triggering. I couldn't trust him. (I am assuming this very intense sense of warning came from my samskara). He takes us around this beautiful property to the office in the back? I comment on the gardening.  He tells me he has had an excellent gardener since inception as well as explaining and pointing out all the herbs and stuff planted ( I believe he is the gardener then and wonder why he just didn't admit to that. Afterall, we did see him drive up on a lawn tractor.) .  Anyway...we go into the office and we see it is a mess...so many pictures and stuff from "previous ownership" scattered all over the place. He then goes into great detail about how he got the place and what he did with it, great detail,  but the more he talks, the more this gut feeling in me gets stronger. Something doesn't feel right. I tell myself it is just because he reminds me so much of this untrustworthy person from my past. (remember...we are not to follow these feelings but neither are we to push them away...just be aware of them). Regardless,  I push away the feeling.  I just want to get to our room.  

devote yourself to the consciousness...be conscious...be aware of everything inside and out.

He then drops a bit of a bomb that our room is not in this building but in the barn out back. Huh? He takes us to a literal barn out back.  Okay so I am trying desperately, as we approach the barn,  to stay conscious of the experience outside as well as what is going on inside me. I am experiencing a big "WTFork?'  I remind myself that I still want to stay positive and enjoy this adventure  by accepting all that unfolds in front of us.  Maybe the rooms are rustic in there but very nice?  I am committed to letting things be as they are....but man when we walk into the barn and see other people there and are shown the community fridge, then our little room, and the shared half bath outside the room that we "might not have to share with others depending on bookings". ...I am having a really hard time accepting what is.

I am also getting some strange vibes from the owner.   He is telling us things like how his internet got compromised and people were checking in on his business because of it. And I thought, "Oh paranoid schizophrenic? Is this another Bates Motel scrape?" ( not that I judge schizophrenia in that way). I am also wondering, "Where is the bloody shower?" There was no mention of a shower.  This is crazy.  Sure it was below seasonal rates elsewhere...but we paid way too much to be stuck in the middle of nowhere in a barn with no shower ( or TV...which I was okay with). (Apparently there was a communal shower downstairs to be shared with 6 other guests...we discovered that on our way out).  It is very obvious then  that this is a hostel and not a hotel...not the comfy get away I was expecting.  I became conscious of how disappointed, how uncomfortable I felt at the prospect of staying there.  I was also aware of how I was talking to myself, "Come on! So D. made a mistake and booked you into a hostel. You call yourself a yogi and you cannot stay in a hostel for the night?  You are preferring! So what...you have to share a shower...so what...it isn't what you expected.  This is what it is. Make the best of it. " 

Still, there was something stronger brewing in me. This "be a yogi"  rationalization was competing with the intuition in me that kept saying, "There is something strange about this! Maybe it was not D.'s mistake afterall. The owner cannot be trusted! Go!  Just go!"   I struggled and when D. said, "I am half minded to cut our losses and leave." I was like, "Really? Can we?" But he was debating...too.  (D. is the type of guy who wouldn't mind sleeping in a barn and sharing a shower with others he didn't know.) I had to remind him and myself, between my fluxes of guilt and shame over my intense desire to leave even if it meant failing  in my mission of being a yogi, "we are not camping and we didn't sign up for a hostel visit." 

 if that is what is there, that is what is there.

I allowed a test of the owner's trustworthiness to be the deciding factor.  He told D. that he sent a three page confirmation letter with details about the accomodation and a list of surrounding restaurants to D. on booking which D. did not get. (Of course not, right? We would have discovered then that it was a hostel. And from what we could tell from our drive there, there was no restaurant for miles.)  So we asked him to send it to us again...giving him the email for the second or third time.  He didn't send it...so without even asking for our money back we left the key and took off. 

Now,  I watched myself as we drove off...snapping a bit at D. ( still wasn't quite sure if it was his error or the owner's deception that brought us there), feeling guilt and shame for not toughing it out and accepting the turn of events as they were, I observed myself ruminating over the samskara triggering and questioning if that was why I couldn't trust this guy and then feeling bad for my lack of openness and compassion. I observed myself feeling guilty for losing the money we paid for the room and how wasteful that was and there was a moment of "Maybe you should have been assertive and asked for the money back"...but something told me that was not the thing to do here...just getting out of there was. So I watched as these thoughts and feelings came up and then as they left while the distance between us and that place got wider. I watched myself being a neurotic human, and I watched myself being a wise human. And I continued to be present as to what was happening around us as we drove.  It was all pretty cool. Maybe not blissful, lol, but cool.

just let the object of consciousness be what it is...and in time if you leave it alone it will leave you

It took us another three hours and many, many kilometres  to find accomodation for the night. I observed a collective frustration in D. and I as we drove.  There was even a question about us having to spend the night in the car which I observed, I would have preferred to staying in that other place. Crazy but we finally found a place with vacancies.  And as I lay in bed after it all I watched as that feeling of disappointment over a broken expectation arose in me. I didn't follow it and I didn't push it away.  I just staid conscious until it left. I watched it all.  

The yogi puts the emphasis on the consciousness....rather than on the objects of consciousness

Just being conscious and aware of consciousness is pretty cool.  We do not have to work so hard to change our experiences. We just need to let them be what they are. As I reflect back, I see I was very much a yogi, more concerned about my consciousness than I was about the objects of consciousness. I didn't fail, afterall. 

Consciousness is the mystery of this universe...a ray of divinity...name of God: Sat Chit Ananda which is also the nature of consciousness

Consciousness is Sat-eternal, Chit-consciousness: aware of being aware, Ananda: bliss

Michael A. singer/Temple of the Universe ( July 31, 2023) Consciousness and the Objects of Consciousness. https://tou.org/talks/

Hanging Out With the Witness

 That which is not expressed by speech, but that by which speech is expressed: know that to be God, not what people here adore. 

That which is not thought by the mind, but that by which the mind thinks: know that to be God, not what people here adore.

That which is not seen by the eye, but that by which the eye sees: know that to be God, not what people here adore.

That which is not heard by the ear, but that by which the ear hears: know that to be God, not what people here adore.

That which is not breathed by the breath, but that by which the breath  breathes: know that to be God, and not what people here adore. 

Kena Upanishads ( English translation by Sanderson Beck) 

I just read another translation of these beautiful words from the Upanishads at the same time I was listening to Michael A. Singer speak about the consciousness that watches the objects of consciousness. How many of us are still getting all tangled up in those things that are unfolding before us and in us, I wonder, without even questioning that which is observing them, that by which they come to be. How many of us adore the object of consciousness more than consciousness? 

It is a life of confusion and suffering we live when we shine a narrowly focused light on that which is right in front of us or in us at the exclusion of everything else.  It a life of suffering we encounter when we see the body and what it picks up with its senses, its "desire" for internal comfort,  as all there is and fail to notice or be aware of the light itself or where it comes from. We are so busy hanging out with the objects of consciousness, we neglect to hangout with and get to know the witness.

This witness is who we are at the deepest level.  It is a vast ocean of peace, joy, love.  It is Sat Chit Ananda.  It is consciousness. Consciousness is the light we are using to observe the objects in front of us, be they external or internal. That Light is God.  It is what we are seeking. When we are so caught up in the material world ...what is picked up by the senses...we seek a certain false peace and happiness from these objects, from grasping and clinging, from preferring and desiring one over the other, from pushing away that which is unpleasant and therefore  resisting what is.  We are so focused on what is said,  what is thought, what is seen, what is heard and on the state of the body's biological processes...we fail to ask , "What is that by which these things are happening?  What is observing these things?" The focus on the objects of consciousness gets us all tangled up in them and pull us away from the peaceful, love-filled center of consciousness....from that which we are truly seeking: God.

Hmmm!  Witnessing what is happening in front of us and in us is an important first step to getting us untangled and back to this center of who we are, to God. Ram Dass also explains what this Witness Consciousness is in Be Here Now.  He states it is a part of the rational mind to be used only until we get to the "doorway" where the "eternal witness" ( Sat Chit Ananda) rests.  Once we get through that doorway we will merge with the One. The ego/rational mind Witness consciousness is the "eye" or 'I' which sees though it does not look.  It is nonjudgmental ...doesn't judge what it sees as good or bad, right or wrong, should be or shouldn't be...it just notes what is.  It not only notices what is happening "out there" but also what is happening "in here" in reaction or response,

Once we are untangled and no longer caught up in our focus on the objects of consciousness....we are free to be consciousness. That is what we really want.

All is well! 

Ram Dass (n.d.) Remember: Be Here Now.  Kindle Edition

Kena Upanishads as translated by Sanderson Beck https://www.san.beck.org/Upan1-Kena.html#:~:text=the%20eye%20sees%3A-,know%20that%20to%20be%20God%2C%20not%20what%20people%20here%20adore,not%20what%20people%20here%20adore.

Michael A. Singer/ Temple of the Universe ( July 31, 2023) Consciousness and the Objects of Consciousness. https://tou.org/talks/