Do it Differently

The voices in my head continue to speak. In continuation of my exploration of Ultimate Freedom, a different concept to experiment with seems to come, as if from the ethers, each day. I am not questioning those voices, as thus far, they seem to be directing me into right alignment with my Self. The first day was the walking the path of least resistance and being open to life as it unfolds. Yesterday was finding beauty. Today the inspiration came to do things differently, whenever and wherever I could. Now, this was more challenging. Our conditioned patterns are so engrained in us that we don't even realize we have them.

I have been enjoying this yoga class in the afternoons, which is also offered in the morning, so I went to the morning class instead. Early mornings are chilly here until the sun heats things up around 10am, so my body was a little more stiff. I have been practicing Yoga for so long that I have a tendency to approach postures in my own particular way. I decided before class that I would do the practice exactly how the teacher instructed regardless. Some postures were more challenging for me because I got into them his way versus my way, and I discovered I also had some patterns in my body that needed undoing. I was grateful to find them. Now I have some new approaches that I feel will bring greater alignment to my body, but it was a struggle both physically and mentally to do them differently. Already in my plans was to move to a different guesthouse from where I had been staying, so that was a given to change. I am enjoying my new abode with his majestic mountaintop view of the Ganges, but packing up and moving seemed like a chore. I took a different route on my walk today. If I found myself naturally walking slow, I would speed up. If I found myself walking fast, I would slow down. Interestingly, I noticed that even these simple changes required effort to do.

The previous 2 days it was very easy to remember my set intention for the day. Today I kept forgetting that my intention was to do things differently. Our system isn't always open to change, even if it's small. I wasn't feeling that I was getting as much from this exercise as I had the others, so I decided I needed to make my intention stronger. Then the thought came to me, it is not my natural way to just go up and speak to strangers. Sometimes it's shyness on my part. Sometimes it's introspection, and sometimes I am just too self-absorbed to care what is going on with anyone else. When this thought came to me, I knew if I were to be following my own intention to things differently, then I would have to speak to some strangers.

I could feel the awkwardness well up about doing something out of character for me. "Oh, you silly woman," I thought to myself. You're a grown-up. People consider you a strong, courageous person, and you can't strike up a conversation with someone you don't know?" I am not one that often says no to a challenge, so I started with a woman, asking about a bag that she had. I sincerely liked it, so I asked her about it. She seemed happy to have someone to talk to, and our interaction was sweet. I saw a young man who seemed to be looking for something. He was trying to find the post office. I knew where it was. I felt good that I could help someone. I even tried to talk to someone, a man who wasn't interested in talking to me. It was a good mirror for me that showed how it is for someone else that wants to engage with me when I don't want to. It wasn't bad. I just shrugged it off. It was only an experiment, right? In all this, that is one of the things I am discovering, life is like an experiment to discover who we are.

Today didn't bring the same bliss the other two days' experiments brought, but it did bring more introspection. Conditioning and routine make life easier for us, but they can also keep us stuck at times. It is important to examine our patterns to see if they are serving us in any purposeful way or just creating road blocks for us. We don't have to work on ourselves. We don't need to fix ourselves. We only to be open to life, look for the beauty in it and be willing to find a new groove if the old one is too worn to be of any use any longer. There is nothing to do. It has already been done, so just relax and be with what IS. 

I am excited to see what the voices tell me tomorrow.

Finding Beauty

I am on a mission of sorts here in Rishikesh. Not only have I left everything and everybody back home in the US, I have now left everyone here in India. I took off by myself for bit here in India to explore Ultimate Freedom. I have no worries and no responsibilities. I have no obligations to anything or anyone. I have no schedule. I can stay as long as want and leave whenever I want to. I can spend my time howsoever I please, wheresoever I please. Now, breathe that in. Sounds pretty awesome, right? Every now and then I have to pinch myself to make sure I am still me.

I am most grateful for this opportunity, and I want to get the most juice out of this experience as I can possibly squeeze out of it. Each morning after my daily routine of sadhana, I set an intention for what I would like to explore for the day. I want to test all my beliefs and concepts so that they become convictions. If my beliefs or concepts fail my tests, then I want to drop them once and for all. I am downsizing my belief system, so to speak.  Yesterday, I explored the path of least resistance to see what it was like being open to everything within reason. I discovered that life is much more joyful and juicy when you engage with it.

Today, I went out to look for beauty wherever I could find it. I asked myself where was the most beautiful place I could go and what was the most beautiful experience I could think to have. The answer came, "taking a dip in the Ganges at the rocky beach near Ram Jhula." I also decided that morning was the most beautiful time of day, and the most beautiful walk I knew of was the quiet pat along the river between Laxman and Ram Jhula. It's a long walk from where I am staying to where I was going, so I knew I would encounter many beautiful things, so I decided to visually document the beauty that I knew would unfold for me. I put my camera in my pocket, and off I went in search of beauty.

The sun had already peaked up over the mountaintop, and it's glistening hues of pink greeted me as I turned the corner onto the main road. As I winded down the steep, rocky path of broken road, the soft sounds of morning sung to my ears. Birds chirped, cows mooed, people chattered and rickshaws sputtered. Turning a corner a statue of Hanuman, that I must have passed a dozen times before and not seen, caught my attention for the first time. With his hands folded in prayer, it was as if he was blessing me on search for beauty. I noticed the sweetness of his smile and the humbleness portrayed on his face. I was touched by his beauty.

I saw countless signs of beauty everywhere I looked. It was like a new world had opened up for me today. It wasn't that I didn't think yesterday that this was a beautiful place. Who doesn't think Rishikesh is beautiful? It was like I was seeing it with different eyes. I don't know how this inspiration came to me to set these intentions. How does any inspiration come? They just come and if we are open, we act on them. So far in my exploration of Ultimate Freedom, I am learning to live life more juicy.

Connection is an interesting concept. When I feel as if I am connected to someone, I am feeling that someone is understanding me and I am understanding them. When I no longer understand that person or feel misunderstood, I feel disconnected. It takes the reference point of “I” to feel either connected or disconnected. If I feel connected, I must feel connected to something or someone. When I feel that I need to connect, that means I must be feeling a definite sense of an “I” that is not “you.” When I am feeling connected, the boundaries of you and I become less defined. The percentage that I feel connected defines how sharp or how blurry those lines are drawn. When I am feeling 100% connected, connection itself because a mute point. Then connection becomes merging, and I think beyond merging is integration. Integration is when I can no longer remember you or me, and there is only one of us.

Disconnection happens when we resist, when we pull back, when we are fearful. Really crazy thing is that connection brings us joy and disconnection brings us sadness; however, it is often easier for us to disconnect, to resist, to pull back and to get back in our box than it is to let go, dive in, face ourselves and blast the container separating us from the connection we so deeply desire.

I am a big fan of “The Course in Miracles. “ In the Course it says that there are only two experiences we can have, and we can’t experience them at the same time... love or fear. If I am feeling love for you and from you, I cannot be afraid of you. If I am feeling afraid of you, I cannot be feeling love for you or from you. I am not talking about romantic or emotional love; I am talking about love in the sense of a deep and profound connection. Emotions are just whatever they are. They come and they go. They rise and they fall. The less importance we give to their fluctuating and impermanent existence, the more connected we become.

Emotional connection, no matter how sweet it is, will not last. It is not possible. Emotions or experiences we hold onto too tightly only become suffering. It is our resistance and holding on that shifts our awareness from love to fear. We should celebrate bliss, happiness and joy. We should endure anger, sadness and pain, but never should we try to hold onto that which is most elusive by nature. All thoughts are passing, all feelings are passing and all experiences are ever changing. If you aren’t experiencing love, than fear less. If you aren’t experiencing fear, then love more. Everything is a chain reaction. Be that which you seek.

It's All God

It’s all God. If I were to only be allowed one thought to be with me throughout eternity it would be, “It’s all God.” If I could only know one thing throughout my entire existence it would be, “It’s all God.” If I could only remember one thing it would be, “It’s all God.”

If all my thoughts, feelings, knowledge and memory were aligned with this awareness, then I would see God, feel God, and remember God in every moment, in every experience, in everything of this world and everything beyond it. I would see beauty in the ugliest of creatures. I would feel bliss through the worst of suffering. I would know clarity in the most chaotic of times.

What we seek, seek us. If I am only seeking God, then God is all I will find. Self-recollectedness is not only the remembrance of who we are, it is the merging and integration of our being as it is in alignment with this realization, “It’s all God.” There is not a single thing in existence that God does not reside in. There is not a thought, feeling or experience that did not come from God. To see God, we only need look for God. To remember God, we only need to think of God. To know God, we must reach beyond the illusion, and seek only Truth.

Freedom & Bondage

Are you bound or are you free? This is a question my teacher asks frequently. My usual indecisive answer to it reveals my lack of clarity. I feel freer than I used to feel. I experience profound moments of freedom, and have experienced blocks of time lasting up to a couple weeks, in which I had a sense of ultimate freedom. I, however, very often feel bound. 

 

I am no longer bound in superficial ways. I have renounced a lot superficial baggage. I am free of a lot of the survival fears, as well as a lot of the material and emotional attachments that weighed quite heavy on me in the past. What I have discovered is that bondage is not because of my situation.  It is rooted much deeper in my psyche.  

A deeply seeded fear of losing something, of losing ourselves, of losing our image, of losing our piece of the pie, keeps us bound. Shantji always tells me, “We come into this world alone with nothing, and we will leave this world alone with nothing.”” I agree with this point, so I must ask myself, “What is there to lose?” I think my biggest fear is that of losing myself. I realize that this a nonsensical statement, as how could one lose their own self, right?  The thing about fears are that they are mostly irrational. Except for the healthy fears for true self-preservation, like the fear of jumping into fire or off a tall building, fears are the chains that bind us... They are the glue keeping us stuck in our psychological patterns, the products of repetitive karmas, our samskaras. 

The only way to break free of these samskaras, these psychic grooves, the ties that bind us, is to face our fears. I write about this today, because this week my “bondage issues” have surfaced. I will try to explain the broodings of my mind and the irrationality of my fears to the best of my ability. However, sense they are nonsensical by nature, I doubt they will make much sense to you.

I am a spiritual aspirant of Non-doing. It is my conviction that all of existence happens by itself through God’s Will.  Life is nothing more than Cosmic Play. It is my conviction that I do nothing. I am not the doer. I am merely the observer of the goings on that pass through my field of consciousness. That is my clarity. Here comes my confusion. My present state of “bondage awareness” versus “freedom awareness” is due to the present lack of control I have over my existence.

I have no concerns about food, or shelter. I am being taken care of very lovingly and even lavishly at times. I have no responsibilities at present. I am free to do as I please, when I please.  Sounds like utopia, right?  My grievance is that I feel out of place sometimes in my new environment. I often don’t understand the ways and the language. I don’t know how to get around. I don’t know how to find what I want.  I am used to being independent, and I feel dependent.  The bottom line is that in all that I am graced with, I am diseased with a deeply seeded fear that if I am not in control of my situation. That if I have to depend on others, I might lose myself.

I have not lived a sheltered life. My motto has always been, “I came to live life out loud. I must admit that in all my years, in all my experiences (and I’ve stretched the norms quite a bit), I have never once lost myself. Most crazy thing is, I don’t even think it’s possible to lose myself. Hence, my understanding that fear is irrational. 

Here’s what I do know, that confusion is a result of some contradiction within myself.  If I am convinced I am not a doer, than how is it “I” could ever be independent of anything.  I am dependent of the entire Cosmos for my existence. I am an integral part the One, and so utterly dependent that “I” do not exist without the Whole of Existence.  

We often feel we have many fears, but in actuality they are usually just different forms of the same fear. Our basic fears are based on survival and image. Survival is not been a fear I have had much. My well worn psychic grooves are having to do with image. I am less concerned with how others view me than how I view myself.  I am my own worst enemy and my own best friend. I scrutinize my actions as if I were the doer, as if I controlled my fate. It is a slippery slope I dance on which leaves me neither here nor there. Until I reach for the rope of truthfulness to pull me out of the swamp, I remain stuck in the in the muck.  Fortunately, fear fades in the light of truth. If we are courageous enough to be truthful with ourselves, we will know freedom.  Until then, we keep falling into the traps of our brooding mind.

I was told was my name, Uma, meant “a light in the darkness.”  I may be my own worst enemy, but I am also my own light. To turn it on I only need to towards it. May I lose myself in the rapture of my own reflection. May I drown in the ocean of Existence. May I burn in the fire of Wisdom.

Serve, Love, Meditate, Realize

"Serve, love, meditate, realize."  This phrase came to me after my meditation.  One thing I realized this morning was that I haven't meditated in 4 days, which is very unusual for me.  I love to meditate.   I have since I started the practice 25 years ago.  I like having that time to just sit and watch my thoughts without acting on any of them.  I like to watch them float by and disappear.  I like that I don't have to speak, or move or do anything.  I just get to sit and be, truly be with myself.  I feel as if this is my time to connect, to unplug from the world and plug into spirit.  It is like taking time to recharge from that never ending source of of universal energy, like the way we charge up our cell phones.

I haven't mediated in 4 days because I have been too preoccupied with too many details and too many tasks at hand.  I hate moving, but I sit here this morning in my friend's lovely home in a beach-side community in Jacksonville, Florida on a warm, balmy November day with that all that moving behind me now.  I am happily homeless with everything I own now stuffed in the corner of a friend's garage.  I don't think the totality of my freedom has sunk in yet.  After all the planning, selling, packing, moving and storing over the last month, yesterday with no obligations, no to-do list, I didn't really know what to do with myself.  Today, I am drinking in the beginnings of a new life.  

Like a cat, I feel in that within this particular physical incarnation, I have had more than one life... Perhaps, I am on about number 6 by now.  I've never been the one to count on to stay in the same place, doing the same thing with the same people.  I am fully involved, fully devoted and fully present to whatever life I am in, but when the winds change, I may fly with them.  I have had the honor and am most grateful though, that I have made life long, loving, compassionate, supportive friends regardless of my gypsy nature.  

I am truly blessed with these amazing souls in my life.  Everywhere I go, they are there mirroring back to me the essence of who we all are, Spirit.  This morning these questions came to me, "What's it all about? Why do we do what we do?   Why are we here?"  The answer came, "Serve, love, meditate, realize."  That's it.  That's is what it's all about.  It doesn't matter where we go, where we live or what we do for a living.  Life is simply a mirror showing us our own reflection.  We are not our obligations, our tasks, our details, our jobs or our things, we are Spirit.  And our only purpose is to serve, love, meditate and realize.  Too bad we can't write that on the inside of our eyelids so we won't forget it.

Understanding Truth

Difficulty about understanding truth is that we have to be in the frame of mind to understand it, and we cannot force ourselves into that frame of mind. We cannot understand it with our intellect. This is the difficulty. Once we try to compartmentalize it, we've lost it. Once we believe we can do anything to understand it, we've lost it. All philosophy and spiritual concepts are to help the mind to understand, and that is helpful to integrate the mind. However, Truth is in awareness,not thinking or understanding. Truth is awareness. But how to be aware of awareness? This is where the realization of Non-doing comes in. If we could we go back to that infancy stage when were babies unable to do anything, we could understand Non-doing better. All we could do was be aware. We did not know who we were or why we were here, nor did we care. We were just simply aware. If we were unhappy we would cry. If we were happy we would laugh, etc. Our challenge now is to find the purity of our infant mind we had before we were filled with all these concepts. To do this we must be able to drop back behind the mind and watch all thoughts and desires without conceptualizing and compartmentalizing them. And the really crazy thing is we can't make this happen. We can, however, practice truthfulness and live authentic lives. The aliveness of our authenticity will bring us to the awareness of Truth.