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.

Three Laws of Spiritual Communication

In this new age of global, multicultural, social/spiritual internet communication there needs to be a code of ethics.  In my 3-4 years of interacting with like minded folks through Facebook, I have seen the best of intentions blow up into the worst of scenarios.  The internet medium of communication lacks the ability to read one's body language.  There are many clues we unconsciously pick up about a person when interacting with them in person.  The tone of their voice, the light in their eyes, their ability to focus, their ability to listen and their overall physical presentation which gives us a reading of their energy is hard to determine online.  It is even more important to be conscious of how we interact with others online, because it is so challenging to connect in a multidimensional way with such a one-dimensional medium.

Communication is often challenging but easier when done in person.  What is easier to do on Facebook is to be untruthful or to present an edited version of ourselves, whether intentionally or unintentionally.  I find that often people are overly polished, overly diplomatic and just too perfect in their edited version of themselves, or perhaps they are just over-the-top, too aggressive, too argumentative or disclose too much information because they don't have to interact with folks in a more intimate way.  In this new day and age, a new code of ethics should be considered.  I propose these three.

1.  Discernment
 Consciously deciding what to share and with whom is most important.  There are certain things that cannot be understood or appreciated by everyone.  We should use discernment when, what, where and to whom we communicate what.  

2.  Courtesy
In the principles of the Yoga Yamas it is suggested to ask oneself before speaking... "Is it true?  Is it kind?  Is it necessary?"   Showing courtesy in how we speak and what speak creates more connection.  Showing courtesy sometimes means being silent.  Some things are better left unsaid.  

3.  Respect
Listening is showing respect.  Imposing our ideas on others is disrespectful.  Communication is a two way street.  We give, and we receive.  One cannot happen without the other or there is no point to it.  Accusing, berating and being arrogant serves no purpose and has no place in spiritual dialogue.

Balance

Goofed off again. I missed 3 days in a row of my 30-day writing challenge. I have lots of excuses, but the main one is I just didn't feel like writing. I couldn't think of anything to write about, and it just wasn't important enough for me to discipline myself to do something I didn't feel like doing. So there you have it. The truth is what the truth is.

I've been selling, packing, storing,

hauling, having car problems, being stressed and just generally overwhelmed. I couldn't imagine how writing about that would be helpful in anyway, but that was the only thing going on in my head. And I still don't know what to write about. Sometimes we just find ourselves in limbo, neither here nor there. If it were easy to stay in the moment, more of us would be there more often. It's just not easy. Life is distracting, and it's challenging to stay present when we are always being pulled this way and that way. Nonetheless, we try.

Discipline is how we try. We get up. We fall down. We get up again. My grandmother had a rare disease that was kin to Parkinson's Disease. It took a long time for the doctors to understand her condition and diagnose her disease. We became aware of the problem after she fell many times. In fact, we took her to the emergency room so many times, that they actually started to question us in suspicion of possible elderly abuse. The main dysfunction of the disease is that it slowly deteriorates the part of the brain that registers balance. They explained to us that all of us are constantly loosing our balance and regaining our balance. This part of the brain realizes we are loosing balance and sends the message through the nervous system to correct the imbalance so we do not fall. Apparently, this part of her brain was no longer functional so when she would loose her balance, she would just fall right smack down wherever she was.

I've often wondered, or perhaps feared, if I don't have some rare kin to this disease. Where instead of affecting my physical balance, it effects my emotional balance. My friend describes me as a tornado. My teacher describes me as a hurricane. I feel a bit like a cyclone. I have always felt that I might be missing an emotional regulator, that part of the psyche that registers when you are loosing your emotional balance. I don't seem to get a warning. I just seem to fall completely out of balance, right smack down wherever I am.

We all have issues to deal with. We all some form of disease or dysfunction. Human beings are far from being perfect. We have doctors to fix our ailments, like we have mechanics to fix our cars. A metaphorically interesting thing happened with my car loosing it's balance this morning. I just spent $800 having it repaired the day before yesterday. I took a short trip for a little R&R before the big moving crunch that will happen this week. About 45 minutes away from home, my car makes such a racket that I think the the engine may be about to fall out of it. Turns out some bolt was not put back on properly and caused other things to loosen which caused the horrible noise. The smallest of things, a simple bolt, threw the entire car off balance. And in turn, threw me off balance. Bolt has been tightened. Car is back in balance. A little yoga, some loving support from my teacher, some french fries, a glass of good wine, and I am back in balance.

Storms come and go. Life is an ebb and flow. Sometimes we are ebbing. Sometimes we are flowing. Sometimes we are in limbo. We are always loosing our balance and regaining it. The moment happens in the middle of it all.