Common Sense

The road to happiness is paved by none other than your own common sense. Most things in life are not as they appear and almost everything in this world of illusion is a lie. There are truths covering lies, and lies covering truths. We prefer to believe what we think will protect us from the fears that we hold onto rather than developing the courage to view things as they truly are. And it never works to our advantage. Yet, we continue to do so against our common sense.

We know, and we know we know. Our common sense knows the truth. It is our belief systems that are often quite faulty. What is true, is true and will hold up to any skepticism or interrogation.  The lies that we tell our self to protect our image and the lies that others tell us to protect their image, cannot hold a candle to the light of truth. If we can accept the fact that we lie to our self and that others will lie to us, the lies that we believe will simply dissipate when we choose not to believe them any longer. Yes, it's a choice.

Common sense is that voice inside that doesn't waiver. It is the voice that tells us when we are too much, when we are too emotionally indulgent, when we spend too much, when we eat too much, when we drink too much... when we are wasting our time, energy and money. Our common sense does not need any acceptance, support or validation. It is simply present with it's wisdom. We waste our time, energy and money on attempting to accept, support and validate the lies we choose to believe, because we want to be accepted, because we are afraid to open the wounds where we have been hurt, because we need validation of our presence rather than simply being present. 

We cannot believe that we are enough, that the world is enough, that we have enough. We cannot accept that we are already smart enough, beautiful enough and rich enough. However, we believe others when they tell us we are not good enough. We believe a societal norm that says we do not have enough. We believe our self, that we are not lovable enough. Common sense knows this is not true. Common sense knows that's it's all okay, that we are okay and that the world is okay.

Common sense understands and trusts Divine Order. Fear knows only chaos and trusts nothing. Fear is the shaking, quivering voice that tells us we are prey and the world is our predator. And it's simply just not true. The only way to hear the voice of our own common sense is to stop lending our ears to the screaming and ranting of our fears. Common sense is like the sound of a steady drum beat. Fear is like the screeching of a wounded animal. Choose which you prefer to listen to and turn your ears that direction. Follow the drum beat of your own common sense and your fears will settle in the backseat. Life is not always easy, not always beautiful, not always clean. Sometimes it's hard and ugly and messy. When life is sweet, stop and celebrate it. When life is difficult, just keep walking on the path and let common sense be your guide.

Thought Vibrations

You can never be where God is not, but you will never find God unless you are seeking God.

However, God is always seeking you, drawing you in. We are shown the way by loving ourselves and others instead of judging, by letting go versus clinging, by accepting what is rather than struggling to change it, by living in accordance with the laws of Nature, with the still, quiet voice that knows the truth of ourselves.

Wicked, crazy full moon last week seems to have stirred the cosmic pot. There is a valid intellectual argument for the concept of free will, but I don't think there is any rationale that supports a belief that we control the setting of the sun, the rising of the moon, the pull of tides or the direction of the wind. As I watched the chaos going on in the world, in the world at large and in my circle of the world, in the hearts and minds of those I care for and in my own heart and mind, I began to wonder why. Why so much chaos? Why so much suffering?

Do we or can we create suffering? Yes, we most definitely can and do. God creates through the powers of the Universe. We create through thought. The thoughts we hold onto manifest around us. We cannot control the thoughts that come to us, but we can give direction to them. We can let go of the thoughts that create harm. Every good thing we do, every good thing we say, every good thing we think surrounds us and vibrates outward. Through dedicated intention we can consciously choose the thoughts we hold onto, the activities we participate in, the people we surround ourselves with. We cannot control the events that happen in our lives but through the thoughts we hold, we are helping to create the conditions around us. Suffering happens in the mind. Want to change your life? You've got to change your mind.

Om Ah Hung

Only think good thoughts, say good things and do good deeds.

Eventually, we are all faced with the decision to stay a slave of  our self-centered nature or to surrender to the Divine Nature that is guiding us. In the end, it all goes according to Divine Order anyway. Our attempts to struggle against it is the suffering we experience. It is just that the our self-absorbed, fearful, clinging ego wants what it wants. If we can simply remember to be truthful, to love and to serve, we don't have worry about what is right or wrong, whether we are doing good or not. There is evil in the world because we lie to ourselves and others, because we are afraid to love, because we want to control. What someone else thinks, says or does is not up to us and no matter how close they are to us, we can do nothing to change them or fix them. We all must stop struggling, judging and fighting with each other. Truly, if we can't love and support each other, then we should stay away from each other until we can.

The "work" is internal. Our issues are not someone else's fault. Our issues come from the places within our self that are not wholesome, where we don't accept our self, where there is no love. Every time we point the finger at someone else, we miss an opportunity to grow. There is just too much negativity in the world. We all need to pull our acts together. The time is now to create the conditions so that good flourishes. Thoughts are vibrations that have the power we give them. Don't waste your power to defeat yourself and others. Let's use our power for the greater good. Every encouraging, kind word, every act of service, every loving gesture, every expression of admiration, every nurturing touch, every compassionate thought, every single good vibration we send out manifests more of the same.

Om Ah Hung

Essentialism

I have never thought of myself as an existentialist, but often I have been asked if I am. I think I may be part existentialist and part "essentialist."--Sort of the way I am a Hindu/Buddhist/Christian/Pagan. The most common definition of existentialism is: a philosophical theory or approach that emphasizes the existence of the individual person as a free and responsible agent determine their own development through acts of the will. 

 I agree with the first part of the statement but not the part about determining our own development through the act of the will. It is my conviction all happens through God's Will. I also don't believe we create our own reality. We may create our own heaven or hell, but not our reality. Reality is a given we have no control over. 

Another aspect of existentialism I agree with is the concept of the here and now and living life as if there is no tomorrow. However, I am not convinced that life as we experience it is all that there is. What is beyond the physical/mental/emotional world of experience is the essence of who we are, the background of everything.  It is called the Void, Nothingness, Truth, Pure Awareness--that which is indescribable--that which is everything and nothing at that the same time.

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I am presently enjoying a book, The Five Things We Cannot Change, written by David Richo, a western psychotherapist with a Buddhist perspective.  I read this passage over and over again today, as I found it a beautiful expression and profound articulation of a subtle awareness.

"Existential reality is conditioned by it's moment and our mood; thus what we experience conditionally. Essential reality is the ground, unconditioned. Existential realty faces us right now.The essential reality is not visible until we shift into it. The challenge is to stay steadfastly with the here and now existential reality, however unsavory, while the essential Truth--always comforting--hovers in the wings awaiting the audience that will happen in it's own time."

We cannot control what happens to us in life.  We cannot protect ourselves from being hurt. We cannot escape the darkness anymore than we can escape the light. One thing we can trust for sure is that everything eventually changes. We cannot be miserable forever, anymore than we can be happy forever. The challenge in life is to embrace it, all of it. It is our resistance to the experiences and events that happen in our lives that create hell. We cannot avoid suffering, but there is freedom even in suffering when we know our essence is never affected and always there shining, ever radiant, ever pure. We must reach beyond heaven and hell, reach beyond our thoughts and experiences to rest in Truth.

Gate Gate Paragate Parasamgate Bodhi Svaha

Going, going, going on beyond. Always going on beyond. Always becoming Buddha.

Restlessness

Restlessness has been hanging around my back door lately. When she is content, she just lies in the backyard looking up at the sky. She dreams in the daytime and counts the stars at night. Ever hungry for attention, and in ever need of a thrill, she and Passion are soul-mates. Mostly, I enjoy her company; however, she does tend to stir the pot.  She reminds me not to spend too much time with Complacency, such a dreadful old bore. Unfortunately, she can relentlessly argue with Order and Discipline.

While I was in the mist of a few big projects a couple of weeks ago, apparently Restlessness had felt ignored. It's true I hadn't been thinking of her much recently. Scared the heebeejeebees out of me, she about did! Around midnight one night, she poked her head around the corner while I was intensely focused, writing at the computer. In that sort of raspy, enchanting voice of hers, with a slight inflection of teasing, she asked, "Watcha doin'? Haven't seen much of you lately. Where ya been?" Knowing that she was not one to be  ignored, I shut down the computer, poured us a glass a wine and went outside with her to count the stars. We reminisced about our travels, trials and tribulations. We laughed those big belly laughs about all the trouble we've gotten into and all the trouble we've caused. She poked fun at Order and Discipline, and as usual, I defended them. I told her without them we simply could not survive and requested her to find some way to get along with them. She said, "Perhaps I could learn to get along with them if they stopped hanging out with Practically all the time, as we have not one thing in common."

I don't argue with Restlessness. I just let her be. I have discovered that arguing with her or trying to squelch her enthusiasm only makes her more determined. Besides, I like her fire, and the company she keeps. Passion is quite a charming fellow. Inquisitive by nature, she goes through my journals and my photographs. She reads my emails, interprets my doodlings and shreds my to-do-lists.  I keep finding notes, quotes and images about exotic places and mystical peoples falling out of a book, flashing on the computer screen or imprinted on the inside of my eyelids.  It seems Restlessness and I have some unfinished business to attend. 

At the end of another busy week, she reminds me how I despise busy-ness.  A true temptress, she is... I heard her knocking at the door a long time before I opened it, knowing the swirling currents of change that travel with her. But old friends are old friends... The door is always open. She arrives dressed in leather in lace. In one hand she holds a tube of pink hair dye with a sexy pair ankle strap wedges dangling from two fingers and in the other gripping my favorite bottle of red wine. With an impish grin, she asks, "Wanna take a walk on the wild side or are you too busy tonight." I ask her, "Are you not happy?" She replies, "I am quite happy. I am not concerned about my happiness, but yours. You will not be happy if I get lost in your to-do-list. You will not be happy without me. I am you." In that moment I remembered how much I loved her, put a streak of pink in my hair, laced up those ankle straps and uncorked the wine!

What we resist persists. What we embrace, embraces us.  Integration is the key to becoming whole. To be whole, we must love our self. To love our self, we must understand our self.  To understand our self, we must simply not hide from our our self. Wherever you are, whoever you are,  just be yourself... and be the soul of that place. 

Forgiving

Do you want to be right or be happy?  The inability to forgive ourselves and others is what keeps us in a state of duality rather than Oneness. When we fail to forgive it is because our ego is in conflict with our Spirit. Our ego wants to judge and blame. Our Spirit sees only purity and innocence. Arguing with our Self is a loosing battle. The parts of ourselves that are unkind and unforgiving are not our faults. They are our wounds. Ego does not need to win. Ego needs to heal.

For our wounds to heal, we must accept the ugly parts of ourselves. When realize we are just as much capable of inflicting wounds as we are feeling the wounds inflicted upon us, an opening in our consciousness enables us to see cords of connection to each other rather than walls of separation; And compassion blooms. It is this conscious part of us, that can forgive. We may never forget where we buried the hatchet, but we can rewrite the story.

It is the stories we hold onto that create the grooves in our psyche the define our wholesomeness or our fragmentation. Spirit does not see a victim or a villain. Spirit only knows love. Ego only knows fear. If our mind is oriented in the ego's needs, wants and desires, we continue to fuel fear. When the mind becomes oriented in Spirit, we serve love. We cannot serve to masters.

We can read all the books, take all the workshops, philosophize with all greatest minds but until we gain some self-mastery over our mind and mind becomes aligned with Spirit, we are merely swimming in a lost sea of suffering. Let go of the idea that you can fix your ego. You can't be fixed. Accept the holy mess that you and everyone else is, and just move on. 

Forgiveness is "selective remembering." Be conscious how you write your stories. Do you want to remember the love or the pain?  It truly is your choice. Do you want live in fear and build walls to keep you isolated from existence, or do you want to live in love merging in an ocean of divine bliss?  When forgiveness knocks at your door, ask yourself, "Do I want to be right or be happy?  If happiness is what you truly want, then ego will have to accept being wrong. If ego can't accept being wrong, you are not even ready to bury the hatchet. Don't kid yourself.  Mind must be in right alignment first. When our thoughts and actions are directed toward God, mind aligns. Serve, Love, Meditate, Realize... Forgive.

Leaping

She Could Not Be Reached
 "I go where no man has trod before, 
Where no system can follow, 
A place where passion awaits those, 
Who go beyond the barriers of 
Superficial man-made dreams."

~Jane Evershed

It has been awhile since I have been focused and still enough to write. I have been teetering on an edge for quite some time, and last week it seems I leaped. This morning I sit alone with my stillness reflecting on the last few weeks. The reality of my choices is making it's debut appearance. It is interesting how many distractions I can find when fear is knocking on my door. 

Void of distractions this morning, I am in a contemplative mood carefully checking for damage from the free fall. A few bumps and bruises but thus far, I find no permanent injury. I am realizing that I have been more anxious than I had allowed myself to think about, and it is funny how little I think while leaping. The butterflies in my stomach are settling down and a calmness is soothing my system, as some clarity is dawning through this stillness.

Why do we do what we do? This is such penetrating question. Another one is, "Why don't we explore more often why we do what we do?" Until we step back and observe our monkey mind, we can never know. We will continue to be subject to our own whims and fancies, our distractions and most of all our deeply embedded behavior patterns. The endless cycle of unconsciously living our life perpetuates more of the same thing, over and over again.  

We continually busy ourselves with so many things that it is nearly impossible to actually be with our self long enough to give any sincere, conscious direction to our lives. We just blindly follow one behavior pattern after the other without questioning what it is we are doing.  We are driven by what we desire. Difficulty is most of us are not clear enough to know what it is we truly desire. We all want to be happy, but we often fail miserably at realizing what makes us happy. We spin our wheels fulfilling our fleeting desires, because we are too afraid to be unhappy for even a moment. Reality is we can never maintain constant happiness, nor can we hold onto unhappiness forever. All emotions are as fleeting as our desires. 

Change is scary, and growth can be uncomfortable; but if you keep reaching outside your comfort zone, one day you will reach it. There is such beauty and wonder in new beginnings, but new beginnings often require a leap. Pay attention to the free fall, that's where you learn what you are made of; and when stripped of our facades, we are all made of the same stuff.  If you can find yourself in your center in the center of uncertainty, then you have found yourself. Until then you are simply entertaining your monkey mind. 

Yoga Has No Boundries

This is great article and well written,  
Why I left Yoga by Irasna Rising. It does make you think about the eastern view of western Yoga. I agree with a lot of what the author says, but I also see the other side to this as well. I am a western yogini, no matter what Indian thinks I am just a "wannabe." I started practicing Yoga almost 30 years ago, when it wasn't cool. It was just considered weird. And I didn't start on a Yoga mat. I started on a meditation cushion. Hatha Yoga came afterwards.

I moved to an ashram when I didn't even know what an ashram was. I just wanted to be around people who didn't think I was so weird. I received my Yoga teacher's "certificate" 24 years ago through a residential "training." I was given a spiritual name at the end of that training. I took on the name (changed it legally) as an outward expression of renouncing my old lifestyle and beginning a yogic life. My name reminds me of my vow, my vow between me and God... not between me and the world. There are many American yoginis and yogis like me that Yoga has taken it's hold of and has not let go. We may or may not be recognized, and it's not important. It's not an outward journey. It's an inward journey.

I have spent a lot of time in India. I love India. I had always wanted to go. The first time I saw a picture of Ganesha I fell in love with his image. I don't know why I am pulled to what I am pulled to. I just know that I am, and I follow my heart. I often get the feeling from some Indians, that they think westerners who come to India are lost and that we came to be guided. In fact, they believe we will just empty our pockets at the feet of anyone who tells us that they can guide us. Truth is, we are not any less spiritually ignorant or more spiritually enlightened than Indians. I see just as many Indians emptying their pockets at that feet of charlatans. 

When you travel to another country to experience another culture, the traveler gets more from the experience if they just try and go along with that culture's traditions instead of resisting them. Often what seems as us pretending to be Indian is merely our attempts at being polite. You encourage us see your temples, eat your food, wear your bindi's, don your saris and touch your gurus feet, but when we do, you laugh at us behind our backs? How yogic like. I don't believe the majority of Indians feel this way, but some do. Generalizations are often too harsh. Some people are just gullible, some aren't. That's true in every culture. People are just people. It takes all kinds everywhere. 

India doesn't own Yoga. It is true that the West seems to be bastardizing Yoga, but I see the same thing happening in India. It's seems just about every corner in Rishikesh has a Yoga teacher's training. India is on the Yoga trend capitalizing just as much as America. Instead of pitting East against West on who is teaching Yoga the better way, why don't we just practice from the roots of Yoga's teachings?... Ahimsa, Asteya, Brachmacharya, Aparigraha, Satya. Oops, there I do that too... use Sanskrit words. I was taught, and I agree, that the Sanksrit language has a sacredness to it. It is not a language for mundane communication but one to communicate spiritual concepts. When I say, non-violence, non-stealing, chastity, non-attachment and truthfulness, it just doesn't have the same feel. However, more people understand what I am saying. I use both, so that the Sanskrit meaning doesn't get watered down. That is part of how I honor the tradition. 

Yoga doesn't need our policing. Yoga will blossom wherever a seed is planted and in any soil. That flower may look different depending on the soil, water and air it is given, but somewhere, even in a puffed up, ego maniac like Bikram Choudry there's a seed. It may be a few lifetimes for that seed to blossom, but it's there underneath the layers of mud. 

A lot of the West may be practicing for the "wrong" reasons. My students come to class for many different reasons and for some, yes, it's for a "Yoga butt." I don't care why they come. I just teach in the honor of the tradition in which it was shared with me. That's is the intention I set before every class. It is not up to me how Yoga organically unfolds in their lives. I just know it will. In 2 days, 2 months, 2 years or 2 lifetimes, eventually that seed will flower. 

Om Shanti, everybody. Peace, everybody. Yoga means union. Let's not be divided by it.