It's All About Joy!

A Happy Mouth = Just Plain Happy

When I was a kid, my grandma always had Trident gum in her purse. Specifically, she carried the blue package (which I think was peppermint). My mom was also a Trident chewer. She preferred the green package (spearmint). To this day, if I chew a piece of Trident I'm instantly six or seven years old again and hanging out with my grandma or mom.

It's the simple things that bring the longest lasting joys (for me, anyway).

Speaking of which, enjoy this video which put a big ol' smile on my face:

Being The One

What if someone told you that you’re already perfect? That no more striving is needed; nothing more should be done. What if you were told that you didn’t even have to learn anything else today to be of perfect Divine order and that you could simply – in this very moment – stop doing?

In every way – physically, mentally, emotionally and spiritually – what if how you are right now is the very pinnacle of what God intended for you?

You can, you know. That is, you can stop. Stop reading, stop writing, stop talking and stop trying. Stop, in this moment, and feel who you are. Feel the totality of your mind, body and spirit, even if there are parts you don’t understand or can’t access or think should be there if only you had a few more moments to contemplate why, where or how. Just stop.

And know.

We strive, we seek, we move all about trying to find higher ground, or a better place from which to operate as “us.” Spiritual seekers, especially, are on a lifelong quest (once they take the first step) to become enlightened, more-of, less-like, and imbued with the whole.

But what if right now in this very moment, you are already all that God ever intended you to be?

What then?

Would you skip your job? Take a walk? Go back to bed? Call your mom? Offer up an excited “thanks!” to the Universe?

Go ahead and do all of it, or none of it. Either way, you’re still honoring God’s intention of and for you.

By striving and seeking, we’re forging ahead as if against a force or through something that must be transcended. Yet our true nature says that there’s nothing to transcend. Even if we were to just stand still in these lives of ours and do not one thing more, we would have still transcended.

Transcendence is within. Just a subtle shift reveals it, and it is surprising in its stealth. It’s there. Just grow quiet with yourself and see if you can feel it.

Stop and rest now, and know that whether you stand or run, shout or remain silent, look around or keep your eyes closed, you are the perfect interpretation of One. 

Currently and forevermore, and exactly as God intended it.

The Many Joys of Earplugs

A couple weeks ago, I woke up in what felt like the middle of the night to the sound of my neighbor’s child screaming like a wild banshee (are there any tame banshees, by the way?!). This child was not happy and even saying that is a huge understatement. His screech-crying lasted for about a half-hour, and as I laid in bed I thought, “I wonder how many of our other neighbors woke up because of this?” Then I started to wonder if any of them would be really ticked off as a result?

I wasn’t particularly angered by it. I felt badly for the parents, to be honest. I also knew that I had a secret fallback option if I wanted to get back to sleep right away: earplugs.

Normally I try to write something really deep in these posts, related to some newfound spiritual insight I’ve had. Today, however, I’m going to keep it simple and just sing the many praises of foam earplugs.

I will admit that I’m an easily distracted person. I wake up easily, my concentration is easily broken, I’m influenced by outside noises no matter where I am… the list goes on. Seven years ago, though, I bought my first pair of foam earplugs when I started meditating. They allowed me to get really quiet and go deep within myself without being distracted. Then I moved to a place that tended to be noisy at night (partiers, lots of traffic outside, etc.). I found that earplugs helped me sleep through all of it.

Why am I mentioning this? Truthfully it’s because as spiritual seekers, we recognize that happiness is in our own hands. We also know that we can’t play the victim card, and yet in instances where outside noises distract us from whatever it is we’re trying to do, we’ll be the first to complain.

“I couldn’t sleep last night because some idiot walked by my window screaming and carrying on.”
“It’s too noisy in my house to meditate.”
“I couldn’t concentrate at work today because it was so loud in the office. I had a bunch of stuff to get done, too.”

Take your power back. Get some earplugs.

I’ve found that spending the $3 or $4 on a box of reusable foam earplugs has gotten me through countless situations that otherwise would have been troublesome:

• Cross-country airplane rides
• Sleeping through noisy situations
• Meditating almost anywhere
• Concentrating at work
• Sleeping in a new location (since I sleep with earplugs most nights, when I travel I’m able to normalize wherever I am by just popping them in --- makes me feel like I’m home)

Anyhow, that’s it for today. Peace of mind through something quite simple.

☺

Do We Really Know Anything?

Here I go again talking about Adyashanti, whose Dharma talks on awakening spontaneously often leave me astounded. During one of those talks, he posed a question that I liken to a mental chew toy with a hidden treat inside.

“…if you look at anything and ask yourself, ‘What can I know for absolute certain?’ what you find out is that you can’t know anything for absolutely certain. I won’t go into why – I’ll let you figure that out. But it’s actually pretty simple. You can only know something with a greater or lesser degree of certainty. But you can’t know anything with absolute certainty.”

After hearing him say that, I found myself instantly trying to figure out “why?” I came up with some possible answers, but again, it was like a chew toy for my mind. Just when I thought I’d landed on something that made sense (in my limited knowledge!), my mind would uncover another possibility.

Do you have any ideas as to why we can only know things to a greater or lesser degree of certainty? It would be fun to hear your thoughts.

This Too Shall Pass

The Fickle Nature of Our Minds

Sitting at a meditation retreat a few months back, I had the chance to observe my mind, undisturbed by things around me. One of the biggest lessons I learned was how fickle the mind is when paying attention to any one thing for extended periods of time. Quite simply, it doesn’t like to! (But I’m sure you knew that already) The interesting thing for me, however, was realizing that, like a small child trying to get my attention, my mind will do whatever it takes to get me to notice and give in to it.

Specifically, here’s what happened:

As I sat on my zabuton in perfect stillness, I noticed my mind getting agitated and fidgety. At first, this came up as a feeling of sudden exhaustion. I thought, “My gosh, I’m so tired suddenly! I’m not sure I can keep sitting here if this keeps up.”

But I did, and a couple minutes later I felt a surge of energy south of my belly button, making me think I’d been daydreaming about this crazy-sexy, handsome cowboy prince with whom I’m so enthralled. I thought, “Well that’s strange. A second ago I was exhausted, but now I have a bunch of energy concentrated in one particular area that’s getting me all excited. Hmm… wait a second… What’s going on here?”

It didn’t take long for me to figure out that my mind, which – being the petulant little child it is – was trying to get me off my zabuton and doing something else… Anything except meditating.

So I sat undisturbed and kept watching my mind. Sure enough, that south-of-the-belly-button feeling disappeared after a couple minutes and then I noticed that my lower back ached a little. When I didn’t give in to that sensation, my mind finally calmed down and I was able to sink into a deep, relaxing meditation.

I’ve noticed this in other instances, too. For example, a couple weeks ago I was working on a project and felt extreme pangs of hunger hit my stomach rather unexpectedly. They were powerful and almost inescapable, but I couldn’t get up and do anything about them because of the nature of the project I was involved with. So I sat, continued working, and observed my mind and my body over the next half-hour. Sure enough, I watched the stomach pangs change shape, intensity, and then eventually disappear completely to the point that I later remember thinking, “Wow, now I’m not hungry at all. I mean, I wouldn’t even eat something if it was offered to me! How strange…”

After both sets of experiences, I realized that every feeling, sensation, emotion, what-have-you eventually changes. When our minds fixate on something (exhaustion, hunger, anger, joy, etc.), we don’t have to immediately act out whatever impulse our minds are telling us to focus on. Sometimes it’s just our minds acting like spoiled little children, trying to get their way. What’s more, if we wait long enough, the impulses we’re having shift and morph into something else entirely!

In real world applications, this means:

• When we’re angry with someone, walking away for a little while might be enough for our anger to disappear.
• If we’re fidgety during meditation, rather than quitting, we might just try sitting through it.
• For people with addictions, rather than habitually giving in to the impulse of the addiction each and every time, wait one out --- let it morph and maybe even lessen or go away.

Remember, we don’t have to act out every thought or feeling we have, and moreover, when we don’t, chances are our minds will fixate on something else in short order anyway.

There’s great joy and power in that for me!
How about you?

How God Talks To Us

Last week, I wrote a post called “Those Who Remind Us,” which discussed how the people we encounter are actually mirrors of ourselves. When they talk to us, the things they say are actually us talking to us. Good, bad, brilliant or bland, we’re always attracting to us reflections of ourselves. People reveal ourselves to us and help us to access things previously kept just out of reach by our conscious minds.

Taken another way, since each of us is a spark of the Divine, it could also be said that when we interact with others, we’re actually interacting with God. In that case, our conversations with other people are like having conversations with God.

That connection hit me powerfully a few days ago in response to the book I’ve been writing. I had been asking God (praying, if you will) to illuminate my way as I continue. I have big plans for the book, and yet I’m struggling with certain aspects of it. Within a day of saying that prayer, I heard from a literary expert who shared some positive and negative criticisms of my work to-date. She wasn’t sure that the approach I wanted to take was right, or would attract the kind of attention I sought. Her feedback was wonderful but also a little disheartening. It meant I’d have to reformulate my approach and potentially abandon some of what I’d written so far. I wasn’t sure exactly how to go about doing that, though.

The next day, I talked to my brother about the book and found myself struggling to articulate what it’s about in any sort of compelling manner. At the end of my rather lackluster description, I summed up my premise in an entirely different way. After I spat out my two quick sentences, he grew excited and said, “That’s it! That should be your opening. That’s the kind of stuff Oprah eats up!” I laughed and said, “Huh… I never thought about that before!”

Later on, I tossed the idea around in my head and grappled with the notion of having to retool a lot of the book and come up with a brand new outline. Something dawned on me, though: it wasn’t just my brother talking to me earlier that day. It was God answering my prayer. I told God I didn’t know how to accomplish my vision for the book, so in response, he orchestrated that conversation with my brother to help illuminate my path. The same goes with the literary expert. She was God answering my prayer, and talking directly to me.

It’s like that for all of us, and yet I think our human nature is to view ourselves and situations as completely separate. We see ourselves as separate not only from each other, but (definitely) from God. At most, we might be willing to admit to coincidences in our lives. But divinely intended events? Never! (I sarcastically and dramatically roll my eyes at the thought)

However, nothing in this world is separate or happens by chance. Everything – and every person – is connected to the Whole, which means that wherever you are and whatever you’re doing, the Divine is revealing itself in and through you.

With that in mind, look around you and see which of your prayers have been answered recently. Who’s been talking to you about the things you needed answers to? How, when and where has God been showing up? Let yourself be amazed. I know I frequently am…

Wisdom of the Sages (Tao Te Ching)

From the Illustrated Tao Te Ching (Barnes & Noble edition)

Learn to yield and be soft
If you want to survive.
Learn to bow
And you will stand in your full height.
Learn to empty yourself,
And be filled by the Tao
…the way a valley empties itself into a river.

Use up all you are
And then you can be made new.
Learn to have nothing
And you will have everything.

Sages always act like this,
And are children of the Tao.

Never trying to impress, their being shines forth.
Never saying ‘this is it,’ people see what the truth is.
Never boasting, they leave the space they can be valued in.
And never claiming to be who they are,
People can see them.

And since they never argue, no one argues with them either…
So the ancient ones say
“Bend and you will rule.”
Is this a lie? You’ll find it is true.
Be true to yourself, and all will go well with you.

Those Who Remind Us

“God needed to place some mirrors around so we could see ourselves. An actual mirror reflects our physical appearance, so what would reflect our being, our true self? What would reflect energy? Enter the laws of the universe: the law of cause and effect, the law of attraction, and Karma itself. God wanted it to be as simple as possible, and he wanted to make sure we didn't miss our reflection. So he made everything a mirror. We attract things into and create our lives through cause and effect. Every thought and action we put out comes back at us. Welcome to the looking glass of life. Take a look around and see your reflection.” From the site Finding Ourselves, by Gregory Campisi  (http://www.finding-ourselves.com/index.html)

A friend of mine is going through a difficult transformation right now, and as a result she occasionally asks me for advice or spiritual wisdom to get her through the day. A couple weeks ago we were talking, and after I shared what I thought she needed to hear, she said, “Thank you. When you say it, it just sounds so right. I really can’t thank you enough.”

Flattered, I had to immediately remind myself that God just works through me. It’s never me doing the talking, despite how much my ego would love to believe that.

So I replied, “You don’t need to thank me. In actuality, it was just you talking to you. You already had the answer within you, but needed someone to remind you, so you manifested me!”

She laughed and said, “Well, you just make it seem so easy and can I just say that I’m thrilled I managed to manifest you as my friend?!”

I laughed a little, too, expressed equal sentiments toward her, and said goodbye.

Afterwards I sort of mused to myself about this glorious life we’re all living, which is nothing more than a reflection of what we believe. As the opening paragraph says, God needed a way for us to see our beings, so he made everyone and everything we come across reflections of who we are.

This theory tends to thrill people when they think about all the good things happening in their life. On the other hand, it tends to horrify them when they realize that with the good comes the bad. Therefore all the unpleasant people and experiences they’ve chanced upon are simply reflections of them, too.

But therein lies the grace and perfection of the Universe. We are able to look around at any point during the day and see exactly where we are in our spiritual progression. The things people say to us, the way we’re treated, the situations we stumble upon or the experiences we have – they are nothing more than a reflection of us. When viewed from this perspective, our true power and interconnectedness with the whole (GOD) comes to life in a magnificent and magical way.

And if you’re reading these words and they’re resonating with you, please stop and take a moment to thank yourself. For truly, all of this has just been you talking to you.

Be well & joyful!

Becoming Aware of Awareness

“Stalking awareness is like looking for water when you’re swimming in it.”

For those on a spiritual path, there’s this thing called awareness (aka, Christ consciousness, awakening, enlightenment). As humans with an unquenchable need to ascend, we seek it relentlessly, and practice various forms of being, non-doing, quietude, introspection, what-have-you in an attempt to find it.

Yet awareness can’t be found. The longer I’m walking this spiritual path the more I’m recognizing that awareness just is. It never leaves us. In stark contrast, however, we (as humans) leave it.

There are a lot of magnificent books written on the subject of human consciousness and why transcending it is a worthy goal. Eckhart Tolle wrote “A New Earth: Awakening to Your Life’s Purpose,” along with “The Power of Now,” which both brilliantly bring to light the human experience, or conundrum as it were.

In these human (some have called them ill-fitting) costumes we walk around in, we aren’t so much awake as we are in a deep, deep sleep. And some of us sleep more deeply than others. Some will never shake the daily dramas of this dreamlike state, and frankly, may not want to. Others have started awakening, and there are even those who are wide awake and living in a state of enlightenment.

For those of us who have begun the awakening process, we may find it stupefying at times. Just when we think real progress is being made, we seemingly slip back into our trance-like state and must awaken all over again.

And what I’m realizing for myself is it’s okay. It is all part of the perfection – of why we’re here. If we were meant to “fall awake” (thank you, Adyashanti) and stay that way, the many lessons of our incarnation would be lost. This planet wouldn’t be the extraordinary learning center that it is. So our tendency to dance between the two states of enlightenment and trance are not only acceptable, they’re almost necessary.

Our comfort is in knowing that awareness is - and has been - there the whole time, just waiting for us to notice it. Some may feel the need to look around for awareness, or meditate a certain way to find awareness. I’m finding for myself that it simply isn’t true. Awareness is always present, but in its humility, it doesn’t need to take center stage like our egos do. So it waits in the corners of our minds, patiently watching as we stumble through this world and occasionally chance upon it.

It doesn’t need us to embrace it, either, any more than it wants us to look too closely when we do happen to catch a modest glimpse here or there. The second we become too attached and recognize that yes, we’ve tasted awareness (the recognition of which suddenly involves buy-in from our egos), it fades into the background once more. Ego chases it away in a ceaseless quest for more, More, MORE!

I’m learning that awareness – or awakedness* – is equally the easiest and the hardest thing for us to grow into. There is no set formula for how to attain it; it lets us each plot our own course. But what a beautiful idea to know that it’s never as far away as we think it is, and we can hit upon it at any time.

* I will share with you, in my sometimes childish state, that I like this word because it sounds a wonderful amount like “nakedness.” (Imagine me giggling right now… That’s how childlike I can sometimes be!)

Don’t Be Afraid To See

How Judgments Cloud Our Vision And Keep Us Stuck

Judgment is one of life’s greatest poisons. It prevents us from seeing clearly. When we judge, we can’t really see the people or things we’re looking at, and if we can’t see them, we can’t have an authentic relationship with them and will remain stuck in non-truth. No true progress can be made. No growth can occur, because we’re living in a fantasy. Instead, whatever relationship we have will forever be at least one step removed and predicated on our judgments, rather than who or what is really there.

I’ve been in relationships before where my positive judgments – my wanting people to be a certain wonderful way – kept me from seeing who they really were at the time. It’s as if I didn’t want to believe that the people I chose to associate with could be mean, selfish, or hurtful. I wore rose-colored glasses when viewing them (a form of judgment), and was shocked when their actions clashed with whatever I believed they were about. The result was disillusionment and letdown, and the only person I could possibly blame was myself. I chose to judge them, after all, rather than see who they really were.

I’ve done this to myself, too. There have been many times in life where I refused to see myself clearly. Most recently, I experienced this as I struggled to put an addiction behind me. I simply could not look at myself and see the real me. I had such negative judgments built up in my mind about what it meant to be an addict; to allow myself to be weak and unable to get over something quickly or easily. My harsh self-criticisms prevented me from seeing what the addiction was doing to me, and especially to my body. I couldn’t see myself. When I looked at myself, I was always one step removed from what was really happening, which meant any corrective actions I was taking were also one step removed.

As a result, my judgments held the addiction firmly in place. I was spinning my wheels, not realizing that all I truly had to do was see myself without judgment and calmly recognize what I’d become.

The moment I did, though… Well, it was a powerfully transformative experience. At first, I was shocked. I just kept looking at myself – detached from judgment – seeing clearly what I’d allowed my addiction to do to me. And then judgment rushed back in and I cried, flailed and thrashed around, and became very angry with myself (more and more critical judgment). Having glimpsed the truth, though, eventually that judgment subsided. That’s when non-judgment settled in for good and I felt this huge sense of relief. I could finally see what really was, not what I wanted there to be. I was seeing clearly, and in that moment, I set myself free.

When we can surrender to what we see and suspend judgment, we allow ourselves to have an authentic experience with the moment. We set ourselves free. It requires that we leave behind the blame, shame, and guilt, and asks us to see the truth without hesitation.

Anything good we want to accomplish in this world requires that we start from a place of truth. By pushing judgment aside, we allow ourselves the opportunity to experience genuine joy.