Wednesday, April 4, 2012

Purnatva

There is a word in sanskrit: Purnatva. Which means fullness or whole, complete & perfect. It is one of the attributes of the Divine we possess. It is also a "love" that is so BIG, it is beyond description. And yet, there is nowhere that it is not.

We catch glimpses of purnatva when we are truly aligned to who we are. It is in this place where truth lives, authentic personal power, potential, and love reside. It is in me. And it is in you too. Unwavering, always present. The question is not: Is it there? The question is: Are you aligned with it? So often the natural ebb and flow of our lives take us away from our center. Life becomes unbalanced. It takes daily effort to align our thoughts and actions with our highest desires. This is why I return again, and again to my mat. To realign. To awaken.

One thing is for sure. The more "awake" we become, the less time we spend away from our center. And our deepest longings and desires are manifested. In this process we lift everybody else up.

Monday, November 28, 2011

The world of shoulds is an illusion!

Do you ever find yourself living in a world of "shoulds"? "I should be this kind of mother/wife/daughter. I should've said this or done that." ..ect? And we often put "shoulds" onto others. - "She should do it this way." We hold on to stories about the nature of reality that are not true to reality! In yoga, we call this Anava mala. which means: An impurity of individuality. It is a contracted state, centered on the "wrong view." It motivates from a place of lack (or shoulds). Downloaded from somewhere else.

The more time we spend trying to be who somebody told us to be, the less time we are manifesting our fullest potential.... It's a form of resistance.

Where are you still holding to these downloads? We all have our stories. Often when we let go of the story, the energy (or emotional intensity) deflates.

The right view is that each one of us in this very moment is divine, whole and complete. You can allow space for an unfolding of that self awareness, if you choose. I invite you to become more aware of yourself, the next time you are feeling/thinking from a place of lack (or shoulds). Stop resisting, sit with the emotion. Ask "Is this true?". Then allow there to be a falling away of those parts that are not who you are. The lotus of the heart is a tightly closed bud that will blossom with sweet effort, not agony. The tissue around the bud that prevents it from unfolding is the tissue of "shoulds" - downloaded from somewhere else.

My conditioned mind tells me nothing about who I am. Don't try to fix your mind, it's not who you are. Pause, connect to your essence, then bathe the mind in that!

Monday, August 1, 2011

“If peace is really what you want, then you will choose peace. If peace mattered to you more than anything else and if you truly knew yourself to be spirit rather than a little me, you would remain nonreactive and absolutely alert when confronted with challenging people or situations. You would immediately accept the situation and thus become one with it rather than separate yourself from it. Then out of your alertness would come a response. Who you are (consciousness), not who you think you are (a small me), would be responding. It would be powerful and effective and would make no person or situation into an enemy”


~Eckhart Tolle

Tuesday, June 21, 2011

Happy Summer Solstice

Today is the first day of summer; Summer Solstice. More sunlight is received on this day than any other day of the year in the Northern Hemisphere. "Solstice" is derived from the latin word: sun + standing still. On this day the earth and oceans absorb more sunlight than any other day of the year, yet it takes several weeks to release that heat into the atmosphere.

Have you ever felt stuck? Or like an obstacle you were facing would not budge? Of course you have, so have I.

Years ago, the summer solstice was a very important day. It reminded farmers that a turning point in the growing season had been reached.

For me, the summer solstice is a wonderful reminder that any obstacles (or problems) showing up, in whatever form will soon dissolve or "shift." There is no need to feel "stuck." Look to nature, and the cycle of creation that exists in EVERYTHING exists in your problems too.
"Creation >Sustenance>Dissolution"- You cannot look anywhere where it is not. And so experiencing "stuckness" is really an illusion. The obstacle may appear to sustain forever, like it will never dissolve, but it will, you can count on that. In the mean time though, we can choose to shift our focus. Instead of seeking contentment from the outside in, we can find contentment from the inside out. This paradigm shift comes when we view all events as opportunities to grow, to encounter our own magnificence. When we view things in this light, there are no obstacles, only moments in which to shine.




Tuesday, June 14, 2011

A famous anecdote about the way you catch monkeys in India, goes like this:

If you put a handful of nuts into a jar with a small opening. The monkey puts his hands in the jar, grabs the nuts, and then finds that he can't get his fist out through the small opening. If the monkey would let go of the nuts, he could escape, but he won't. He's attached!

Attachment leads to suffering, Detachment leads to freedom. It's as simple as that.
In the Bhagadvagita, Krishna tells Arjuna that acting with detachment means doing things for their own sake, because they need to be done, without worrying about the results.
Perhaps that is most difficult: To not be attached to the outcome of endeavors that we pursue. "Letting go" of results is a practice. When one truly masters this, he will experience a rich freedom in life. I'm still practicing (Lol)!
Letting go does not have to mean loosing your grip. But it can mean relaxing enough to create some space. That fresh space is where possibilities live. And opening to that is the best letting go of all.