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Namaste. "Say it again."

2/5/2014

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Here's a fabulous video explaining the meaning of Namaste from maybe an unlikely figure: Click

Not only does Bobby have some God in him, so do you. And so too does the person nearest to you, as well as the person farthest from you. We all do. We usually just don't realize it. 

As an aside: by God I mean something that truly can't be expressed adequately in words, but never the less is that which is infinite, eternal and inherently perfect. God is the non-physical essence that permeates all things. It is the absolute Truth, as compared to the relative truth. 

What would make you happier than to know that you've gotta a little God in you? 

And I don't mean "know it" in an intellectual sense. I mean it in a "feel it resonate so deeply that you have less than no doubt." 

That'd be some pretty good stuff, wouldn't it?

You can feel exhilaration beyond words, completeness so profound effort and desire dissolve into joy. 

And this experience can be yours at any moment, like right now. That would be through grace. Maybe it's your time, you're fated to become illumined right about now. Wouldn't that be cool? Hey, just don't rule it out. 

You can also pursue it. All upward paths lead to the same mountain top. I'll tell you about one, which is not by any means to exclude others. 

If I told you that the God in you, the inherent perfection, the bliss and indescribably awesome aspect of existence comes as a whisper from your heart and all you have to do is quiet your shouting mind, could you do it?

Just because you can't do it now, at the drop of a hat, summon it any moment you choose, doesn't mean you can't learn to do it systematically. Enter: Raja Yoga. 

Raja Yoga is an 8 step system for realizing that you've got a little God in you and for realizing that Bobby does, too. It's so old you'd have to agree that it's a discovery, not an invention. Like gravity. It works. It just does. 

Here's a link to an explanation of Raja Yoga from one of the indisputable masters of recent times: Click. 

One read through is definitely not enough. But suffice it to say, it'll put you in the ball park. Just do that, follow the 8 steps, one by one, in order. Don't stop at 3 or 7. Try to reach all the way to 8. 

All I can say it that I've dipped my toes in step 7 by following steps 1 thru 6 and not even to the letter. That has been sufficient to remove all of my doubts, to know the real Truth, apart from the relative truth about myself, and you and this experience. I can only imagine what the rest of step 7 and any part of step 8 are like. Holy cow! 

I'm really looking forward to very old age when perhaps my body won't want to move around quite so much. Because with the body still, all there is left to still is the mind. And I'm pretty sure I've been taught how to do that. If you'd like to come over to Bhakti Yoga Lounge for my 3, 4, 7 Intro to Meditation class, or the new 3, 4, 7, Deeper class, it'd be my pleasure to show you what I've been shown that has been so beneficial to me. 

Yoga chitta vritti nirodha

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One Love

4/17/2013

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We were made to love. To want and need to give and receive it. 

Love is an infinitely renewable resource. Giving love produces love. Receiving love produces love. 

Love, as opposed to lust, is also a feeling of connection. It's gratitude for the existence of someone or something. And it's the source of a selfless wish that all will be well. 

Only when we lose the love of ourselves can we begin to hate each other. Love is lost to ignorance of our inherent perfection and unity in life. 

Try hard to nurture love whenever it can be found like an ember you can delicately coax into a flame that will grow into a warming glow for everyone to gather around. 

Strive to periodically return to the peaceful stillness underneath your thoughts and actions where love waits to refresh your spirit. 

Be curious about yourself, the world and the people you share it with and you'll invariably discover something that pulls on your heart strings. 

Try to lose your sense of individual self by doing something altruistic, however big or small, and you'll find the great connection among us all. 

However it speaks to you, act upon "A five-word sentence that could change the world tomorrow [which] is 'What would love do now?'"  – Neale Donald Walsch

Read the classic, The Art of Loving, by Psychologist Erich Fromme for an insightful description of the history and variety of the greatest human emotion and how to cultivate it to enrich your life and the world. 

If you enjoyed this post consider tweeting or sharing it so others might, too.

BODY – MIND – SPIRIT

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Who am I? When was the last time you asked yourself?

4/7/2013

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Many spiritual teachers and philosophers have emphasized the value of finding the answer to this question, or at least seeking to answer it.

Some have even said that within the answer to this question lie the answers to all others.

If you haven’t sought to answer it, the world has probably attempted to answer it for you. But the only label that really matters is the one you give yourself. 

Usually our label or identity speaks to the way our bodies look and the things it can do, or our minds – our personalities and ideas, and/or our relations to others.

In defining ourselves we rarely consider our spiritual identities. That's because it's just not practical. Or is it?

Unlike a body or mind-centered identity, which reinforces the idea of separateness and individuality, having a strong spiritual identity expands the notion of who we are.

Spirit has an ethereal quality that permeates the fibers from which the sense-based world is woven. It is the underlying essence of all that appears to be real.

Connecting with this makes us also feel more connected to each other and the rest of creation. It helps us to appreciate that some part of us is also a part of everything else. 

Experiencing life through the lens of a spiritual identity helps us understand Ramana Maharshi, a spiritual luminary, when he said, “There are no others.” He is directing our attention away from our apparently separate existences to point out that we are just different leaves on different branches of the same tree of life. True separateness is merely an illusion.

What does this mean in day-to-day life? There can be no loneliness, even in times of being alone. There are no true adversaries. There is only unity in diversity, a common ground from which we’ve grown and are sustained.

If you want a rational, Western explanation of the Self as spirit, I highly recommend Fritjof Capra’s classic, The Tao of Physics.

Or connect with some of your contemporaries to learn their thoughts and feelings on the matter. TED Conversations: The Age Old Question: “Who am I?”

So who are you?

I’d love to hear how you answer that question. 


If you enjoyed this post consider tweeting or sharing it so others might, too.


BODY – MIND – SPIRIT 

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The mind is a tool with its inherent limitations. Its domain is relative reality. Go beyond the mind to know absolute reality.

4/1/2013

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“I think therefore I am.” –  René Descartes

Descartes wasn’t wrong, but he wasn’t totally right, either. You are much more than you think.

Thinking is a function of the intellect and we are capable of much more.

We’d all agree that an open mind is a good thing, right?

The more open it is, the wider our view of the world and the richer our experiences.

The extreme of an open mind is meditation. Meditation is not the process of sitting cross-legged with eyes closed. It’s the result of the process of opening your mind.

Sometimes we think the world is full of darkness. But that’s because we have our hands covering our eyes. As we spread our fingers a little light makes it through, but the view between them is obscured and confusing. Meditation is a view of the world that we attain when all obstructions are removed.

BODY – MIND --> SPIRIT 

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Gratitude is a magnet for future blessings

3/20/2013

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No matter how good or bad life seems to be going, someone in the world has it better than us and someone has it worse.

Gratitude is simply a choice to focus on the positive aspects of our lives and be thankful.

What we focus on tends to expand. So every time we express gratitude for a blessing, however small it may be, we attract another and experience greater happiness.

Although we know intuitively that expressing gratitude makes us feel good, there is actually a great deal of research and scholarly writing about the positive correlation between gratitude and well-being. Check it out here, if you're interested. 

In addition to attracting more blessings to ourselves, gratitude makes us more inclined to help others.

One of many beautiful examples of the pay-it-forward attitude is The Giving Pledge started by Bill Gates and Warren Buffet. We may not normally associate billionaires with generosity, but this group of more than 100 has promised to give the majority of their fortunes to charity.

Even if we don’t have Bill’s billions, we all have something to be grateful for and something to share with others.

Pause right now and consider this: do you ever have to worry about not having enough food or clothing? Do you ever lack shelter to keep you dry and warm? Are you not safe from danger, unless you go out of you way to pursue it? Are you not free to go where you want and do almost anything you can imagine?

All you have to do is read the news or go for a drive to see people who don’t have some or many of these “ordinary” blessings. In reality, there are legions of less fortunate people and you are probably a walking winning lottery ticket. Compared to what your life could be and what many people’s lives are, you’ve already hit the jackpot.

When we recognize that we have so much, even if it’s just the bare necessities and civil rights, it’s hard not to want to share something with those who aren’t as fortunate.

Simply put, gratitude benefits everyone, especially you.

Gratitude is so important to the pursuit of attaining total health and happiness that it forms the foundation of The PATH²’s mission statement; "If you have something wonderful in your life, you have an obligation to share it with others." 

Body – Mind – Spirit 

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Philosophy: All things always happen for the best, especially when it’s impossible to see how that could possibly be true in the moment, but hindsight will make it all clear

2/25/2013

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Reality is subjective. Perception is the lens through which we experience it and attitude is the tint in the lens. Some of the dark things that happen to us appear that way only because we’ve put a dark tint on the lens. We can make things brighter in just the same way we make things dark – by adjusting our attitudes. Here’s one of a multitude of practical applications. 

Disappointments happen. But sometimes they lead to equivalent or greater opportunities. We’ve all seen this play out before. Because there’s no way to know it won’t happen the same way this time, why not embrace the possibility with a hopeful attitude?

Instead of letting disappointment about something gone wrong get you down consider it as the one necessary step backwards in order to take two or three steps forwards. Don’t let your mind rush to a negative judgment. Instead, allow some time to let the chain of cause and effect play out. In the meanwhile, if negative judgments keep popping into your mind, play devil’s advocate with them (which is more like “angel’s advocate” in this context) by observing that crisis breed opportunity. 

Be mindful of the possibility that things going against you are happening just to turn you around so you're heading in the right direction, again. 


BODY – MIND – SPIRIT 
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There’s no good or bad, it’s our thinking that makes it so – tell yourself nice lies

2/6/2013

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Shakespeare probably gets the most credit for these words, but many of us have experienced how true they really are.

Before we assign value to something by calling it “good” or “bad” all that exists is the "truth". Fundamentally, the truth is an impartial perception or idea; it’s not good or bad until we make it so.

When we put “good” and “bad” labels on the truth we create lies in the sense that we’ve altered the truth. As it would seem that we are always in the business of altering the truth, we can do ourselves a service by at least changing it in a way that’s self-supporting: by telling ourselves nice lies. 

When Thomas Edison failed to invent the light bulb after hundreds of attempts he said that he didn’t necessarily see all those efforts as failures, but as ways of learning how not to make a light bulb. And it’s the same story for a lot of people who’ve succeeded in life despite adversity.

Looking at it from the other side of the coin, we can learn to stop changing the truth in ways that undermine our self-image or whatever endeavor we’re pursuing. For instance, sometimes when we perform an action that doesn’t go as well as we anticipated we assign it a "bad" value and call ourselves “no good” or “stupid” or “screw ups.” We've all been there. But a person’s behavior is not equal to the person. We all make mistakes and fail, but the truth is that none of us are mistakes or failures. When we change the truth by calling ourselves such untrue, negative things we’re changing the truth for our worse.

So if you’re in the habit of changing the truth for your worse then change it again, but this time in a way that supports you in whatever way you need. It’s good for your self-image and efforts to succeed if you learn to frame adversity in supportive ways. Or better still, learn to let things be as they are, make peace with the truth, and continue on your way.

"Good" and "bad" are just concepts, tools of the mind. And the mind accesses only part of reality. Later on I’ll show you what it means to get beyond your mind and experience life from that third, most subtle aspect of who you are.


BODY – MIND – SPIRIT 
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Align what matters most with what you do the most

1/28/2013

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We've all heard it said; do what you love and you'll never work another day in your life. But for some of us, that's just not an option. There is a way to get closer to that ideal though, and it's by simply reflecting on our values. When what matters most to us aligns with what we spend our time on, the result is deep-seated satisfaction. Conversely, when that equation isn't balanced, the result is not just stress, but distress.

Everyone has values- the things that matter most- whether they’re aware of them or not. To create a satisfying life we first have to know what our values are so that we can make choices that are aligned with them. This goes for the big choices made in a whole lifetime and also for the countless small ones that are made on a day-to-day basis.

How we typically feel in the first and last moments of the day are indicators of how well we’re living and how happy we are. By paying attention to those quiet times and the insights they reveal we can have a greater understanding of what we value the most, and then implement those values to create our ideal lives. 


BODY – MIND – SPIRIT 
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