The Road to Hell….

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meditation, peace, resolve, soul, spirit

…Is paved for each of us by the designs and urging of our own egos.  The soul blesses. The ego condemns.  The soul lifts up.  The ego tears down.  The soul sees the beauty contained within each moment and within every circumstance.  The ego derides the ugliness of this world and makes no attempt to heal it.

The battle of good versus evil is waged not out there in some indefinable cosmos, but within each of us at every moment, with every compassionate thought or thoughtless remark.  By the time we take up arms against each other and face our brothers and sisters across a battlefield, our weapons drawn, the war is already lost.  Evil has won.  Every step we take towards conflict lessens the fragile thread of peace we are each entrusted with.  It is not the nameless they that lead us down the road to conflict and a world filled with darkness and despair, but the screeching, demanding voice of the ego within each of us telling us we deserve more than they, we are right, they are wrong.  When we surrender to its incessant demands we have failed not only ourselves, but the world around us and everyone and every living creature in it.

So today, let us find that fragile thread of peace and light within each of us and vow to nourish it.  When our ego insists we are right, let us at least consider the possibility we might be the one who is in error.  If we still believe we are right, let us then consider whether or not winning a particular battle at the loss of the war is worth the pain accompanying it.   When our ego seeks to condemn, let us put ourselves in our brother’s shoes.  When we are surrounded by negativity, anger, panic, criticism, let us strive to be a voice for gentle reason, rather than escalate the chaos around us and thereby pulling all of us into a place of deepening darkness.

We are all called to light the way for each other, to be a voice of tender compassion in a world of seemingly endless callousness and indifference.  Let us not surrender to our own disregard for the beauty of the life we’ve been given, but instead let us first strive to heal the shadows within and then extend the new light we create within us to heal the world around us.

The Source of Unhappiness

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inspiration, meditation, motivation, self-help, soul

The measure of our unhappiness is the measure of the number of holes we’ve carved out of our souls on the way to where we are now. Our feelings of unhappiness and despair are the universe’s way of telling us we’re heading in the wrong direction. It is only our stubborn refusal to acknowledge our error that keeps us from correcting it.

Remember, each of us is responsible for our own happiness. No one else can make us unhappy without our permission, but we can speed ourselves down the road towards despair on the fleetest of wings because we are the masters of our destinies. The universe will not impede our efforts even to our own self destruction if it is our firm will and intent to destroy ourselves.

Though we claim that is not our intent too many remain mired in untenable circumstances. Today marks the starting line. A place to begin our search. Let us look mindfully at our lives and seek the seeds of our contentment. Let us decide on the one thing we would most like to change… and change it. Commence our search at the bottom, not the top. It is effortless to focus on the easy and ignore what is hard. But it is in addressing the difficult, the dark, and the painful where we unlock the most progress.

Let us go out today in search of the abandoned pieces of our souls we left scattered in the wake of our path towards denial of self. Let us reclaim those lost pieces of ourselves and begin the process of reawakening the entirety of the beauty within each of us.

Lessons in Illumination

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enlightenment, faith, God, inspiration, meditations, motivation, self-discovery, soul, spiritual

Lesson One

Before we begin I would like to emphasize an important premise.  The contents of the following pages are to be taken at face value.  There is no secret meaning hidden between the lines.  There are no mysteries to be unraveled.  This is not a trick or a scam. For what would be the point of such an endeavor on my part?  What do I have to gain?  I seek only to unlock the bars of your self-imposed imprisonment.  It pains me to see you reduced to the mean little lives you confine yourselves to when the abundance of the universe awaits your pleasure.

This course requires an open mind on your part.  A little bit of faith wouldn’t hurt.  A great deal of faith would be tremendously helpful, but it is not a requirement for you to benefit from the truths revealed on these pages.

One other thing before we begin, you will have to suspend your doubts and learn to trust, if not me, then the spirit within you.  Your eternal self recognizes truth even buried beneath layers of your ego’s denials, incredulity and doubt.  The measure of your trust will be the measure of your progress.  Trust little, progress little.  Trust greatly and you will open your life to new dreams you never dared to allow yourself to envision.

Now let us commence with a reminder that will hopefully sound familiar.  You are more than you can begin to comprehend in your current state.  Your lives have been narrowed down to the merest slivers of your true reality by abdicating control over them to the capriciousness of fate and random events.  You are your own jailors.  You are responsible for the current state of your soul.  If you are to gain anything from this collaboration you will have to put aside the comfort to be found in blaming others for your fate.  It denies the underlying premise of all truth.  You, and only you, are the master of your experience.

The first step towards freedom is regaining control of your life.  This is the true purpose of the concept of self-control.  In order to gain control over yourself and therefore your life, you must first learn to direct your thoughts.  Action is not the initiating cause in the universe.  Thought is.  All thought manifests itself in form at some level.  Please re-read this last sentence and try to accept its truth, and then begin to contemplate the consequences.  All thought manifests itself in form at some level.

The easiest progression of this truth for you to understand is the one you are most familiar with…thought, word, action.  A simple example might help you see where we are going with this.  You become aware you are hungry.  You may or may not mention your hunger to someone you are with.  Regardless, you satisfy your hunger by taking action.  Words do not precede thought.  Actions do not precede thought.

Therefore if you desire to change your experience of life you must begin with your thoughts.  If your thoughts lack commitment and purpose, so too will your experience of this life.  If your thoughts are clear and focused your experiences will mimic their reality.  The chaos in your life will fall away like the illusion it is.

It is not necessary for us to spend too much time on the concept of thought as the driving creative force of the universe as numerous books have already been written on the subject.  If you are having trouble accepting this idea, it would be beneficial for you to take time away from these pages and familiarize yourself with this topic prior to continuing. Otherwise it will be difficult for you to gain much from the truths recorded here as future lessons depend on your acceptance of this one pivotal certainty.

Let us now turn to the related concept of faith.  The command to, “Ask and you shall receive,” seems to be the cause of much confusion among you.  As is true of any form of prayer, it is not the phrasing of the question that determines the response.  It is the belief in the answer.  It is the faith by which you imbue your request and send it out to the far reaches of the universe that will influence the universe’s reply to your appeal.  Lack of conviction negates the request.  Little faith is rewarded with small results. Great faith moves mountain.

Be cautious though, for the mountains will move in both directions: left or right, up or down, good or evil. I have been asked many times how or why, God, if I exist at all, can allow evil to continue to plague your world.  The universal laws laid out before the beginning of time for the administration of the universe do not distinguish between good and evil. They are at the service of my children. So be very careful what you seek, for if you seek diligently and faithfully, you will obtain the object of your search, and at that point you become responsible for the stewardship of the gifts bestowed upon you.

I should caution you, as is true of any gift accompanied by unlimited power, great faith comes with immense responsibility.  If a man seeks command over others, and his thoughts are focused and driven in the direction of his goal, and he truly believes he is destined to achieve his objective, then the universe will deliver into his hands the prize he craves.   He will then be held accountable for his agency.

I do not interfere with the laws I laid out by which the universe and everything in it are governed.  So when a man’s faith is misdirected and by it he achieves great power, and then proceeds to use that power to wreak havoc upon your little world, I do not step in and counteract the force of his resolve.  Have I not promised you free will to govern your affairs?  If I stepped in every time I was not happy with one of your decisions, what kind of freedom would that be?  Don’t those of you who are parents recognize your children must sometimes make their own mistakes, and don’t you stand aside and let them even though you may cringe in shared pain as they fall?   Does a child not learn best from painful experience?   The learning curve is no different for an adult, only the consequences are greater and the fall farther for the adult.

So what is the point of seeking great wealth if you have not prepared yourself for its proper use?  Why seek control over others’ lives if you have yet to learn to administer your own successfully?  Vast wealth will run through the hands of the spendthrift faster than sands through an hour glass. Great power will corrupt the hearts of all but the most righteous men.  Do not envy the man burdened under the weight of much wealth and many responsibilities.  You too will be tested. Think rather of your own stewardship of the gifts bestowed upon you.  Have you governed your talents so fruitfully you are worthy of more?  If so, then more is already on its way to you.

There is no point railing against the fate of your birth or your circumstances.  You cannot fool the universe.  As I said at the beginning, there are no secrets, no tricks, no scams involved.  You are the cumulative effect of your thoughts.   You control your destiny.

So I will take this opportunity to caution you to be mindful of your thoughts, particularly your negative ones, as you progress in faith and power.   For when a child dresses up as a superhero and jumps off a step pretending he can fly, his fall to earth is but a gentle jolt.  When a grown man convinces himself he can fly and jumps off the side of a mountain, he pays a much higher price for his ignorance.  A man with little has little to lose.  A man with much has much to lose, but the laws operate the same for both men.  When you have gained in wisdom and then turn aside from the constraints of discipline your fall from grace will be much harsher than if you never acquired wisdom in the first place.

With knowledge comes responsibility.  I will not leave you in ignorance, but I caution you to weigh in your heart of hearts whether or not you are ready to assume such accountability and accept the consequences of your decisions hereafter.

Will spring ever spring?

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inspiration, living in the moment, meditation, self-help, spring

Sometimes the weather outside is a perfect reflection of life inside.  Though spring officially arrived a few weeks ago and the Easter holiday has come and gone, winter still refuses to relinquish its relentless grip on the temperatures.  I woke up this morning to twenty nine degrees, which for us is about twenty degrees below normal.  I keep telling myself tomorrow will be warmer, but the weather man disagrees.  Tomorrow is in fact predicted to be worse than today.  I remind myself winter cannot last forever.  In a few short weeks it will be May and winter will finally have to take its place at the rear of the seasonal rotation.

Lately it seems as though my life is mimicking winter’s fierce refusal to let go.  I meticulously plan, and work, and sacrifice knowing eventually my efforts will be rewarded, but eventually seems to take longer than it should.  For weeks I keep careful watch on my diet, and exercise like a fiend, but the scale barely budges.  I scrape and save for a long cherished goal, and just when it’s within sight something comes up to push my prize further away.   At times like these it feels more like two steps back and one step forward rather than the other way around.

So what are my options? Do I throw up my hands and give up?  Do I decide it doesn’t matter what I do, or how hard I try, because life is hard and what’s going to happen is going to happen regardless of my efforts? Do I doubt my faith, my work, my will and surrender to the whims of randomness?  Even if I tried to find solace in such a solution I would soon find myself asking, now what? If my efforts are all for naught, what do I do now?  Why do anything at all?  What is the point of trying? And after a few hours, or days, or weeks spent wallowing in self-pity, then what?

The answer is then I would simply pick myself up, brush myself off, and begin again.  Surrender is never a permanent solution.  It is at best a temporary one, and sometimes even a necessary one in order to survive, but once the crisis has past, acceptance of defeat is in itself self-defeating.  To strive is the essence of the human condition.  To lift ourselves out of the chaos and confused muck of this physical world and make it a better place than we found it is an essential part of our purpose here.  The other part, the larger part, is to recognize though we may dwell in this physical world for a while, it is not our true essence.  This is not our true home.  It is merely a place we come to experience life in a myriad of circumstances.  It cannot defeat us because we are not here to do battle with it, only to experience it.

So let us bless both our winters and our springs, our defeats and our triumphs, our bitter disappointments as well as our most glorious highs.  We are both body and spirit.  This is only our encounter with life today.  Winter will soon pass, and in the middle of a hot summer afternoon or when summer lingers overlong and we dream of the cool breezes of autumn, we will look fondly back on these days and bemoan the heat of our then current experience.

Faith: A Blessing or a Curse?

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Catholic, faith, God, inspiration, meditation, mysticism, psychic

In the movie, Angels and Demons,  there’s a scene where the Cardinal asks Tom Hanks if he believes in God, and Tom Hanks’ character replies, “Faith is a gift I’ve yet to be given,” and no matter what side of the faith continuum we fall on, we nod our heads in understanding.  Faith is an argument neither side can win.  The believer’s faith is unshaken by the doubter’s ridicule, and the nonbeliever remains unconvinced by the faithful’s devotion.  You either believe or you don’t.  You’ve either received the gift of faith or you haven’t.

So are the recipients blessed or cursed? Do not the faithful sometimes look with envy in the direction of those who still call their lives their own?  Does the believer not look back on his own carefree days and wonder how he got from there to where he now finds himself?  Ask a priest if he always wanted to be a priest and you’re likely to receive a response ranging from the sheepish to the incredulous.  Some might be willing to share their struggles with you.  How they never in a million years saw the priesthood in their future, how some of them weren’t  even Catholic when God came knocking on their door with his preposterous invitation.

If you’ve never been on the receiving end of a divine demand, so often cloaked in the polite façade of a request, you might not realize how difficult it is to say no.  God doesn’t give up easily.  No matter how many times you slam the door in his face, he just stands there on your front porch patiently knocking on your door until you give up and let him in.  Once he takes up residence, you’re toast.  He’s there.  Always.  In the back of your mind.  Prodding, pushing, nagging.  A gift or a curse?

I take comfort from the stories of reluctant, sometimes astonished priests, as if even now, years later they can’t quite believe the crazy turn their lives took.  I look back on my own road to faith and laugh with the same delighted amazement as the dumbfounded priest.

My upbringing was somewhat unusual.  My father was  a contradiction, both Catholic and a professional scientist in a time when science was challenging God for supremacy of the universe.  My mother was no less a contradiction.  She too was Catholic, having converted as  young adult, but she possessed another source of faith.  She was psychic back in a time when her unusual gifts and interests had to be kept secret from the neighbors. So intermingled with First Communions and Confirmations were  crystal balls, tarot cards and the occasional séance.

My siblings and I were encouraged  to develop our relationship with God in our own way. Not surprisingly we left home and set off in all different directions.  I followed my mother’s path even when she warned me her way would not be mine.  The church I was brought up in held no real appeal for me.  My mother, who spent her entire life with one foot in this world and the other in the next, never saw the need for the formality of a weekly Mass.  Hers was an intensely personal and private devotion.

I learned from her, then studied at the feet of my aunt and grandmother.  The Awakening series is my tribute to those women I  loved, who mentored me and taught me the ancient ways largely lost when science replaced faith, and words like sacred, holy and reverence became obsolete in a world where mankind claims equality with God.

Imagine my surprise when years later, after all three had passed from this world, one morning I found myself  at the entrance to the church where I grew up. I pulled open the door with a feeling of both anticipation and reluctance.  At the sight of the familiar crucifix above the altar, I knelt and made the sign of the cross, then unsure of my welcome, took a place in a rear pew in the near empty church.  Daily mass was offered early so the faithful could get to work on time.  I knelt in the silence before the pre-dawn Mass and offered a hesitant prayer.

As if only a moment had passed rather than long years, I heard His familiar voice asking me if I was ready to come home now and what kept me away for so long.

I still have my mother’s crystal ball and tarot cards, and her picture of the Blessed Mother she always kept by her bed.  She was right.  My way is not her way, but I still remember and honor the ancient ways passed mother to daughter for generations.

The knowledge rests uneasily within me.  They’re gone, and I’m the only one left who still remembers.

Revelation: A Moment or a Lifetime?

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enlightenment, inspiration, motivation, revelation, spiritual

Perhaps both.  Many of us have experienced a singular moment of profound clarity when all the chaos and confusion we’re immersed in is washed away and the world suddenly makes perfect sense.  All  our questions are answered.   For perhaps the first time in our lives we understand our place in this existence and what we’re doing here, or at least what we’re supposed to be doing here.  For once we are no longer seekers, we are finders. We are found.  Everything is laid out before us and we are shown both our purpose and our history.  We discover, much to our surprise, we are in exactly the right place, at exactly the right moment, and we know exactly what’s ahead for us.

Like a benevolent haze, a sense of perfect rightness settles over us, and while we bask in its warmth,  it never occurs to us this instant of pure lucidity will be fleeting.  Yet it is almost immediately snatched away before we can even begin to grasp its repercussions or possibilities.  Within minutes, or at best, hours our impressions begin to fade.  Our memories of perfect clarity assume a fuzzy quality and we  begin to wonder if we imagined the entire, rather odd experience.  We rush to explain away what just happened to us, seeking the comfort of familiar ground in logical rationalizations.  We’re tired, over-worked, stressed.  Our rational selves conclude any viable reasonable explanation is preferable to the absurd truth.  So we quiet the new and yet familiar sense of restlessness within us.  We brush aside our burgeoning conviction there is something more out there;  that we are more than we allow ourselves to be.

Because if we don’t silence our doubts we risk disturbing our peace.  We start to question the status quo.  If we begin to have reservations about our current direction and where it’s taking us, we will likely be forced to confront some uncomfortable realities.  We may discover we no longer like the person staring back at us in the mirror, or we may no longer recognize the face as our own.  Inwardly we are changed, but those evolutions were not allowed to manifest themselves on the outside.  How long can we continue living in this divided state between who we used to be and who we are now?

So we hush our doubts.  We silence our questions and  cover our restlessness, hoping to lull our inner selves back to sleep.  We’re not ready to go there.  We’re not prepared to confront our illusions.  Our restiveness is forced to settle beneath the dream of forgetfulness we thrust upon it.  Though our disquiet sleeps, it does not die, even as we go about our daily lives hiding behind the façade of normalcy.  We press ourselves to accept our old limitations and reluctantly let go of those precious moments of perfect understanding.

While our restlessness is  banished for a few weeks or months, it is not forever exiled from our psyche.  Instead it waits, constantly searching for a gap in our defenses, stealing itself against a moment of weakness on the part of our rational selves.  One of those moments we’re not all right, when we’re no longer convinced we know everything and we’re ready to stop lying to ourselves about this being all there is and ever will be.

So it begins again, our search for something more, only now we’ve forgotten the way to a once familiar gate. We  stumble around in the darkness, unsettled to discover we lost what little ground we gained in our last attempt.  We revisit the past and try to recall old strategies that used to work for us only to find they are no longer effective,  or are only partially effective,  because we are no longer who we once were.  So we must seek out new strategies and painstakingly fit them into our new vision of ourselves, as though every time we fall and fail we are compelled to go back to the starting line and begin again.  Perhaps this is our penance for allowing ourselves to forget, for so casually rejecting wisdom’s gifts.  To go back to the beginning and carefully regain lost ground until we learn the value of her gifts.

Except now we’ve forgotten the way and we are dismayed to recall the treasure we so desperately seek was once within our grasp, and we carelessly discarded it.  So we commit to our pursuit with renewed determination.  We read, we study, we pray, we mediate, we contemplate.  We seek others traveling the same road in the hope they discovered some secret shortcut they might be willing to share. We grow discouraged at our slow progress.  We don’t remember our search being so difficult the first time.  Because back then we assumed revelation was a gift of a benevolent universe, or a random circumstance of chance we just happened to stumble upon.

Now we know better and we grow disheartened when we are not immediately shown the way.  Maybe we even abandon our search altogether, and once more send our souls back to sleep.  But to those who persevere wisdom continues to test their worthiness and occasionally drops precious pearls to mark their way. Though we are grateful for her encouragement, they do not satisfy us, for these we knew once and we are after more this time.  We yearn to experience again that singular moment of transparency and comprehension.  This time, we promise ourselves, when we find it we will value it for the prize it is.  This time we won’t talk ourselves out of our hard won progress. This time it’s going to be different, because we’re different.  We’re more.  We understand.

Journey to Enlightenment

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enlightenment, faith, inspiration, resolutions, revelation, soul, spirit

Though a more appropriate title might be Journey toward Enlightenment as the preposition ‘to’ implies once a final destination is reached the trip is over, while ‘toward’ recognizes the eternal elusiveness of the enlightened state. Yet understanding the elusiveness of our goal does not diminish the sanctity of our efforts. For it is a journey we must all one day embark on, either in this life or the next. Eventually we are all brought to the recognition that this life is a mere shadow of our true reality, and the gifts of an infinite and benevolent universe await us.
But. And it is a very large but. The forces of creation do not bestow their gifts on the ignorant and uninitiated. They know the worth of their offerings and are unwilling to cast their “pearls at the feet of swine”. Rather they seek those who appreciate the value of the treasures they are willing to grant them. Wisdom blesses those who faithfully pursue her. Abundance graces those who labor diligently for her rewards. Spiritual enlightenment is no different. Revelation is granted to those who value her. Faith is the reward of those who strive mightily towards him.
So where do we begin? Like all endeavors, the search to escape the imprisonment of ignorance begins with the acknowledgment of our lack, and our sincere desire to remedy it. Unfortunately after this initial admission, how we are to proceed from there is less evident. Perhaps this uncertainty is a test of our worthiness to be granted admittance through the gate to the road we seek. Maybe we are judged by how easily we abandon our search when confronted with roadblocks. Do we give up before we even give ourselves a chance to begin? Do we justify our lack of commitment by telling ourselves only gullible fools believe there is more to life than what we can see and hear and touch? Though we may tell ourselves this is true, and for a time sink back into our old comfort zones, we are not truly convinced by our rationalizations. Our longing to know the truth of who we are rests for a while, preparing in the silence of our spirits for a new attack on our cynicism. Until eventually the craving inside us builds to a point where are compelled to take action, to begin again…to search, to understand, to ultimately become our true selves, and not the mere reflection of self we exist as in this physical world.
So here we stand once again at the birth of a new year. Is this the year we finally push through the resistance of our doubts? Is this the year we finally make a commitment to ourselves…our eternal selves? When we look back over the coming twelve months at the beginning of another January, will we still be haunted by the same questions that disturb our peace now? Or instead will we stand at the dawn of a new year and release a deep sigh of relief in gratitude we didn’t waste the precious time given us. Perhaps we will even glance back over our shoulder and note with pride the starting line where we now stand is a comfortable distance behind us, and recognize we’ve finally gained true momentum in our search.
It is said progress is most easily measured by looking through the rear view mirror of our lives. Let’s make a commitment to look back next January from a place of greater understanding, and smile with contentment at how far we’ve come.

New Year’s Resolutions for the Soul

Tags

inspiration, new year's resolutions, nourishing the soul, soul, spirit

It’s a new year so it must be time for resolutions to improve our bodies and our lives. We promise ourselves this is the year we’ll lose weight, eat better, exercise more. We make meaningful commitments to find a new job, go back to school, pay down debt, get our homes in shape, our careers in shape, our bodies in shape, our lives in shape. The majority of even the most sincere pledges for the new year are forgotten or broken before the month is over, let alone the year. What surprises me is in the midst of all of our vows to improve our circumstances we ignore the one difference in our lives that is capable of delivering lasting peace and enduring change. We cannot polish the surface while ignoring the true causes of disorder in our lives, and yet expect meaningful results.

If we are to transform our lives, we must work from the inside out. We must resolve to nourish our souls more, even if at the same time we commit to nourishing our bodies less. As we resolve to unclutter our outer lives, we must also resolve to clean up the chaos and confusion within. The soul needs room to breathe as much as our bodies require oxygen to go on living. Fortunately we are unable through our neglect and indifference to bring about the death of our souls. But we can lock them away until our spirits are so filled with despair, there is little to distinguish their miserable existence from a non-existent state. Their current circumstances might be so desolate our souls might welcome death over a life without even the smallest acknowledgment they even exist at all.

So here is a list a resolutions for the soul:

1. I will make a true effort to get to know my eternal soul and find out what she needs in this current life to be happy.
2. I will make more time and more room in my life for meditation and spiritual pursuits. I will do this by spending less time in front of the television and less time online.
3. I will reintroduce my soul to its eternal creator or deepen their existing relationship through the study of scripture and other spiritual offerings.
4. I will give to others more and worry about myself less.
5. I will learn to control my thoughts and focus my concentration in any given situation on the highest possible outcome, rather than dwell on the worst possible scenario and how to protect myself from the fallout.
6. I will be more polite and less judgmental.
7. I will forgive petty slights and do my best to forgive larger and deeper hurts.
8. I will strive to remember hate is not the opposite of love…indifference is and avoid both.
9. I will make time to be alone…to pray, to commune with nature and a larger universe, and recognize I am only a small but irreplaceable piece of a greater, beautifully woven whole.
10. I will remember when God answers one of my prayers with a ‘no’, instead of the ‘yes’ I so desperately prayed for, chances are He knows what He’s doing and I would be better served to wait to see how the situation plays out rather than try to argue my position with the omniscient creator of the universe.

It’s January 1st. I truly hope my resolutions last longer than the next 30 days. My very soul is depending on me.

The Seduction of Yoga

Tags

inspiration, motivation, self-help, yoga

Perfection, by its very definition was always elusive and would forever be beyond my reach. The practice of yoga was the ultimate reminder of this one salient fact.  No matter how adept one became there was always more to reach for, more to achieve, even if it was only to hold a challenging posture for a single additional second.  The pose wasn’t the point. The physical accomplishment or lack thereof only scratched the surface of the practice of yoga. Meaning was found in both the challenge of striving for perfection and the acceptance of its unattainability.  Just because an ambition was unreachable didn’t make striving for it a meaningless endeavor.  Life was lived between the start and finish lines, not at one end or the other.

In place of perfection, progress was enough.  For me and my yoga practice each day was measured in inches, or fractions of inches.  Some days the inches seemed to be moving in the wrong direction, but for perhaps the first time, I recognized what I regarded as failures in the past were all part of the process of growth.  Life didn’t always proceed in a tidy straight line.  There were side trips, back tracking, and even stops for breaks along the way, just like my yoga practice over the past few years. I forgave myself my lapses. I realized even my disappointments were all part of my journey.  What mattered today, in this moment, was I was here. I was back on my mat, fighting to find my footing on the soggy surface while a distant rumble of thunder overhead threatened an approaching storm.

As I worked through my postures, I felt something new burrowing deep inside of me. New and maybe a little alien, but I pushed my initial fear aside, realizing this was what I was waiting for.  This little moment was my first confirmation something was happening along the route of my thirty day test drive.  The seeds of a new and improved version of me were taking root deep within my core.  It was up to me to nourish them and bring them to blossom.  How I was supposed to accomplish that, I wasn’t completely certain. The gardener in me knew it was one thing to appreciate a beautiful garden with flowers all but bursting with the radiance of life as I strolled by on my way to another destination, and quite another to be the one with the trowel in her hand trying to bring all that vivid color to life.

With some experience a novice gardener learned more wasn’t always better.  Sometimes too many blossoms all flowering at the same time detracted from not only the whole picture but also stole a little attention from each individual bloom.  The trick was to organize the plantings so they contributed to the whole effect while each individual bloom enjoyed its precious moment in the spotlight.  That meant years of experimenting with blooming times, different soils, fertilizers and what light and water conditions each plant performed best in.  It was also accepting the painful truth some plants, even beloved ones, just wouldn’t flower in some gardens.  Maybe the soil conditions weren’t ideal.  Maybe it was too cold, or too hot, or too wet, or too dry for them to flourish.  In such cases it was kinder on both the plants and the gardener to let them go so they could thrive under the right conditions in someone else’s garden.

There was grief in the process of pruning, cutting back and up-rooting, but it was a necessary grief.  I recognized I was one of those gardeners who didn’t like pruning.  I cringed with each little clip of an over achieving branch filled with the evidence of abundant life and blossom.  I was forced to remind myself that pruning was the same as giving a plant a hair-cut.  It was a necessary sprucing up for the good of the whole.  As for up-rooting, I was usually only able to bring myself to retrieve the shovel from the shed and dig up the roots if I was moving the shrub to another spot in the garden, hopefully one more to its liking.

If I had so much trouble with vegetation no wonder I found the pruning process so painful in my own life.  But it was necessary for the good of the whole, I reminded myself. I didn’t want my life to resemble one of those overgrown, neglected gardens where the owner had so much going on he lost control of his vision, and eventually gave up and surrendered his pride and joy to the ever-encroaching weeds.   I was conscious of the weeds lined up at the borders of my mind, just waiting for their opportunity to take over.  A few moment’s inattention on my part was all they needed to cross the border and take root within me.

The trick was to stay ahead of them; to deal with the weeds as soon as they broke through the soil and made their first appearance.  Once they established a firm base they were not easy to dispel.  Sometimes even a desired plant became so enmeshed with weeds it was impossible to separate one from the other.  In such cases the only way to eliminate the weeds was to dig up the entire mess and throw them both away.

I thought about my life.  Some pieces were thriving exactly as they were. Some parts just needed a healthy pruning in order to blossom again, but others no longer fit in with my new vision of myself.  They would have to go.  It was painful to contemplate their loss.  I knew it would be even more miserable to actually up-root them.  “But it was for the good of the whole,” I whispered to myself.  Some things would have to go in order to make room for the new and improved version of myself.  That was life.  That was growth.  That was what this journey was all about.

…an excerpt from Yoga: Behind the Veil 

Yoga: Behind the Veil

Reincarnation: Fact or Wishful Thinking?

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death, faith, inspiration, life, reincarnation

As a believer myself, I was curious to discover how much evidence there was to support the concept of reincarnation. I was gratified to discover so much support for the belief we return to this life again and again until we achieve a state of perfection worthy of our creator.  Especially since I could never quite reconcile myself to the idea we’re only given one chance to get our lives right.  Why bother?  Even under the best conditions, life is complicated and difficult and unfair.  Some souls are born into incredible luxury, while others  are forced to overcome crushing poverty and insane violence to make their way in the world.  The theory of karma being carried over from previous incarnations to account for such disparities takes away some of the sting of life’s most blatant inequities.

Reincarnation remains a central precept of several major religions.  Christian believers point to a number of biblical passages that seem to imply reincarnation was an accepted premise of the early church.  Some of the most compelling evidence is offered by cases of young children who claim to remember their previous incarnations. When remaining family members of the children’s former incarnations were contacted, they confirmed the children’s memories.  They believed the children could only know such things about their deceased loved ones if they were indeed their reincarnated souls.

Opponents of reincarnation argue the biblical passages implying its validity are misinterpreted, its millions of believers are deluded, and the children claiming to remember their previous lives are simply attention seekers.  In the most convincing cases of memories from previous incarnations, detractors propose a possible explanation of the existence of  a collective, universal consciousness that some souls are able to link to, thus explaining the children’s detailed knowledge of events they could have no possible knowledge of.

It didn’t take me long to realize my research wasn’t going to uncover any definitive proof to support one side or the other.  After all, how does one prove what science is unable to verify?  What struck me though was how many of the articles I read were less  a rational presentation of the evidence and were instead little more than thinly veiled attacks on the intelligence and gullibility of those holding the opposing view.

Regardless of which side we’re on, it is apparently an unenviable human trait that leads us to ridicule those holding beliefs in opposition to our own.  When those beliefs are challenged we strike out.  If we are unable to successfully challenge the validity of our opponent’s argument, we assault their intelligence, their background, their parents, and even their appearance.

If our smallness of mind constitutes a karmic fault we can work to overcome in subsequent incarnations we should all pray we receive the opportunity to do so.  Do any of us really want to carry our prejudices, our petty judgments, and our small acts of cruelty to lay before the feet of our creator at the end of this life?  If this one existence is the only one we’re given, shouldn’t we be nicer to each other?  Shouldn’t we share our surplus, promote peace in this troubled world, and do whatever we can to alleviate the suffering all around us? Is it wise to waste what little time we have on hate and division?

So maybe wishful thinking does account for a portion of reincarnation’s support. If we are judged by what we do with only this one life, how many of us would leave this world assured of our place in heaven?