by user_dd | Jun 19, 2016 | Community Conversations
If everything you owned burned in an inferno, how would you feel?
What if your partner or best friend died tomorrow?
What if you were diagnosed with cancer and were facing chemotherapy, radiation, and the possibility of not making it in the next few years?
Sometimes, we think we have life figured out (not really, but we pretend we do). If we have that car, that job, or that house, we’re golden. If our day goes just the way we wanted it, we score! If we triple our income, we’re on Cloud Nine.
At least, that’s how many of us think in the Industrial West. But why do we have these ideas? Is this our heart speaking, or is it our brain? We’ve been conditioned for so many years. Reflexively, we reach towards what we’ve been told we’re supposed to have. If we have all of the right THINGS, we’re living the Good Life.
So much of what passes for spirituality nowadays supercharges this ego chase, so that we can satisfy what someone or something told us will make us happy. It’s sedating. But spirituality isn’t meant to sedate us–we have enough of that already! It’s meant to break us out of our old paradigms and help us emerge as beings Aware of the nature of Reality. If we’re addicted to our current paradigm, this transformation can feel uncomfortable.
What many of us also don’t realize is that spirituality is the Art of Living. It isn’t something we start and stop on the meditation cushion. ANY experience can enhance awareness, depending on how we approach it.
Pain and destruction raise our perception, if we allow them, if we’re completely present with them and nonjudgmental. They clear away what’s superfluous and illusory, leaving behind the True Nature. When you lose everything, you can realize, in a sobering flash, that those things don’t define you.
The Tibetan Buddhists have a practice called Chod, a ritual that takes place in a graveyard at night, where fierce and horrific entities are summoned and invited to tear apart the practitioner. In the astral carnage, the person loses attachment to the ego and enters the Void of Supreme Reality. Buddhists believe that clinging even to positive things will keep one from attaining the highest vision.
We don’t need demons or wrathful deities to tear us apart, because it seems like life does this enough to us as it is. But instead of running away from the “darkness,” we can embrace it and let it work its power on us, freeing us from our limited perspective.
Truly, what is good and bad is a point of view. Getting eaten by a mountain lion would be awful for us, but wonderful for the starving animal and her cubs. Right and wrong aren’t built into the Cosmos–there’s simply experience.
Sometimes, we just need a bitchslap to wake us up. We’re in a game, and if we take it too seriously, or get sucked into it too much, we’re missing out.
Here are some tips for riding the flames:
1. Let yourself feel your emotions, no matter how “low” or “gross” they are. Observe them and let them pass. No need to hold onto anything.
2. Instead of using your head to think of things to manifest, meditate until you reach some deeper sense of yourself, and let your Heart inspire you. Follow the signs in your life with childlike curiosity, but without serious expectation.
3. When facing a challenging period of your life, don’t struggle to make this or that happen. Allow things to happen as they will, and go with it, keeping an open mind to the possibilities. Things will probably fall away that you won’t realize until later you didn’t need.
4. Don’t be afraid to let go of things you now consider “positive.” At some point, you may start to see them as less glamorous than they appear now.
Be courageous on your Journey!
Let’s hear about your experiences! Please share below.
by user_dd | Jun 2, 2016 | Community Conversations
A couple weeks ago, I was researching global warming…and became terrified and angry that it was way more urgent than I had imagined. I went through a dead feeling that day, looking around me and seeing how so many people are still stuck in the idea that they can disrespect nature without any repercussions.
Contempt arose for those who keep the people in ignorance, and for people like Donald Trump who still don’t believe global warming is even real, let alone a priority. Of course, it wasn’t just global warming I was thinking about. It was a lament for all of the ways we are blind and manipulated.
With the help of wise words and reflection, I came to a deep realization later that day, one which infiltrated my core and renewed me. This epiphany was that IT DOES NOT MATTER what happens, if we are aligned with our true nature and act from that alignment. Alignment itself is the real goal.
I used to be so inspired, and yet so frustrated, with Mohatma Gandhi’s axiom of “Be the change you wish to see in the world.” I wasn’t sure how to implement it. Not genuinely. Not in a way that felt right.
But something clicked this time. Synchronistically, I was also reading a book and taking a class that touched on how to contact our deeper nature and release our potential. All of the emotion, knowledge, and support I was receiving collided.
I began feeling my latent qualities and allowing them to organically emerge. The mythologist Joseph Campbell once said “A vitalized person vitalizes.” By living your vision, you energize and inspire others. I noticed the shifts around me as I found more and more alignment within myself.
The change you wish to see represents YOUR greater potential wanting to express itself. If you want to experience a compassionate world, there’s a part of you that is compassionate. It just yearns to be freed through you. And this is a never-ending process, an action recreated in each moment.
You can start to access this potential with a few steps:
RELAX
Get comfortable and get into a meditative state. Breath slowly and deeply, close your eyes, and let yourself melt.
FEEL
Get mindful of your body and the energy behind it. Try to feel the blood pumping through you, and the air moving in your lungs. Then imagine the essence of who you are–just as a feeling, subtle at first.
ENVISION
Keep the feeling in mind and heart. Now, ask your essence to reveal your ideal self. Focus on this as a strong intention. Then ease, and be open to what comes. Stay relaxed. See if you can naturally picture what this ideal self looks and acts like.
ENHANCE
Zero in on the feeling underneath any images or experiences that arise. This is the feeling of your ideal self and greater potential. As you inhale, let the feeling expand through you. Immerse yourself in it!
You can learn to experience this anywhere. Eventually, you can just jump straight to the feeling and not necessarily go through the whole series. It helps at first, though.
Try to focus on this feeling several times throughout the day, in short bursts. Then act on the inspiration that comes from this feeling (of course, be wise about your actions while also not tripping yourself up). You may start to see others becoming interested in your changes and seeking to do new things with their lives! We’re really more interconnected than it seems–a change in one place tends to elicit a change in another.
No politician or corporate leader can take away our power to co-create the society we want. Each of us is a building block. But regardless of what happens out there, the truly important work begins inside.
Good luck on your journeys!
Let us know
What do you feel describes the essence of who you are? What does your ideal society look like?
