Cleansing for the New Year

• I accept you exactly as you are. Please forgive me if I wanted you to be something you are not and can not be. I dedicate myself to seeing you as you are, and without judgement from a small mind. 
• I support you as you are in what ever decisions you take. You are not me, and we can not act or think the same. I trust you to do the best you see fit. 
• I have erased 'should be' from my language. Its just another complaint and another display of arrogance. 
• I dedicate time, patience and myself to dwelling with the truth. 
• I understand that suffering helps us see through illusions. We learn from difficult situations. Pain brings us into the present moment like no other emotion. It helps to remind us of what is important. 
• I forgive you. I forgive me. 
• I dedicate thirty minutes every day to moving my body with awareness. We exercise the body to grow older, not to hold onto youth. 
• I always leave five minutes earlier than I need to, so I don't have to push or rush or be impatient at traffic lights.
• I give myself five to fifteen minutes between tasks to breathe, stare out of the window, drink some water, stretch the shoulders and neck and smile.
• I start hand making cards two weeks before they need to be sent off. 
• I pay attention to the rise and fall of emotion, and I choose to dwell with the One that observes the changes. 
• I give smiles without expectation of getting one in return.
• I like to leave notes for loved ones as a surprise.
• I breathe with awareness.
• I pause every time I feel myself moved by beauty. I let it sink into my skin and permeate my face, my heart and my bones. 
• Notice that once my basic needs are met, I can never satisfy my wants. Serving others brings happiness. Serving myself leads to selfishness and dissatisfaction. 
• I notice when pain arises in the body and I listen to what my body is telling me. 
• I live here, now. I let go of old wounds and negative unhelpful talk. I let go of negative patterns of thought that are rooted in past experiences.
• I identify where my anger, frustration and disappointment come from. Usually it comes from the 'I should' or the 'you should'. 
• I will not over water my plants. 
• I say what I mean, and I mean what I say. I understand that personal integrity fosters healthy self esteem, and I stay vigilant so I notice when integrity turns into stubbornness. 
• I pause every day to give thanks to the sun. I love the sun.
• How can I let life in? How can I reduce my resistance to life, as it is? Every complaint is resistance. Every internal 'no' is another brick in the wall between me and reality. 

Happy New Year.

One Woman's Philosophy and Consequent Journey

Asanas Help Unblock Grace Within the Body

This is a repost from a couple of years ago: 

Lately I’ve discovered how important asana practice is in helping the body assimilate the energy shifts in spiritual awakening.

This is not the same as kundalini yoga.

This is not the same as healing by using anana practice.

People all across the planet are awakening. There is something happening to the world. Its everywhere. People talking about 2012, strange dreams, weird sightings of spirits and increased clairvoyant activity.

I don’t know what’s happening to the world. I don’t claim to have a higher source of information. I only know that many people are talking about their spiritual emergence, their awakening.

Awakening to what? To another life beyond the constant round of shopping trips, and materialistic gains, and entertainment. A life that points at possible fulfilment on a spiritual level. At something more profound, more deep, more lasting.

But to get to such a place, we need to drop our little bag of knowledge. We need to give up a big part of our known, so that we can see into the possibility of the unknown.

People are struggling with the inner self and the outer self. They have headaches, sweating, pain, random itching and when the go to the doctor, as they should, for their check up – the doctor says, well, you can have a few (expensive) tests, but it looks like there’s nothing wrong with you. Possibly, you take the tests, and still, there’s nothing wrong with you – nothing that the medical profession can pin point.

What’s happening?
Some say its kundalini rising. Some call it spiritual awakening. Some say it’s the flowering of human consciousness. I don't know what to call it.

Remember, we are all changing. All of us have been afraid and fearing our own madness.

There is a template that can help us through this. It’s the chakra system. Feel free to read about what I wrote on suite101 about the Chakra Basics.

Now I’ve been practicing a mixture of yoga and qigong and meditation since 1989. Its not that long in a life time, and I’m the first one to say I’m still learning. But there is something I have discovered.

And that is asana practice and qigong can help keep the body open to the flow and changes of energy within the body. The energy moves – people feel it – and if your body is open, strong and flexible – it doesn’t block the flow. The asana practice keeps your body from holding the pain of spiritual emergence.

Everybody’s body is different. Ask your yoga teacher for help, if you think these symptoms sound like yours. Otherwise feel free to contact me.

Remember, you are highly recommended to visit your doctor first, before you try alternative therapies.

Spiritual Crisis - an interview with Christina Grof

Signs of Spiritual Awakening on Spiritual Blessings Forum

Swamiji's Practical Journey Through the Yoga Sutras

This is copy and pasted from Swamiji's Website.  

Yoga Sutras by Swami Rama

Amma in Granollers 2010 - My Second Personal Encounter

This year I was surprised that Amma came to Granollers to give darshan. The sports hall where she came is a ten minute walk from my house.

I spent all of my free time there. I didn't receive darshan this year. I didn't feel like I needed it. I was just happy to see her and be apart of the crowd.

If you don't know much about Hinduism, perhaps it all looks a bit like a circus. People running around in white robes and unfamiliar music being played and people bowing. it can be a bit overwhelming.

I used to feel like that going into a church when I was younger. That I didn't fit in, that I didn't know the rituals and it seemed like an alien place.

And yet, if you have the patience to look beyond all of the circus you will see the most amazing person I have ever laid eyes on. Amma is sweetness personified. She is loving, generous, intense, personal, wisdom personified. She puts all of her idealism into practice, making her true to her word and honest through and through.

I don't know about her devotees, and I don't know what other people want from her. I just know that when I see her smiling face and when I sit nearby watching her take strangers into her arms as though they were her own children, I am truly amazed. A few hours with her help to erase so much of the negative programing we receive in every day life. The 'me first' mentality, the pushing and shoving, the selfishness, the lies of the media, the fear in people's bodies. All of this is shoved aside.

Amma makes it all seem so simple. I am not a devotee. I am an ardent admirer and supporter of Amma's life purpose.  If you get the chance to see her, take it!

My First Meeting with Amma - A Personal Story

The first time I went to see Amma I received darshan, the hug. This is an incredibly personal thing, so everyone feels something different. This is my story only.

Amma hugged me, and it was as if time stopped. I was in ‘space’. It was like a vacuum, and it was deep inside of ‘me’, where ever that was. Deeper than I have ever consciously been before. It was black. It was quiet. It was still. It was alive.

And this tiny sensation (everything happened in sensation, not in words, so its not the same as what actually happened) began to resound through the space, outward in waves.

And it hit upon something I didn’t know existed.

I was pulled away from Amma, and she smiled into my eyes and a sweet was pressed into my hand and I mechanically picked up my bag and walked to the back of the large hall with tears streaming down my face.

Then I remembered that she was soft. That she hugged with no reserve in her body. She had no fear. And she whispered ‘cara mia’ over and over in my ear.

I sat in a daze for about 40 minutes and every time I went into the moment of ‘space’ I had a sensation of falling and pulsations racing through my body that made me tremble with fear. In her embrace, I felt freedom. You think that when freedom is offered to you, you’d leap at it. But I didn’t. I trembled and hesitated and realized I wasn’t sure if I wanted what she had to offer.

In her embrace, in the depth of my being as I knew it, Amma revealed to me that I was loved. It sounds ridiculous. But it was freedom. Terrifying freedom. And all of the things that I had not done, that I had not fulfilled, were based on the illusion that I was not loved, and my reaction to this feeling.

If I was loved to the depth of my being, then there was nothing to stop me.

That was my first meeting with Amma in 2009. 

Surrender to God

To surrender oneself is something more
than to devote oneself, more than to give oneself,
it is even more than to abandon oneself to God.
To surrender oneself is to die to everything and to self,
to keep it continually turned towards God.
Self-surrender is no longer to seek self-satisfaction in anything
but solely God's good pleasure.
It should be added that self-surrender is to follow
that complete spirit of detachment
which holds to nothing;
neither to persons nor to things,
neither to time nor to place.

It means to accept everything, to submit to everything.

But perhaps you will think this is a difficult thing.
Do not let yourself be deceived; there is nothing so easy to do,
nothing so sweet to put into practice.
The whole thing consists in making a generous act at the very beginning,
by saying with all the sincerity of your heart:
"My God, I wish to be entirely thine; deign to accept my offering"
— then all is said. ...

You must always remember that you have surrendered yourself.

st. thérèse couderc - 1864

Jain Sutras

I saw a golden city ablaze with light in my vision. Two years later I was in Jaisalmer (the Golden City) in a Jain temple and the presence of the place cut through my judgmental mind.  I have a soft spot for the Jains. I'm reading the Jain Sutras now, here at Sacred Texts.

Finding the Commons in our Unity

In striving to recognize the primacy of Fire and Light,

I feel kinship with my Zoroastrian brothers and sisters.

In striving to obey the Ten Commandments,

I feel kinship with my Jewish brothers and sisters.

In striving to be kind to neighbor and the needy,

I feel kinship with my Christian brothers and sisters.

In striving to be compassionate to creatures great and small,

I feel kinship with my Buddhist-Jaina brothers and sisters.

In striving to surrender myself completely to God Almighty,

I feel kinship with my Muslim brothers and sisters.

In the recognition that wisdom flows from enlightened masters,

I feel kinship with my Sikh brothers and sisters.

In remembering that serving people should be the goal of religion,

I feel kinship with my Baha'i brothers and sisters.

In my respect and reverence for Nature that sustains us,

I feel kinship with my Native American brothers and sisters.

In feeling that these and more are all paths to the same Divinity,

I feel kinship with my Hindu brothers and sisters.

In my love and laughter, joy and pain,

I feel kinship with all my fellow humans.

In my need for nourishment and instinct to live on,

I feel kinship with all beings on the planet.

In my spiritual ecstasy with this wondrous world,

I feel kinship with the Cosmic Whole.

universal reflection - v. v. raman - cape of good hope - 1999

Embody the Mystery

Another day and I throw out the question again. 'What am I suppose to do?' If i feel these things, if I see Life behind the surface, if I know that so much of it is just a playground, what am I to do?
The answer has only ever been energetic. That is, I feel it within my body. I feel an extra charge of Life course through my insides and I interpret it as 'be a channel for Grace' - words taken from Caroline Myss.
Today was something different. A great light pierced my forehead. The word 'embody' pulsated in my mind. Embody what? I ask, still wanting everything spelt out.

'Embody Life.'

'Embody the Mystery.'

'Embody God.'

'Embody the Tao.'

But more simply, just 'embody'.

Its very personal. I embody 'It' my way. There is no law, there is no script, there is only what is. 'The You and Me becoming We.'

My way is through the body. Through the awareness of prana/chi/qi in the body. Using Hatha Yoga and Qigong to enhance awareness of the awakening of the Life Force within us all. So be it.

At the same moment, I discovered the beautiful video below of Seane Corn. She is living her Yoga as it was originally taught. Thank you for the inspiration.

Yoga from the Heart - Seane Corn

Seane Corn Demonstrates "Body Prayer" from onBeing on Vimeo.

Acceptance - McAuley

My God, I am yours for time and eternity.

Teach me to cast myself entirely

into the arms of your loving Providence

with a lively, unlimited confidence in your compassionate, tender pity.

Grant, O most merciful Redeemer,

That whatever you ordain or permit may be acceptable to me.

Take from my heart all painful anxiety;

let nothing sadden me but sin,

nothing delight me but the hope

of coming to the possession of You

my God and my all,

in your everlasting kingdom.


Amen.

suscipe of catherine mcauley - 1778-1841

Being Human - Moloko

A New Beginning - Adyashanti's Invitation

"Its the beginning of a new way of life. Instead of a life lived from the separate ego, from the illusion of the egoic personality identity,  its the beginning of life lived from a conscious recognition of our true nature as spirit. And that's a truly new life. That's a beginning. Its the end of  identification with egoic personality, but its not the end of spirituality as some people think. Its actually the beginning of a new way of life. Its the beginning of the discovery, an ongoing discovery of what's it like, what is it, to recognize that you are spirit appearing as a human being. What is it to begin to live life from that recognition. That is a journey all of on itself. How does one express that recognition?"

Transcript from Adyashanti's audio CD True Meditation.   If you have Spotify.

A Must Watch - The Two Sides of the Brain

And for more about Jill Taylor

Thy Will

Dearest Lord, teach me to be generous, teach me to serve you as I should, to give and not to count the cost, to fight and not to heed the wounds, to toil and not to seek for rest, to labour and ask not for reward, save that of knowing that I do your most holy will.

jesuit - st. ignatius loyola - 16th century Photo: Albert Vila, Australia

Itchy Legs While Running - a Solution!

I started running again about 6 weeks ago. Every day I'd start off with a positive attitude and a sporty gait, and after about ten minutes my skin would start itching to the point of madness. I've read some forum stories of women ripping their skin open in an attempt to ease the discomfort.

It turns out that the itchiness is usually caused by the capillaries expanding upon the introduction of blood to the surface of the skin. That is hot blood moving into the cold and contracted surface of the skin. Some people don't notice it at all, and others can have a lot of problems with pain.

I read some of the online advice and decided against an antihistamine 30 minutes before my jog, or just putting up with it. I thought about the problem and decided that if it was a hot and cold problem, if I started jogging when I was already warm, the problem might be avoided.

A Warm/Hot Bath!

So, before I've been jogging, I've taken a hot bath for ten minutes and I then massage my legs and 'scrub' them with ex foliating gloves.   This stimulates the skin and makes the blood flow to the surface. I then don my normal jogging attire and I have had no problem since. Nothing. Nada. No discomfort.

Now its just a matter of lung capacity, and that I am working on.


Photo: Granollers Half Marathon 2009, Tiffany Jones

The Body Knows Better than the Mind?

SBS news: article on experiments on touch typists.

Just Beneath the Surface

We’ve been on this path together for a long time. Shifting between teacher and student and into the I’m just going to be ‘me’ for the weekend persona.There’s a new book to discuss, there’s a new meditation or a new teacher or a new dream or experience. And it never stops.
In the past few months, I’ve been deeply listening to Eckhart Tolle and more recently to Adyashanti. And their call is to discover the present moment. To discover ‘what is’ rather than what I want or what I think ‘is’. And remarkably or not, its not one and the same thing.
There have been a few triggers in the audios and books I’ve been reading, but the one that brings me to this moment is ‘is it true?’
This question, when gently asked when any thought arises, acts like a laser gun. Everything is dematerialising before my eyes.
But guess what I discovered just beneath the surface.
A snarling, growling, vicious dog.
That is, someone who is slightly irritated with pretty much everything. The surface appears to be calm, I grant you, but just beneath is a raging whirlpool of black fumes. General dissatisfaction. For everything. Yes, I could say, for pretty much everything. And no, I’m not pre-menstrual.
I’m surprised, to say the least. Lift the lid off the pot to discover a boiling concoction that doesn’t look that tempting for dinner.
Hmm.
When I’m doing yoga, qigong, walking, cooking, studying, typing, I am exploring the layers within for resistance. Am I allowing what ‘is’ to be? Or am I insisting on another framework. Delicious. At every moment I am resisting. Deviously. Secretly. Little pockets of secret forces holding up in my top right shoulder or in the side of my neck. Tension building and afraid of annihilation.
So I turn the light up and shine it on. Is it true? Or is it a fabrication for safety? And the smoke shifts, there’s a certain scuttling and moving away, only to gather again, somewhere else, another layer deep into the terrain of me.
A mission of search and discover. Of claiming territory. Of rooting out illusion and seeing just how deep the infestation has gone.
‘Am I really allowing this moment to be?’
‘Is it the truth?’

I love these phrases. I love them because they are what drove me to seek in the first place. With real innocence and true hunger for the Truth. I was sidetracked by mirrors for a while, but I think I’m back on track.

Adya and Tolle

Awaken!

I woke from dreams
where righteous mothers
beat their daughters
the bones quietly bending. 

I said, Dreamer
Awaken from shoulds
ideas of right
the falseness of words on words.

My feet hit the 
cold floor as I stood.
Flash of face
repeat of the same events.

Dreamer! I said
You are trapped here too
another dream.
Dream within a dream within.

Life, sweet Life is. 
Now, here, awaken!
Follow the thought 
to its place of origin.

Its only here
in the pulse of now
where the dream stops;
Silence embraces stillness.

And so much more
and less than I thought. 
A thought can not 
embark on this now journey. 

I woke from dreams
where thought ruled supreme,
painting pictures;
the good, the bad, the ugly.






Photo: Tiffany Jones  (Australia, 2009)

Between Sounds

Arising, like a lick of flame
bubbling, rushing, sweeping.

Quiet.

Pulsations from the chest,
the rise and fall of passing cars
the mosquito irritation of a moto.

tick tick
pulse pulse

Gently, quietly, with real curiosity
the tentacles softly approach 
who feels
who hears the traffic and the clock?

Ahh, the gentle smile runs 
like a delicate stream
to the tips of fingers and toes.

Fear sets its construction in place
and still I breathe,
air rasping in my throat.

Great Prayer!

Lord,

Thank goodness you know me,

because I don't always know myself!

I suppose there is a purpose to the menopause,

forgive me when I fail to see it!

Please help me to understand why bits of my anatomy

are travelling south at alarming speed.

Why does a nice juicy apple not have the same

'must eat' quality of a yummy chocolate cream gateau?

You don't get to my age without knowing a thing or two,

please help me to disseminate my wisdom

without saying the fatal words

'I told you so!'

I admit to an interest in others affairs;

keep me from passing on

the tempting gossip and smugness that comes

from not giving into similar temptation.

Support me while I listen to another's woes.

Help me to resist the urge

to regale the hapless person with my

much more important tales of adversity.

When complaining that the young

do not have the same qualities I possessed in my youth,

help me to realize that rose tinted spectacles

aid my recollection!

I notice a certain asperity has crept into my speech

when discussing the problems of society,

please make my response

more thoughtful and less prejudiced.

While I will never be a candidate for beatification,

please enable me to attain a level of amiability

so I do not repulse my family and friends.

I am mathematically challenged

so please assist me to count my blessings and realize

that I am the most fortunate of women.

AMEN 

21st century middle aged woman's prayer - rose-mary gower 

Control Yourself!

O man! Control thyself Only then can you get salvation If you are to fight, fight against your own desires. Nothing will be achieved by Fighting against external enemies; If you miss this occasion, It will be lost forever. One's own unconquered soul Is one's greatest enemy.

jain scripture - acharanga sutra

Geldings

Dear men,

Yes, I'm talking to you.

Did your mother humiliate you and steal your confidence?
Did your ex abuse you until you felt like a cowering dog?
Did your dad steal your manpower as a teenager?
Did your boss tell you you were no good?

What happened that took your manhood?

Just society?  Conforming to your friends?  Drugs? What?

Look, I'm telling you right now, go back out there and find what you've lost. Now. There is no time to be lost. We need men. Real Men in the world. Integrated, full and strong, supporters and lovers, and protectors.

Go on, go get your balls back.

Photo: Tiffany Jones (Cambodia)

I Should

Today I wanted a piece of walnut bread.

It was already 11.30 am and I hadn't eaten anything for breakfast. I was under the impression that the walnut bread was sweet, and I felt uncomfortable eating sweet walnut bread  with a cup of tea first thing.

So, I thought I should have something 'proper' to eat first. So, I made a sandwich. I opened a small drink. When I finished my sandwich, there was still some drink left. But the drink was not going to suit the walnut bread. So then, I thought I should have a little snack to finish off the drink with. I ate the last of a packet of chips we'd opened the night before.

Finally, with the sandwich eaten, the drink drunk, and the chip packet in the rubbish bin, I decided it was time that I could now consume the walnut bread. I made a cup of tea also.

I took a bite of the walnut bread and realized instantly that it was savory,  not sweet, and had totally rendered my previous 'shoulds' redundant.

I ate at least 500 should calories for absolutely no reason.

What 'should' did you do today that you can see was totally pointless.

Wage Peace

Wage peace with your breath.

Breathe in firemen and rubble,

breathe out whole buildings and flocks of red wing blackbirds.

Breathe in terrorists

and breathe out sleeping children and freshly mown fields.

Breathe in confusion and breathe out maple trees.

Breathe in the fallen and breathe out lifelong friendships intact.

Wage peace with your listening: hearing sirens, pray loud.

Remember your tools: flower seeds, clothes pins, clean rivers.

Make soup.

Play music, memorize the words for thank you in three languages.

Learn to knit, and make a hat.

Think of chaos as dancing raspberries,

imagine grief

as the outbreath of beauty

or the gesture of fish.

Swim for the other side.

Wage peace.

Never has the world seemed so fresh and precious:

Have a cup of tea and rejoice.

Act as if armistice has already arrived.

Celebrate today.

wage peace - judyth hill - september 12, 2001

Listening to the Body - a case study

After walking for 24 days in the Camino de Santiago, I came home feeling clean – internally clean.  There was a flow of life and love through the body and I felt emptied out.

Then, this morning, I was confronted with a rock of pain in my throat chakra. It hit hard, considering my recent ‘empty’ state.

I was sitting down stairs, in the local bar/café, and slowly I went through the motions of the pain.

I was sitting in my Catalan class. I haven’t been there for nearly 5 weeks. I didn’t really want to go there, knowing the class would be far ahead of me. I haven’t bonded with any of the other students and most of them speak Spanish together in the break.  I usually feel like an outsider, in an outsider’s class. (We are all foreigners living in Catalonia, so we are identified ‘other’ from the locals.)

I was the first to arrive. I was happy to choose my own seat, and have time to take a look at the books. The first students started to arrive, and they all greeted me with a smile and a moment of surprise, considering my long absence.

Then one of the students, a young woman, saw me as she came in to the class (there are only five students, so its impossible not to see me) and she flicked her hair, and ignored me completely.  I had my face raised with a tentative smile. 

I could list my complaints about her. There are many. But the main one is ‘rudeness’. As I sat in my chair, and felt her silent slap in the face to my reappearance, my mind instantly went to other petty things I disliked about the girl. Her hair, her too tight clothing, the way she laughed ‘too loud’, her black high heels, her inability to be ‘wrong’ in class, and there were so many little nit picky things I was thinking – and my throat started to hurt. Its even closing up now, as I write this.

What is the throat chakra related to? Will power. My will power over others, and over the Tao, the Great Way, over God’s will, and over this girl’s will.

The great pain I suffered this morning was my own doing. It had nothing to do with the girl. But her audacity, to live in a way that did not subscribe to MY internal laws, hurt my throat.

Rudeness is one of the things that has always ‘got my goat’, so to speak. It makes me hiss and bare my teeth. But again, ‘rudeness’ and what it represents is MY way of seeing the world, and it’s a way that is not obviously universal.

So here I was, confronted with my will, the way I wanted to world to behave, with someone else’s. And that confrontation gave me the first echoes of pain I’ve had in 5 days.  

We use qigong and yoga to clean the body, mind and spirit of the daily refuse.

Your body is your greatest teacher. Follow its feelings, its awareness, its pain, its subtraction, its expansion. Follow its guidance, and it will indicate to you, where you’re sending your energy, your time, and your love.

Thank you to the girl in my class, for helping me to see myself clearer. Truly you are my teacher. 

What's made you froth at the mouth today? 

An Invitation to 100 days

Good afternoon everyone.

Today I am encouraging you to join me in doing your chosen activity for 100 days.

The activity can be anything you have been meaning to do/study, but have found it difficult to become motivated.  Today is the first of June. What better time to start?

Personally, I am going to do my sumi-e and my Catalan for 100 days straight. If you get sidetracked and miss a day, then you haven’t got the point of this invitation.

This is to stick to one activity, every day, for 100 days. Something you’ve wanted to do, but don’t, for one reason or another.

This is not the time to put it back on the shelf. Its time to set some time aside, let it be 15 minutes, 30 minutes, or an hour, every day, and ‘do it’.

Write in a journal, every day, for 100 days. What is it that you want to do?

I want to paint. And I will. I also need to learn Catalan, so I shall.

Come join me! 

Wisdom of the World

May your journey

through the universal questions of life

bring you to a new moment of awareness.

May it be an enlightening one.

May you find embedded in the past,

like all the students of life before you,

the answers you are seeking now. 

May they awaken that in you which is

deeper than fact,

truer than fiction,

full of faith. 

May you come to know

that in every human event

is a particle of the Divine

to which we turn for meaning here,

to which we tend for fullness of life hereafter. 

~ sr. joan chittister - Benedictine Sisters of Erie