I realize as I am blessed by the love and respect of others when they choose to lean on me or share with me during difficult times. It reminds me of what I believe is a Sarah MacLaughlin song "Prayer of St. Francis" (which I imagine comes from the actual prayer of St. Francis). It is so beautiful and so true.. "To understand is to be understood"...
That which we want to receive we have to give to others- love, patience, understanding, compassion, generosity... And when we are leaned on, it makes us stronger. When we give we get. When we receive, it is natural to pay it forward. The light, the glow, only grows. There is no shortage of goodness, love, kindness- the more it is given the more it expands, spreads, and arises expansively from the deepest center of our being.
In humble gratitude and deep loving-kindness towards all life... Namaste.
Wednesday, February 22, 2012
Monday, February 20, 2012
Peaceful Anarchy
Most people think of selfish anarchy, outwardly centered. This is not the anarchy that I know and practice. Hi, my name is Laura, and I am a peaceful anarchist.
My teachers had a Guru who called himself the Anarchist Swami. Swami Nirmalananda believe and lived and taught that we should all be independent (literally inwardly dependent). We should follow our own conscience in life. That to me is the definition of anarchy- not accepting outward rule, but governing oneself in line with the truth of the heart.
It will guide us to be authentic, fully-expressed humans, that do not perpetuate harm of other beings. It will assist the full blossoming of our individual purpose and potential, while encouraging community, compassion, and respect. It fosters intelligence, a questioning attitude that leads to discovery of the broadest truth, and eliminates the blind following that destroys all goodness and evolution in the world.
It is not always easy to follow the heart (or back of your mind if you prefer it) but with practice it will not steer you wrong. Every time I have ever given myself to my heart it has always proven not just doable, but amazing, incredible, nothing short of dreams coming true in ways I couldn't have consciously planned. It requires bowing the head, the rational outlook, to the heart-felt way of life. This is the way to live life like you mean it. Why deny unconditional love? Why ignore inspiration? All brilliance, all that is ever really wonderful in the world unfolds naturally from love, from the heart, the conscience. Conscious conscience. That is the new anarchy. And in this way, I am an anarchist for life, baby! Namaste!!
My teachers had a Guru who called himself the Anarchist Swami. Swami Nirmalananda believe and lived and taught that we should all be independent (literally inwardly dependent). We should follow our own conscience in life. That to me is the definition of anarchy- not accepting outward rule, but governing oneself in line with the truth of the heart.
It will guide us to be authentic, fully-expressed humans, that do not perpetuate harm of other beings. It will assist the full blossoming of our individual purpose and potential, while encouraging community, compassion, and respect. It fosters intelligence, a questioning attitude that leads to discovery of the broadest truth, and eliminates the blind following that destroys all goodness and evolution in the world.
It is not always easy to follow the heart (or back of your mind if you prefer it) but with practice it will not steer you wrong. Every time I have ever given myself to my heart it has always proven not just doable, but amazing, incredible, nothing short of dreams coming true in ways I couldn't have consciously planned. It requires bowing the head, the rational outlook, to the heart-felt way of life. This is the way to live life like you mean it. Why deny unconditional love? Why ignore inspiration? All brilliance, all that is ever really wonderful in the world unfolds naturally from love, from the heart, the conscience. Conscious conscience. That is the new anarchy. And in this way, I am an anarchist for life, baby! Namaste!!
Out of Our Heads and Into the Moment
It is astonishing how much suffering we cause ourselves by tripping over the hypothetical situations in our own minds. We often take things personally that have absolutely nothing to do with us. We hold on to it, spin a tale, make drama, react to the stress, and later find out that it was all just in our own minds.
Example: I left a lot of dishes in the sink when I left last night, (which is not typical for me at all) and when my roommate didn't answer my texts this morning my head fabricated all sorts of garbage, such as "she's angry at me", and all the way to, "maybe I left a burner on and the house exploded". At this stage in the game, I witnessed those thoughts and didn't start to panic and blow up her phone. Which is good, because she was actually at a very high-stress business meeting on her day off. What a foolish thing the human mind is.
We do this same torturous action to ourselves over and over. Everything is personal. Really, though, is it?? Even when people direct anger towards us in an otherwise personal way, we have to realize that their view is colored by an entire lifetime of actions, reactions, history and whatever mind-garbage was floating through their mind clouding their view at the time.
It amazes me sometimes how the average person can even drive a car without crashing into everything... with all that clutter and hypothetical drama threatening their view in every moment!!
According to Eastern philosophy, the way we label this part of our self that is so selfish, easily-threatened and deluded, is the "ego", or "small-self" or "self" with a lowercase s. The "Self", the "highest Self", or "big-mind" in Buddhism denote the part of us that is interconnected and whole, at one and at peace with Reality and the entire Universe. It is the part of us that knows our mind is sometimes and maybe quite frequently ridiculous.
Practicing meditation and yoga poses helps us to get in the habit of connecting with the expansive, Universal side of ourselves, and helps us to witness the ego in all of its insanity. The Universal Self is the sane part of each of us. The more we practice, the more deeply we connect and then we build a new way of viewing the world that encourages our greatest potential and saves us from surrendering to unneeded stress created by the funny functioning of the human mind. This thing should come with an owner's manual.
Example: I left a lot of dishes in the sink when I left last night, (which is not typical for me at all) and when my roommate didn't answer my texts this morning my head fabricated all sorts of garbage, such as "she's angry at me", and all the way to, "maybe I left a burner on and the house exploded". At this stage in the game, I witnessed those thoughts and didn't start to panic and blow up her phone. Which is good, because she was actually at a very high-stress business meeting on her day off. What a foolish thing the human mind is.
We do this same torturous action to ourselves over and over. Everything is personal. Really, though, is it?? Even when people direct anger towards us in an otherwise personal way, we have to realize that their view is colored by an entire lifetime of actions, reactions, history and whatever mind-garbage was floating through their mind clouding their view at the time.
It amazes me sometimes how the average person can even drive a car without crashing into everything... with all that clutter and hypothetical drama threatening their view in every moment!!
According to Eastern philosophy, the way we label this part of our self that is so selfish, easily-threatened and deluded, is the "ego", or "small-self" or "self" with a lowercase s. The "Self", the "highest Self", or "big-mind" in Buddhism denote the part of us that is interconnected and whole, at one and at peace with Reality and the entire Universe. It is the part of us that knows our mind is sometimes and maybe quite frequently ridiculous.
Practicing meditation and yoga poses helps us to get in the habit of connecting with the expansive, Universal side of ourselves, and helps us to witness the ego in all of its insanity. The Universal Self is the sane part of each of us. The more we practice, the more deeply we connect and then we build a new way of viewing the world that encourages our greatest potential and saves us from surrendering to unneeded stress created by the funny functioning of the human mind. This thing should come with an owner's manual.
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