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How many of you find yourself worrying about things that are beyond your control? I know I am guilty of this all the time, even though I realize the futility of the effort.

What about feelings like jealousy, angst, or even malice? Have you ever found yourself caught up in a torrent of emotion that seems to take control of your mind without you even realizing it?

I only say this because I experience it too, and what I’ve come to realize during my meditation is that for some reason, people love to give themselves up to their emotions. Now, this works with both positive and negative emotions, but what I want to talk about here are the negative ones.

It happens so quickly and before we know it we are overcome with a poisonous mindset. It almost seems as if we are addicted to emotion…almost as if we thrive on it. As we feed our minds with these poisonous thoughts, we start to crave them more and more. We start to create an appetite that is insatiable and cannot be conquered. Over time, our lives become a permanent state of jealousy, angst, hate, rage, depression, or bigotry. We start to isolate ourselves from others, and as we do this we feel more and more disconnected from the world. Yet, we don’t experience it in this context…we think the world is disconnecting from us.

We create enemies out of friends and fighters out of lovers. We start to withdraw further into our mental delusions and eventually we forget where we are or who we are.

These poisons that we fill our mind with are one of the quickest ways to cutting ourselves off from our spirit. If you find yourself experiencing these feelings, try to remember to sit back and observe as your mind sparks with senseless fury. It will conjure these feelings from thin air, yet expect you to believe they are real. These emotions are nothing more than a thought process that we invest in. If you stop investing in the thought process, you stop feeding the beast that keeps you from your path.

The true path of the Dharma is one of peace and compassion, not of jealousy and rage. Your ego is a wonderful trickster and is always finding new ways to lure you off of your path. Stay focused on living your dharma and do not be distracted by useless emotional patterns. Let go of your hate, your rage, and your jealousy. Realize that these negative emotions will only lead you onto a path of despair – a state of hell.

Accept things that you cannot change and work to improve those that you can. Remember, we are all dying and regardless of how you try to cover it up, one day you too will fade away. Use this time to hone your meditation and your contemplative spirit. Withdraw from the world of Samsara and retreat into your inner being. Only there will you find your true self.

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You claim freedom and free will, but how far are you willing to go to back that up? Given the choice, would you take the red pill and risk everything to gain it all, or would you be afraid to leave your “quasi” life behind and cower behind the blue pill?

Many people say that they want freedom, but I’m willing to be that they simply tell themselves that to mask the fact that they don’t have the strength or courage to do what they know must be done.

You have a choice…you can forsake everything you have for the sake of a spiritual journey, or you can remain in place, stuck to a body that will die and a life that will fade away.

How Much Control are

You Willing to Give Up?

The question isn’t so much, how much control do you have – the question is how much are you willing to give up? The true measure of control is the amount that we are willing to let go of and I’m willing to be that given the choice, many of use would retreat to our comfort zone.

You see, I know you feel it somewhere deep inside of you, that urge to break free of your cocoon and live the life of a butterfly. I bet that every day that passes where you haven’t shed a layer has resulted in another layer being added. Every day you feel the emotional energy build up inside of you, but you are afraid. You can’t take the pain of separation, of change.

So where does that leave us? You aren’t alone. We are all tied to our social and physical bonds. However, if we just realize that eventually, everything is going to fade away regardless, then we can accept our life as a butterfly much easier.

The truth is, once you face death and conquer it, you fear nothing. Doesn’t that sound like a wonderful way to live?

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Do you live with a panic deep inside of you? You might not even know it is there, but you can probably feel it. It drives you to continually find new ways to improve yourself and to better your life. It drives you to eat more, drink more, or spend more money. You keep trying to find a new rush to fill up the gaps in your life, but you keep ending up in the same position.

The panic I’m talking about is a hole that doesn’t seem to fill up no matter what you try to fill it with. Some people think money will fill it, some think that family will fill it, while others think that helping others will fill it. However, every time that you do something that you see as the peak experience, every time that you reach a goal, this feeling doesn’t go away. In fact, you start to get more desperate…you try and try until it begins to eat you alive. Then it hit you, maybe like it hit me: no matter what I do, I am never going to fill the hole…ever.

You see, the hole I am talking about is a hole in your spirit that keeps telling you there is something wrong in your life. The problem is that in most people, it manifests in material ways, rather than spiritual ways. You think that becoming a millionaire, helping the poor, or finding love will all help to fill the hole. The problem is that it doesn’t work…none of it does.

I thought that money would help me, but it didn’t. Then I started running, but I kept wanting more. I started competing, but just competing wasn’t good enough. I wanted to win…then I wanted to always win…can you see the pattern? Every time we reach what we think is the “peak experience,” we realize that the experience wasn’t what we expected at all. I was thinking about my personal goals and I kept noticing that every time I thought I’d found the true path to happiness, it never came.

That’s when it hit me – like a ton of bricks actually, that no matter what pursuits I go after or achieve, I will never find a physical way to fill that hole. All my striving, all of my hope, was based in a physical world that relies on that hope and striving to pull you deeper into it. You see, that is the trap that binds us to suffering. This ego creature is so masterful that it will find any way that it can to trick you into thinking you are on the right path. Only when you realize that you’ve lost your way will it give up and try something else.

This is what happened to me. I thought I was on my path, but I was being tricked into thinking that. I was never going to fill that hole, instead I would just be travelling further and further down the rabbit hole until I reached a point of no return.

The only true way to fill that hole is by spiritual experiences. Even those are fleeting, but they are much more real then the physical experience. I don’t care what religion you follow, but the truth is that if you want to stop striving then you have to find a way to satisfy your spirit. For me, I know exactly what I must do, and it is something I find a way to avoid every day – meditation. I know that I must withdraw myself from the world of Mara and go inward, but I keep getting tricked into giving up. Realize that when you are tricked into physical pursuits, that even should you accomplish them your cravings will still go unsatisfied. This monster is never full and it will devour every part of you that it can. Stop feeding the monster and go inward, toward the spirit. Only then can you find your true path and only then can you fill the hole.

Don’t live a life of quiet desperation where you feel a panic inside of you every day. You know the way to happiness and you know it is the right thing to do. Escape the trap of suffering and follow the way…live your Dharma.

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We live in a world that makes every possible attempt to control us. There are pysical, social, psychological, and even spiritual mechanisms in place to force our actions down a certain path. Those that are able to break free from these mechanisms of control are those you don’t see on the heavily travelled path. These people forge a path of their own through the jungle and because of this freedom they do not fear failure.

In my opinion, finding and maintaining a relationship with God is a personal journey that must be undertaken alone. You may meet others along your journey to help you find your way, but in the end the choice is up to you to Live Your Dharma.

They say that every guru you meet is nothing more than a physical manifestion of your own inner guru, and I can “feel” the truth in that statement. So, if the journey is a solo path that requires us to voyage inward, then how do we do it? Well, I view this journey as a parallel to an ascent back into the womb. I know it sounds strange, but try and remember the Matrix when Neo “woke up.” When he went through the process of awakening, he journeyed inward and beyond…out of the vortex and into the real world. I believe our spiritual journey to living our Dharma is very similar to that experience.

So you might be asking, what does this have to do with fasting? Well the answer is this:

Recently, as a result of a personal feeling of being too attached to certain emotions and experiences, I decided to go on a 3 day fast to break the chain binding me to some of these attachments. I also felt that there was something that God was trying to tell me, and I thought that if I tuned out and focuses solely on God, then I might hear what needed to be heard.

Although fasting can be difficult at times, during most of this experience I felt physically and emotionally detached from this existence. In otherwords, I felt good. The hunger tried to reach through and cause pain, but it felt outside of my body and I realized that there does exist a “watcher” within that is not attached to my body at all. Trying to tune in with that detachment allowed me to see myself as a spirit trapped inside of a dying body. I felt as if I was confronting death face to face…and I was not afraid. It was liberating to free myself from the bondage of physical attachment as things I normally used to gratify my ego became unimportant alltogether.

I also tried to remain silent and conserve my energy as much as possible. During this time I realized that words are nothing more than an escape from the “now” that Ram Dass talked so often about in his book Remember, Be Here Now. We use words too often and more often than not, they only convolude the actual experience. I often get agitated at long winded conversations and those that feel an attachment to talking, and I believe that was a progression towards the lesson I learned during my fast.

I’m not going to claim that I had a profound religious experience, but I do believe that I learned some very important lessons about myself and my nature that provided me with clues to eventually break free from Samsara. If we can start breaking these chains of attachment and mechanisms of control, then eventually we will see the world for what it really is – a mystical experience designed to lead us towards our Enlightenment and our final journey home.

Listen to the teacher inside of you. Listen to the voice that tells you where to go no matter how many physical, social, psychological, or spiritual boundaries you feel are in the way. Those that find a way to free themselves and start exploring their own path through the woods, usually end up right where they belong.

We live in a world where we are required to perform hundreds of tasks by hundreds of people on a routine basis. We have work responsibilities, family responsibilities, social responsibilities, and personal responsibilities. We have overburdened ourselves so much that it is no surprise we have turned to multitasking as a way out of this mess. The only problem with multitasking, is that the task lists never ends and we find ourselves shouldering more and more of a burden.

Mindfulness

Through the process of never ending multitasking, we find our minds become fragmented and child-like, unable to focus on anything for long periods of time. We can feel the changes in our psychology, and yet we find ourselves fascinated by it and addicted to it, we simply can not stop.

We need to reclaim our lives again in order to make ourselves whole. We cannot live fulfilled lives, let alone follow our dharma, if we are constantly distracted by the chaos of ordinary life. What I propose is that we concentrate on returning to a life of mindfulness and learn to harness our potential by living each moment as a whole, rather than a segregated part.

One of my favorite spiritual books of all time is a book called Be Here Now by Ram Dass. In the narrative portion of this book, Ram talks of a young man he meant in India that constantly reminded him to stay in the present and remember that “now is all there is.”

I think this is an incredibly valuable lesson that we could all benefit from. Here are some ways to implement this in your life:

• Do one thing at a time. Only multitask if you must. Distractions are Samsara’s way to keep you from the truth.
• Pay attention to your actions and contemplate why you do what you do.
• Pretend that everything you see, hear, and do is brand new to you. Don’t get caught in a routine.
• Don’t worry about the past, and try not to think about the future. Be present in the moment of “now.” Remember that the future will come with its own intentions, whether you like it or not.
• Spend time in meditation to train your mind to behave. This will make your practice of mindfulness much easier.

Being mindful of our actions can help us repair our minds to a state where we are capable of being in tune with what God intends for us. If we are distracted and out of tune with our dharma, then their is no way for us to follow our path. A life of distraction can only lead to our own destruction, either physically, mentally, or both. Find a way to take your mind back and make it whole, your destiny depends on it.

Living Your Dreams

In the last two parts of the series, I talked about eyeing the world with innocence, and keeping hope alive. In the final installment of this series, I’d like to talk about keeping your dreams alive. Now, nowhere in the manual of life does it have to say that you have to reach for the stars. However, I’m betting that when you were a child you had a great many dreams about what you expected out of life. Now if you compare the dreams of your childhood or teenage years and with your life now, I am betting that the two are a little out of sync. This doesn’t mean you’ve failed or that you’ve given up, but it does mean that one of two things happened:

1. Your dreams have changed     …or
2. You lost them somewhere along the way.

If your dreams have changed, then there is nothing wrong with re-evaluating what you want out of life. The key is to make sure you don’t forget that part of the process. If you dreamed about being a therapist and later thought you’d rather travel the world and be a missionary, then it is important to note that change in philosophy. I highly suggest keeping a journal for things like this. I keep a notebook within arms reach at all times, and in this notebook I chronicle everything I want to be. I write down reminders for action as well as reminders of who I was and what I am.

I’m not suggesting we strive to achieve meaningless physical goods, but that you simply keep track of who you are. It is so easy to get caught up in the grind and struggle of everyday life that sometimes we forget where we were headed. This is especially important when it comes to spirituality. If I want to meditate or keep a certain mindset it can be very difficult without a reminder at times. What I’m trying to say is that it is easy to get off track and eventually we get caught in the current and lose ourselves in the process. Rather than letting this happen to you, spend some time figuring out what makes you happy and what kind of life you’d like to live. If you aren’t actively living, then you are going to get pushed in a direction you may not want to go.

Now, if you don’t fall into category one and simply lost your dreams in the process then it is important that you recover them immediately. Whether they were forced out of you by working a 9-5, you gave up on them, or you simply pushed them into your subconscious you need to get back to the dreaming self you were as a child. The most recognizable symptom I notice when it comes to someone leaving their dreams behind is that they have also lost their imagination. Maybe you feel guilty going against the grain, or maybe you just haven’t spent time relaxing and letting your imagination go wild…but I am betting that you could use the relief gained from going on an imagination trip.

I really enjoy mind mapping for something like this, although a blank sheet of paper will do just as well. Start by writing down what sort of things you would like to have in your life on a daily basis. Maybe its more yoga, maybe learning a musical instrument, or maybe learning another language. Anything is possible. I know this sounds like a typical self-help exercise, but bear with me just a moment.

I’m confident that if you just engage your imagination as often as you can, you will find yourself seeing things in a different way. You will start to release yourself from the bonds that keep you down and you will start dreaming again. This dreaming is what will allow you to focus on the path that leads you to your dharma and to start walking it with confidence. Everyone’s journey is unique…we have to drive our own train to freedom!

Dreaming allows you to feel ok going against the grain. Dreaming keeps you young at heart and your imagination on fire! Dreaming teaches you that this world is not what it seems, its up to you to get there!

So in the end, I’m asking you to look beyond the ignorance and try to see the world for what it really is…a beautiful and unlimited masterpiece! Find hope in your world and pass it around to those that need it most. And don’t forget to bring that little child inside when you venture throughout the world. He/She wants to stroll right along side you and help you keep the innocence alive.

I hope you’ve enjoyed reading this series as much as I’ve enjoyed writing it. I’m looking forward to your comments and hope you share your journey with me as much as I have mine with you. Until next time…

Padma

Where there was once devotion, there is now diversification. Rather than make the difficult choice of consistent mediation, prayer, or compassion, we take the easy turn towards instant gratification. If you pay attention, you can feel it right now as you are reading this. For some of you, your mind is buzzing about how quickly you can read and move on to the next web page. You might be thinking about checking your email or your text messages while simultaneously worrying about something else entirely. We hardly notice that our minds have moved from a single one-pointed focus to resemble light entering a gem and split into a thousand beams. How powerful can we be with such feeble control of our minds?

The ego grasps at everything it can, from one pleasure to the next. Its desires are never fulfilled, and as a result you might find yourself feeling a thirst that can never be quenched. Most of us know, or at least feel at a subconscious level, that the path we walk will only lead us to destruction, however we are caught in the current. I’ve read books among books that speak of this, and yet its truth never really hit me until I was ready. I felt it today and upon noticing my mind zipping around I felt an immediate urge to focus. I had to visually imagine that I was reigning in my mind. Can you believe that? Our mind is so powerful that we have to work mentally and physically to reign it in. Depending on how long you have gone without focus, this action alone can be exhausting! So again I say, what are we to do in opposition?

Although I do not hold the answers, I look to others that have said all that is needed to be said. I read again the passages I remember and those I have not. However, the feeling deep inside of me is one that keeps repeating over and over again:

Were I to take the energy from my multitasking necessity and sensory craving and reinvest it into spiritual fulfillment, I could tear an incredible hole through the fabric that binds us to suffering.

Like I said, I don’t have all the answers, but now I am certainly aware of the problems.