A Meditative Perspective

When most people think of meditation, they have an image of sitting in the lotus position on the floor and reciting a mantra like OM or following their breath as it goes in and out. There are also many other ways to bring you to a peaceful meditative state that combine breathing , humming, and moving . Yoga , Tai Chi, & Chi Gong are also ancient practices that facilitate meditation. One of the main purposes of meditation is to learn to just watch yourself , your thoughts , emotions , & sensations etc. The reason to just watch or become the witness of these aspects of your self , is to understand how to experience your life from a non-attached perspective. Your thoughts , feelings , emotions , and experiences are not the problem in and of themselves. It is the tendency to become attached to them and let them absorb all your consciousness , thereby making an identity that is separate from who you are out of them. A non-attached perspective does not mean fighting or repressing them. It is allowing them to be as they are fully, without being pulled into identification with them !
In addition to practicing various forms of meditation, this training or experience is meant to be brought into every aspect of your daily life and not left on the floor or at the yoga studio after you are finished. This is called living with a meditative perspective. By living in this way you can bring the energy of your deepest Self into all aspects of life. This is the joy of Being!!!

Which is Bigger >

Which is bigger ? Your mind or the Universe . That is an interesting question. Often when we think of ourselves in relation to the vast cosmos, we seem very very small and insignificant. In one sense part of that is true . We are a spark of Divine life flowing in the incredible ever expanding beauty of existence. However, to you and all other human beings, the universe arises within your mind. It is so. It cannot be otherwise ! Your mind contains all of life ! So how big, vast and deep are you ? There is something to meditate on !!!

Laughter

Where does laughter come from ? What is it's nature? To quote master OSHO who said" Laughter is the only true religion , Everything else is just metaphysics " says alot. When we truly laugh, we do so from our being center just below the navel. It does not come from the intellectual mind or from analytic thinking. It explodes from our deeper self. When we laugh together with others, it reveals the common ground or oneness of life. There is no room for superior or inferior here. It also creates a space or gap in our thinking , what Zen masters call no-mind ! It is extremely beneficial for our physical and emotional health , especially the lymphatic system as well. What a gift from Life that we can laugh.
When Gautam Buddha was looking for a successor that was enlightened and could carry on his work, he gathered many disciples in a large room. After many hours of serious and deep silence , the Buddha made a gesture with a flower to give to the chosen one. All the sudden one disciple began to laugh uncontrolably. The Buddha brought him to the front of the room, gave him the flower and said "You are my successor " The other disciples looked on with utter amazement.
This is the power and beauty of laughter !!!

Healing the Ego

Throughout history the spiritual aspirant of most faiths were required to recluse themselves from the world in order to undertake the perceived necessity to annihilate the ego in their path towards God. Although this may very well have been a necessary process or stage in the evolution of human consciousness, in today's world and environment, we can no longer afford to, nor is it necessary to adopt this approach. We are now at the stage as mystic Caroline Myss eloquently puts it " to resolve the paradox for the need for a strong and healthy ego and the still fundamental need to release the ego in order to experience God or the Higher Self ".On the surface this seems like an almost impossible contradiction to reconcile. How can we both strengthen our ego and at the same time release it or transcend it. In my view the ego itself is not the problem. It is the unhealthy ego that creates the void and separation from our basic divine nature and realty. This begs the question , what is a healthy and unhealthy ego ? An unhealthy ego which perplexes 99.9% of humanity, is based on the idea that our are fundamental identity is our ego. In other words it is confused about its role in the overall functioning of the human being. Thinking that it is the be all and end all of life itself , it is attached to things and tries to control or dominate our being. It has become ,and we have allowed it, to be a maniacal tyrant over us both individually and collectively. This happens on many subtle levels and reveals this disfunction when we face minor and major difficulties or challenges in our lives. It becomes very resistant to the perceived erosion of control and creates tremendous fear in defense of its territory. The healthy ego , which was created by life is one that functions in the role of servant and supporter of our deeper nature . So instead of blocking or distorting our aspirations to know ourselves at the essential level of heart and spiritual being , it would help point the way and lead us to that ultimate place within the depths of life itself. At this point we should focus our attention and energy on educating the ego of its true role and place , and make Friends with it. This seems like a much more healthy approach than the old days of total annihilation!!

Your Finances & Your Chakras

Some may wonder how the ancient yogic system of the chakras has any relation to money & finance. Doesn't the world of money revolve around economic factors and materialism , while the chakras are focused on spirituality and the human energy field ? On the surface this appears to be, however this assumption is based on a dualistic view of life that divides and compartmentalizes reality into seemingly polar opposites that are separate and many times at odds with each other. In my view this perspective is basically flawed for a number of reasons. Money is basically a concept or symbol for the things of this world , how we control or trade and exchange goods and services. However , on a deeper level money represents energy both symbolically and literally. Most humans are extremely emotional about their finances both in today's world as well as throughout history. One can vividly imagine many people jumping out of the windows on Wall street during the severe market crash in October of 1929. Wars and other political conflicts have basically centered around the control and distribution of financial resources and what that represents , land, trade, economic inequality, import / export, etc. On the level of the individual, if you look closely at your own experience, you can feel how real this connection is. The energy of money affects our chakra system dramatically. This is espscially true for our first or root chakra, which represents our energetic metabolism of issues related to our physical survival and security. The energy from the root charka , which is connected to the earth energy that sustains all life on the planet, then influences all the other chakras , but especially the second or sacral chakra, and the third or solar plexus chakra. These first three are where the energetic metabolism takes place related to our physical bodies and human emotional health. If one is experiencing financial difficulties, working only on the mental level in devising solutions to these issues is like treating the symptoms of the disease and not the deeper root causes which usually exists on the emotional and psychological level. A more holistic solution would include therapy the integrates all aspects of healing on the energetic system of the chakras. Helping the person balance and harmonize their chakra energy as it relates to their finances could help not only with the current situation, but also help in preventing reocurrances in the future. Life and human beings are one organic system including the financial system the we have created . The health of the individual has a direct impact on the overall health of our financial system in so many ways. I believe the holistic or non-dual approach to our finances is not only important, but vital to the current and future health of our economic system.

A Separate Security

Do we really need a separate security ? Most human beings on the planet put a great deal of time and energy trying to survive and and create security on many levels. This comes from a basically flawed assumption that existence itself has not ensured our basic survival and security already. It comes from the belief that we are separate from life and live in a hostile world where we have to compete or fight over limited resources . The ancient Taoists sages had a different perspective. They taught that man/woman were the connection or synapse between heaven and earth. They taught that life is a balance of two polar energies ( yin & yang) and we are not separate from those energies . We are connected and part of the flow of life !! If existence has created us as well as all of the natural world and cosmos , which it sustains in all the abundant forms we perceive as well as those we do not, then why not so for human beings? Is this perceived separation true and accurate or is it a basic flaw in our beliefs and thinking? All of life is one ! We really don't need a separate security! It is a basic lack of trust in life that it has already and will provide for our needs that drives this flaw in our perception. It is why at all levels we see a dramatic imbalance in resources throughout the world. This not only affects the world economy, it also affects all aspects ; politics, crime , social issues , hunger , disease , etc.
Maybe the ancient Taoists masters knew something we could all learn from. Life is abundant!!
Heaven's energy is above us , Mother Earth's is below us . Hell is living only in the egoic mind!