Earth/Heart Inner Light Celebration

May we celebrate the wisdom that illuminates from our heart and this earth. People all over are observing   this July 22^nd by showing gratitude to the teacher by their disciples. In both Hindu and Buddhist faiths celebrate the full moon day of worship known as Guru Purnina. For Hindu’s this auspicious day of Guru Purnima, observes the memory of their great sage Vyasa, who both wrote the Brahma Sutras and was born on this day.  Fittingly Buddhist honor this occasion since Siddhartha Gautama gave his very first sermon at this exact same time. May you celebrate your Guru. We all have the potential to be wise teachers if we find a Guru who helps us remember that we all possess this luminous potential.

May you contemplate that you are your own Guru. Quiet your mind and observe stillness similar to pure bowl of water. We are all Buddha's challenged to become lighter and less dense.  Just before Siddhartha's enlightenment Mara tested him with many tempting distractions. Gautama became AWAKE and as the Buddha touched the earth as his witness. Let us bear this same witness and touch our earth/heart. We all one and the same interconnected light awakening.  

This festival of honoring lunar light reflected by our sun reveals how a spiritual teacher similarly illmuinates their students.  When paying homage to the importance of one’s beloved Guru, known as the remover of darkness, the disciple benefits for keeping alive their inner lamp.  This ritual commemorates the Guru and the benefits of their wise teachings again and again. 

In India, Gurus are of supreme importance in helping their students transcend the chains of sorrow and death and become liberated by this profound experience of Consciousness. On this full moon please celebrate our evolving and higher self by our Immortal and individual connections. We all are illuminated by the reflection of this  cosmic lunar occasion.

Many blessings and truly, may you deeply touch the Guru that shines within and all around you! 

http://hinduism.about.com/od/festivalsholidays/a/gurupurnima.htm

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guru_Purnima

Be Well

Right now is a great time to appreciate being.  While death is inevitable choosing to fully live is optional.  Neither avoiding nor holding on too tight may I embrace the present experience as the journey.  May I be fearless, joyful and peaceful.  Fully enthusiastic may my heart be happy, free and well!

Since I never know when my last moment will be why not live my life as if every moment may be my last.  Not to be morbid yet fully engaged into my very being, fearless, awake, accepting to whatever comes my way.  Otherwise my anxiety of being stimulates greater fear and negative states of being.

Facing my mortality, and embracing to leave this dimension from an intention of enthusiasm and appreciation, may I remember that in any given moment I can be alive instead of holding my breath with each new development.

I can be filled with joy, presence and possibility or I can be sad, absent and stuck in the past.  Breaking from my ancestors negative messages I can reframe my fears into the gifts to be fully heartful.

How can I best cultivate a peaceful and free way of being?  Show the greatest form of self love where I embody grace, wise response allowing moment to moment awareness to be my guide.

Listening to my body I find my inner truth.  What has heart and meaning comes from me exploring discerning my fears and shadows.  Embracing them I find that home is right where my heart is.  All things are sacred if only I can remember to arrive back here and now.

It is time for me to let go of old ancestral messages that I am not enough.  For me to fully be I must walk new mental paths to promote grace.  Remember that to move in peace, love, and courage.   To fully be myself I must expand my frequency of possibility with light and compassion.

I am not tentative, I no longer doubt, I am perfect.  Waiting I find that harmonious relations will respond in kind.

Since all things are connected I can best serve by demonstrating being well. 

Attitude of Freedom

The last of human freedoms is to choose ones attitudes – Victor Frankel

Presently I have been reflecting what imprisons me? As Joseph Campbell once said, “Life has no meaning, what we are looking for is the experience of life. We shut ourselves off from this experience”.  Just think our individual brain is filled with one hundred billion of cells.  Each of use these billions of brain cells differently in our life that either liberates us or makes us feel trapped.   

The human brain has two separate hemispheres and communicates with each. The left side is about past and future.  It thinks linear.  All about organizing details and how we associate it. It thinks in language with a little voice that remembers to do things.  Also the left is the calculating intelligence and the little voices saying I am separate. 

Accessing my right side of my brain I experience myself as a consciousness being inter- connected. I feel greater freedom when I connect with the greater whole and now since my brain is too left dominated. 

Seeing what is positive or possible helps me better deal with my circumstances then saying what is lacking or critical.   When I reframe my cynicism to optimism I better activate my creativity and flexibility.  

In Learned Optimism, Dr. Martin Seligman promotes seeing the silver lining in the grey clouds.  The challenge is creating meaningful experiences out of what many see as a meaning less world.    

Finding greater clarity and truth in our individual circumstances can open the doors to greater joy and life purpose.  Also seeing with greater understanding allows me greater freedom to see why and how things are the way they are.  More freedom gives me greater choices.   It is not that pessimism is bad and optimism is good.  It is about finding the proper balance in every specific experience of each.  Greater awareness and practice of optimism expands possibilities, outlooks and options.  It is not to say that pessimism does not have important role in our lives, however it does not have to be the most dominant.  

If everything is my life is based on how and being more wakeful in my experience of life then having greater clarity will help me best go forth.  The more I can experience my true nature as pure, radiant, and peaceful, the more liberated I become.  All great champions train in contemplative practices to both visualize winning and program their brains toward happiness, love and wisdom.  Now may I please remember life’s most important choice- either I have an attitude of freedom or suffer the consequences of not doing so.

I Ching: An Amazing Guide

The I Ching is invaluable tool to help me with observations to key questions and life situations.

My Inferior mind becomes active when my ego is consumed with doubts and fears misdirecting me.  This reactive mind-set keeps my true self imprisoned from universal truths and living in a more wholesome way. When I can emulate the virtues advocated in the I Ching then I can respond naturally and innocently improving my well being.  

My superior being is direct connection with my “inner truth” increasing my faith, willingness and dedication. The superior aspects of my being engage in kindness, devotion, openness, detachment, innocence, patience and modesty. Being modest helps me shift into a higher frequency of being. This activates greater me with self-willingness to better meet my daily challenges.   Also I find greater acceptance allowing me to celebrate what is and not become consumed with what is wrong.

  

I learn to resist less and be more patient turning matters over to the Cosmos for correction. Waiting as if thrown into the water and swimming instead of drowning.  Showing openness in I can lessen my drama so to see where my path will lead.  This gives me the opportunity to respond in a creative, spontaneous and spiritual way.  While the opposite is an egocentric, demanding attitude that shuts down and insists on being on center stage.

Kindness springs from inner necessity, an original innocence to prevent harm.  By not trying always to justifying my limited view, I can become liberated by seeing the entire perspective of all things are interconnects. The key for me is to exercise an unstructured mind and protect my dignity as a sacred trust with a divine sense of conscientiousness.  

Modesty is essential for me to find the higher ground beyond “me, my and mine”, respecting the unknown and recognize my insufficiency of power.   Allowing myself to listen and to flow with events instead of resist them, I activate an inner attentiveness.

    

Patience, restraint and yield with discipline and firmness to guard against my fear based pitfalls such as self-pity, doubt, fear, carelessness and indolence.  Modesty is helps stimulate the will power to commit to a clear path.  Grounded, detachment and an amazing ability to humbly disperse bad moods overcoming doubt I can better relate to what is happening.   Vigilance is all about recognizing the goal is not to get to a “place on the path” yet finding a daily connection to  my inner truth.  The I Ching lightens my egocentric dark programming to best find how every experience can teach me greater well being.

Cultivating Greater Mental Balance

The last of human freedoms is to choose ones attitudes – Victor Frankel

Years ago, Jill Bolt Taylor, a neuro-scientist, got to observe her left and right side of her brain while having a stroke.  The left side is about past and future.  It thinks linear.  All about organizing details and how we associate it. It thinks in language and remembers to do things.  

Right side of the brain is in the now; the present moment to moment.  This side thinks in pictures and learns by movement in our body.  Its process sensations, as energy being and consciousness connected.  We are beautiful and whole. 

I propose we are our out of balance.  Our left brain, rational dominated world threatens our future.   My/our minds are hyper-critical, and we are bombarded by negative messages, and a culture of cynicism created by media hype.   However, this trend has a psychological reason.  Our brain better responds to such bad news, messages, and events.   It is said that three-quarters of all our thoughts are negative.  Also we are much better at remembering the bad over the good.  As long as pessimism rules then we may be making a serious self-fulfilling prophecy.

Being imbalanced in the left brain, I find that my heart can be easily broken and misdirected. This is caused by acedia or what the Ancient Greek termed as “not caring” or “sour”.  Thomas Aquinas defined acedia as “lack of energy to begin new things.”  Acedia takes on many definitions from sloth, depression, numbness, boredom, apathy to other negative mind states resulting in bad things.  Such absence of vigor, enthusiasm and life energy is tremendous disability.

Joy is the opposite of acedia.   Acedia means energy depleted and by some as addicted by their despair. Such a nihilistic state is void of meaning, purpose, hope and love. Such people afflicted by this harmful mental affliction are detached, and self-destructed.  It is if they are on physic crack, soulless, numb, and empty of worth and filled with self-loathing.  This is a psychological form of terrorism and potential violence.

Thomas Aquinas observed the antidote to acedia when we find beauty, love, zeal and goodness. Joseph Campbell once said, “Life has no meaning what we are looking for is the experience of life. We shut ourselves off from this experience”.

Seeing what is positive, or possible helps better proceed in most circumstances then saying what is lacking or critical.  Elevating from being cynical judging I can reframe my mind to better observe any situation.  If someone is walking on ice their sense of balance becomes heightened. Borrowing from the Chinese symbol of crisis in any given instance means both danger and opportunity.

I can heal my broken heart when I greater balance my brain. This mental shift purifies my heart with a greater radiance and stimulates other virtues.   Becoming less left and more right brain requires preparation, training, and transformation. Visualizing greater happiness, love and wisdom I best align my mind to excel its potential.

Unless someone like you cares a whole lot of nothing is going to get better. Dr. Suess, from The Lorax

Tears and Laughter

The life of the flower is hope and fulfillment and peace; tears and laughter…

The life of clouds is a life of farewell and a life of reunion; tears and laughter.

Thus the spirit separates itself from the body and walks into the world of substance, passing like clouds over the valleys of sorrow and mountains of happiness until it meets the breeze of death and returns to its starting place, the endless ocean of love and beauty which is God. 

Kahil Gibran  further writes in his forward of Tears and Laughter;

Tears the purify my heart and reveal to me the secret of life and its mystery,

Laughter that brings me closer to my fellow men;

Tears with which I join the broken-hearted,

Laughter that symbolizes joy over my very existence.

Kindness, the Gift of Care!

Unless someone like you cares a whole lot of nothing is going to get better. It’s not  - Dr. Suess 

The greatest gift I can give myself kind form of care. If I become careless then I too I become unkind.  Whether I am gentle with others or my own self this generous act gives back bountiful happy returns. When I care I unite instead of divide.  Acting from this deep part of my heart I transform new riches of well- being. My greatest concern is to be gentle both with others as well as with myself, since I believe we are all connected.  Lacking a sense of care I separate. I become cruel and insensitive to all things. Then, I disconnect to my oneness and greater inter-connection to life.  Simply caring or showing kindness has a tremendous ripple effect.  I multiply my joy when I relate with people, places and things in profound caring way.

As a visitor here I can improve my situation by exercising kind care. Let’s have the courage show the benefit of kindness. How I relate to my world is important. Exercising kindness stimulates the positive.  Is not carelessness a form of ignorance?

The most important thing I struggle with in my life is to be gentle with myself. When I embrace my defects, and cultivate inner kindness, inner peace becomes possible. I find that I then care happens when I accept, not resist. Being kind is a work in constant progress. It takes great care to find self-acceptance.

When cultivate my own compassion and I then can pass it on.  The more I can be friendly to all, the more I feel alive and the less I suffer. Being kind and caring, I give myself the greatest birthday present. Expanding this loving friendliness is life’s greatest blessing. My prosperity is link with daily kind acts, not mean ones. Kindness attracts friends, builds community and stimulates happiness. Being kind to others, to the world and to me, makes everything better.  Such care invites further happiness and new gifts for all us to benefit.