I can’t help but feel lost right now. Not because something specific has happened to me or even to anyone I know necessarily. I simply have this lost feeling about where we stand right now in this world and where we are in our sociocultural evolution. I also am feeling like things are a bit unfair right now for a lot of us. I don’t know of a better word to use than “unfair.” It all just seems slightly off in some fundamental way that I don’t have the power to fully comprehend.
On one hand we have this war that I am so sick of hearing about but at the same time so saddened by and in the same breath embarrassed by almost. This handful of a mess that we are in is not good in any respect. But then I feel bad for feeling this way because I know that there are people dying and I feel almost guilty because these are good people. Some of them are dying simply because it’s their job. Others are doing it because they believe in it. Either way, they didn’t start this nor are they the ones promoting and progressing this war. They are simply paying the ultimate physical price.
On the other hand we have the constant stream of what seems to be bad news in the media about the economy. Every day it seems to be getting worse even though when I go outside and live my life, it all seems the same as before all this started. But I do know there are people whose live are being dramatically impacted by whatever it is that is going on. These are also good people. They just maybe made some bad decisions or were taken advantage of and now their lives are changed because of excesses by the larger sociocultural evolution that has happened.
And then, if I had another hand, it would be that this journey, this path, this life just has its moments. Moments that make you feel like there is no God. Moments where you want to just give up and crawl into a corner and start doing depressing things that make you forget about all the injustice. And that’s exactly what it is, injustice. Injustices of inequality in wealth, mistreatment of children, hunger and starvation, sudden death, violence, and on and on and on. It’s the stuff you see on the TV every night.
All of this makes me want to do something. Something that will make a difference. Something that will make me feel better about all this. But what can one person possibly do with limited resources and limited time. If I have $50 or even $1000 and want to give it to some cause then I am essentially taking away from some other cause by not giving to it. And even if I give that $50 or $1000, how do I choose what cause to give it to in the first place and how do I know it’s really going to make a difference?
Anyway, I feel lost. I don’t often feel lost on this Path. I’ve learned to keep my head up and my eyes forward so that I can plan my footsteps before I take them. This never fails for me. But what to do now? I feel like I am looking down at my feet realizing I need to get a new pair of shoes and feeling bad for that because my shoes are so much better than so many others shoes.
These are the times when I have to be steadfast in my faith that the Universe is benevolent. I have to remind myself that all of this is meaningful even if I don’t know what the meaning of it all is. I must not forget that there is a lesson in every moment and that all that counts is how I choose to view these lessons. I must also remember, or at least choose to believe, that often the Universe chooses to test us and test our faith so that we can grow and experience more of what it has to offer.
In the end, then, what is called for is nothing more, and nothing less, than what all the world’s great religions demand - that we do unto others as we would have them do unto us. Let us be our brother’s keeper, Scripture tells us. Let us be our sister’s keeper. Let us find that common stake we all have in one another, and let our politics reflect that spirit as well.
[A]t this moment, in this election, we can come together and say, “Not this time.” This time we want to talk about the crumbling schools that are stealing the future of black children and white children and Asian children and Hispanic children and Native American children. This time we want to reject the cynicism that tells us that these kids can’t learn; that those kids who don’t look like us are somebody else’s problem. The children of America are not those kids, they are our kids, and we will not let them fall behind in a 21st century economy. Not this time.
This time we want to talk about how the lines in the Emergency Room are filled with whites and blacks and Hispanics who do not have health care; who don’t have the power on their own to overcome the special interests in Washington, but who can take them on if we do it together.
This time we want to talk about the shuttered mills that once provided a decent life for men and women of every race, and the homes for sale that once belonged to Americans from every religion, every region, every walk of life. This time we want to talk about the fact that the real problem is not that someone who doesn’t look like you might take your job; it’s that the corporation you work for will ship it overseas for nothing more than a profit.
This time we want to talk about the men and women of every color and creed who serve together, and fight together, and bleed together under the same proud flag. We want to talk about how to bring them home from a war that never should’ve been authorized and never should’ve been waged, and we want to talk about how we’ll show our patriotism by caring for them, and their families, and giving them the benefits they have earned.
I would not be running for President if I didn’t believe with all my heart that this is what the vast majority of Americans want for this country. This union may never be perfect, but generation after generation has shown that it can always be perfected. And today, whenever I find myself feeling doubtful or cynical about this possibility, what gives me the most hope is the next generation - the young people whose attitudes and beliefs and openness to change have already made history in this election.
Imagine your life, your yoga, as a choreographed ballet of breath, flowing movement and complete and total awareness of everything and everyone around you in this flow. Imagine that this flow is not prescribed in its choreography but spontaneous in its creativity. It is not a ballet that you nor anyone else has ever seen so it is whatever you imagine it to be. It is a dance of emotion and circumstance that you discover as it is choreographed by you and for you. Imagine this world and how you might feel if you could achieve this ballet in every moment of your life.
To me, this is the vision of yoga. It is that destination that some call enlightenment and some attempt to reach through Zen. It is what I imagine heaven to be. A place of pure movement without effort or friction. Almost as if you are fluid within fluid. Mixing yet separate. Combined with All yet One.
It is a difficult vision to express in such a way as to have a “non-yogi” understand without thinking you odd. But if you give yourself completely to who you are as a human, who you are in the center of your being, just for a moment, you can feel it even if you don’t completely understand it.
We have war. We have hate and crime. We have things that I don’t even want to imagine but know exist. We have all these horrible things that I don’t and will never understand. And then we have yoga. I am not so blind as to believe that any one practice, yoga included, can eradicate these things from our reality. It takes a discipline I think that humans have yet to fully define. But yoga is definitely a stepping stone. It is a helping hand for those that take its Path and pay attention to its details. It may not wipe these horrible things from this reality, but one person at a time, it can being to heal what may be the root of our condition.
I believe that creativity and beauty are practices that can also serve as stepping stones. When combined, I believe they produce a vibration in the creator that begins to harmonize with the divine.
Yoga is a creative, beautiful practice that brings us closer to that divine harmonic.
When I counted up my demons
Saw there was one for every day
With the good ones on my shoulders
I drove the other ones away
So if you ever feel neglected
And if you think that all is lost
I’ll be counting up my demons, yeah
Hoping everything’s not lost
When you thought that it was over
You could feel it all around
And everybody’s out to get you
Don’t you let it drag you down
‘Cause if you ever feel neglected
And if you think that all is lost
I’ll be counting up my demons, yeah
Hoping everything’s not lost
If you ever feel neglected
If you think that all is lost
I’ll be counting up my demons, yeah
Hoping everything’s not lost
~ Coldplay
I often look back at my life and at many choices I’ve made among many circumstances I’ve experienced and wonder about some of the regrets I have about some of those choices. I wonder what would have been different if only I’d chosen a different path or made a different decision here and there. Where would I be now? How would I feel? And I wonder about those that my choices may have impacted and how they feel now but also how they might have been impacted differently had my choices been different or not involved them in the first place.
Thankfully I don’t have a ton of regrets. And the ones I do have are not so horrible that I wake up thinking about them but they are significant enough that I do often wonder about them. Especially those from when I was much younger, from that time before I had sufficient experience to always know that I was creating my own future regrets. Mostly stupid human tricks they were admittedly. Picking on and making fun of other kids when I was in grade school. Taking risks that I considered fun but were really actually very dangerous when I was a teenager. Getting reckless in my pursuit for excitement when I was in college. You know, things many of us did before we learned to “know better.”
I try to live my life now consciously enough to feel as though I will not have regrets in the future. Unfortunately, the future is the only thing that let’s me know if I am successful in this and I sometimes find that I am not once I get to that future. Regrets are, regrettably, part of this life. It seems that no matter how hard I try, I can’t consistently and continuously act with such integrity and consciousness that I find my self regret-less in any moment. I have learned techniques that I feel have helped me achieve a less regrettable state of being, however. Yoga is one of them. I’ve found that the physical practice of yoga actually dampens many of my more physically related regrets. I believe the right kind of breathing can heal much more than we may realize and much more than science has yet to discover. And of course, the physical practice brings strength and health which makes up for much of the abuse my body has endured in the past that I now sometimes regret.
I’ve also found that Faith - and I never refer to faith in any particular form in my writing because all that counts is that you have Faith - is another rather amazing tool. Having Faith seems to me to lead to explanations for many things. The simplest way for me to personally express this is through the expression that “everything happens for a reason.” I use the word expression because I believe there is so much behind those words that is of a deeply personal and spiritual nature that no two people can say that and mean it in exactly the same way. Viewed in this context, regrets are just a thread in the fabric of this life we are weaving.
I think that I have come to terms with this in that way by choosing to believe that the Universe uses regrets as one of many ways of reminding us to pay more attention to the moment. Regrets are part of the energy that moves the needle and pokes us as it weaves the life we are living. Reminding us that we need to pay attention so that the weave is straight and true and the pattern one that pleases us once we’ve completed it. Reminding us that if we are not careful, things can become unwoven and the pattern in the fabric unattractive. And that we need to practice consciousness in every moment because if we don’t, we’ll end up with holes and weak spots as we look back at what we’ve woven and realize that we regret much of the pattern we’ve created. A pattern that we then can’t fix.
I often wish it were easier or more straightforward to set the design for my life. Set a path that I know will only lead to the kind of weave that I know I will be happy with when I look back at my life’s work. Unfortunately I can’t because I’ve also realized one very important thing - circumstance, although having reason, is not predictable nor generally avoidable. Circumstance in all it’s vastness and in whatever form it presents itself is often thrust upon us unconditionally. The larger fabric that each of our own experiences contributes to has such a complicated weave of circumstance that we can never see it’s pattern. That pattern is what creates circumstance in each of our individual lives - be it sudden death or sudden wealth - and contributes to itself in a way that we cannot imagine. That sudden death for example is of course impactful to us individually but may also impact someone we don’t know and never will know in a way that leads them to their own purpose, their own reasons. And so on and so on, each life circumstance weaving together with other life circumstances to create the grandest weave of them all.
Ultimately the reality is that I can only set a path into each moment that I know will prepare me for whatever that new moment might bring. I can only take it one moment at a time. One breath at a time. Remembering to breath and consider instead of just reacting as all that circumstance manifests in my individual life. There is really no other way I don’t think.
OK, so after much experimentation and deliberation, I have decided that my creative endeavors are best served in this space rather than in the previous three separate spaces I was writing and posting to. Going forward, this is my home on the web. It will allow me the most creative flexibility and will NOT be just about my Yoga Journey or just about my photography or just about my spiritual search. It will now be all encompassing as I have found that all these endeavors are related anyway so I might as well bring them together in a more cohesive space.
Namaste.
If I only had more time to write. More time to consider what I am able to even write in this space. If there is one thing in life that I feel is NOT abundant enough, it is time.
I am reminded …
Time is the school in which we learn,
Time is the fire in which we burn.
~ Delmore Schwartz - Calmly We Walk Through This April’s Day
It seems to me that we are taught the right lessons at the right time. Taught them when we are required to learn them. Taught them when we need them but more often before we need them. Lessons about ourselves and about the meaning of This for each of us. Lessons about how to be better at this life. How to refine our enjoyment of and our progress in this life.
It’s often everyday little things that are presented in everyday moments. Things that are sometimes easy to miss or more likely, easy to mischaracterize as nothing. Or worse, as something negative.
The ultimate lesson learned though is to act with enlivened consciousness of the fact that it’s all about reaching new levels. New levels of understanding. New levels of appreciation. New levels of knowledge. New levels of feeling. Higher levels than from where we begin each moment so that each moment brings with it something new. Something worth paying attention to. Something worth remembering.
The beauty of this process is that the universe is constantly thrusting us into the future with these lessons and that we can use our own vision, our own faith, to shape that future. Sometimes you learn the lessons you need faster than other times. Strong faith propelling you forward. While at other times you learn more slowly either from lack of sufficient faith OR because that’s the way it’s supposed to be for some future state that you haven’t yet reached. That state being far enough out that the Universe knows it can take it’s time with that particular lesson. Knows it can allow you to struggle a bit with your own faith so that the next lesson is that much more meaningful.
The down side to this if you don’t believe that each moment is a lesson is that each moment will go right by you and in so doing you will go right on with your ignorant ways. Feelings of dissatisfaction, feelings that life has treated you unfairly, and most importantly, feelings of stagnation.
And all that I have held in life, has brought me to this day,
A day of soft remembrance, A day which holds me dear.
If all these things that I have known, and held within my life,
should not have happened Or occurred in any other way.
I may well not be standing here, upon this hill and gazing down,
warmed by the Sun, In light and love today.
To choose our path, or to be chose, I know not which is true,
but ne’er regret, nor Lose the love of all the things we do.
To live our life by natures code, to give more than receive,
to help and understand in Life, and see all we believe.
~ Maelwys, The Rainbows End
I am taking a short break from this space to focus on a few other creative outlets (and to make sure my professional life stays sane). For example, I just finished building Marcia’s new website (BETA, not real content as of 2/23 but will be very soon). I also started a new blog.
I will be back!
In the mean time, check out my other endeavors:
At what point does ones strict adherence to a faith - be it faith in Life, faith in the Universe, faith in God, call it what you choose - result in irresponsible or reckless behavior? Clearly this can and does happen. My previous post about the confusing emotions I still feel to this day about the attacks of September 11th, 2001 on the World Trade Center is an obvious example of irresponsibility and absolute recklessness in faith. That’s a kind of extreme, fanatical faith that is, in my mind, crystal clear in its irresponsibility. But what about the more subtle, day-to-day potential that exists?
This is an amazing complexity of consciousness for me. No matter how many times I read about faith or using the law of attraction or thinking positive thoughts or the power of intention, I always wonder in the back of my mind how many people put too much faith in these practices to the point that they act irresponsibly.
Nothing is concrete in life. And I believe that this is part of the plan that the Universe has for us. Its part of the Lesson. It would be too “easy” if it were clear that a strong faith is all one needs to succeed in life or get the objects of ones desire to manifest. We would all be running around manifesting money and “stuff” and the world would be an absolute mess (as if it isn’t enough of a mess already).
I mean, thank God we all have egos that get in our way. I am SO grateful for ego. It keeps us from really and truly messing up the world.
I think this is one of the reasons that humans, as we evolved consciously and culturally, began to define good vs. bad as God vs. the Devil. As we learned that faith and confidence in our faith could deliver powerful results if practiced consistently, we also learned that the ego tended to insert itself into our efforts. It was only natural to philosophize that an opposing force was at work. A yang to the yin. The devil in the details.
I am personally not so sure that I believe in the devil. I believe whatever and wherever we came from is truly and naturally good because I not only feel goodness at the center of my own being but believe I have experienced enough of other peoples goodness to feel that goodness is our natural state. It’s the angle of repose for our spirits, if you will.
But then I hear about a shooting at a university and wonder if I have gotten this part right yet. Or I think about 9/11 and think that maybe my philosophy is wrong. But I can’t believe that. I have to believe that we are all good. So the question is, why do people do such horrible things? I don’t think the answer is one that we can ever truly formulate. I struggle with this almost more than any other spiritual conundrum because its very easy to think that there IS an evil side to this existence. You could describe many things that happen on a daily basis as evidence of this evil. But I simply can’t believe it. The Universe IS good and we, as spiritual beings, are good.
The only conclusion I come to after many hours and repetitions in philosophy, is that this reality truly is a product of our own views. Just as a strong and consistent faith (i.e., belief that all is good and the Universe is on our side) can lead to wonderful things in ones life, so to can a strong and consistent belief in the bad or the negative. If we believe that life has an evil side, then we create that evil through that belief and manifest it in our own lives. And that doesn’t mean that if it were humanly possible to always and 100% of the time have complete and utter confidence in this Goodness that “evil” things still aren’t going to happen. First of all, I don’t believe that it is humanly possible to have that complete and utter confidence 100% of the time because of the existence of the ego. And because we cannot reach that state, there will always be some form of struggle and pain and desperation in life. For some, the struggle will be more than for others because I think many of us forget about our purpose in life. Furthermore, there’s that previous topic of irresponsibility in faith.
Faith can and quite often is unfortunately used to justify beliefs and actions. People fly planes into buildings in the name of their faith. People also condemn other views because they have let their faith begin to describe their reality. Sometimes people believe something so much that they miss the cues the Universe provides that let us know we are off course and acting irresponsibly. These cues can be subtle so you have to pay close attention and therefore it’s easy to miss them if your are blinded by some faith.
At the end of the day, I don’t think it’s possible for us in this particular reality to truly comprehend this and rationalize it. For me, it’s just another one of the multitude of aspects in this reality that the Universe provides as a Lesson that only each of us can learn if we decide to choose to apply faith and stay conscious of trying to figure out what it is we are supposed to be learning.
I had a moment of gratitude this morning that literally brought me to tears. It was almost painful in its intensity. It doesn’t really matter what triggered it. What matters is that I had it and that in the moment I had a crystal clear vision that the Universe was telling me two things. 1) This is the way I am supposed to feel. This is the way we are all supposed to feel. And 2) that more of the same will lead to more of what I desire in life.
This is a very interesting experience to have had. First of all because it was a very spiritually intense moment but mainly because it wasn’t all that long ago that I mostly rejected the idea that the Universe could communicate to me in this way. Furthermore, in the not-to-distance past, I would have questioned #2 with the perspective that it was just my mind reminding of the things I’ve read (i.e., The Secret, Abraham-Hicks, etc.). However, right now is not the past and my yoga and my Journey have both brought me to a very different state of mind and set of beliefs about the Universe.
I have come to believe that this life is primarily a cycle of tests that the Universe lays in front of us to either learn from or whither from. We grow spiritually by facing these tests head on, finding meaning in them, learning from the experience of them and the meaning we find in them and then feeling grateful for having had the opportunity to not only successfully face them but more importantly, for simply being alive to face them in the first place.
Albert Schweitzer said it best:
To educate yourself for the feeling of gratitude means to take nothing for granted, but to always seek out and value the kind that will stand behind the action. Nothing that is done for you is a matter of course. Everything originates in a will for the good, which is directed at you. Train yourself never to put off the word or action for the expression of gratitude.
