Fruit Flies & Thoughts

Thoughts are like fruit flies. Fruit flies suddenly appear. We don’t know where they came from. When we remove what attracted them, we don’t know where they go.

In removing the overripe banana, the fruit flies disappear. With thoughts, if we remove the attachment to their importance they cease their grip and fade away.

Notice that there are times when you realize thoughts are just present, like uninvited guests filling up space with unwanted and unneeded thinking.

As we Awaken we begin noticing the thoughts as irrelevant, as though outside of who I know myself to be, outside the I that I experience I am.

Be amused and say, “Oh, that’s interesting.” Not making the mind wrong, after all, it is simply doing what it does ~thinking. It has a lifetime of thoughts stored for easy access.  Learning to differentiate between our mind thinking and our thinking brings clarity. This ability is necessary in order to successfully process our issues. Learning to process our issues is crucial in expressing our human excellence and Soul Evolution. Not being attached to our thoughts and processing our issues is fundamental for clarity as a human being. Meditation is vital to learning this.

Here’s a wonderful story that beautifully explains this idea:

According to the Platform Sutra, Shen Hui asked the Sixth Patriarch: “When you sit in meditation, High Master, do you see or not see?”

The Master hit him three times with his stick and asked: “When I hit you, does it hurt or not hurt?”

“It both hurts and does not hurt.” Replied Shen Hui.

“I both see and do not see.”

“How can you both see and not see?”

The Master replied: “What I see are the waverings and wanderings of my own mind. What I do not see is the right and wrong, good and bad of other people. This is my seeing and not seeing.”

The mind will always think. How we respond to that thinking reveals our level of clarity.  Learn to witness the thoughts like clouds moving over the clear blue sky. Higher Consciousness is always present, unaffected, infinite, boundless, and abiding; clouds and thoughts are temporary.

May We All Walk in Beauty.

 

Impermanence

I have been focused on the devastating fires in Northern California. Those fires are horrific by historical standards. While the tragedies I witness from all over our planet deeply touch me, I notice this one has a unique impact because I can relate personally. I grew up and raised my family there, so I have family and friends I am concerned about and a long history I am witnessing disappear in smoke and ash.

Impermanence. I feel the loss and observe the different responses of those directly affected. I contemplate what mine would be, given the same circumstances. I pray.

Impermanence is an abstract concept ~ until it engulfs us in a reality of our personal experience.  

So even though I am 3,000 miles away, I reassess what is important to me. I notice how impermanence shows up for all of us; in loss of health, a home, a loved one, a job, a lifestyle, a history.

Impermanence can also result in new beginnings, improved attitude, increased gratitude, greater wisdom. Freedom in a manner never suspected.

So, as I think about those I know who have lost a great deal, I know they have not lost everything.  Impermanence is simply a change of form of something that always existed and always will.

I will remind myself of that next time I experience a loss. And again, I will pray.

May We All Walk in Beauty.

Experience and Enlightenment

There is so much conversation about becoming Enlightened that I think we miss the whole point of living. The purpose of life is to have the ultimate connection to the Infinite, by whatever name we might use. It is equally true that we gain that connection through the simple and ordinary acts of living.

I have this suspicion that life would be easier if one were living a secluded life away from the world without the daily distractions of a householder. I also have this idea that nothing beats what we gain in Self-Awareness as souls and human beings by swimming through the waters of relationship, responsibility and daily distractions.

Perhaps we should just get more simple and ordinary. Be less complicated, less sophisticated, less pontificated.

There is nothing to look for beyond our experience in the moment. What can be gleaned from an experience? Gleaning is what is done after the first material has been gathered. In other words, we have an experience and we decide something about it. However, to get the most from the experience we need to see what is relevant to our greater gain in self-wisdom; go a little deeper than the surface. We need to contemplate the experience in order to clearly understand our role in it.

We can discover how we respond to life or react to it depending on the current level of clarity. The experiences we have are our teachers. What happens is we seem to have an experience we like or dislike and quickly move on from there, never asking ourselves the purpose of that experience in the first place.

Experiences become like the things we acquire; once we finally get some thing we thought we wanted, we move on to wanting something more or different. Instead of experiencing our experiences, we quickly move on. What about if the experience we are having is the winning ticket and all we have to do is decipher the code?

May We All Walk in Beauty.

QUOTE:

“If you cannot find the truth right where you are, where else do you expect to find it?” Ralph Waldo Emerson

Reinventing

I’m an Elder and I find myself reinventing myself, yet again. Actually, reinventing feels like a continual process of evolution. Still, this particular time is a more conscious effort on my part. I have heard from friends that they are feeling the same way about themselves.

My reinvention of me may not look so from the viewpoint of others, yet I witness the truth of it within myself. I find the experience liberating, full of Grace and Blessings. It takes a lot of inner work before the outer work unfolds.

Reinventing myself isn’t about what I want to do with my life, in the sense of purpose. I am clear on that. It’s about how I want to express it. I remain a dancer. I am looking at the dance steps and rhythm that can serve both myself and others better in my self-expression and usefulness.

As I reinvent myself, what new actions will I embrace, what direction will I choose, how will I respond differently? I dig deep. I embrace this new dance, relax into the unfamiliar rhythm. I hear my Higher Self breathe in delight that I can hear this next octave. I take the next step.

Each higher mountain we ascend allows us a greater perspective, a broader vision, we can see more. We can breathe in the vastness of possibilities, see ourselves in relationship to the panorama we are witnessing that was not possible before.

This being able to have a new viewpoint is not the same as striving, hoping or thinking positive. When the feeling of reinventing one’s self enters our consciousness, it is compelling, almost demanding; a Knowing that the winds of change are working on us. That it is time.

Like some of you, I have had many reinventing experiences. This one feels unique in my experiences. Perhaps it is because I can no longer take for granted how many years I have left on the Planet. There is no bucket list going on here. There is simply an even greater awareness of myself and how I might be a greater contribution to others and to my own journey.

Something has occurred for me. The view is not the same now. The dance rhythm has changed.

I am inspired by others who are experiencing their own version of reinventing themselves. There is so much joy and beauty in the revelation of how you want to show up. We are not the same version of who we used to be. We are not the same version of who we will become. We are recognizing, embracing and doing something about it. What a Blessed Ride!

May We All Walk in Beauty.

 

 

Dishes, Laundry and Leaves

Ahalya Blog

Dishes, laundry, and leaves have a lot in common. They are cycles, reoccurring like life experiences. Hopefully each time a variation of the same cycle reappears it is met with greater wisdom. Greater wisdom would reveal itself as a higher octave of the familiar, less reaction, eventually moving into embracing what is with surrender and wiser responses.

Complaining about the dishes, laundry and leaves won’t make them go away. Delaying addressing them causes build up, making what could be a smaller task into a huge one. A conversation in burden.

The leaves are creeping over the lawn. I am tempted to leave them until there is a lot more. I watch our trees overhead that are in full green foliage and wonder where the leaves are coming from. I realize they blow into our yard from the neighborhood. I know ours will reciprocate; a back and forth sharing.

I fill a bag of leaves knowing the clean space I created will quickly disappear. On to the next bag ~the next experience.

As I observe Nature’s cycles I observe my life. Each cycle brings a new experience echoing the former. The dishes, laundry, and leaves are pretty much the same; my experience of them is different. I am different each time. A better version, a cleaner, clearer response.

May We All Walk in Beauty

Knowing Ourselves

Wisdom is not how much we know ~ it’s how much we know ourselves. Knowing one’s self is a lifetime journey of Awakening. To Know One’s self is the Teaching of the Great Masters, all the way back to the timeless Vedas.

We bind ourselves through our ignorance; through opinion and judgement, addictions to comfort and complacency. We fool ourselves into thinking if we know more we will be more. So, in this age of information we collect in hopes of leaning “the thing” that will enlighten us.

If all we did is study our own nature that would suffice to carry us out of bondage to spiritual freedom. Noticing our strengths and weaknesses, dropping old ways of being, questioning belief systems, transcending old patterns, developing greater awareness of how we show up in our lives and recognizing what works and what does not work is the path to Higher Consciousness.

When we learn to Know ourselves the walls of separation from others dissolves. We learn to see our reactions, patterns, belief systems as faulty because we come to recognize them as perceptions not born of the Oneness of All.  Knowing means knowing who we are and accepting every part of ourselves without judgment. All parts of us contribute to our Wisdom.

Anything we learn or experience is only valid to the degree that it affects a greater Awakening of Self.  Take one Teaching and contemplate it; see how to use that Teaching in everyday life. Notice how embracing the Wisdom of that Teaching transforms your experience of you and the world in which you live. Personal, direct, subjective experience awakens us to us.

The results of each step of Awakening will show up in your everyday life. It will propel your Evolution to greater clarity as a human being and higher vibration as soul; that direct Knowledge will enhance and empower your contribution to those whose lives you touch. That is what is meant by, “He who knows others is wise; he who knows himself is enlightened.”

May We All Walk in Beauty.

Happy Mother’s Day

We live on Mother Earth surrounded by Mother Nature; there’s a little bit of mothermothers day in all of us. So, Happy Mother’s Day to those of us who are mothers, were mothers, will be mothers, have/had mothers!

Take a time out and watch Ode to Women, a beautiful video by South Asian Hip Hop Artists and celebrate the mother nature in all of us.

 

 

May We All Walk in Beauty.

Weaving Patterns

I was thinking about weaving and how each thread contributes to a pattern. The pattern of the threads of our lives reveals a picture.

Like a tapestry the patterns of our lives are the weave we ourselves designed. We have an idea of what we want ~ what we want to create with each thread we choose.

The weaver envisions the ultimate design and chooses each thread for a purpose. Then on stepping back from the loom for a broader perspective the weaver often realizes a thread did not work ~ did not support their design.

And like a weaver learning to weave, as we learn to live our lives, we can weave something that is not always what we thought we were creating. Sometimes we choose a thread that is incompatible with the end design we intended.

What seemed the best choice of color and placement at one time may later reveal something less than what the weaver intended.

As a once inexperienced weaver I misplaced many threads. There were times when all I could see were the threads moving on the loom. I couldn’t always see the pattern they were making. What seemed like a series of random choices ended up as a design ~ not always to my liking.

I am a more experienced weaver now; still weaving on my loom of life. I know if I pay attention I can pull a thread and watch the pattern change. Like a weaver of tapestries, a weaver of life adjusts and renews their weaving; changing the pattern.  I’m still doing that.

The trick is to find the right thread to pull; knowing when to use the old threads for a new pattern and when to throw them out.  A thread used in the wrong place can be useful somewhere else.

Weavers have a vision of weaving something wonderful ~ patterns of design that are alive, vibrant, fully expressing their creativity.

Like weavers of tapestries, we weavers of life keep on weaving. At times pausing to pull a thread to unravel and begin again.

May We All Walk in Beauty.

Quote:

…”I weave your name on the loom of my mind
To clean and soften ten thousand threads
And to comb the twists and knots of my thoughts.
No more shall I weave a garment of pain.
For you have come to me, drawn by my weaving,
Ceaselessly weaving your name on the loom of my mind.” ~ Kabir

Purpose?

Mr. Yin

I just read the book A Dog’s Purpose: a Novel for Humans by W. Bruce Cameron. Then unexpectedly our favorite four-legged family member, Mr. Yang died. His brother Mr. Yin seems to notice him missing as much as we do.

Experiencing loss gives us the opportunity to consider the contribution made to us, even from a cat. Like most cats, Mr. Yang was independent and assumed his importance in our lives. He was affectionate only when he chose to be. Yet, he won our hearts and made us laugh as we practiced non-attachment to any attention that might not be returned. I will miss his constant reminder to not take things personally.

After reading A Dog’s Purpose, I wondered if Mr. Yang thought he had a purpose or mission. From my perspective, he did and he fulfilled it, even if he wasn’t aware of it. That’s how it works for a lot of us.

I hear from many people that they want to understand what their purpose is and if they have a mission.  Everyone has a mission and purpose

For a long time, I kept missing the signs that I was either doing in part or moving towards my Mission and Purpose It was a great relief to finally understand what a Mission and Purpose is. Once I had that understanding I could see the signs that had been there all along.

If you’re interested to read some thoughts on Mission and Purpose here is something I wrote that is too long for a post. In the meantime, consider who contributes to your life. Consider who and how you contribute and that can give you clues. We all have a Mission and Purpose. It may be closer than you think.

May We All Walk in Beauty.

Life Purpose and Mission

Many of us sense that we are born into our lifetime to accomplish something but that something is illusive. Those who are not aware of the possibility of a greater life purpose are likely to feel less than enthused about their life and wonder, what’s the point?  But those who do sense know there is indeed some point even if not yet understood. In that questioning, a seeker is born.

Each human being has a purpose and mission to fulfill. Our purpose is to Know our Inner Self and God, to evolve and grow as a soul expressing our humanness as excellently as possible. Our mission in life is unique for each of us and is the way we fulfill our purpose. So, we could say that our purpose is to become enlightened and our mission is how we express ourselves in a fulfilling life. A fulfilling life will always include being of service.

When a soul comes into a lifetime the soul knows it has a purpose and mission. But we forget so the search or seeking can be frustrating and confusing.

While many people understand that the purpose of a human life is to evolve as soul, they may still not know what their mission is. The whole conversation of life mission can be daunting. Sometimes someone is already living their mission, however, because they do not get that they are, they don’t get the benefit of experiencing the joy of it.

Like looking for your glasses that you don’t realize are sitting on your nose, your mission may be right in front of you.

There is often the tendency to think in terms of a mission being some lofty goal of serving humanity and our planet such as eliminating world hunger or saving the whales or saving the Rain Forests. We can look at great leaders who are affecting the world on a global scale and invalidate our own contribution.

Personal greatness and having a purpose and mission is not about being the best. It is about being the best expression of ourselves.

In reality our greatest contribution to humanity and God is our own evolution as soul and clarity as a human being. Once we understand that, we can go about finding out what we, as an individual, can identify as our contribution, which will be our mission.  That mission could range from being a quality mother to being a great healer. Our mission could be to touch the lives of our family in a significantly positive manner.  It really doesn’t matter as long as it is our mission.

We all have talents and skills that create a unique expression of who we are. Some of those talents and skills we are aware of and some are hidden from us. We also may tend to downplay those skills and talents with the idea that anyone can do that or do it better.

If we consistently hear that we are very intelligent or a great singer or great with people, there is a great possibility that is true about us and that is where to begin looking for our mission.

We come into our life with innate abilities and talents unique to us that are meant for us to succeed. Some of these talents and abilities get overshadowed in growing up and some simply need time to mature. The most important thing to remember when thinking about ourselves is to remember we are talented, we do have skills and abilities. We need to think of ourselves as a talented person first and foremost.  Then we can go about acknowledging the talents we are aware of and seeing what areas we need to work on to bring out other talents and skills we have not yet developed or even recognized.

A talent is a special ability that makes something come easily, naturally and effortlessly. Most likely we use some of our talents in our daily life. Perhaps at our work or with our family and relationships or in hobbies or social situations. Often we can begin to identify our talents by paying attention to what we are interested in or curious about.

I know a woman who discovered she was a good researcher and ended up finding fulfilling and rewarding work in that field. Before she discovered this talent she thought she just liked to surf the internet and read about diverse topics.  Her friends and family relied on her for finding information and she finally realized she had a skill and talent they lacked.

Our innate talents are often invisible to us. We take them for granted as though everyone has them or this skill is just something I do.  But maybe there is someone who wishes they had that talent or could benefit from the contribution of someone with the talent they lack. We all have something to contribute to each other.

We can waste time and invalidate ourselves by comparing ourselves to others. When we do this there will always be someone who is richer, smarter, thinner, better in endless ways of assessing. But that’s like a banana comparing itself to a mango. One is not better than the other and if either tries to be like the other, failure is assured.

Some of us are fortunate enough to have grown up in a supportive atmosphere that encouraged us that we could be anything we wanted to be. And while there is truth in that statement, we still need to investigate the talents and abilities we came into this life with. Actually those talents are enough and more than ample to create a life mission that is rich and rewarding.

I liken this discovering and choosing a mission to cooking or baking. We are all cooks and bakers in one way or another. However, any recipe we choose requires specific ingredients. If we want to make chocolate chip cookies we need among other things, chocolate chips. If we don’t have chocolate chips we may have raisins so we go about making the most amazing oatmeal raisin cookies possible. We need to find our “ingredients.” We don’t need all the ingredients to

make a great recipe and anyone who has done much cooking knows you can substitute one thing for another and come up with something amazing. Like cooking, discovering our mission is a creative process with endless possibilities.

How do we find our purpose and mission? Begin by acknowledging the possibility that each of has something to offer and a unique way of expressing ourselves to experience a fulfilling, joyful life.

No one else can live our spiritual purpose and no one else can live our mission exactly as we do. We have a uniqueness that needs to be expressed in order to fulfill our destiny. We begin to find our purpose and mission by embracing the fact that we have something to offer that can be offered by no one else in exactly the same manner. It is not about competition but about the diversity within humankind. Like an orchestra made up of many components of talent, styles and expressions. The percussion offers us one dynamic. The horns and strings another.

The best sheet music supports the whole process and the conductor guides the synergy of the beautiful musical result. The whole is greater than all the parts. In life, the wholeness of our expression is greater than all the singular parts of us.

When we recognize our talents and abilities and use them in service to our world, be it mankind or our small family we contribute to fulfilling our life’s purpose and living our personal mission.