On the Road to Life

"But the gate that opens the way to true life is narrow. And the road that leads there is hard to follow. Only a few people find it." Matt 7:13,14

     While in Greece recently, I couldn't stop snapping pictures of gates, doorways and entrances of all sorts.  Most were beautifully manicured, marked only by a caretaker whose endeavours invited you to walk on through, by way of working latches and easy moving hinges.  
     Of course it was the unpolished, dilapidated ones that stirred my imagination.  Overgrown.  Falling apart.  Seized up by years of salt water air and lack of use.  Creating within me a longing that doesn't quite have words but is drawn close to the surface by some magnetic force of my own nature.  
     As I look back through these pictures, some still have me wondering how to get to the other side. Thinking about what I may have missed holding the route I was on. Silently plodding which rocks to move and how much force might be required.  And once through, how would I keep it looking untouched?  Can the mystery of a forgotten portal awaiting discovery be preserved?  It can't be that I am the only one that has cared to peek inside?  Suddenly the door is about so much more than just the door and its wanting (or lack thereof) for wear.  Is this a gate that leads to life, the so called narrow way or will any gate do?  
     We love to speak in metaphors of heaven and hell, broad and narrow.  We sometimes believe it is our duty to show others "the way", exclaiming OUR path to be THE path.  To damn the broad way and proclaim the power of the narrow!  The truth is, everything is relative to everything else.  Your broad may be my narrow and my narrow may be your broad.  And we each in our own way move forward in this dance, expressing ourselves within and without, contracting and expanding. Trusting that life is the teacher.  
     Let your way be a path of emotions and experiences that rise and fall, bringing you both joy and pain.  Let these qualities change you and direct you.  Let them feed your soul with their dualities, nourishing without clinging.  
     My challenge is to live in freedom and at the same time question if there is any such thing.  I do not know what life is calling you for, but it calls to you none-the-less.  When you listen, it becomes your narrow way.

Namaste.

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Appreciate! Appreciate! Appreciate!

Love and appreciation are identical vibrations. Appreciation is the vibration of alignment with who-you-are. Appreciation is the absence of everything that feels bad and the presence of everything that feels good. When you focus upon what you want - when you tell the story of how you want your life to be - you will come closer and closer to the vicinity of appreciation, and when you reach it, it will pull you toward all things that you consider to be good in a very powerful way. ~ Abraham Hicks

The Yoga Sutras & The Chattering Mind

The Yoga Sutras were written down somewhere between  500BC and 250BC by Patanjali (Pa-tawn-ja-lee).  Patanjali is considered to be the organizer and recorder of the Sutras not the originator.  While the practice of Yoga predates Patanjali by an additional 2500 years, he is considered in the modern world to be the Father of Yoga.  He knew and understood Yoga to be first and foremost the scientific practice of overcoming the inner mind and inner body.

Patanjali wrote down 196 Sutras (ideas or threads) on the practice.  These threads comprise a road map, leading one to the ultimate goal of Samadhi or absorption with the Divine.  Some have called this place super-consciousness or enlightenment.  You cannot travel outwardly to Samadhi, it is a journey through the inner workings of one's own self.  Do not be fooled, the terrain can be rough and at times down right obnoxious!  Over and over again, you meet yourself round corners and stumble through the obstacles of who you think you are... only to realize that it was equivalent to a dream.  What you always thought "was" really wasn't after all.  To ad insult to our injured ego, Yoga asks us to accept all that is, as it is.  To become the Observer not the Judger.  Further still, be the observer of the Observer.  At first it all sounds kinda crazy... until you begin to see... begin to become the observed and the Observer.

The first Sutra is the introduction and tells us that what we are about to read is an exposition on Yoga.  The second Sutra says that Yoga is the restraint of the modification of the mind-stuff.  In Sanskrit it is written as chitta vritti nirodhah.  When I think about chitta, which translated means mind-stuff, it sounds a lot like the word chatter.  Vritti means to swirl, go in circles at a dizzying pace.  So to practice Yoga one is committing to restraining the chattering vortex of the un-restful mind.  The next 194 Sutras are a how to guide on bringing calm to the storm and liberating one's true self from one's mind.

While Yoga is highly beneficial for the body, all physical practice is meant to aid in the focusing, cleaning and clearing of our thought processes and assuaging the endless chatter and changing thoughts that tend to swirl incessantly.  Yoga is quite simply about transcending the mind.  To transcend we must practice.

Little Things

I just poured myself a hot fresh coffee.  It is a decadent cup, both the coffee and the vessel it is contained in.  Fresh ground beans and a home crafted pottery mug made by my long-time-ago friend Sylvia.  I am feeling served and soothed by them both in this moment.  Happy that my memory can be so sweetly nudged by a fashioned piece of clay.

It has me thinking about the little things.  The little things that enhance the beauty of this life.  Sometimes they are the little things we forget exist, get over-looked, swept by the wayside.  But then in a moment of quiet their presence becomes the big thing, absorbing all of my attention.

Before this morning's coffee I was busy tidying the kitchen and my mind was on a particular friendship, one that I've been a part of for a long time, one that has a tendency to be negative and not so nourishing.  But as my mind was drawn into the aether of the little things I realized that in the last six weeks of being home, I've deepened other relationships and started new ones.  Most have had a surprising and delightful quality I would never have expected.  This is exactly why we shouldn't judge situations or people, because you just never know with whom or under what circumstances you might find yourself bonding and needing certain people in your life.  I am grateful in a way that is not easily expressed with words to have these women in my life ~ not to imply that we are to be eternal bffs but to acknowledge that something within us needs that something within the other for the time being.

For me this falls under the ideal of loving without possession.  To accept that kindred spirits exists and our ability to be different things to different people without striving or struggling to be anything but just who we are. Such friendship has a purity and kindness that brings me joy.  When it is time to go, I feel a lightness that stays with me.  It is the way in which I want to experience life ~ not by holding on tightly but by opening up the hand and heart, allowing unseen currents to pull us together as needed.  To let life bring you what you need when you need it.

This is not to imply that friendships which have traveled with you through time and space are not important.   There is nothing quite like a friend who has known you in good times and in bad to help you see yourself more clearly ~ especially when the view isn't all that flattering!  The danger is when we get caught in their minds of who they think we are based on who we used to be.  People grow and change.  Evolve and morph.  Perhaps longevity is not reason enough to keep hanging there, especially if it is obscuring our view of the little things in life that are so truly beautiful.

Breakdown

I'm having a mini-breakdown this morning.  For no apparent reason other than I don't know what to do with myself.  And the temp outside is -38C, so a walk to clear my head is not an option currently on the table.

In fact, it very well may be the weather that is catalyst to this mood.  I seem to be berating myself because I have all of this time on my hands and what am I doing... sitting in my house in HL playing housewife.  Good grief!

Going to do some re-evaluating.

Some OSHO Wisdom

Beyond mind, there is an awareness that is intrinsic, that is not given to you by the outside, and is not an idea -- and there is no experiment up to now that has found any center in the brain which corresponds to awareness. The whole work of meditation is to make you aware of all that is "mind" and disidentify yourself from it. That very separation is the greatest revolution that can happen to man.

Now you can do and act on only that which makes you more joyous, fulfills you, gives you contentment, makes your life a work of art, a beauty. But this is possible only if the master in you is awake. Right now the master is fast asleep. And the mind, the servant, is playing the role of master. And the servant is created by the outside world, it follows the outside world and its laws.
Once your awareness becomes a flame, it burns up the whole slavery that the mind has created. There is no blissfulness more precious than freedom, than being a master of your own destiny.

Osho From the False to the Truth Chapter 7

Time and Grace

Time is a curious thing.  It is the very gift of life.  We all march to its beat, we are all under its jurisdiction.  We all see its affects upon our face, our hair, our bodies.  We watch our children grow.  While the clock never stops ticking, its movement is both relative and constant. A flow that is sometimes languid and at others rapid and erratic.  A commodity so precious that once spent it can never be returned.

As I pause, I recognize that what I've purchased of this thus-far-spent life are my impressions.  The Yoga Sutras refer to these as Samskaras.  While I have gathered a few tangible things, things mean so little.  It is who we are in this ever moving forward moment of Now that matters.  The people we love and share this life with.  The ghosts and angels that light our way with wisdom.  Strangers that you meet in airports or take long walks with in the wooded foothills of Virginia. These are all lessons we are learning.  The triumphs and defeats.  I quiet my own heart and mind.  I find my inner world and a tear escapes me.  I allow all of these impressions to be full and beautiful, joyful and heartbreaking.  I see them as they have been writing the story of my life. I stretch this moment out, feel it expand.  Within me, time becomes pregnant with the very grace of God.      

I take a big breath and give thanks.  Grateful for it all.  Our lifetime is our teacher and we its (often) unknowing student.  Somehow time is both a curse and a blessing but that is the duality of life.  I want imperfection.  I want to be willing.  To be moved by the spirit within.  To be challenged and to grow.  To dare to love when it isn't returned.  To get up when I fall down. To find the Real amidst all this unreal.  To find within you all of these qualities as we share time together.  Namaste.