Pure Consciousness August 4, 2008
Posted by admin in : Life 101 Tags:awareness, consciousness, ego, essential nature, soul, spirit , add a commentWhat is “pure consciousness”? I’m always talking about being awake or conscious, but then it dawned on me that people may have absolutely no idea what I’m talking about. What would you say if someone asked you the question, “Who are you?” I was actually asked this question on the application for Yoga Teacher Training and my first response was, “Oh, that’s easy…I’m this…I’m that…I’m…I’m.” I had to keep starting over because no matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t put it in to words…it was beyond words.
We are not our jobs and we are not the cars we drive or the homes we live in. We are not the clothes we wear or the friends we hold. These are just identities we associate ourselves with on a day-to-day basis. There is so much more to us than life’s external identifiers, but sometimes it takes a paradigm shift to open yourself up to seeing beyond the veil and realizing there’s a duality to our existence. Do me a favor and wiggle your toes. How are your toes moving? Your body, right? Well how did your body know to wiggle your toes? Because the body heard me say it or because something beyond the physical told the body to do it?
You could psycho-analyze this to death, but these types of questions aren’t suppose to be logically thought through. They are just here to get us to think outside the box. For example, how do you think the body heals itself when it gets sick? Don’t think about it because it’s too complex for the mind to understand. The mind wasn’t meant to grasp such refinement, but that doesn’t mean there isn’t more going on just beneath the surface. People are stuck in wanting to understand from a logical perspective…they want cold hard facts…scientific proof.
Evolution can’t always be explained, but there is a beautiful higher intelligence that guides, heals, and protects us whether the mind grasps it or not. This inner intelligence is what some may refer to as our spirit or soul. This light within us is always trying to communicate with us, but we don’t always hear it because we are so distracted with life and everything going on around us.
Have you ever tried to have a conversation with a friend while you were at a rock concert? No, of course not. And why? Because you can’t hear each other, right? You would have to scream in order for you to talk and there’s a concert going on so why bother? Well think about what it must be like for your spirit to try and communicate to you when there’s constant noise in the background. We live in a world where people are in front of the television or listening to music or playing video games or out having fun with their friends allowing social conversations to mute the soul.
If you want to find your true essential nature, you have to step back from the distractions and allow for some quiet space in your life. Most people can’t stand to be alone or in any kind of silence because they are afraid of what they might see. The ego has done a good job in convincing you that you are not enough and it doesn’t want you to find yourself because that means you will see and feel the truth and will know that you are not the ego…you are not your thoughts…you are not your emotions. You are simply a beautiful compassionate loving being who wants to be loved. The ego tells you love hurts and so you run from love, but you will never be able to free yourself from the ego until you learn to love yourself….your true beautiful self.
Pure consciousness is that place of divine love that rests peacefully beneath the thoughts and emotions and armor you wear. Think about a time you went up to the mountains or out to the beach and got up at dawn to see the sun rise? Think about the pervading quiet stillness. Think about the awakening dawn and all the pleasant sounds that rang out from the heart of the divine mother. Think about the sky and the marvelous colors that gave birth to new splendid hues of light. Think about the sun and the sweet peace you felt as it came up over the horizon. Think about how you felt in that moment of stillness with so much beauty surrounding you. It was pure and perfect in the unfolding moment because life was perfectly aligned. Feel in to the divine energy you felt…feel the peace and the love and all the stillness…what you are feeling is you…the real you…the soul you…the spirit you…the conscious you.
Your job…your social schedule…your house…your car….your favorite sport…your yesterday…your tomorrow……none of it truly matters in the grand scheme of things…it’s the beautiful loving “you” that truly matters. Somewhere deep within ourselves there is this yearning to be free from the ego. People who do not know themselves have this underlying unhappiness somewhere in their life and this malcontent will continue to haunt them until the day they die because they are stuck in the pattern of negative thoughts, strong emotions, and thinking they have to be this or they have to be that in order to be happy. All it takes to move through the disontent is to be fully present…without judgment or fear….give yourself the freedom of being in the here now and the beautiful conscious “you” will fully emerge from deep within the depths of your being!
Loving Kindness June 29, 2008
Posted by admin in : Uncategorized Tags:chakra, essential nature, innocence, love, open heart , add a comment
The medicine wheel in the Native American tradition symbolizes the individual journey we all must take to find our own path. Within the wheel are the 4 cardinal directions…all having their own sacred meaning within the circle. East signifies the renewal of life and is about loving kindness, which relates to the 4th chakra…the heart. The earth element associated with the East is Fire, which relates to the 3rd chakra…the solar plexus.
If you combined the beautiful energy of an open loving heart and a perfectly balanced solar plexus, you would get an extremely powerful love unsurpassed by all of mankind. The force of these two energies would be enough to heal the world because there is no greater power than love and when fueled by fire, love would multiply exponentially impregnating the entire world.
On the contrary, if you combined a closed heart and an unbalanced solar plexus, you would surface the lower emotions such as hate, worry, anger, and fear. Relationships would be impacted, feelings hurt, egos fed, and the spirit would be buried under unhealthy thoughts and emotions.
Too many people are closed down and don’t have the capacity to love, but without love there is fear and where there is fear, there is anger. These negative emotions have a strong impact on the energetic body, as the vital life force becomes congested or depleted. Negative energy turns in to disease, but people don’t realize what’s happening until its too late so its important we cultivate more loving kindness in order to bring us back to our essential nature.
Being positive expands the heart, which produces more love and fills the entire energy body with divine light. It takes a lot more energy to be afraid or angry at someone, but loving someone is natural. Just think of a newborn baby. Imagine him smiling up at you with inquisitive eyes that tell the story of his soul. Feel his soft tiny little fingers against the warmth of your skin. See his little toes move around with such freedom and joy. Watch his belly rise and fall with every breath…so natural and free. Feel the love radiate from within this tiny little being as you hold him close to your heart.
When we are in the presence of a child, the ego seems to escape…freeing the mind from thought, role playing and the mistaken identities associated with the material world. Children bring us to a place of bliss…pure consciousness…utter joy…a place of stillness where silence breathes…the place where when you are in that place and I’m in that place, we are one.
That is the beauty of a child…he breathes love…taking us back to that place of interconnectedness. We need to open our hearts and send out more loving kindness to the world…to our families…to our friends…to our lovers…to everyone we meet. Love and positive thoughts will heal this planet…one soul at a time.
Let us honor the East and the new beginnings that await us…let us honor the paths that brought us here to this day and the paths that will take us through tomorrow and beyond…let us honor the power that lies within each and everyone of us…let us honor our beautiful loving open hearts…om shanti!