Holding on to a dead paradigm, and letting it go February 11, 2009
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The year 2008 marked the beginning of the current financial crisis. However I would say that what it truly marks is the beginning of the end of the capitalist, consumer based economy in the US and probably the world. Just like the fall of communism (what remains of communism today is like a more totalitarian version of capitalism especially in China) in the late 80s and early 90s, free market capitalism is a corrupt and purely dysfunctional approach to managing the resources of a society. It’s practices and ideology could be maintained for a long time and propped up by governments and central banks but the dysfunction inherent in the system is finally catching up and bringing us back to reality. Our system in its current state cannot be maintained indefinitely.
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The incredible power of Yoga February 9, 2009
Posted by bodhidude in : Healing, Spirituality, blog , add a comment
After considering it for many years about 2 months ago I began taking Vinyasa Yoga classes. It seems the time was finally right and my experience has been nothing short of transformative. I’ve been a spiritual practitioner for a long time but somehow my body never quite made it into my practice. Yoga has given me a new way to practice and engage the present moment. It has given me a way to get back in touch with my body, to fully inhabit and embrace my body and to more fully appreciate it. In doing Yoga practice I’m finding that as I work with the poses, flow and breath I’m finding stuck energy, tension and blockages in my body that correlate to inner processes involving things like fear, guilt, separation, vulnerability, and other emotional wounds. Working with these physical blockages is helping me access healing on a new dimension that is impacting my spiritual practice and path to awakening as a whole. The physical benefits of increased energy, flexibility and strength are pretty awesome as well. Its interesting that in the physical difficulty of many of the asanas I’m find an opportunity to surrender to the discomfort of this human form and thereby finding peace within pain. Quite a reflection for the rest of life and a lesson in how so much of the pain we feel is because we are fighting or resisting what is instead of accepting and relaxing into it.
Beyond that however is the deep power of Yoga to help me connect with the divine, with the universe. I’ve been introduced to Bhakti Yoga and the devotional practices it involves while not what I really got into Yoga for are really serving as a balance in my spiritual practice. A bright light of love, openness and connection amid the often painful process of illuminating and healing old wounds. This practice of Yoga really helps me remember the joy in being fully alive so I can appreciate this beautiful magical world we live in, in all its wonder and ordinariness. When I see the people here who have been doing this practice for some time it is evident by the love, peace and joy in their eyes and in their energy that they’ve really opened themselves to universal love. As one of my teachers points out, if we are breathing and present then all actions can be Yoga. I’m grateful for this incredible gift on my journey. May all beings benefit.
The power of I don't know February 7, 2009
Posted by bodhidude in : Society, Spirituality, Transformation, blog , add a commentThere is a great article on Reality Sandwich by Daniel Pinchbeck entitled “The Age of Uncertainty” (http://www.realitysandwich.com/age_uncertainty). It seems like I can find all the evidence I need to support opposite conclusions on almost every issue these days a few of which are mentioned in this article. But I think the I don’t know is the key because in my view reality is moving into a state of intense contradiction on one level. A state where the rational mind cannot figure things out in the ways that we felt it could in the past.
I don’t know has incredible personal meaning for me these days as I have needed to let go of relationship, work, ways of living and even many seemingly integral parts of my identity. I don’t know who I am anymore, I don’t know what my future holds or even what to do with myself in terms of livelihood. But I’ve begun to see that I am being lead to embrace the I don’t know and let go of trying to figure it all out. The place of I don’t know is powerful because it contains immense potential but can also create intense fear because it involves learning to be ok with the unknown in a very direct way. The thing is I find that the more I embrace I don’t know and let go of trying to rationalize my way through life the more I am able to be present and connect to life in the here and now and I’m finding incredible peace and clarity in that. What to do and how to address life seems to emerge naturally from that place of peace and clarity and action becomes rooted in it instead of fear and confusion. Its so simple and subtle that it can be easily missed.
I’m starting to see the shifts happening now as a powerful force to move us beyond our addiction to thinking and the ego and into true presence putting the thinking mind in its place as one tool for higher consciousness to interact with the dualistic world. A tool but not the driving force of life. I think the new world or new paradigm has already begun to come into being, it just depends on where you choose to focus you attention because I see much suffering and destruction but I also see a great many people beginning to awaken and cast off old habits and ways of being. Its happening right now and the practice is the choice of putting our attention on the old and holding on or letting go and embracing the new, right now.
Another level of letting go February 2, 2009
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Jesus what a process this has been. Once more into the breech of the unknown. I met with some people from my community today to discuss our relationship with work, money, livelihood etc. I’ve come to realize two things very clearly. One is that I must fully let go of the old careers that have sustained me for so long – information technology and counseling. These are the ways that I know to make a living, to make money to pay the bills, to survive. But its completely clear now that their time has past. I’ve held on far too long now and have tried everything I can to make them work. Whether its a computer job or doing counseling work I just have no more passion for it and it won’t work anymore to fake it to bring in the cash, I’ve tried every way I know to drag it out. What I’ve realized is that on a deeper level I just need to let go, to allow these old approaches to fully fall away in order to make space for something new to emerge.
But that leads to the second thing that has become clear. I don’t know what to do next. I don’t know where the money and resources to sustain me will come from. I don’t know in which direction to go with my livelihood. I don’t even know who I am anymore on one level as what I do has been such a key part of my identity. I feel incredibly excited and yet incredibly terrified. My mantra has become I don’t know and I see now that I just need to surrender to that and allow myself to fully and completely not know. One person commented today how powerful a place not knowing can be because from that place all things are possible and I feel that too but its so scary. The fear is the unknown and the part of me that wants and needs to know kicking and screaming. For me the unknown is becoming a way of life more and more. I’m learning to appreciate it more and realizing that actually I never really did know what to expect or what was going to come next in life, I only imagined I did. This seems more clear, more authentic, not to pretend to know anymore but to surrender to not knowing and allow true heartfelt knowing to emerge naturally from the only place it can, the present moment. Here there is clarity and all is as it should be, nothing to figure out or worry about, just the awesome power of life unfolding in all its beautiful perfection.