God in my eyes

At lunch the other day a friend of mine was talking about his daily spiritual practice and he used a paraphrased saying that he heard a Belgian woman named Niro Markoff say. According to him she said, “Discipline is the path to freedom.”

I have thought about that ever since.

I understand the concept and I agree to a point, but then another part of me thinks that you can become trapped in the discipline and the actual practice becomes nothing more than rote repetitions. I remember as a child, the priest giving me the rosary as my punishment for my transgressions and once he assigned three repetition of it! It was arduous and not very helpful. I wasn’t heartily sorry for my sins, I was bored to death and felt nothing other than anger at the priest for being so zealous.

Yet, I can see that discipline could very well be the path to freedom.

So, where does this leave me?

Honestly, I’m not sure. After my friend told me that quote, I decided that he was correct, discipline might just be the path to freedom and I began a spiritual practice of my very own, with the help of a little borrowing from my friend’s daily practice. I decided to make use of the mala that I bought in India and I would say, “Yes, Lord,” one hundred and eight times as I made my way around the beads. It just didn’t resonate with me. Then I changed to saying “Om nama shivaya,” one hundred and eight times. That was better, it suited my Catholic upbringing to say the words first spoken by someone else.

I vowed to say this twice a day, like my friend, once upon arising in the morning and once again before I went to sleep. I was good for about a week or more. Then something happened one morning and I couldn’t say it, I forget why, I suppose I had to be somewhere, Whatever the reason, I didn’t do it that morning and now it has been hard to get it back.

So, that brings me back to my original question. Is discipline the path to freedom? While I was doing my practice, I didn’t feel particularly connected to anything. I enjoyed the feel of the beads in my hand; I loved the smell of the sandalwood. I even enjoyed mouthing the words, but I didn’t feel closer to God. Isn’t that the purpose of spiritual practice – to feel a connection to God?

For me freedom comes when I look at the sky, or the ocean or a chipmunk running across the lawn with stuffed cheeks. Yesterday, I went to the park and parked my car in my usual spot. It was a beautiful fall day; the sun was warm with a slight chill in the air. The water of the pond was calm and reflecting the orange leaves of the surrounding trees. I did not walk around because I had gone there to read, and so, I just sat in the car and began to read. Of course, I was fast asleep in no time. I must have been a asleep for almost an hour. When I woke up and opened my eyes, there was the vista that I described above. That’s when I felt God’s presence.

Jon and I went to the beach last weekend and I did the same thing, I fell asleep and awoke with the ocean and the sky in my eyes, and God was there too.

For my friend, perhaps the “path to freedom” is discipline, maybe in the quietude of his apartment he feels God’s presence as he murmurs “Yes, my love, yes, my love.” I can understand it. But, I think for me my path to freedom lies not in repeating endless repetitious phrases, but in just falling asleep and waking up with God in my eyes.

I Wonder...

We have powerful belief systems. We build these beliefs over many years of living, and once in place, belief systems are very difficult to break through. So, most of us spend our entire lives living according to our beliefs, never realizing that for the most part we are living an illusion.

In my own life, I was thought to be “delightfully dumb.” That’s pretty harsh and damaging to a young girl’s self esteem. The people with the power in my life repeated this message often. It was my older brother that coined the phrase when I was a baby, and it stuck. Therefore, for a large portion of my life, I believed I was dumb, delightfully so, but dumb nonetheless.

I am not dumb and honestly, I’m not sure I’m delightful. I like to think am. In any case; in addition to being delightful, I am also charming, graceful and beautiful… and smart.

I believed that I was dumb and I lived down to those expectations for many years. It was after years of therapy that I came to see that I am truly intelligent and that I have a good mind capable of figuring most things out.

To this day, all of my family, believes I am dumb, even when all the evidence suggests otherwise. Now I could get lost in trying to fight against what they think of me, spending my life railing against their perceptions, but I don’t. I learned a long time ago, that once a belief is in place, nothing I can do will change another person’s belief. Only they can do that for themselves. So, I don’t try and I am at peace.

This is not a story about my awakening to who I am, but rather a case for looking beyond our belief systems. “I wonder,” is an excellent place to start. Look beyond what you always thought to be true and see if it if that is in fact reality, or just the way you always thought it to be. Many times you will see that there may be an element of truth, or there may be no truth to it all. When I was a baby I’m sure that at times I was “delightful,” and I may have done silly baby things, but I doubt that I was ever dumb.

This was a great disservice to me and it’s not one that I want to do to anyone else, so when I feel myself about to make a judgment about another human being, I pause and say, “I wonder.”

A Light in the Tree

Last night I had a dream that has stayed with me all day. It has grown in its beauty, grace and charm the more that rest in its arms.

I dreamed that I was in a very large tree. I was somehow nestled in its branches and I was surrounded and enveloped in its leaves. I felt very comfortable, but I was alone and I was frightened. In my pocket I had a lighter, it was one of those old time lighters that flip open with a click and the unmistakable odor of lighter fluid pours forth when it is opened. Then I scraped the wheel on the flint, another unmistakable sound, and the flame was lit. The flame comforted me, and I watched it for a long time.

Then I looked up and I saw that in the surrounding trees there were many little flames. I felt such joy in my heart to know that I was not alone. I felt bliss.

I look back at my own flame and I watched it for a bit more and then I put the lighter in my mouth and ate the flame. There was no pain, but I did feel a little trepidation as I ate the flame, but once I swallowed the flame I began to glow and I became the light.

Then I woke up and still felt the bliss that I experienced in the dream.

Shoulder Shrugging

When I lived in Israel I learned how to shrug my shoulders. This was a most important lesson. Shortly after we arrived in Israel, I began to notice that people shrug their shoulders all the time. At first I was confused and didn’t understand why. I began to look for it. What I noticed is that Israelis shrug their shoulders for many reasons.

One is that the person they are speaking to is an ass and rather than get into a battle of ego, they shrug their shoulders.

Another reason is that they don’t know the answer to what is being asked of them and they shrug their shoulders.

Rather than getting angry, they shrug their shoulders.

When faced with a conundrum, they shrug their shoulders.

When they don’t understand the behavior of the person they are with, they shrug their shoulders.

But, the most intriguing reason is when faced with an impossible situation, they shrug their shoulders.

I came to understand that it is a form of surrender. They let go of the situation and with a shrug, they move on. I suppose with the prospect of living with the daily threat of war, most situations seem unimportant in the overall scheme of things; and so they shrug.

I, too, learned to shrug. I surrendered in tiny ways at first, such as having to change my plans because a car was not available to me. I shrugged. Then I moved on to bigger things, I couldn’t work where I wanted to work because the work committee wanted me to work somewhere else, I begrudgingly shrugged my shoulders. I would shrug my shoulders and work where I was told, but truthfully not very willingly, the shrug hardly worked in that case, but I just kept on shrugging. It took a while. While the bombs were falling and we were waiting, we all shrugged our shoulders, mainly because there was nothing else to do.

I am still learning to shrug my shoulders, it is a hard fought lesson.

Surrender is never easy. There is an inherent internal fight that is taking place within us. Our wills want us to do proceed in the way that we always have, with our fists held defensively in front of our faces, ready for battle. But, somewhere within our soul, is the desire to let go and allow what is unfolding before us to take place. One way to facilitate the letting go, allowing and ultimate surrender is to start with a shrug of the shoulders.

The River of Time

It’s 4:25 AM, the crickets are chirping, my dig Otto and my husband are snoring quietly. Off in the distance I can hear the trucks moving along the highway. The world is asleep except for the crickets, the trucks, and me.

I love this time of day.

This week I begin teaching meditation again. It’s going to be a little different this fall. I am teaching two classes, which will be challenging considering everything else I am doing this fall, however, I am excited by the possibilities. On of the classes truly doesn’t require much teaching, but rather, leading. I am facilitating a guided meditation for relaxation. It’s a short class, only 45 minutes, so there is not much time for talking.

The next class is called Modern Spiritualities. There will be some meditation, some spiritual practices, some Reiki and energy work, but it is mainly a class about finding spirit within. At least that is my vision. We will see how it plays out.

So, that is what’s on my mind. I am gearing up to lead these classes and I always worry that I won’t be interesting enough, or I will stir up too much in my students and they will be unhappy. I found that most people are eager and want to find meaning their lives and that’s why they sign up for my classes.

My insecurities aside… the other thought on my mind was the nature of time. Time is a dimension, time and space. It is part of the framework of physical existence on this plane. It is very difficult to imagine anything outside the parameters of time. We are used to having time as our constant companions. How would my life have any points of references if I couldn’t describe yesterday, or last year, or a lifetime ago? While the future isn’t here yet, we all spend much of our lives worried about it.

My thought, which isn’t particularly original, is that time is a river. A flowing energy transports us from one event to the next as we live our lives.

When my dog Itza died, I was devastated. My heart was broken. The thought of never seeing him again in this lifetime was more than I could bear. I remember thinking that I have all these years to live before I will see him again. However, there was never any doubt in my mind that I would see him again. There was a sense of movement with my feelings.

When we are born and we find ourselves immersed in this stream of time that doesn’t stop until we die. We just flow along moving from one event to the next. Occasionally the trip will be punctuated with emotional traumas, or joyous happenings that make us feel transported.

However, the river never stops flowing as long as we are breathing. We move past whatever took place that stirs up our emotions.

I am thinking of a boy floating down the river in an inner tube. The current causes him to spin slowly, ever carried forward. Occasionally he will meet a rock or a stick that protrudes from the depths, his forward motion will be halted for a time, but eventually the power of the current will win out and his forward motion will once more commence, leaving the obstruction behind him. That is the nature of time.

The problem occurs when the boy continues to long for the rock, he continues to think about his brief stay at that point in the river. He isn’t even considering the new sights right before him, because in his mind he is somewhere up river. Life would be easier if we could go of the rocks that have slowed our motion.

The loss of a loved one is a big rock in the river, and many times, we cannot move past it. We don’t want to let go of the rock because we feel that it will be letting go of the person we love so dearly. That’ is truly understandable. The death of a beloved person can completely stop anyone’s forward motion.

I found comfort knowing that there may many years to come before I would be reunited with my dog, but reunited we would be and I let my grip on the rock loosen enough to allow the current to take hold of me once again. Off I once again began to float in my inner tube, gently spinning. In my heart, I carry my beloved dog, and in a sense, we are now floating down the river in the same inner tube rather than two separate ones. It’s almost as if he jumped out of his inner tube, into mine and now our journey is one. This is where my true comfort comes from, we are now traveling together.

Is it possible to ease the pain of all loss by letting go of the rock that holds us and just allow the current to take us? I think so….

In Gratitude

Today I am meeting my husband, daughter and granddaughter for lunch. I love these get togethers. It is such a joy to be connected to these wonderful people. Izzy is simply a joy. I see her and my heart sings. I don’t care if she is being silly, an angel or a handful, she is perfect to me.

I know that I could have been a better mother; I wasn’t always completely present for my daughter. But, I think overall I was a good mother and I did the best I could. However, I have learned so much about myself, life and what it is all about, Adrienne would have been better served if I had her now. It would have been far better to have a child at this stage of my life than when I was in my twenties, she would have had so much more of me. But, of course, my patience level is not what it once was… so perhaps, this is how the journey of life is suppose to be- we have our kids when we are young, screw them up and then spend the later years realizing how we could have done it better.

I am grateful for all that I am, all that I have, for my family, my life. I truly am blessed.

While I was in India I saw an astrologer who told me that in my past life I was a disciple of Shirdi Sai Baba and I was very saintly. And because I was so saintly I accrued lots of good karma and so my life is blessed today. I believe it. I sense the truth of those words, my life is relatively easy because of my past actions and I have been very blessed. Of course there is no proof, but I know that I felt a sense of coming home when I arrived in India. It was all so familiar and comfortable. It was like a journey to an old friend’s house and the coffee was freshly brewed and waiting for me.

What ever the reason for my many blessings is, I am grateful.

I love you, Lord.

On nama shivaya… Om nama shivaya… Om nama shivaya

Blissed Out

Finding unconditional love starts with me. I am the one that allows this love to unfold. God is present and waiting for me to make this discovery: that unconditional love starts with me. It starts with me!

Wow, it is really simple.

I was at One Spirit this weekend. This was my first weekend of Spiritual Counseling and my first weekend as a Dean’s Assistant to the second year seminary. I was torn as to where I wanted to be. The second year seminary class won out. When I walked into that room, I knew I needed to be there. I felt such love, such acceptance and joy.

Then it hit me that was the energy that I was putting out and that was the energy that I received. I also noticed that some were not in the same bliss that I felt and that was because they had not quite allowed themselves to go there.

We are the arbiter of our own happiness and peace.

Someone this weekend said that we have our being and our spirit is guided by our being. Our spirit can be in joy or it can be trapped in misery, but our soul always dwells in God. Our soul dwells in God.

I felt so connected to everyone around me because I was allowing my spirit to dwell in the soul.

This weekend was also the start of my spiritual counseling training. I missed most of the weekend because of the conflict with the seminary. Hopefully, I will catch up, but missing it was worth it so that I could experience this bliss. I was whirling and swirling in love all weekend and the feeling is with me still this morning.

God is beautiful. Life is beautiful. Love is beautiful.

I am love. I am beautiful. I am God’s being. Amen.