The pace of life quickens around us, relentlessly. A friend was reminiscing about her childhood in the San Francisco Bay Area, and described how her mom would pack dinner into the car along with all the kids, and they'd drive to a park across town and have dinner at a picnic bench overlooking the lake. Her dad would start the barbeque coals, her mom would unpack the potato salad and celery sticks, the kids would all run around playing tag or kickball, and they'd have a great time together.
The amazing thing about her story was that her family used to do this once or twice every week, during the week, and both of the parents worked full time. She couldn't reconcile that reality to her current reality where she works late, every day, runs errands on the way home, catches up on emails and bills when she gets home, does the laundry while she scarfs down some take out, and usually doesn't finish everything that needs doing before it's way past time to go to bed.
How did her parents manage that? Why is the possibility of dinner in the park with the family an impossibility in her current life?
The pace of life quickens around us, relentlessly. Someone mentioned just last week that she realized that it was in her nature to keep herself crazy busy no matter what she's doing, so she might as well keep herself busy doing something meaningful. She could choose to keep herself crazy busy at work, so the company would prosper from her busy-ness, or she could choose to keep herself crazy busy at home, so her family would benefit, or she could choose to keep herself crazy busy doing something that filled her heart with joy, so that her soul would benefit. Her job was to find the balance between those three arenas, to keep them all alive and vital.
I traveled with a friend to visit his family in St. Louis, quite a few years ago now. He had arranged for his brother to pick us up at the airport, and when we met him in the parking lot, he had a friend with him. He had stopped by on his way to the airport and the friend said he'd come along, too. We decided to go to a small local pub for lunch, and gradually more and more friends arrived, and we spent the entire afternoon at this pub, about 40 or 50 of us, laughing and telling stories.
They had all heard, one after the other, that my friend was in town, and they had all walked away from whatever they had been doing and wandered over to say hi. Now, my friend visited St. Louis several times a year, so his arrival wasn't a rare event. This group of people merely had been friends since kindergarten, and they liked getting together.
Why hadn't their pace of life quickened to the point that we would have had to take a taxi home from the airport and maybe found time to have dinner with another couple while we were in town? How was it that 40 people were able to walk away from their Saturday plans, at a moment's notice, and spend the afternoon talking and laughing with friends?
I've pondered these questions for years, and I have no ready answer, except that we do choose how to fill our time. We choose what we're going to be busy with. We choose where we're going to be busy. We can be busy anywhere.
As the pace of life quickens around you, where, and how, would you like to be busy? That simple question will shape your tomorrow.
Friday, February 28, 2014
Monday, February 24, 2014
Self reliance
I learned self reliance early in life. I moved into my own apartment and started my first full-time job the day after I graduated from high school. I paid all of my bills on time, and managed to have enough money left over to keep myself fed, although my cat did eat better than I did. My friends all went on to college, and I became a little bit isolated, which was fine, because I was working so hard at taking care of everything myself.
I started college when I was 27 and studied science while supporting myself, which now included maintaining a house mortgage. The cats still ate better than I did, but I graduated summa cum laude with a bachelor's degree in biology. I had become increasingly isolated, but that was still fine, because I was still working SO hard.
When I began my professional career, the feeling of isolation diminished, because now I was part of a team. We each did our own part, and depended on the others to do their part. I learned the power of teamwork and focusing relentlessly on what needed to be done next. We excelled.
Meanwhile, my private life was still fairly isolated. I was responsible for everything, shopping, cooking, cleaning, repairing, paying, I was it. But that was fine, because I could do it. I was self-reliant.
Around that time, I discovered Ananda and began exploring a spiritual life. I found people who held the same values that I had been hoping to find all of my adult life, people who answered questions that I hadn't even been able to articulate, questions that were the basis of all my confusion about what the heck is the meaning of life anyway.
So I paid attention and tried new ways of approaching life. My old habits started to shift and slip away. The habits that clung the longest were the ones that had served me so well up to that point. Self reliance was one of the tenacious habits, one that I'm still working at bit by bit.
Because the thing about self reliance is that it's good up to a point, but after that, it becomes isolating. Not only do you become isolated from other people, but you become isolated from the divine flow. The tendency to respond to offers of help, "Oh, that's okay, I've got it," squashes the energy flow between you and another person. People love to help. People love to open the door, or carry one of the bags, or move a box out of your way. It's simple, and it feels good.
Things that we encounter in everyday life are mirrors of what's happening on a more subtle, energetic level. I've found that if I say "Yes, thank you!" to every offer of help, then not only does it create a stronger connection to the person offering the help, it also makes me more receptive to divine help.
I LOVE receiving divine help, because it's always perfect, and beautiful, and timely, and inspiring. It lifts your heart with joy when you recognize it. It stays with you and lightens your burden. It creates a stronger connection between you and the divine.
Isn't it fun that a little thing like accepting help with carrying the groceries can shift something inside of you that then opens your receptivity to the blessing of answered prayers? Isn't life fun?
I started college when I was 27 and studied science while supporting myself, which now included maintaining a house mortgage. The cats still ate better than I did, but I graduated summa cum laude with a bachelor's degree in biology. I had become increasingly isolated, but that was still fine, because I was still working SO hard.
When I began my professional career, the feeling of isolation diminished, because now I was part of a team. We each did our own part, and depended on the others to do their part. I learned the power of teamwork and focusing relentlessly on what needed to be done next. We excelled.
Meanwhile, my private life was still fairly isolated. I was responsible for everything, shopping, cooking, cleaning, repairing, paying, I was it. But that was fine, because I could do it. I was self-reliant.
Around that time, I discovered Ananda and began exploring a spiritual life. I found people who held the same values that I had been hoping to find all of my adult life, people who answered questions that I hadn't even been able to articulate, questions that were the basis of all my confusion about what the heck is the meaning of life anyway.
So I paid attention and tried new ways of approaching life. My old habits started to shift and slip away. The habits that clung the longest were the ones that had served me so well up to that point. Self reliance was one of the tenacious habits, one that I'm still working at bit by bit.
Because the thing about self reliance is that it's good up to a point, but after that, it becomes isolating. Not only do you become isolated from other people, but you become isolated from the divine flow. The tendency to respond to offers of help, "Oh, that's okay, I've got it," squashes the energy flow between you and another person. People love to help. People love to open the door, or carry one of the bags, or move a box out of your way. It's simple, and it feels good.
Things that we encounter in everyday life are mirrors of what's happening on a more subtle, energetic level. I've found that if I say "Yes, thank you!" to every offer of help, then not only does it create a stronger connection to the person offering the help, it also makes me more receptive to divine help.
I LOVE receiving divine help, because it's always perfect, and beautiful, and timely, and inspiring. It lifts your heart with joy when you recognize it. It stays with you and lightens your burden. It creates a stronger connection between you and the divine.
Isn't it fun that a little thing like accepting help with carrying the groceries can shift something inside of you that then opens your receptivity to the blessing of answered prayers? Isn't life fun?
Tuesday, February 18, 2014
Energy has its own intelligence
One of my favorite phrases is “energy has its own intelligence.”
What the heck does that mean?
Maybe it’s one of my favorite phrases because it was an example of divine truths that came to me early in my exploration of Ananda, yoga, and meditation.
We were in the midst of remodeling our temple in Palo Alto, and so every Saturday was a bit chaotic, transforming our rough construction site into a peaceful oasis of inspirational beauty. One Saturday afternoon, Biraj set me to the task of fluffing up the curtains that masked storage cubbies at the back of the sanctuary, stacked with tools and construction material. I worked carefully across one side of the room, fluffing, fluffing, and then moved my ladder over to the other side of the room to begin the second half of the curtained expanse.
A few minutes later, Biraj clumped by, carrying something big and awkward, and took the time to encourage me. “Looks great! When you finish this side, go ahead and fix the other side.” I twirled around and said, “Oh! I’ve already finished the other side!” Biraj laughed and said, “Oh. Okay. Hhhmmm. Maybe Sandy can do the curtains.”
In other words, I wasn’t doing a very good job, because I had no idea how to do what I was supposed to be doing. Biraj wisely swapped me out for more creative hands, and all was well.
A few months later, I found myself in charge of the altar cloths. “Uh oh,” I thought. “Now we’re in trouble.”
And I started working with cloth.
I paid attention to how the cloth draped as it swept across the front of the altar. If I secured it there, it would add another swoop. If I pinned it up here, the gathers would fall gracefully there. If I taped it down here, it could cling solidly yet softly here and flow seamlessly there. I stepped into the energy and paid attention.
I started creating beautiful altars.
And then there were the flowers.
My lifelong strategy for flower arranging was to plunk them in a vase and hope they nestled gracefully along the edge, filling the space with beauty and color. It rarely worked, but it was all I knew. That strategy wasn’t going to work for the Palo Alto altar, which was massive, requiring behemoth arrangements that would radiate beauty all the way to the back of that cavernous room.
My one clue was oasis foam, the magical securer of flower stems. After that, it all came from something outside of me.
My first glimpse of the intelligence of energy was walking into the flower market and finding myself surrounded by buckets and buckets of blossoms. I walked through all of that beauty, and amazingly, some blooms popped out from amongst their neighbors. Sometimes it was the size of the bloom, or the shape of the petals, but usually it was the color that spoke to me. I would pick up this bundle and that, nestling them against each other on my cart, and then look for another color that wanted to be on that cart, too.
I’d talk to the flowers on the drive to the temple and tell them how beautiful they were. “You get to stand in front of dozens and dozens of people tomorrow, and they are going to love how beautiful you are! They are going to feel God’s presence when they look at you. You are going to open their hearts.” They would jostle along next to me, beaming happily.
I’d lay all the flowers out on the workbench, choose some vases, soak the oasis, walk out to the altar, and feel the energy in the room around me. Going back to the flowers, I’d pick up one stem and hold it next to the vase. “You want to be this tall.” Snip. “And you want to stand right there, at that angle.” Squish, into the oasis. “You want to be this tall.” Snip. And so on, and so on. I stepped into the energy and paid attention.
I didn’t know any rules. I had no techniques up my sleeve. I wandered amongst the flowers and they told me to put them on the cart. Each stem told me where it should go, where its face should be. The creative energy flowed through me and out my hands. It was blissful.
Those flower arrangements did inspire people with their beauty. Those softly draped cloths lifted people’s hearts. Those altars brought light into people’s eyes.
The flowers taught me. The cloth taught me. Energy has its own intelligence. All we need to do is step into the energy flow and pay attention.
What the heck does that mean?
Maybe it’s one of my favorite phrases because it was an example of divine truths that came to me early in my exploration of Ananda, yoga, and meditation.
We were in the midst of remodeling our temple in Palo Alto, and so every Saturday was a bit chaotic, transforming our rough construction site into a peaceful oasis of inspirational beauty. One Saturday afternoon, Biraj set me to the task of fluffing up the curtains that masked storage cubbies at the back of the sanctuary, stacked with tools and construction material. I worked carefully across one side of the room, fluffing, fluffing, and then moved my ladder over to the other side of the room to begin the second half of the curtained expanse.
A few minutes later, Biraj clumped by, carrying something big and awkward, and took the time to encourage me. “Looks great! When you finish this side, go ahead and fix the other side.” I twirled around and said, “Oh! I’ve already finished the other side!” Biraj laughed and said, “Oh. Okay. Hhhmmm. Maybe Sandy can do the curtains.”
In other words, I wasn’t doing a very good job, because I had no idea how to do what I was supposed to be doing. Biraj wisely swapped me out for more creative hands, and all was well.
A few months later, I found myself in charge of the altar cloths. “Uh oh,” I thought. “Now we’re in trouble.”
And I started working with cloth.
I paid attention to how the cloth draped as it swept across the front of the altar. If I secured it there, it would add another swoop. If I pinned it up here, the gathers would fall gracefully there. If I taped it down here, it could cling solidly yet softly here and flow seamlessly there. I stepped into the energy and paid attention.
I started creating beautiful altars.
And then there were the flowers.
My lifelong strategy for flower arranging was to plunk them in a vase and hope they nestled gracefully along the edge, filling the space with beauty and color. It rarely worked, but it was all I knew. That strategy wasn’t going to work for the Palo Alto altar, which was massive, requiring behemoth arrangements that would radiate beauty all the way to the back of that cavernous room.
My one clue was oasis foam, the magical securer of flower stems. After that, it all came from something outside of me.
My first glimpse of the intelligence of energy was walking into the flower market and finding myself surrounded by buckets and buckets of blossoms. I walked through all of that beauty, and amazingly, some blooms popped out from amongst their neighbors. Sometimes it was the size of the bloom, or the shape of the petals, but usually it was the color that spoke to me. I would pick up this bundle and that, nestling them against each other on my cart, and then look for another color that wanted to be on that cart, too.
I’d talk to the flowers on the drive to the temple and tell them how beautiful they were. “You get to stand in front of dozens and dozens of people tomorrow, and they are going to love how beautiful you are! They are going to feel God’s presence when they look at you. You are going to open their hearts.” They would jostle along next to me, beaming happily.
I’d lay all the flowers out on the workbench, choose some vases, soak the oasis, walk out to the altar, and feel the energy in the room around me. Going back to the flowers, I’d pick up one stem and hold it next to the vase. “You want to be this tall.” Snip. “And you want to stand right there, at that angle.” Squish, into the oasis. “You want to be this tall.” Snip. And so on, and so on. I stepped into the energy and paid attention.
I didn’t know any rules. I had no techniques up my sleeve. I wandered amongst the flowers and they told me to put them on the cart. Each stem told me where it should go, where its face should be. The creative energy flowed through me and out my hands. It was blissful.
Those flower arrangements did inspire people with their beauty. Those softly draped cloths lifted people’s hearts. Those altars brought light into people’s eyes.
The flowers taught me. The cloth taught me. Energy has its own intelligence. All we need to do is step into the energy flow and pay attention.
Wednesday, February 12, 2014
Guilt doesn't serve us
Has guilt ever been a guiding force in your life? I sort of laugh, even as I write out the question, because, in our culture, of course guilt plays a role, at least from time to time.
Our parents used it; our teachers used it; our best friends used it; we use it. Guilt can be a strong motivator. It can keep us on the straight and narrow, which used to be a description of the preferred mode of conduct.
But it’s rooted in controlling others. Our mothers and teachers were hoping to control some behavior of ours that they felt was undesirable. Same with our best friends. And the same with us. If we use guilt against other people, we’re trying to control their behavior.
Guilt can also be a very subtle thing. As we grow and mature, we can become more refined in our use of guilt. No one would hardly even notice that it’s there, except that something doesn’t feel quite right; something’s not quite happy.
So we can watch ourselves; we can pay attention to the instances that trigger our use of guilt. We can step back from those instances that trigger our use of guilt, detach ourselves somewhat, and observe. What triggered it? What were we trying to accomplish? Why did we feel hindered so that we couldn’t be open and honest?
Then we can change.
So it is possible to practice self-awareness and shift that habit of using guilt in order to control someone else’s behavior. That one’s not quite so hard to detect and correct.
But then there’s the other side of the coin. What do we do when we feel guilty? It might be that someone is using guilt against us, but that’s oftentimes easier to detect. When something is detectable, it is changeable. We can come up with action plans to counteract someone laying a guilt trip on us. Avoid that person. Laugh it off. Bring the underlying issues out into the open. Trial and error. What works with that particular person, to change the interaction into something more positive? It can be a slow process, but if the relationship is worth it, we can shift things for the better.
But the more insidious strain of guilt is the kind that exists only in our own head. It’s the guilt that we set down upon ourselves and carry around with us. Oftentimes, we carry it around continuously, and add stuff to it as we move through our day. It can get pretty big and unwieldy, like a big gunny sack of squash, clumbering around, using up lots of our energy, encumbering even the smallest aspiration. We probably don’t know that we’re doing it or how to stop.
But here’s the clue that can help us dump out all those squash and either make something delicious out of them or put them on the compost heap: guilt is not one of the eight manifestations of God.
I love the eight manifestations of God. They offer a powerful guideline of how to live a life that is pleasing to God. When we are working with love or joy, calmness or wisdom, we are moving toward God. When we are working with anger or hate, regret or guilt, we are moving away from God. Said another way, guilt won’t take us anywhere that we want to be.
When I feel guilty, I see if I can shift the thought, slightly, to something more comfortable, something that gives me a sense of relief.
“I can’t believe that I ate another peanut butter cookie! Well, I ate fewer today than I ate yesterday. It’s hard for me to resist them, once they’re in the house. But it’s not hard to resist them on the grocer’s shelf. That’s where I’ll focus my self-control next time; I just won’t bring them home next time.”
I’ve shifted the energy from guilt toward power, with a bit of wisdom thrown in. I’ve come up with an action plan that is realistic and gives me confidence, because I know that it’s true: I really can resist them on the grocer’s shelf, so this really will work. My heart has a little hum of joy, and I’m standing on solid ground.
When I’m faced with a stronger guilt, I sometimes use Scarlett O’Hara’s wisdom.
“I shouldn’t have said that to my mother 47 years ago, because now I can’t take it back.” Well, for this one, I guide my thoughts away from what I said and how she reacted. Because nothing can be done to correct it, and more importantly, every time I think about it, adding specific details and memorable nuances to make the guilt even more exquisite, I give it energy and keep it vibrant in my memory banks.
So “I won’t think about that now; I’ll think about that tomorrow” becomes wisdom from the most unlikely source. Cutting the energy threads between myself and the thing that I wish I had not done allows it to float away and moves a particularly rotten squash out of my gunny sack and onto the compost heap, where it can go on to a more productive phase, a learning phase.
Has guilt ever been a guiding force in your life?
Has guilt ever been useful to you?
Has guilt ever taken you where you want to be?
Our parents used it; our teachers used it; our best friends used it; we use it. Guilt can be a strong motivator. It can keep us on the straight and narrow, which used to be a description of the preferred mode of conduct.
But it’s rooted in controlling others. Our mothers and teachers were hoping to control some behavior of ours that they felt was undesirable. Same with our best friends. And the same with us. If we use guilt against other people, we’re trying to control their behavior.
Guilt can also be a very subtle thing. As we grow and mature, we can become more refined in our use of guilt. No one would hardly even notice that it’s there, except that something doesn’t feel quite right; something’s not quite happy.
So we can watch ourselves; we can pay attention to the instances that trigger our use of guilt. We can step back from those instances that trigger our use of guilt, detach ourselves somewhat, and observe. What triggered it? What were we trying to accomplish? Why did we feel hindered so that we couldn’t be open and honest?
Then we can change.
So it is possible to practice self-awareness and shift that habit of using guilt in order to control someone else’s behavior. That one’s not quite so hard to detect and correct.
But then there’s the other side of the coin. What do we do when we feel guilty? It might be that someone is using guilt against us, but that’s oftentimes easier to detect. When something is detectable, it is changeable. We can come up with action plans to counteract someone laying a guilt trip on us. Avoid that person. Laugh it off. Bring the underlying issues out into the open. Trial and error. What works with that particular person, to change the interaction into something more positive? It can be a slow process, but if the relationship is worth it, we can shift things for the better.
But the more insidious strain of guilt is the kind that exists only in our own head. It’s the guilt that we set down upon ourselves and carry around with us. Oftentimes, we carry it around continuously, and add stuff to it as we move through our day. It can get pretty big and unwieldy, like a big gunny sack of squash, clumbering around, using up lots of our energy, encumbering even the smallest aspiration. We probably don’t know that we’re doing it or how to stop.
But here’s the clue that can help us dump out all those squash and either make something delicious out of them or put them on the compost heap: guilt is not one of the eight manifestations of God.
I love the eight manifestations of God. They offer a powerful guideline of how to live a life that is pleasing to God. When we are working with love or joy, calmness or wisdom, we are moving toward God. When we are working with anger or hate, regret or guilt, we are moving away from God. Said another way, guilt won’t take us anywhere that we want to be.
When I feel guilty, I see if I can shift the thought, slightly, to something more comfortable, something that gives me a sense of relief.
“I can’t believe that I ate another peanut butter cookie! Well, I ate fewer today than I ate yesterday. It’s hard for me to resist them, once they’re in the house. But it’s not hard to resist them on the grocer’s shelf. That’s where I’ll focus my self-control next time; I just won’t bring them home next time.”
I’ve shifted the energy from guilt toward power, with a bit of wisdom thrown in. I’ve come up with an action plan that is realistic and gives me confidence, because I know that it’s true: I really can resist them on the grocer’s shelf, so this really will work. My heart has a little hum of joy, and I’m standing on solid ground.
When I’m faced with a stronger guilt, I sometimes use Scarlett O’Hara’s wisdom.
“I shouldn’t have said that to my mother 47 years ago, because now I can’t take it back.” Well, for this one, I guide my thoughts away from what I said and how she reacted. Because nothing can be done to correct it, and more importantly, every time I think about it, adding specific details and memorable nuances to make the guilt even more exquisite, I give it energy and keep it vibrant in my memory banks.
So “I won’t think about that now; I’ll think about that tomorrow” becomes wisdom from the most unlikely source. Cutting the energy threads between myself and the thing that I wish I had not done allows it to float away and moves a particularly rotten squash out of my gunny sack and onto the compost heap, where it can go on to a more productive phase, a learning phase.
Has guilt ever been a guiding force in your life?
Has guilt ever been useful to you?
Has guilt ever taken you where you want to be?
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