Tuesday, January 26, 2010

Balance

It has been a challenging week with the addition of Insulin to my treatment. I was first diagnosed with Diabetes almost 12 years ago. Even then it was perchance and the doctor was surprised that I was functioning normally in spite of the unbelievably high blood sugar levels. He did not put me on insulin then since my body had adjusted so well to the high sugar levels and insulin could shock my system. He started me on tablets and have been on different concoctions ever since. Eventually insulin has become part of the regimen. Adjusting the dose to bring balance is the challenge. I was started on the long acting once a day injection at the lowest possible dose. Am at 6 times that now plus the short acting kind three times a day and have still not come down to normal levels. The journey continues with increasing doses each day. This is why I chose to postpone the meditation course. I am glad I did. I will be able to enjoy it more in June when the sugars are in balance.

At first I was okay with the high sugars, then they became physically exhausting and the mind came down a notch. Then with the help of the mind I was able to pick myself up again and stay on the path. The body is a friend of the ego you see. The ego tries everything to draw me away from the path of the Spirit. And as I have said in my earlier posts the Spirit will let ego take over anytime without a second thought. This experience is showing me though, that once I am on the path recognizing the work of the ego and knowing how little it is worth helps me stay focused on the Truth. This body is definitely a temple to my soul and therefore needs attention and care but the body is only a part of the support staff - my Spirit is still the one at the helm. My attention cannot be taken away from the Spirit to care for my body. It would be like having a gold gilded palace with no owner. Could be easily looted away leaving it in ruins. I must care for both. This world is infused with Spirit too and my body is part of that world - just as my ego is - Omnipresence cannot exclude the ego. Creating the balance and using the ego to do so keeps me on track.

For years I took care of my worldly life and lost my true self in the process. The meaning of Love and Peace and Abundance and Wellbeing was so different then. Being in love was more important than being Love. It was necessary for something to belong to me for me to love it and for it not to belong to me for me to crave it. A depraved sense of love. It was about attachment and possessiveness and greed and lust and a fear of loss that defined love then. There was a sense of fight and stress in it. Today Love means a sense of belonging to the feeling itself. I love and do not need it to be reciprocated. I am not blinded by Love and I do not need to justify why and I do not need to know how. Love is, like I am. I love me not because, and not inspite of - I only love myself as I am. Do I need to be loved then? No, Love has no need. Very different from worldly love and without the experience of both I would not have known this.

Diabetes is a fact of this life I am living today. It may be with me for the rest of my days - and I have embraced it. All it has done is changed my lifestyle - not my life. I need to care for my body so I can continue to be in Spirit. Being in my soul is liberating. It is as if nothing can touch me. Even if I take a trip with ego I know I can come back to It. It is truly Omnipresent.

Tuesday, January 19, 2010

Wellbeing

The mind is a busy beaver - building dams protecting itself from imaginary attacks. Yet it knows that it is it's own and only enemy. The mind is powerful and controls it's own joys but for some reason it loses sight of this and scatters it's powers away. Once the mind has grasped it's true capacity there comes about a sense of equanimity that is wondrous to say the least.

Meditation brings the mind back to it's natural state after all the curves that life throws its way. I had a rough week health-wise. The blood sugar is not doing as well as I was hoping and have resigned myself to taking insulin. The timing has a message I clearly needed to hear. For a few months now I have been planning to travel to Canada for the Vipassana 10 days training course. I was supposed to fly out on this coming Sunday. I had planned two full days with loved ones before going into silence and then one day on my return from meditation before flying back home. I was excited and was hoping to have in-depth understanding of my problems with diabetes, obesity and self care. Over the last few months of contemplation and meditation I have realized how little I do for myself - for the person who I need to care for most.

I planned my trip around my blood tests and doctor's appointments and when the doctor prescribed the insulin I delayed starting it till I got back. But all of last week I felt extremely unwell. The blood sugars shot up, I felt exhausted, feverish, and dizzy. My body was craving for attention like it has never done before. I had no choice but to start the insulin right away, get myself up on my feet and exercise as if my life depended on it so I could bring my sugar levels down. Starting an insulin regimen means staying in touch with the physician till the dose is adjusted to what the body needs. Well - out went the silent meditation. I had to postpone my trip and stay put so can take care of myself. The Universe is speaking to me. There is a distinct message - take care of the body - it belongs to Me and must be revered. The experiences of Oneness, of Bliss, of Peace and Love must include My body - the one I rarely care for. My body has been my biggest challenge (no pun intended.) I am not quite sure what lies behind my neglect of it and I doubt looking for it is important. All I know now is that it must be cared for and kept in wellbeing if I have to enjoy Oneness. Healing is bigger than curing issues - it is about being well. I must correct my errors with the help of my Spirit but without the physical effort this wellbeing is impossible.

Along with my mental and emotional wellbeing I must strive for good health. They all go hand in hand. It has taken me a while to recognize this. Having children who are as knowing as my sons are helps me see things I am blinded to. Ever since this episode of ill-health Avik has called me every night - his 'knowing' awes me. He has been my cheerleader and keeps feeding me important information without making it sound like he is preaching - and yet with every conversation I have learned something important, something handy, something useful, something motivating. I know he has been busy - he just moved house - but he has still made the time to be there for Mom. I am blessed. I have been an imperfect Mom but have somehow ended up with two very caring young sons who guide me through life like very few others have. I have always said and would like to repeat - I have learned more from my sons than I have from my parents - and I have learned one hell of a lot from my parents.

Thank you boys - for coming into my life. I love you. As for myself - it has taken me a while but I can see now what true Wellbeing is really about. It is about uplifting ego-free thoughts along with detached action. I am not focusing on the results of my meditation, medication, diet or exercise - just on taking all the necessary steps required to stay well in this moment with full attention to the moment. Love, Peace, Abundance, Wellbeing or a sense of Oneness - one or all of these require full attention to the moment - all else just follows. The mind travels too far into the past and the future and finds reasons to be fearful - staying present each moment is the only meditation required to be in Love and at Peace always. The nomadic mind is a bane, this moment is eternal perfection.

Thursday, January 14, 2010

Inherent Goodness

For years I have known that there is an inherent goodness in all of us. This is not a belief, it is a knowing. Most of my loved ones - family and friends - have always said I am naive to think this way. I have never quite agreed with them, but I did try to see things from a different perspective - theirs. If I shut my inherent knowing out then it is easy to believe that there is so much evil in the world. Even people like Maya Angelou talk about, 'First time someone shows you who they are, believe them.' The basic premise being that people are incapable of changing - for the better.

I know this is not true. The only thing necessary is the desire to change. If I can see my behavior as an error in ways I can correct it. If I am labeled as a liar, or a rapist, or a thief and begin to believe I am that then I also begin to believe that I am beyond repair. There are many spiritual organizations that are visiting prisons to help rehabilitate inmates and they are showing positive results that have never been seen before. The change is really a shift from identifying with the ego to identifying with the Self. Nothing more. Self Realization is not all that difficult. It is the expectation that it will be a mind blowing event that makes it appear remote.

Ego is fear personified. It is afraid of losing its identity. This comes about since the ego identifies it's existence with the body,with possessions, with name, fame, glory, external beauty. Tangible but transient things that it knows can never be forever. Ego depends on the five senses to appease it's thirst for victory. The more it has the more victorious it feels and the more sorrowful it makes our lives. The ego begins to believe it is invincible and eventually ends up defeating itself and making errors along the way. Once the realization of the errors of the path is reached it can be reversed. That is when rehabilitation begins. Confession is about this return journey towards our Spirit and is a very fulfilling event. It is the point at which our surrender to our own Higher Self happens and change becomes absolute. Changing my way without knowing Myself is always transient. Permanency can only come with Self Realization.

Doing evil is about committing errors - one error is not bigger than the other. The ego wants us to believe it is. It justifies some of it's errors by grading them. An extra cent returned by the cashier - from the ego's perspective pocketing that cent is no big deal - the value of the error is in the cent. The knowledge that I have pocketed an extra cent takes me away from the present moment and makes me think a series of unnecessary thoughts. No different than if I had pocketed a large bill. The quality and quantity of the thought is immaterial - all that matters is that I was not able to stay present in the moment in both cases. Staying true to my inherent goodness keeps my mind in the present moment at all times. It is ready to be Inspired always. It is ready to serve, to love, to be at peace, be happy, be present and at One.

Doing evil is not about being evil. It is about being afraid. Fear is what motivates evil thoughts and actions. I may not be able to identify the fear or even choose not to acknowledge it but deep down I know that every evil thought is based in fear. Fear about something as primal as losing my own peace of mind prompts me to think evil thoughts about the other. When I am established in Love and Peace in my core then fear is unable to overpower me. Swamiji talked about doing no evil in action or thought. I often think evil thoughts and pat myself on the back for not acting on them - but a negative thought is no smaller error than a negative action. The ego sees it differently only because it has a different set of values from the Spirit. To be able to Love unconditionally is the only resolution. Goodness is shrouded by fear. Recognizing this is a beginning to the return journey.

Being good takes no effort. It requires no planning, no conniving, no secrets, no formation of teams - nothing. Goodness has no degree - it is a function of a stable mind that is in perfect alignment with the Soul. In the Silence of the mind - the gap between thoughts, Goodness abides. The longer the gap the more I enjoy the moment the more inspired I am the more merged I am in Me. Goodness is my knowing and I bask in it's Glory.

Friday, January 8, 2010

Miracle Mindedness

When our ego tells us something is impossible and it happens the ego calls it a miracle. It does not want us to believe in Reality, you see. The existence of our ego is dependent on our believing that we are our body, mind and intellect. It's power lies in our believing that it is who we are and it collects as many forms as it possibly can to take us further away from our authentic self.

A good friend prompted this writing. She is looking for authenticity in her life and relationships. Who defines this authenticity? How do we define authentic? "Having the origin supported by unquestionable evidence." The origin and unquestionable evidence. Is this possible in the world of duality? Origin - what is original? Unquestionable - is there anything like that? It is all about perception. What came first - the egg or the chicken? Original is nothingness and what question can there be about nothing?

As I practice silence I can see my thoughts in a different light now. Thoughts are really only about the past or the future. The Now has no thought attached to it. Thoughts only fill the inherently silent mind with clutter. The base on which thoughts appear is really blank. The ego hates silence because then it has nowhere to hide and it is afraid of nowhere and nothing. How paradoxical is that?

The miracle mind is one that is ready for Truth to be written on it. The ego will not allow this because it is afraid of the Truth. Ego and Truth cannot co-exist. Unfortunately for the ego, Truth is always present and so ego fights to hide it however it can. A small glimpse of the Truth is inevitably followed by doubt about its existence. Staying in the Now is difficult only because the ego is fighting to have complete control of the mind. The ego must make the mind think about meaningless things to keep it too busy to delve into this moment of Eternal Truth. The struggle that the ego goes through every moment must be silenced if I have to be in Truth. Even writing and contemplation are egotistic functions. The Truth has no degree and so finding it cannot be in the journey - it must be the destination. This the ego finds hard to accept - it needs to be on the move, compromising with itself and trying to convince the mind that over time the Truth will be revealed. As long as I am on the journey the Truth will remain veiled. Not because It does not want to be found but because It does not need to be in conflict with the ego which is a meaningless imaginary entity created by itself for its own survival.

Miracle mindedness sees the evidence of Truth in everything. It has no room for judgment since it recognizes its own being and so the 'isness' of every other being. It is like when a child gets home and calls mom at work to ask her to hurry home as he just polished off the casserole he found in the fridge. Dinner needed to be cooked. Smiling to herself Mom reassures the child that all is well. You see she knows there is another casserole ready in the freezer in the basement. So also the mind that knows the Truth remains calm in the middle of meaningless chatter knowing how transient everything else around It is. Truth has all the ingredients of Power in it. What are these ingredients? Knowledge, Purity, Love, Peace, Happiness and Strength. These ingredients promote Unconditional Love, Peace, Abundance, Wellbeing and Oneness with all. That is the Miracle.

46 years ago - today.

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