READ: If You’re Not Here Then Where Are You? by Ed and Deb Shapiro

Life is what happens to you while you’re busy making other plans.  John Lennon

Who said life would be like walking the yellow brick road, or that the human condition would be easy? And why is it so important to be here? What’s the big deal? It appears that the reason we’re not happy is because we long for things to be other than they are. We’re not satisfied being here. Not satisfied being with what is. We want things to be different, because we believe that if they were we would be happier. Therefore, we’re not truly present with our reality.

Certainly many of us face challenging situations, but resistance only makes this harder. It can turn pain into suffering. Taking each moment at a time enables us to be with whatever is happening. When we were in England, Ed was chatting with a nun named Avis. He said to her, “Some day we will all die and meet up in heaven.” And she replied, “Yeah, and we’ll look at each other and say, ‘What was that all about!’”

Normally, we spend our time either living in what-could-have-been or what-might-have-been or if-only, or in the expectation of what-could-be or what-might-be. But constantly living in either the past or the future is like being in a dream, as it limits our capacity to be in the present, with what is happening now. No matter how much we try, plan, plot, arrange, have things to do, we still have no idea what will happen next.

We used to live next to a river and walked beside it each day. But as much as it looked like the same river, even the same water, it was constantly different. Just as we may look the same, the cells in our body are forever being formed, growing and dying; we are continually changing as we renew ourselves in every minute.

We can stay open to these moments of change by simply being aware of them. Right now, just stop and take a deep breath. As you breath out, just notice how your body feels, the chair you are sitting on, and the room you are in. That’s all. It only takes an instant to be present.

Contrary to common belief, it can be immensely liberating to have nothing going on, to discover that the whole universe is contained in this moment. To realize that nothing more is required of us than to just be aware and present. What a relief! Finally, we can experience this reality just as it is, without expectation, prejudice, longing, or without the desire for something to be different. This invites a deep sense of completion, that there really is nowhere else we need to be or go. It’s impossible to think of somewhere else as being better for the grass is vividly green exactly where we are.

Someone once asked Ed if he had ever experienced another dimension. He replied, “Have you experienced this one?” There is no greater joy in this whole world than our own true self.

Practice: Being and Breathing Meditation

When we meditate by simply watching the flow of the breath it naturally brings us into the present. The breath is just breathing, and yet it is never the same, each breath is completely different to the last one.

Sit comfortably with your back straight, hands in your lap, eyes closed. Spend a few minutes settling your body.

            Now bring your focus to your breathing, just watch the natural movement as you breathe in and out. Silently repeat, “Breathing in, Breathing out.”

            Stay with watching your breath. If your mind starts to drift just see your thoughts as birds in the sky and watch them fly away. Then come back to the breath.

            Anytime you get distracted, bored, or stressed, just come back to the breath, to this moment now. Silently repeat, “I am here, I am now, I am present. I am here, I am now, I am present.”

            You can do this for a few minutes or as long as you like. When you are ready, take a deep breath and let it go, open your eyes, and move gently.

Ed and Deb Shapiro are the authors of BE THE CHANGE, How Meditation Can Transform You And The World, with forewords by the Dalai Lama and Robert Thurman and Winner of the 2010 Nautilus Gold Book Award. Deb is the author of the bestselling book, YOUR BODY SPEAKS YOUR MIND, winner of the 2007 Visionary Book Award. They are featured bloggers on Oprah.com/spirit, HuffingtonPost.com/Living, and Care2.com. They have 3 meditation CD’s: Metta — Loving Kindness and Forgiveness; Samadhi – Breath Awareness and Insight; and Yoga Nidra – Inner Conscious Relaxation. See: www.EdandDebShapiro.com 

Technorati Tags: appreciation, gratitude, Happiness, inspiration, love, Meditation, personal development, Personal Growth, self-discovery, Spirituality

EXPERIENCE: A Guided Video Meditation with Gangaji

A meditation with spiritual teacher Gangaji.

Gangaji shares a simple message – “This is an invitation to shift your allegiance from the activities of your mind to the eternal presence of your being.” Born in Texas in 1942, Gangaji grew up in Mississippi. After graduating from the University of Mississippi in 1964, she married and had a daughter. In 1972, she moved to San Francisco where she began exploring deeper levels of her being. She took Bodhisattva vows, practiced Zen and Vipassana meditation, helped run a Tibetan Buddhist Meditation Center, and had a career as an acupuncturist in the San Francisco Bay area. Despite her successes, Gangaji continued to experience a deep and persistent longing for fulfillment. She pursued many paths to change her life including relationship, motherhood, political activism, career, and spiritual practice, but even the greatest of her successes ultimately came up short. In the wake of her disillusionment, she made a final prayer for true help. In 1990, the answer to her prayer came unexpectedly, taking her to India and to the meeting that would change everything. There on the banks of the river Ganga, she met Sri H.W.L. Poonja, also known as Papaji, who opened the floodgates of self-recognition. In this meeting, Gangaji’s personal story of suffering ended and the promise of a true life began to flower and unfold. Today, Gangaji travels the world speaking to seekers from all walks of life. A teacher and author, she shares her direct experience of the essential message she received from Papaji and offers it to all who want to discover a true and lasting fulfillment. Through her life and words, she powerfully articulates how it is really possible to discover the truth of who you are and to be true to that discovery. Gangaji’s website www.gangaji.org 

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READ: What Does Karma Yoga Mean? by Ed and Deb Shapiro

If we act with kindness and without focusing on ourselves, happiness will arise naturally, like a flower opening in the sun.

Some people think that yoga means stretching, bending and twisting like a pretzel, or sitting crossed legged with our eyes closed and chanting Om. But if that is all we did we would be no use to anyone. We spent our honeymoon in India and lived at the Bihar School of Yoga, where the foundation of our training was karma yoga. This was brilliant, as it gave us the opportunity to deepen our understanding of what it really is.

Many great yoga masters have said that the greatest path of yoga is karma yoga, as it is the one that asks us to be the least me-centered. The teaching is very explicit regarding karma yoga, which is described as the path of action and selfless service, to renounce our own selfish pursuits and not to reap the fruits of our actions. Brad Pitt’s selfless work building houses in New Orleans, or yoga teacher and activist Seane Corn’s work with Youth AIDS are expressions of karma yoga. ”I realized that whether my yoga practice was fifteen minutes or four hours was irrelevant because it was not about how yoga can change me,” says Seane in our book, Be The Change, “but how I, through this practice, can begin to change the world. What I really felt was how dare I not step into the world and hold that space?”

Start by practicing selfless service for a day, giving in whatever way you can by offering kindness. How does it feel? Just one day of this can be transforming, so try doing it once a week. It doesn’t mean you have to deny or ignore your own needs—you are just as important as everyone else. But just for this time let it not be about you.

Tai chi teacher Arthur Rosenfield was in the drive-thru line at Starbucks. The man in line behind him was getting impatient and angry, leaning on his horn and shouting insults at both Arthur and the Starbucks workers. Keeping his cool, Arthur paid for the man’s coffee and drove away. When he got home later that day, he discovered that he had created a chain of giving that had not only continued all day but had been highlighted on NBC News. Within twenty-four hours it had spread around the world on the Internet.

“Everybody can be great… because anybody can serve,” said Martin Luther King. “You don’t have to have a college degree to serve. You don’t have to make your subject and verb agree to serve. You only need a heart full of grace. A soul generated by love.”

Karma yoga is creating goodness in the world. Do you treat your world with kindness or with aggression? Giving without any thought of getting is the most powerful act of generosity as it is unconditional, unattached, free to land wherever it will. But generosity can also raise fears about not having enough. Watch where resentment creeps in and remember that selfless action is just that: selfless.

On our morning walk through the alleys near our house we came across a back yard filled with used bicycles. Finally we met the owner. He had a bicycle shop in town and was collecting all these used bikes, repairing them, and then donating them to an Indian reservation in Montana. His goal was that everyone at the reservation, young and old, should have a bicycle of their own.

We see it in author Marc Barasch, founder of Green World Campaign. He decided that, “instead of cutting down trees to put words on a page, I wanted to plant some actual trees in the ground.” This year the nonprofit will plant millions of trees throughout the developing world, revitalizing barren land, helping sustain poor villages, and combating climate change. The slogan is, It’s amazing what one seed can grow.

And there is Aileen, a friend from England. In the last ten years she has created a farm in rural India. She sent us a photo showing her planting ‘flame of the forest’ tree seeds into starter pots. When these seeds become saplings they will be distributed to local school children so that each child will have their own tree to grow and tend.

Serving enables us to step beyond our own desires and to release any sense of separation. It takes us out of selfishness and neediness, and in the process we see our own self-centeredness in greater perspective. We discover that in giving we do not have any less. Rather, we gain so much. Let everything we do be of benefit to others.

Ed and Deb Shapiro are the authors of BE THE CHANGE, How Meditation Can Transform You And The World, with forewords by the Dalai Lama and Robert Thurman and Winner of the 2010 Nautilus Gold Book Award. Deb is the author of the bestselling book, YOUR BODY SPEAKS YOUR MIND, winner of the 2007 Visionary Book Award. They are featured bloggers on Oprah.com/spirit, HuffingtonPost.com/Living, and Care2.com. They have 3 meditation CD’s: Metta — Loving Kindness and Forgiveness; Samadhi – Breath Awareness and Insight; and Yoga Nidra – Inner Conscious Relaxation. See: www.EdandDebShapiro.com

 

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Why Yoga Is So Misunderstood ~ How It Has Gone From the Sane to the Bizarre by Ed and Deb Shapiro

Yoga has come a long way from its roots in the east. As it has become more popular in the west teachers have added their own twist – both literally & figuratively. In the process of becoming so widespread, however, it often gets misunderstood by both teachers and practitioners…

Yoga ~ A Menopause Alternative to HRT by Mache Seibel M.D.

Twenty years ago during a particularly stressful period of work, I began taking a yoga class as a non-pharmacologic antidote. I was running a center for reproduction and women’s health, working 24/7 and needed a way to relax. I had the good fortune to enroll with a yogini named Hari Khar Khalsa, and I took classes from her for a period of time. One day after class I asked her if she would…

Technorati Tags: appreciation, gratitude, Happiness, inspiration, love, Meditation, personal development, Personal Growth, self-discovery, Spirituality, yoga

READ: Why is Love so Painful? by Pragito Dove

Love is painful because it creates the way for joy, for ecstasy, for bliss. Love is painful because it transforms you. Love is growth.

Love itself does not hurt. It is growth that hurts, the ego that stings.

Each transformation is painful because the old situation is being left behind for the new. Hence, fear arises.

The real problem is the mind. Fear lives in the mind and the mind wants you to hang on to a situation that is known and comfortable for you. The ego-mind resists change because it is afraid of losing control and feels insecure about the unpredictability of the unknown. Love means the death of the ego because love cannot be controlled, it can only be received, accepted. Love is fragile. One day it is there, the next day it may be gone, like the wind. We cannot grasp the wind in our fist. We can only enjoy and appreciate it while it is there.

For the mind, love is a dangerous path. Mind will advise you to avoid love but this is even more dangerous, because love is the central core of our lives. A life without love is a life that is withered and dried up.

It is because of the pain of love that millions live a loveless life, like a rotten seed that has never opened to flower to it’s fullest potential.If you don’t go into love, as many people have decided, then you are stuck with yourself. Then your life is a stagnant pool. You need to keep the energy flowing, like a river which keeps on flowing to the ocean.

So what do we do? Choose love! Always choose love because even though there is pain, to suffer in love is not to suffer in vain; it takes you to higher levels of consciousness. There is a positive, creative outcome for you. If you choose the mind you will also suffer but it will be useless suffering with an unproductive outcome. Life will be dull and you become neurotic from lack of love. To be afraid of love, to be afraid of the growing pains of love, is to remain enclosed in a dark cell.

The transformation is from control of the mind to vulnerability of the heart. And the agony can be deep. But you cannot have ecstasy without going through agony. If the gold wants to be purified, it has to pass through fire.

Love is fire.

Find your courage and love, fully and completely. Trust and live in your heart. Love takes you from the head to the heart and nurtures, comforts and heals you even as you pass through the fire. Love is ever-present to support you.

With love, the soul arises within you; the ego drops and the soul arises. Love is food for the soul.

You can ask yourself:”Is this pain for my growth?” “Is my heart breaking open to give and receive even more love?” Every time your heart breaks open, yes it’s painful, but it means your heart is expanding and deepening. The pain is good and productive for you.

LEARN from each experience, WATCH the ego and CHOOSE LOVE. Go through the dark night, and you will reach a beautiful sunrise. It is only in the womb of the dark night that the sun evolves. It is only through the dark night that the morning comes.

Here is a meditation to encourage and support you.

Meditation: Sixty-Second Stop
Benefits:
This powerful yet simple technique encourages the love in your heart to grow, and it attracts more love to you.

Close your eyes and become aware of your heart.It might help to place your hand on your heart. Bring in a memory of a person, place or event that brings you joy. Feel the happiness filling your heart with that memory.
Do this technique whenever you feel disconnected from your heart or whenever you want to increase the love in your heart.

With love to you, my reader. I look forward to your comments.

There is more information on my books, CDs, and workshops on www.discovermeditation.com

Pragito Dove M.A., C.C.H. is the leading authority on Expressive Meditation in North America. Using the principles she now teaches, Pragito transformed her pain and fear into joy and inner peace. Founder of the Laughing Buddhas Network and an internationally recognized master trainer, speaker, and meditation expert, Pragito is the author of two best-selling books, Lunchtime Enlightenment (Penguin Group), and Laughter, Tears, Silence (published in six languages). She has a private practice in Northern California from where she teaches highly acclaimed programs such as the Laughter Meditation Teleclass Program Series to an international audience! Pragito’s website is: http://www.discovermeditation.com 

 

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Self-confidence is a deeply-rooted feeling that we are ok, that we are loved, that we matter…that what we say, do and feel…matters.
When we are missing this key ingredient, life can be hell. So, let’s turn the hell into heaven right now with these 5 keys that work to unleash your self-confidence, joy and creativity. And here’s the good news: your self-confidence is already in there, just waiting to be freed up and expressed.

6 Reasons Why Meditation Appears So Difficult by Ed and Deb Shapiro

We were teaching a meditation program in North Wales, in the UK, in a quiet backwater near the hills. It was a peaceful day, everyone was happily seated, and we had just rung the gong to begin the morning session when a motorbike started revving right outside the window. It was a loud and annoying noise that continued – stopping and starting –while the owner did repair work. It reminded us how, in England, church bells can ring all day and during meditation retreats we would often be confronted with the question: how do you stop the bell? Answer: become the bell!

Technorati Tags: Guidance, inspiration, joy, love, Meditation, Painful Love, pragito dove, reflection, vivid life

READ: How Hot Is Your Anger? by Ed and Deb Shapiro

Keep cool; anger is not an argument — Daniel Webster

Soon after Nelson Mandela’s release from twenty-seven years in jail Bill Clinton asked him if he was angry the day he finally walked away free. “Surely,” Clinton said, “You must have felt some anger?” Mandela agreed that, yes, alongside the joy of being free, he had also felt great anger. “But,” he said, “I valued my freedom more, and I knew that if I expressed my anger I would still be a prisoner.”

Anger can be an effective expression of passion for justice and fairness, for basic rightness, for what is appropriate and humane. But anger can also be like a single match that can burn an entire forest, causing tremendous damage and hurt, wars, greed and self-deception. The fallout can be huge and, invariably, we have no control over the repercussions.

Few of us want to admit that we get bitchy, shout, or lose our temper—we much prefer to see ourselves as being wonderfully tolerant and serene. Yet we all get angry at some time or another and in its passion anger pushes away, condemns, and makes everything wrong except itself. Our heart goes out of reach and we lose touch with our feelings. There is no compromise, no chance for dialogue—I am right and you are wrong.

Trying to eradicate anger is like trying to box with our own shadow: it doesn’t work. Getting rid of it implies either expressing it, and possibly causing emotional carnage; denying and avoiding it, which is a way of lying to ourselves and can cause depression or bitterness; or repressing it, which just holds it inside until it erupts at a later time when it can cause even more harm.

“Ducks don’t do anger,” says Deepesh Faucheux in our book, Be The Change. “Ducks fight over a piece of bread and then they just swim away. But people keep processing everything that happens to them. That processing of the story—what so and so did to me, she wronged me, why doesn’t he respect me—keeps the energy identified as anger and resentment, instead of seeing it as simply energy.”

There are often layers of conflicting feelings hidden beneath anger, such as hurt, insecurity, sadness or fear. The power of rage is such that it can overshadow these other emotions, causing us to lose touch with ourselves and struggle to articulate what we are really feeling. Having lost our connectedness with each other, anger can really be a cry for attention or for contact; it may be expressing grief, loneliness, or a longing to love and be loved. We are saying, “I love you,” or “I need you,” while hurling abuse at each other.

“We get to see that underneath anger,” says Rabbi Zalman Schachter in Be The Change, “there is fear, pain, and sorrow, and we cannot deal with anger unless we also deal with what sustains the anger. We forget how we are hardwired. The reptilian system within us makes sure we are secure and safe. If we do not feel secure, then the dinosaur will rear its head and roar. So under anger is always the question of how safe does the reptilian feel.”

We need to go beneath the anger to see what hurt, longing or fear is trying to make itself heard. There may be feelings of rejection, grief or loneliness, so if we repress anger or pretend it isn’t there then all these other feelings get repressed and ignored as well. Only by recognizing what the real emotion is behind the expression can there be more honest communication.

By naming and recognizing the many faces of anger, we can stay present with it as it arises, keeping the heart open, breathing, watching emotions come up and pass through. We can watch as anger fills the mind and makes such a song and dance, and we can just keep breathing and watching as it goes on it’s merry way.

Meditation not only invites us to witness anger, but also to get to know and make friends with ourselves. It gives us a midpoint between expressing anger and repressing it, a place where we can be aware of our feelings and not be swept away by them. Meditation is not going to make all our challenges go away but it does enable us to rest in an inclusiveacceptance of who we are.

The Guest House

This being human is a guest house.

Every morning a new arrival.

A joy, a depression, a meanness,

some momentary awareness comes

as an unexpected visitor.

Welcome and entertain them all!

Even if they’re a crowd of sorrows,

who violently sweep your house

empty of its furniture,

still, treat each guest honorably.

He may be clearing you out

for some new delight.

The dark thought, the shame, the malice,

meet them at the door laughing,

and invite them in.

Be grateful for whoever comes,

because each has been sent

as a guide from beyond.

~ Rumi ~

Ed and Deb Shapiro are the authors of BE THE CHANGE, How Meditation Can Transform You And The World, with forewords by the Dalai Lama and Robert Thurman and Winner of the 2010 Nautilus Gold Book Award. Deb is the author of the bestselling book, YOUR BODY SPEAKS YOUR MIND, winner of the 2007 Visionary Book Award. They are featured bloggers on Oprah.com/spirit, HuffingtonPost.com/Living, and Care2.com. They have 3 meditation CD’s: Metta — Loving Kindness and Forgiveness; Samadhi – Breath Awareness and Insight; and Yoga Nidra – Inner Conscious Relaxation. See: www.EdandDebShapiro.com 

 

Read more from VividLife.me bloggers:

6 Reasons Why Meditation Appears So Difficult by Ed and Deb Shapiro

We were teaching a meditation program in North Wales, in the UK, in a quiet backwater near the hills. It was a peaceful day, everyone was happily seated, and we had just rung the gong to begin the morning session when a motorbike started revving right outside the window. It was a loud and annoying noise that continued – stopping and starting –while the owner did repair work. It reminded us how, in England, church bells can ring all day and during meditation retreats we would often be confronted with the question: how do you stop the bell? Answer: become the bell!

Going Inside ~ Direct Experience Is Like a True Kiss by Gangaji

To inquire into something is to open to it, to meet it, and to discover its meaning — or lack of meaning — from the inside of it. Inquiry is generally recognized to mean investigating, and that definition serves the purpose well. However, in the sense in which I use Inquiry, it is not information that is provided by this investigation, but direct experience. To directly experience anything we first have to leave behind all preconceptions of that thing.

Technorati Tags: anger, appreciation, awareness, Ed and Deb Shapiro, Happiness, inspiration, Meditation, mindfulness, personal development, self help, self-discovery, Spiritual Guidance, Spirituality, vivid life

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