Tag: mindfulness

Turn All of Your Obstacles into Your Superpowers – Jai Ganesha

Leana LovejoyLeave a comment

Ganesha, the Hindu elephant God is revered as the remover of obstacles, among other things.  The mythology that surrounds him is varied, and the messages within it as well, but one day, while chanting a Sanskrit mantra devoted to the worship of Ganesha I saw it clearly – he made the most of his larger than life-sized obstacle, namely wearing the head of an elephant and turned that to such good purpose that he was deified.  It catapulted him into the realm of the Gods.   He’s also quite tubby, a quality that is not often respected by mortal humans, instead it is considered a sign of weakness.  However, in this case it simply increases his adorability manyfold!  Jai Ganesha!  We love you!

How does this relate to our lives and what can we learn from it?  It would certainly be considered a tragedy of epic proportion to live with the head of an elephant on a human body.  Who remembers the movie, “Elephant Man” where the deformed man is hidden away from sight but does eventually learn to use his handicap as his strength, not as fully as Ganesha, but we mere mortals take smaller steps apparently.  It is through joy, acceptance and  complete embracing of our obstacles that they take us to the next level.

Understand that I do not want to diminish the magnitude of this challenge.  It is perhaps one of the greatest challenges we have as humans living this life on earth.  So many regular and ordinary occurrences are uncomfortable or unpleasant, and our mind usually goes on to tell us “undesirable”.  If we can learn to corral this impulse, to catch it before it blossoms fully into our mind, then we have taken a giant step towards realizing freedom, and regaining our true power.

Freedom isn’t just about walking where we want to walk or choosing a college or career, that is one a kind of freedom.  But freedom from the suffering, and bondage of the conditioned mind, that is true freedom.  There don’t seem to be any effective shortcuts to this exalted destination. It requires sincerity, willingness, devotion, pure hearted words and actions, and lots of quiet time in inner space. There is no telling how such a choice will begin to influence your life, but there really is no other pursuit as worthy. It’s not necessary to believe me or take my word for anything but consider that any wisdom worth its salt is verifiable through direct experience. If you have received the call there is only one choice (no choice, actually) – Go for it!

What happens next is anybody’s guess but what has been referred to as a “dramatic shift in awareness” is highly likely. Sincerity, intention, meditation and voila – life on earth transforms and transmutes into new dimensions of wondrousness and miraculous events become commonplace.

What are you waiting for? True liberation is seeing that each so-called obstacle is a helper, a support, a portal to living in a better way. Facing our challenges directly while learning to return to love rewards us with profound experiences and deeply experienced emotions. Emotions are often evaded, our addictions point directly to the inability to face and feel our feelings – as many of them are sincerely uncomfortable and craving comfort is a common response to life.

It’s also increasingly apparent that our addictions point directly to self abandonment. When we are unable to make healthy choices in life, it is a kind of self abuse. What is the healing for this? Clearly it is self love, and self respect, since we don’t abuse those we respect. It’s a big step towards acquiring the superpowers that can blossom from our seemingly undesired hindrances. Embracing the mystery, pondering every paradox and always always returning to love… might also be called the stairway to heaven…

Learning from Nature

Leana Lovejoy1 Comment

“Nature is my religion”

To me, this means – that the natural world, the wilderness is a divinely beautiful system, in harmony with itself – self-regulating and wondrously complex, intricate and sacred.  It is unfathomable, well-organized and astoundingly beautiful at both the micro and the macro levels.

Nature operates more on a rhythm than a calendar.  Her processes of change are interrelated and subtle.  How do two trees growing side by side interact?  They obviously intertwine their roots, and often give space to each other’s branches and accommodate one another.  Until, at some point perhaps one has an advantage and outgrows the other, one grows and one withers.  It’s a chance of fate, of birth and species.  A Douglas fir will eventually overshadow an oak, transforming the forest from hardwoods to softwoods, from deciduous to coniferous.

The Sufis says that the leaves of a tree as the pages of the Bible.  I have taken  time to meditate with trees, and with their leaves.  These otherworldly beings begin their lives as a seed, and absorb, transmute and alchemize themselves into trees, using sunlight, water, air and food.  Somehow they know to do this, it happens, and to intimately witness that miracle is a true spiritual awakening.

We share this planet with so many other kinds of beings.  The sheer variety is more than my human brain can possibly assimilate.  Like a hummingbird, I witness the activities in my garden by casting my awareness around from flower, to leaf, to shaft of sunlight to critter movement to stillness.  Tonight I shared a moment with a raccoon, yesterday a small spider and before that a family of quail who live in the blackberry thicket right off the driveway. I know that the animals and many of the beings that live on this land with me for the past 20 years watch me, know my habits and accommodate themselves to that.  At one time there were three crows who watched as I fed the outside cat (she won’t come in even though she’s welcome) and patiently waited until the cat finished eating to empty the dish.  These days a fox does that job…

After a time spent in nature as my mind returns to its smaller, more human concerns it has become much easier to cast aside those pesky self-limiting and self-judging thoughts. A new perspective has been gained that is more open – more kind, more accepting.  To find myself being a part of the natural world is thrilling, and at the same time since it is actually the natural state, it also feels, well, natural.  Simultaneously relaxed and alert.  Refreshed and reinvigorated.  Renewed and Restored.

One of the purposes of meditation for me is to slow down enough to be able to perceive the subtle activities of the natural world.  To watch the chrysalis open, to catch a closeup view of a butterfly.  Have you ever looked closely at a butterfly’s face?  They are heartbreakingly adorable.  They are little fairy creatures, some of them have polka dotted bodies, other have little multicolored striped antennae… Dragonflies have great big smiles – Bumblebees are all different, some tiny and mostly black, others plump and more yellow.  Why?  This I cannot answer!

What else is to be learned from this holy book?  Patience, allowing, trusting – as the natural world’s processes are so well organized and effective, then is it possible that we, too are so well organized?  That we have an innate program that will choose our place, will allow us to be created into what we really are?  The best healers I know guide the body to listen to its own innate wisdom, for the blueprint for health is already contained within each of us.  That includes the blueprint for physical, emotional and spiritual health.  It all comes back to learning how to listen, deeply, honestly, truly listen.

 

 

Living in the Light of Love

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These are beautiful words – but what exactly do they mean?  What is “the light” and how do we live “in the light”?  Good question!  Oftentimes we can understand a concept by first looking at its opposite.  In this case, it’s darkness.  Darkness is associated with evil, with underground, with hate…it is the yang to the yin of light.  What happens when we shed light in the darkness?  It is easier to see the road, the path, the way.  It is easier to understand the effects of our actions.  It is less scary and more friendly.

Light, then is the opposite of dark.  It is love, kindness, warmth, daytime and clear seeing.  Love is spiritual light.  It illuminates the darkness by showing us the path to walk.  How do we love?  Most of the ancient religions have codified a system that gives us this answer.  Yes, it seems obvious to many that most religions today have lost their way (in the dark?) but their teachings are truthful.  Buddhism has a clear system of guidelines – the 8 fold path which includes right view, right resolve, right speech, right conduct, right livelihood, right effort, right mindfulness and right samadhi.  That pretty much covers it all.  The 8 limbs of Yoga include the same concepts – non-harming, and more.  These guidelines do leave many actions open to interpretation, but from a clear perspective give us all the information we need to live in the light of love.

How can we use our positive intentions to be more loving beings? How can love guide our words and actions – all day every day.  What is the touchstone for love?  Our heart, which carries the wisdom of the ages can guide the way once we learn how to listen.  This is one of the important results of meditation.  By sitting quietly and centering our mind we can more easily hear our heart’s wisdom.  Through mindful breath (called pranayama in yoga) we learn to silence the mind’s chatter, or to at least turn down the volume on its opinions and reactions.  In this way we can sort through our thoughts to find the ones that will guide us to our desired outcomes.

One teacher reminds us to ask this question:  is it kind? if not, perhaps it is not the correct path…facing our own inner demons and releasing part of our personality that have been instrumental in creating problems for us is a big step, but one well worth taking.  Slowing down our response time is helpful, taking deep breaths at a time of stress, calming our “fight or flight” pattern will guarantee a better outcome in most situations.  Reacting from a place of fear generates adrenaline.  Adrenaline is useful in times of true attack, we can find almost superhuman power in our bodies at such times but at other times, this response can cause more harm than good.  Mindfulness is the key word here, learning to distinguish real from imagined threats to our safety and well being is a big step into the “light”.

A considered response is creative, is purposeful and can lead us to a desired outcome.  A reactive response is the opposite.  How do we become responsible people?  The answers are always available to us and the key is in quieting our mind enough to be able to hear its wisdom.  From here we can truly live “in the light of love”.  The reference to “inner light” is all about tapping into the truth within.  A chaotic mind will cause a chaotic life, if it is allowed to run our lives.  We can live like three year olds (tantrum, anyone?) and yes there are some wonderful aspects of childhood that we want to preserve, but true adulthood has more capacity for responsibility and presence.  Who’s running the show, our inner three year old or our seasoned adult.  Making conscious choices feels good, to ourselves and others.