Eating in Sacredness

Today I saw myself starting to tip over a line from eating for health into eating without any awareness, without any sacredness. What a shift when Chetana and I pause in our meal (because often I forget to start the meal this way) and we chant OM together 3 times.

She has a lovely "O" and then closes her mouth for "MMM" with a smile. 

Most times, after I've finished the third OM, she does a few more on her own.

It's amazing how just that stopping to chant OM and bringing the mind to the present, focused on the food, is so calming and uplifting. I eat more slowly. I notice what we're eating. I eat with a smile.

As a child in Hebrew Day School we learned to say a blessing before and after each meal. In fact, before and after every act in our daily routine from opening our eyes in the morning and stepping out of bed to going to the bathroom -- of course that made us chuckle as kids -- to finishing the day with a prayer before bed - The Shama.

I did it all as a "good girl" would, but at that age I didn't have a sacredness attached to my actions. Simply, I was repeating what was "right" and "good." 

Now, a bit older (40 in Feb!), I look to have myself remember to pause and make the mundane sacred, bringing my awareness to every act.

With Chetana around it's quite fun. We remember to say goodbye and thank you to our tooth brushes, we stop to tell one another we hear an airplane over head, we pause in our meals to call out to the crows, we pick up tiny specks of dirt form the floor and throw them in the trash. Life is full of minute precious details. 

When Chetana makes the sign for "butterfly" when she sees a beautiful painting for the first time or when she points excitedly in the store at a book on the shelf and says "boon boon" having recognized a-just-like-home copy of "Goodnight Moon," or stands up in her bed first thing in the morning making kissing sounds to let us know she's awake...well, life is full of beautiful details.

Jai Gurudev. Victory to the Big Mind

Keeping Throwing The Light

While speaking to a group on December 16th, Sri Sri shared the importance of Throwing Light on Life:

Keep all other concepts on one side and just look into your own life; what have you learnt in your life?
What are your experiences?

Look at all that you thought as truth that later turned to be not true. What are the experiences which meant something at that time but after sometime meant nothing? Observe how your judgements were all just bubbles on the surface of water; they had no facts, they had no stance. 

You had judgements and you thought that is how it is and later on you thought, ‘oh! It was just my judgement but not the way things really are.’ 

So your vision broadens, sharpens and heightens. That which broadens your vision, sharpens your vision and heightens your vision is ‘Swadhyay’.
Swa means oneself, studying one's own 'Self'. Throwing light on your own ‘self’, examining your own ‘self’, this is essential.

By this introspection you blossom and that inner being is unlocked. Then one begins to understand everything - there is one light, which is within me. Then you find the way and truth dawns and then you recognize that which is in all the Holy Scriptures. Otherwise just by hearing the Holy Scriptures and saying it like a parrot has no value. It has to become alive in our life and for that Swadhyay is essential. 

Throw light on your own mind, on your own intellect, on your own life and the events of your own life, this is very important. You will be amazed by just throwing light on events of your life what happens. How you were, what concepts you had, how limited your thinking was and now how vast it has become. How your behaviours were and how your behaviours have changed. How your sense of belongingness was and how it has changed now.

Read more at What Sri Sri Said Today.

If You’re Happy & You Know It…Just Go About Your Day As Usual.

When will you be happy?

And now the question… what is “happy”?

So far “happy” has meant “uncontrollable-giggly, a-little-off-center goofy, cheeks-hurt smiley.”

But what if that’s something else ---  call it “having the sillies.”

And, what if “happy” is– copasetic, content, at ease, centered, focused, uplifted, connected.

And, what if “happy” as defined here even underlies other emotions that pass through? Can I be experiencing anger and be content, at ease, centered, focused, uplifted, connected?  Hmmmm… I think “yes” for most of that list.

Can I be frustrated? And “happy?”  Can I be goal-oriented and “happy”?

Yes.

Before I had Chetana I would have told you that “I don’t need anything to be happy.” But that was really an “intellectual answer” not a “knowledgeable answer.” Meaning, I know I would get an “A” on the test by answering “I don’t need anything to be happy.” However, I didn’t really know what that meant. I thought I did, though.

Then, in walks (well…out comes) Chetana. And a week after she’s born I’m sitting at the edge of my bed and the thought comes “now what?” For 7 years having a baby had been my on-again/off-again focus. Now, here I was and, well, I didn’t feel endless exuberance as I had expected. Life hadn’t suddenly become “perfectly perfect.” I felt, well, the same.  And that’s when I realized…”nothing can make me happy.”

Well, to be honest, that is what I thought. “Nothing can make me happy. Not even having a baby has made me happy. There’s no hope of my every being happy.”

But, remember, here happiness was defined in my head as “ever-present smile, never angry, never upset, nothing can throw me off center, life is all rosey.” And, well, I wasn’t feeling that post-partum. 

And, well, I think I’ve been a little miffed about that.

And then, tonight, in passing my dear friend was here making dinner and cleaning my home (it’s true!), and she said, “I’m so happy these days.”

What? But you grumble like other folks and you have body aches like other folks and you have goals like other folks. Life isn’t “perfectly perfect.” You’re not “done” and just ready to sit back and relax. How can you say you’re “happy?”

Then, here I am 2 hours later and having meditated and pushed myself in my “throwing light on life” to not pick up the easy-pickin’s of realizations for the day, but to dig a little and really grow from the exercise. And there it is --- I’ve hooked the word “happiness” on to something I’d now call “a little bit off kilter.” And I’m re-hooking the word “happiness” on “calm, centered, at peace, content” WITH all the emotions that come and go, some of which I cling on to and some of which I push away (call them “positive” or “negative” emotions, if you’d like).

Bottom line, I have it all, and, I’m happy.

This is what happy looks like. 

Every Day's a New Day

[note: i'm just going to pick up here like i never left off...]
What light is there to throw today?
1. Headstands. I've long grumbled that I don't know how to do headstands properly. Today - instead of my usual "I'm grumpy because everyone's doing headstands and i can't" - I called out to my teacher with a smile and asked "Cindy, could you show me how to do headstands?" EGO: Ha Ha Ha! I dismissed you! As Dear Guruji says -- Ego can't be gotten rid of, but you just keep it in your pocket.

She showed me how. I smiled and laughed with her. Silly silly.

2. Being 100%: Chetana needed my full attention today. I just sat on the floor with her and engaged in the activities she initiated. I listened to what she had to say. I spoke clearly and directly to her about what I was doing and why. Pretty cool. I'd been feeling rather lonely recently. Seems that has a lot to do with living in my head ... i.e., brooding over the past and planning planning planning for the future. Yes, reviewing the past & planing the future are necessary activities...But, we all know when enough has crossed over enough and we are simply a broken record of repeated thoughts - which is the definition of worry.

3. Chetana says "opposites": it's the cutest thing to here. I highly recommend saying the word "opposites" out loud and enjoying that "s-t-s" sound and kind of dropping the "o's" out of the equation. It seems to please her as much as saying "pasta" - here, too, dropping the "a" in the middle and repeating the sound several times over. Any suggestions of similar sound-involved words to introduce her to?

If you are chanting you cannot be depressed.

This lovely dose of insight comes form Sri Sri Ravi Shankar's daily wisdom posted from his December 5, 2011 talk in India. Enjoy!

Sri Sri Ravi Shankar:

If you are chanting you cannot be depressed.

When you chant ‘Om’ it calms down those centers of emotions and once that is done the depression vanishes. 

So if you are depressed it is because you are so engrossed in the material world. Day and night thinking what about me you get depressed. 

What you should do is, in the morning when you wake up, ask, ‘what service can I do? How best I can be useful to all these people or to the world; to this knowledge or to this organization.' If none of that comes, then how can I be useful to Guruji. At least think that way. 

If your focus is on this direction and you continue you’re chanting and your meditation knowing this life is temporary and everything here vanishes, and chant ‘Om Namaha Shivaya’, you cannot be depressed. 

Depressive negative energy will simply vanish. 

That is why in ancient days people would do Sandhyavandanam three times. 

In the morning you wake up, look at the Sun and think of the beautiful day it is going to bring you and thank the Sun for life and for the planet earth. Our life and planet is dependent on the Sun, so you thank the Sun.

Again in the afternoon you do Sandhyavandanam and again in the evening you thank the Sun for the beautiful day and feel connected to the whole universe.

When you do this, there is no question of getting depressed. When you don’t know that you are connected with the whole universe and you think you are just some small person wanting small little things and you are bickering on your own weaknesses saying, I am weak, I don’t know this and I don’t have that. I sit for meditation and I did Kriya but nothing happens to me. This type of bickering in the mind shows the small mindedness. You have to come out of that. You take responsibility, I will come out of this and I’ll dedicate my life.

All these people who want to commit suicide, I tell them it is such stupidity. You want to commit suicide because you are so bent upon your own pleasure, your own happiness, and your own comfort. You dedicate your life for a greater cause then depression will vanish.

When you say, I am not going to take my life away but I am going to dedicate it for the world, for humanity, for the country then so much happiness comes. 

Come what may I am going to fight.

I think all the depressed people should be made to realize this truth and chanting will elevate them. 

Either you dedicate yourself to the world, to the nation, to culture, to dharma or you dedicate yourself to God, to the Supreme Being, to the sacred knowledge.

That dedication can pull you out of this rut.