Showing posts with label faith. Show all posts
Showing posts with label faith. Show all posts

14/09/2011

3 impossible true stories (and 1 way to feel more like God).


Thinks he's an otter...

There have been times when I’ve felt so bad I’ve wanted the Earth to swallow me up. Times when, if I’d had one wish, I would not have wished for more money or time or power; I’d have wished to disappear in a puff of smoke.
And there was a time when I very, very nearly killed myself.

We’re all human, which is to say, we all have the capacity to experience tremendous pain. I’m talking about emotional pain here, but the same goes for physical…

I think it was Primo Levi who said something like:
A human is an animal that can adapt to any circumstances”.

I once watched a documentary called “The Boy Whose Skin Fell Off”. It was about a boy with a rare disease – his skin fell off his body every few days. His skin kept falling off all the time. His parents had to bandage him up, and he lived with that pain day in, day out, his whole life. In the end, he died of skin cancer.

I don’t think I’ve ever cried so much, or been so moved, as I did and was by that movie. That boy’s courage and dignity will remain with me, always. You can watch it here. You will be moved and shaken and inspired.

I wrote recently about feeling like an Ant. And about feeling like God.

To me, the difference between the two is just all about where we place our attention (and where we place our attention is the greatest sign of our intelligence)...

So I want to share with you a great way to shift your attention from the mundane, painful, ant-like aspects of life, towards God:

12/08/2011

How your personal views are worthless (and why you should probably re-think everything you think you know)



I once believed that:
If I don’t wear shoes, I’ll hurt my feet.
If I don’t keep warm, I’ll catch a cold.
I only need to practice yoga to stay fit and healthy.
I only need to stay fit and healthy to be happy.
What’s good for me is good for everyone.


When I was at school I had a friend who was, to be honest, an asshole. He once hawked up a big green lump of phlegm out of the depths of his chest and spat it full in my face. Yes, that kind of asshole. But he was nevertheless my friend, and I loved him, and somehow still do (although we’ve long since lost touch).
He once told me this saying, and it’s stuck with me ever since:
The more you study, the more you learn. The more you learn, the more you know. The more you know, the more you forget. The more you forget, the less you know. So why bother?
Of course it’s a bit silly, but when I heard it then it felt very right. Perhaps because at that time the whole adult world seemed to be pitted in a deadly struggle to teach me crap. Parents, teachers, extended family, family friends, and distant relatives were all hell-bent on cramming my head full of algebra, geology, ancient history and chemistry, at a time when all I really wanted to do was climb trees.
Many years later I read the classic book ‘I Am That’, by Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj, and the following line changed my life:
“Love says ‘I am everything’. Wisdom says ‘I am nothing’. Between the two, my life flows.”
Socrates said:
“All I know is that I know nothing”.
Such simplicity. Such beauty. Such wisdom.
That’s the kind of ancient history I am interested in... 

16/08/2010

Yoga teachers training: how I stopped resisting, and started living.

Ben, Vijendra, Sacred mountain
It’s coming towards the end of January, 2001 - and the end of my one month Yoga teacher’s training course in Kerala, India.


It’s been the longest month of my life - bar none. I’ve been ill for most of that time with bronchitis, tonsillitis, and flu (yes, simultaneously) and I never would have believed that it was possible to feel quite so useless. Having never been seriously ill in my life, and having come here with the idea that I would become God of Asana, it’s been a humbling experience, to say the least...