The Best Piece of Advice I Ever Was Given

Photography by PaulPrescott.com

I was in an Ashram*. Having my hedonistic, narcissistic, capitalist-conditioned mind blown open by a small group of people who dedicate their lives – completely – to the benefit of the world around them. A small group of Swamis.

Before I left, I asked my favorite Swami for a piece of advice. Here’s what he said...

(you can read the rest here on Elephant Journal)

Take responsibility - don't hand over your power to others.

Somebody told me about a friend who is obsessed with the world ending in 2012.

Guess what - the world won't end this year in 2012. It probably won't end for a very, very long time.

Until it does, please don't give away your power to anyone that would have you relinquish your responsibility. Whether they be conspiracy theorists, psychics, healers, spiritual teachers, yoga 'guru's... anyone.

Right now, there is important work to be done - for yourself, for those around you, for the planet, for future generations.

Let's do that work, and stop worrying about an uncertain future. Focus on the present - be real, stay grounded, and do what you need to do to cultivate more joy.

Be more free.

Spread more love.

Thanks for listening - if it's of value, please share.

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... 

Get out feeling good. (The wise grieve neither for the living, nor for the dead.)

Jacques-Louis David, The Death of Marat, oil on canvas, 1793 (Royal Museum of Fine Arts, Brussels)

You probably think you are “(insert your name)”. You’re not – you can legally change your name, but you won’t have changed what you are – your name is just a handle with which the world is able to pick you up and examine you.

You probably think of yourself as either a man or a woman. You’re not. That is just a gender association that you make based upon the genetic choices that your cells made when your body was being formed biologically. You are only an association as long as you are not being the genuine article.

You probably think of yourself primarily as your body. Most people do...

Introducing a true spiritual master: Tony Samara

Some people talk of the world ending in 2012 – personally I think that’s nonsense. The world won’t end; but our world just might, unless we evolve human consciousness from the fear mentality that currently pervades, to a new paradigm of love.

I have always had this feeling, this vision (and it has not faded) since I was a child. Indeed, as I have grown older, it has been re-affirmed.

Swami Vishnu Devananda founded the Sivananda Yoga teacher-training course because he had a vision during meditation of the world burning; human beings running around in chaos and fear and desperation. He created that yoga teacher-training course not so much to train yoga teachers as to train world leaders. He recognized that moral, ethical, and spiritual leadership throughout society would prompt change at a ‘grassroots’ level: the change that is necessary to avoid the kind of disaster we may be facing now.

When I learnt of this – as I took the teacher-training myself – I was deeply moved. I silently vowed to do all I could to become the kind of leader that Swami Vishnu envisioned. I did this not only out of love for him (although I never met him - he died in 1993, the year I discovered yoga - I have always felt a tremendous loyalty and love towards him). I did it also because I resonated with his vision, and because I love this Earth, this home that we all share; upon which we float together through space, and towards our shared destiny.

So my work for many years now has been about making a difference. My work as a therapist, healer, and teacher; running yoga retreats and healing holidays; and indeed everything I write; all comes from a heartfelt urge to create a more positive human society.

Today, I begin to do something more.

Today I tell you about a spiritual teacher called Tony Samara...

Simplicity. Because the revolution will not be televised.

When my wife and I first moved into our hilltop home / retreat center amongst the farmland and forests of Eastern Slovenia, we left our T.V. behind.

Hills, forest, farmland; no tsunami!

We’d decided to simplify...

Our courtship was in an ashram, and the austerity of our lives there brought us face to face and heart to heart and soul to soul in ways that I had dreamt of, yet had not dared dream of.

Our courtship was unlike any other I had experienced – and I’d experienced many; mostly fast and furious, and without real substance. But meeting Petra was like tasting a fruit that I’d never heard of before; it was a totally new, fresh experience, that burst into my senses and spread through my body, mind, and spirit.

We spent 6 months getting to know each other the old fashioned way. Surrounded as we were by Swamis who had taken vows of renunciation (my intention on coming there was to become a Swami myself!) we couldn’t express our feelings for each other in a physical way; we couldn’t even hold hands there!

So we talked when we could, but mostly just ‘tuned in’ to each other’s energy, bathing in the electric awareness of loving presence that seemed to surround us whenever we happened to be in the same room.

New age neo-tantra bogus yogis… caught in the act!

Caught in the act.

In March 2003 I was in the Bahamas, completing my advanced yoga teacher’s training course. It was an intense month - up at 4.30 every morning; after an hour of advanced pranayama the rest of the day was spent immersed all aspects of Raja Yoga, until late into the evening.

On that course there were two people that I became friends with, (and who shall be the hero and heroine of this particular tragedy). The first, who I shall call Dave, was a fellow Englishman who happened to come from the town where I grew up. The other, who I shall call Maya, was an American woman.

Dave and Maya had quickly developed a flirtatious relationship that seemed slightly out of place in the austere atmosphere of the Ashram - especially since both of them were married...

'Auschwitz Dancing' video: love or fear... a choice we make, every moment.

Do you believe in the possibility of peace on Earth?

I do...

***
This article was inspired by a video sent to me by a friend. That video is at the end of this piece, and if you haven’t already seen it, great! I ask you to read first, and watch later. Then, come back and leave a comment expressing what you felt about the video.

If you have seen the video, great! If you liked it, you’ll get what I have to say. If you didn’t – I ask you to read first, then watch the video again, and see if you still feel the same way...

‘Self sabotage: when your best intentions come undone’.

Once upon a time, in a land not so far away…


***

… a little girl drove through the city suburbs with her parents. As they passed through the wealthiest area, her Mother pointed to the big houses and said:

“You see this – this is where the bad people live”.

That girl grew up into a beautiful woman who somehow never seemed to have enough money!

***

… There was a very young boy who thought that his Father was an all-powerful Superhero! He loved his Father so much that he lived for the moments when He spent time with him; played with him; gave him attention. Unfortunately his Father was A Very Busy Man, and those moments only came when the boy was sick, injured, or in trouble.

When that boy grew up, he was unable to see how beautiful he was: he believed that he was only deserving of love, attention and play, if he was sick, injured, or in trouble. He spent many years constantly sick, injured, or in trouble, without knowing why!..
***

SELF-AWARENESS

The purpose of life.

We all know that moment of bliss, where our ego melts away and all that is left is a feeling of absolute unity, complete perfection, perfect love. We all know it, because it's in all of us - it's our nature; our essence.
The real question is - how to expand that moment until it becomes our primary experience, rather than just a fleeting, occasional glimpse...?

THE LIMIT OF MY COMPASSION

"My body was telling me not to leave. I didn’t listen..."


As I sat in meditation this morning a memory passed like a freight train through my mind:

the memory of what was by far the longest and hardest day of my life.

I’ve learnt to know the difference between low-key, ‘random’ thoughts, and deeply subconscious ‘stuff’ that comes up in meditation for good reason; so I paid attention.

In May 2008, a couple of weeks after Petra and I got married here in Slovenia, I had a phone call from my Mother. She told me if I wanted to see my (very sick) Father again, I’d better come soon. I  came off the phone and immediately booked a flight for the following day. I would fly back to England on the Friday, stay the weekend, and come home to Slovenia on Monday morning. (Petra was leaving on the Tuesday morning to go to India for a month to study Ayurvedic massage, and I wanted to see her off).

I flew home with the realization that this was probably the last time I’d see my Father – a realization that filled my whole physical and emotional being with a deep sadness. He’d been ill for a long time, and we’d all known this moment would be coming, but even so… there is no way to prepare for loss. It happens, and then you deal with it.

WHAT IS GROUNDED SPIRITUALITY?

Grounded spirituality is an approach to life founded on an experience of reality. It's for people who have a 'healthy skepticism', but are nevertheless faithful.

It is a way of life that simultaneously embraces rooted-ness (being ‘down to earth’), and star-gazing. This wonderful quote from Oscar Wilde comes to mind…

“we are all in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars…”

We are not really American, or English, or Slovene, or any other nationality.
First and foremost, we are Earthlings.

Whether you were born here or there; whether your skin is black or white; whether you speak this language or that language, or many languages, or none at all, I don’t care.

You are the same as I am. We are separate only by appearance, and through perception.

Another wonderful quote comes to mind, from Shakespeare:

King Richard II:

“Cover your heads and mock not flesh and blood

With solemn reverence:

throw away respect, tradition, form and ceremonious duty,

For you have but mistook me all this while:

I live with bread like you, feel want, taste grief, need friends:

subjected thus, how can you say to me, I am a king?”

Whether you are a king or a beggar;

CEO of a multinational business, or the cleaner who sweeps the floor;

a teacher or a student:

you live with bread, feel want, taste grief, and need friends. 

Just like me.

We are all, basically, the same. We all want to be happy. And for all of us, the ultimate happiness is the true experience of love.

Grounded Spirituality is for you if  you recognize that heaven is a place on earth. Sometimes, for us to accept that, we have to first know hell – and it’s also a place on earth. 

“… if you know what life is worth, you will look for yours on earth…” (Bob Marley)

Grounded Spirituality is for people who want to change the world, one step at a time, by embodying that change themselves.

It’s for people who know that the world is in them, and not the other way around.

It’s for those who know that in order to realize our divine self, we first have to realize our humanity.

Ancient Zen saying:

“Before enlightenment, chop wood, carry water.

After enlightenment, chop wood, carry water.”

Grounded Spirituality is not an escape. It is not a fantasy. It is not a new-age airy-fairy get-away.

It’s the opposite. It’s about ‘keeping it real’ and upholding your responsibilities; being able to stand up in any situation with your head held high, knowing that you are doing the right thing, even though sometimes that can be painful.

It’s about being a ‘peaceful warrior’, having the courage to stay open to every possibility; closed to none.

It’s about knowing that truth is beyond perception; 

but going ahead and trying to perceive truth anyway.

Grounded Spirituality, to me, is a challenge and an invitation and a call to arms.

What is it to you?

WHAT IS LOVE?

Love is not an emotion, although it sometimes manifests in that way.
Love is not a human trait, although sometimes we like to think so.
Love has nothing to do with relationship, except when two people are completely open to each other - and then those two don't have to be 'in a relationship'.


There are many words for love. My favorite is consciousness. But love has been called by many other names: God; Jesus; Spirit; Great Spirit; Yahweh; Nature; Universe; Reality; Tao...
The great Taoist Lao Tzu, in the opening of the Tao Te Ching says:

"The Tao that can be spoken of is not the real Tao."

AN OPPORTUNITY

I have no idea why, but a friend of mine here in Slovenia asked me to write an article about Autism. So I will! I like a good challenge...


The reason it's a challenge is because I don't feel myself to be any kind of authority on the subject. My experience is limited:
I spent a year of my life working with young people for a charity in England called the Prince's Trust. My job was to recruit 15 young people (aged 15 - 25), and then lead them through a 12 week course, which included many different things, for example a two week community project, a week of team building exercises in Wales (canoeing, rock climbing, bridge-building), and a week with the fire brigade. I ran three such courses, and on one of them I recruited Rosie, a 16 year old girl with Asperger's syndrome - a form of autism...

EGO 2 - don't fight it!

Ok, so in the first article on ego (EGO 1) I said that the ego is not real. I said that ego is really an illusion. I also said that "much of the spiritual 'work' that many people do and have done for many years, is almost a waste of time."

I have to qualify my statement that the ego is not real. So first, I need to speak about reality:


Reality is subjective. But it's also absolute!
What do I mean?
I mean that there is a subjective reality, and an absolute reality.
Two people experience one event and remember differently what happened - memory is subjective. But it doesn't mean that two different things happened does it? It means that in reality, experience is subjective.
The reason for this subjectivity is that we don't experience reality as it is - we filter it. We have a filter between the world and our brain called the Reticular Activating System (RAS). It literally filters the information that comes to us from the outside world.


If you have never heard of a car called a Saab before, then you don't see Saabs. As soon as you hear of it - as soon as it enters your awareness, you begin to see them!
How is this possible? One minute (in your experience) the car doesn't exist - the next minute they're everywhere!!...