The best path

"The most important thing is to be your own best friend. Whatever you are doing - don't put yourself down. Slowly begin to discover which, for you, is the path of the heart. Which path in life will make you grow? That is the path to take."
  - Susan Jeffers

My life is my message

“It is better to allow our lives to speak for us than our words.”

~ Mahatma Gandhi

I recently read about a story of Mahatma Gandhi when he was pursued by a journalist through a train station.  Gandhi politely declined his questions and was about to board on the train to leave.

Finally, the train was pulling out of the station with Gandhi on it, the journalist called out from the station platform, “Sir! Sir! Please give me your message for the people!”

Gandhi smiled and shouted back, “My life is my message!”

Gandhi’s life message was of someone bold enough to take a stand against tyranny through non-violent actions and movement. He lived a minimalist lifestyle with a strong sense of purpose. His life demonstrated his message, his stand for something big and bold - addressing poverty, and ending the tyranny of British colonisation, which inspired a whole nation.

It struck me how in life, rather than living from a place of standing for something audacious, we instead often get caught up with day to day dramas, issues and attachments. Attachments to opinions, to objects, to people, etc. There are also now, more than ever, a range of influences vying for our attention - the news with its focus on negativity, advertisements wanting us to seek for the dream car, holiday or body. To name a few. All this can serve to distract us, take our focus off the longer term vision and passion that rests within us, in our soul and spirit.

There were a lot of people against Ghandi in his time, not least the powerful British empire. He ended up dead at the hand of an assassin. And in comparison, do we remember anyone who wasn't taking a stand at the time? Whether they be fellow indians that preceded Ghandi, or even the British and their complaints and arguments to maintain British rule?

No. What we do remember, is the amazing stand that Ghandi took - going as far as to put his own health and life on the line - that he would go to his grave if he had to, in the quest for living his life, his message. The power of his stand deserves to be remembered.

Throughout history, many of our own ancestors have probably stood and fought for something grand - like victory against (and independence from) an enemy. In contrast, we live in a time in which the threat to us is not necessarily a visible enemy. Many of the most pressing threats seem so much bigger than us that it is hard to see what we can possibly do. Issues like climate change, poverty, the threat of disease, mental and physical illness, world peace. What to do?

Maybe, we have just gotten so used to living our ordinary lives, that we have forgotten the power of taking a stand. The power that is possible within each of us. What if just a few of us tapped into our own stand? And what if this grew to become a community? Which grew to influence the society and environment in which we live?

This isn't a pipe dream. People, leaders and communities have shown the power of taking a stand time and again. Ghandi (and India), Martin Luther King (and African Americans), and perhaps even someone like David Attenborough (using his documentaries to encourage action on climate change). The stand that the allies took in World War 2 also stands out to me - the bravity of every single soldier running into the line of fire - assembled to take a stand. Most of us have dreams and goals of some form - a stand for something - and it is ordinary for this to be focused on our selves. It is extra-ordinary for this stand to be placed on something bigger than ourselves.

I suggest that we live in a time in which life is calling for more of us to step up, to align our dreams and actions to something bigger than ourselves, for the common good. Beyond simple self-ish betterment. There is so much difference that each of us could make - in our own perfect way.

So when the time comes to look back over your life, what message would you like to be remembered for? 

Natural rhythms

Breathe in, connect to, coherence
The one breath, one wind, of life
 
In stillness, it emerges
And by the heart it directs
 
To swim in with the tide
Why struggle and resist?
 
It is futile
Just feel it now
 
The energies of your life
Revealing the paths ahead

 

Fire ceremony of the full red moon

We celebrated the recent 'blood' moon
And total lunar eclipse with a
Shamanic fire ceremony
My first ceremony since Peru in 2007
And wow, it was special.

It calls in the energy and support of archetypes.
I find it fascinating that the archetypes
Are common to shamanic ceremonies
In most parts of the world.

It doesn't matter what you call them
For they rest with the four directions.
Far predating Christianity,
The four directions and the symbol of the cross
Surround the epicentre - of the seer.

The energy of the archetypes can be called upon
To act as 'allies' - that energetically support
Our intentions and prayers, by ceremony and ritual
And with the wood fire burning
Under the full moonlit night we begin:

South

To the winds of the South

Great Serpent

Wrap your coils of light around us

Teach us to shed the past the way you shed your skin

To walk softly on the Earth

Teach us the Beauty Way

 

West

To the winds of the West

Mother Jaguar

Protect our medicine space

Teach us the way of peace, to live impeccably

Show us the way beyond death

 

North

To the winds of the North

Hummingbird, Grandmothers and Grandfathers

Ancient Ones

Come and warm your hands by our fires

Whisper to us in the wind

We honor you who have come before us

And you who will come after us, our children’s children

 

East

To the winds of the East

Great eagle, condor

Come to us from the place of the rising Sun

Keep us under your wing

Show us the mountains we only dare to dream of

Teach us to fly wing to wing with the Great Spirit

 

Mother Earth

We’ve gathered for the healing of all of your children

The Stone People, the Plant People

The four-legged, the two-legged, the creepy crawlers

The finned, the furred, and the winged ones

All our relations

 

Father Sun

Father Sun, Grandmother Moon, to the Star Nations

Great Spirit, you who are known by a thousand names

And you who are the unnamable One

Thank you for bringing us together

And allowing us to sing the Song of Life

 

Close

The four directions, Mother Earth and Father Sky

Thank you archetypes for being with us

Serpent, jaguar, hummingbird, and eagle

We release your energies to return

To the four corners of the Earth                                                                         

 

Ceremony courtesy of Opening Sacred Space © 2011 The Four Winds Society.

 
  

Centre (a meditation)

Become the centre
feel the heart of God within you
all around you, right now
Not located somewhere 'out there'
It is here, right now
As you breathe, peace comes to you
and as you breathe out, love settles
Like a gentle summer breeze

Right now
you have the choice
to source peace within
to quiten the agitated mind
to be at the cause
rather than the effect

Feel your heart
naturally expand
to meet this new space
of peace around you
send out a simple blessing
to someone who you saw today
share this peace from your awareness

With your breath
dance with the rhythm
of life's intelligence
Animated by your focus,
brought alive by your seeing
for you create all the time
without knowing it

Meditation

Your vision will become clear only when you look into your heart. Who looks outside, dreams. Who looks inside, awakens. Carl Jung

As I breathe in white light, I allow it to surround me, settle on me and in me
Gentle, like warm sea water, gradually submerging my body and my being
As the white light reaches my heart, it refracts like a crystal, beaming out around me
Bathing my immediate surroundings.

I allow love to settle, in my heart, in my skin, in my bones, in my brain and all organs
From my head to my feet, slowly moving down I radiate love as white light
On the inhale I move down from the head to toes
On the exhale I move up from toes to head, beaming loving energy

I give thanks for the blessings in my life
As I breathe in, I centre gratitude in my heart and the base of my spine
A wave of energy spinning around my torso
As I breathe out, the spinning energy is blown outwards,
Slowly resting on all around me like sunlit dust or snowflakes

In this state I am one with life itself, the Mystery that pervades everything
I cease to understand and open up to be, here, now with this open heart and feeling of love
Though beautiful things exist, I cease searching outwards
I feel the wholeness, completion and perfection of my own energy

I acknowledge it, like I would acknowledge the beautiful energy of a stranger
I allow the energy to settle, purified by the white light
I whisper thanks to it, that it has graced my life since birth
Illuminating my awareness since a baby.

As I bring this meditation/prayer to a close, I embrace the lifeforce within me
Pure, boundless, potent
I send out this energy to the people who I plan to come in contact with today
Sending it, gently bathing them. I see them touched by this energy, uplifted.
I give thank to life itself, and all the support I have, that makes this possible.

- Brendan Tapley

Responsibility

"By oneself the evil is done and it is oneself who suffers
By oneself the evil is not done and by one's self one becomes Pure.
The pure and and the impure come from one self: no man can purify another."
- the Buddha, from his work 'The Dhammapada'

I got to this point when reading The Dhammapada, and ended up reading the paragraph over again a number of times. It struck me as a clear teaching on Responsibility.

Responsibility is a KEY distinction to having clean energy, effectiveness and integrity in our lives. Lack of responsibility is a common cause of suffering. Taking responsibility can however be hard when our ego has vested interests to keep the lack of responsibility in place - almost always in the form of beliefs that reinforce the irresponsibility (and suffering).

Here are some simple questions that can help to act as a responsibility-check:

• Do you have a victim mentality in life and where does it surface? Clues include energised reactions such as blame, anger, frustration, disempowerment, etc.
• Do you have a clear vision of what you want? If not, why not?
• Do you complain to yourself or others about why you are not achieving more in your life?

So, back to the Buddha's quote above, here are some lessons I got from it:

• Firstly, "oneself" can be interpreted to be the oneness at the source of all things. Whether you experience suffering, evil, or purity, it is all experienced by only oneself. That this is 'done' by one person to another is an illusion, since both come from the one self of God. 
• "By oneself the evil is done and it is oneself who suffers". Each of us are ultimately responsible for any suffering that we may experience. It is I that experiences suffering, or not. It is I that becomes pure, free of suffering, or not. It is my choice, and my responsibility for the consequences of whether my energy (thoughts and feelings) are pure, or dwell on suffering. 
• "By oneself the evil is not done and by one's self one becomes Pure." The same as above, but reversed into the positive. The Buddha is providing an access here to escape suffering by highlighting that we also have a choice to live a pure life, with pure energy.
• "The pure and and the impure come from one self: no man can purify another." My (and your) self is of the one self and therefore whole, complete and perfect. Because we are already whole, it is not for someone else to make us feel whole. It is for each of us to love ourselves (Love, another key word) until we sense and come to know the innate wholeness within us. 

In this modern day in age, there are a load of experts, gurus etc. who could provide helpful pointers. However, the answer is within us, not outside of us.

So it is a good practice to balance at least as much time for yourself (in silence, meditation, yoga, whatever works for you) as the time that you spend seeking answers from other people. 

Time for ourselves also allows to get into our energetic heart-space, and out of the head. Learning to be aware of your heart/energy space is important to making heart led choices.

Beware of spending a lot of time seeking solutions or gratification from other people. This might be a sign that you are in your head, While mental stimulation has its place, seeking it all of the time might be a sign that you are stuck 'in your head' trying to solve a problem (with all its complexities) at the cost of missing the energetic signals and solutions that already exist within you.