Tuesday, October 30, 2012

Back to basics

"Shakti Ma" - Oil painting on Wood by Clarity West 
Why do I meditate? It's time to get back to the basics. It's been close to ten years of meditation and I got lost. I got lost in the technique, in the discipline. The reason I started to meditate was because I loved to sit there and love God. I loved to feel his/her peace, her light, her joy. It would fill me up like nothing and no one ever could. But I got lost. It became forced, stiff, disciplined and the joy was lost. So I have been meditating less lately and feeling incredibly guilty. I'm not doing enough, it's not deep enough, not long enough. Tonight I did a quick and short meditation and the whole time, I talked to God. I loved him and felt the peace. When my mind started to wander I got up and said goodnight.I am learning how to be with God, how to be with people. I am re-learning how to be in this world. Un-doing all these unhealthy patterns of behavior I learnt in the world. My defense mechanisms, my protection, my fear, doubt, worry, it all needs to be undone. The community, is a good place for this but it's painful because all I want more than anything is to be open. So many people here reflect back to me the exact things I want nothing to do with. Those parts of myself I want nothing to do with. I love God so much, she is everything to me and being in this world has been something I avoided and shut myself away from for years. It was like being on a ride with my eyes closed and missing the entire thing and then ending up somewhere and being like, "how the hell did I get here"?  Now it's time to consciously come back, open my eyes and slowly figure out how to live this life in a somewhat healthy way. Not what I was taught in school or home but to re-invent that. To create, to CO-CREATE a life that is beautiful, amazing, loving, abundant, kind and in tune with the flow of life.

Tuesday, October 16, 2012

Society - A failed experiment

What's missing in our society today is culture. The balance we as people used to receive from living within a tribe or community was brought in countless ways. In Native American culture for example, women expressed their beauty through traditional dance, ceremony, home-made garments. Men could express and use their energy in physical activities and bonding with other males. This allowed men and women to express the gifts they were given in a healthy and natural way.

In our modern day society there is no outlet to express this creative force we all feel. Thus men are forced to express through their work output, material belongings and physical appearance. Women through shopping, physical appearance/sex appeal and social status.  The coming together uses drinking, night clubs and other unhealthy social environments to re-create a skewed sense of what once was the norm, being part of a community.

I am convinced that community is the only way to happiness. If we look back over the less than 100 years these modern day societies have existed (the city) we can honestly say it all seems like a failed experiment.We are coming up to the end of 2012 here and I am willing to bet the social structure and the system will be taking a dramatic turn. This is all just intuitive perception and what I've heard around the spiritual circuits but I can honestly say I am grateful for the shift in consciousness that is taking place. I am happy to be a part of community and know now that I will never be the same after this experience.



Thursday, October 11, 2012

Trouble with authority

I was asked today if I have trouble with authority. Who, me?
Well, I thought a lot about that this evening. And it dawned on me. Yes, yes I have had trouble with authority, since I came to this world in fact. In kindergarten, on the very first day of school, my mother dropped me off and didn't tell me she was leaving. I was so busy playing, that I didn't notice her leave out the back. When I clued in to what was happening I ran out of class after her. The principal tried to hold me back but I kicked him and ran away. I ran all the way up the hill and caught up to my mother.

I am growing tired of form, of structure, of ritual, of ceremony, of technique. I am at my breaking point with being told what to do.  For the last 8 or 9 years I have been living within structure performing acts to beat down the body and mind.  I have done nothing but austerities, ceremonies, acts to reform myself.

I sat up from dusk to dawn, in all night ceremonies on my knees in countless weekend ceremonies held in small teepees, sometimes with 30 or more people. No water breaks, no going the the bathroom. I did sweat lodges every weekend for years, sometimes several times in one week. It got so hot in there that I actually passed out on one occasion. I spent years in the sweat lodges, sweating and purifying myself.

I did long fast, dry fasts, water fasts. Vision quests in the Philippine mountains and holy spots across North America. I fasted in the desert, the mountains and the flat lands of Alberta in the dead of winter. I did deep cleanses, raw food cleanses, sometimes all alone for months at a time. I cold water bathed in icy waters, wading through the snow and ice, dipping my bare body beneath the waters. Water so cold it felt as if it was fire. I've meditated for hours and hours at a time. I've inflicted just about every purifying medicine you can imagine on myself. I've done silent retreats, silent fasts, silent walks, meditations. I've denied myself material comforts, a home, adequate food, usually never keeping more than $100 to my name. I have been punishing myself for years, in hopes of ridding myself of the ego. I am to the point of feeling like, "what the hell is the point of all this?"

Today I did a healing session on the hill for a sweet girl that lives here.
I had a dawning realization. "The suffering stops when I want it to".
It really doesn't have to be this hard.

Yes, I am tired of people telling me what to do. And it doesn't just stem from this lifetime. I know it must stem from a long, long line of suppression and control. Probably coming from many lifetimes of monasticism.

I did rebel for several years in my early teens but quickly got back into spiritual practices when I was 17 after experiencing the pain that comes from a life steeped in delusion.

Anyhow, that's where I'm at. All I can do now is pray that the universe guide me. Is this something I need to overcome or let go of. There must be some balance. I want to let all form of worship and just love God. I want to just be. I want to be happy. I have experimented with not meditating and so forth but usually I end up just wanting to meditate anyways. I am taking a vow tomorrow, for one year. I will tell you more about it another time.

Tuesday, October 2, 2012

Searching

I have been searching God so hard these past 6 years. I have been storming the gates. Shaking heaven and earth for answers to who I am. I couldn't really go on with normal life, with society living - not knowing my soul.

I have been unbalanced and extreme in my search and I have literally tried everything. I couldn't be happy when I was not meditating, praying, chanting, doing some kind of all night ceremony, fasting, taking herbs, cleansing, purifying, doing yoga, standing on my head, sweat lodging, sacrificing. I have done it all.
Now, I am living in a community that is hosting a college in residence and I am living around a bunch of college students. Talk about learning to come back into balance to another extreme. These are spiritual kids but still, they are college students. It has been really good for me to  just be, to just talk, hang out, go for walks. I am learning to relax. God is always there, she is not going away. It's been almost this feeling like I need to get there now, and to hell with this world. But the thing is, 6 years later the world is still there and it ain't going away. I have literally paid no attention to it as I have gone back and forth from ashram to spiritual retreat to pilgrimage, here there and everywhere. Money, career, all those things have fallen by the wayside. Nothing has changed outwardly from all the moving around but I know myself a hell of a lot better and realize that relaxation is the only thing necessary to get anywhere. When I say relaxing, I mean inward relaxation, being mentally calm, more even minded.

Man, I used to go all the way up and then all the way down and boy, people better get out of the way when I was down. I think spirituality was a big mask for me for what was really going on inside all those years. I had an incredibly bad temper and a lot of  deep sadness. I didn't know how to cope with those emotions. We are never taught in school or society how to deal with feelings. Mostly it's to either suppress them or hide them. Worse so, to take them out on someone else. It's a poison we are taught to swallow, smile and bear. It's a very sad thing. But after all these years and all the austerity and sacrifice, I'm right back to where I started. My emotions and bottled up feelings were all still there. The difference is now, I'm brave enough and responsible enough to face them. I'm facing them, letting them come up, feeling them and releasing them. I'm not afraid to feel pain anymore. More so, I'm sick of bottling them up. It is time to cope with life. I'm not masking it anymore because I have nothing to mask it with. I have given up drugs(for good), relationships (for a bit), the two things that allowed me to hide from myself these past ten or so years. Meditation has actually been another big escape for me. SO these past couple days, I've been sleeping in  and doing shorter 30 minute meditations rather than 1hr or 1.5hr.

These college students are helping to balance me out. Another things too is dancing. I have been doing Inner Dance a lot more these days and I love it. It is a source of much joy. This past full moon I hosted one with some of the students and it was a really beautiful time. I am coming back to enjoying life, not forcing myself or denying myself the things I love.

Enjoying life. WHY THE HELL NOT?