What is Your Living Space Revealing About Your Mind Space?

Posted on by colinchenery

Are your living and work spaces conducive to the mind space and tone you want to develop in your life?

I was recently visiting an ancient Buddhist temple in Kyoto-Ohara, Japan. It is called Sanzen-in Monzeki and is beautifully maintained. It is magnificent in every season and this northern hemisphere summer setting meant I have now seen it in all four seasons – the spectacular red maples of autumn (or fall), snow covered beauty in winter, colourful flowers of spring and the incredible greenery of summer.

Having green matcha tea and serenely overlooking a garden that looked as if it was out of some celestial heavenly realm, made me feel like I was in heaven. I reflected on the beauty, harmony and peace it emanated and how conducive it was for attuning to the same qualities within. I could see some people who were also calmly present while others were less settled and preoccupied even in such a beautiful and sacred site.

Such places are so beautifully designed as places for meditation and cultivating conscious presence in every moment. The indoor-outdoor design of screens and walkways of beautiful timbers set amongst gentle water ways and many decades of detailed gardening have such a unique beauty.

There are many ways we can deepen and broaden our sense of living-being by cultivating qualities that become more meaningful as we mature and develop. Such qualities of peace, beauty, connection to nature, and harmony rate more with age for some, more so as modern life becomes more intrusive and busy. Reading or listening to inspiring people, quality time with friends or loved ones, inspiring or deeply resonating music are other delights that inspire such qualities, as can the environmental spaces we live in or frequent.

I am so grateful to people who create places that inspire a feeling in me that stays well after I have been there, because it appeals to a quality of experience that already resides in the presence and being-ness that we all share deeply within.

In any wilderness setting it is easy to feel such a harmonious connection with nature that also resonates with a strong inner consciousness of being in the moment. When we feel alert calmness of mind and heart, with a sense of connection without and with all things around us, such a moment reflects a happy state of presence.

In art, architecture and garden design there are some wonderful examples around the world of inspired human design and refinement of detail that invokes a similar sense of sacredness, beauty and harmony. Isn’t it great how ancient and modern, famous and unknown private finds can gift us a subtle and deep reflection from within the creator or artist through the medium of their trade, impacting all who experience it. We can all be universal consciousness expressing and enjoying itself through us. My favourite examples of art forms that combine human ingenuity and nature, are the many traditional gardens throughout Japan I have visited and are yet to visit.

In our modern world, we have even more means at our disposal to create and control our living environments. Blending natural elements into human design and manufacture that are conducive to spaciousness, calmness and peace are places that can make people stop and take note, take some breathes and become fully present in appreciation of the space they are in. It does not have to be extravagant. How many times has a simple inexpensive yet thoughtful setting inspired you to stop and reflect in appreciation for a moment? In truth, at such times people can be enjoying being brought out of their stream of thinking into conscious presence even for a just a few moments.

There are also countless examples of people who find simple small ways at home or work places to create an arrangement and space somewhere that is consciously or unconsciously there to connect them to a state of being while going about their day or evening. Does your living space reflect this to a degree or could you nurture yourself and others by addressing this more in your own space?

While some chaos and clutter can be unavoidable, it can also be contained as organised mess in storage and out of the way areas. Otherwise clutter can induce cluttered mind activity through association, the hidden anxiety that goes with accumulated disorganisation and the mounting neglect and ‘clean up’ it infers.

Most people set up and maintain their living spaces in a way that reflects how they want to feel and as well as the most practical set up for their belongings and space available. However, sometimes it can take on a life of its own until it reflects old aspects of yourself that can be good to move on from. Or maybe a refresh assessment and decision to transform a living space is timely and can be done simply with what you have access to already?

Sanzen-in Monzeki 1

A simple flower arrangement can communicate a present time and changing element that communicates beauty and care. Some degree of empty space and simplicity punctuated with a few items that reflect your own taste and lifestyle themes can inspire calmness and creativity. It may not suit everybody right at this time, but simplicity is a theme that I hear again and again from those refining their living space as part of a positive shift in energy and mindset.

Yogic vedanta and ayurvedic principles contain useful concepts of the three gunas; sattva, rajas and tamas. They are applied to consciousness, health, environment, lifestyle and all aspects of reality.

Sattva reflects calm energy and refinement of spirit that invokes purity and balance. As it infers balance, any imbalance is associated with negative symptoms of the other two gunas.

The quality of rajas is activity and excitement. Imbalanced, rajas can be associated with attachment, excessiveness, fickleness, reactivity and compulsiveness.

The quality of tamas is inactivity and inertia. Imbalanced, tamas can be associated with depression or suppression, envy or infatuation, fatigue or stagnation, feeling stuck and unmotivated.

All three are required in a positive sense as we are human doers as well as human beings. High excitement and busyness can be embraced from inner stillness and with periods of inactivity. Balance is not getting lost in activity and attachment, nor is it indifference to things and others by tamasic detachment. A sattvic state embraces all three gunas if they are balanced – rajasic energy not becoming over-active and dominant, nor tamas becoming stagnant and obstructive.

It may be a helpful to assess the presence or absence of sattvic aspects of your own living and working environment. Does your living space inspire balanced energy with an aesthetic sense of homeliness? Do various objects or overall content and design refine and energise in a calming way? Does anything or any aspect distract or deplete your energy from being fully present and where you want to be in life? Is something there to make a statement or cultivate a genuine quality? Could disorganisation and clutter be further minimised?

Likewise, does your desk or work pace have elements to reflect being as well as doing in aesthetic ways? Is it organised with some area of space rather than cluttered and jam packed.

Bedrooms should invoke peace and calmness and be absent of stressful associations with work and activities as well as free of clutter and stagnant energy. They should be conducive to rest but also good to wake up rested and ready for the day. Lighting, colours as well as content and design can be considered this way rather than just aesthetic value. Living and work spaces can encourage a mood and mindset that suits you and your lifestyle inducing a sense of calm positivity and goodwill. Objects and images associated with negative, reactive or dysfunctional themes would not be sattvic.

Updating and aligning your personal and work spaces to reflect the quality of consciousness and results you want to cultivate, can be a powerful part of shifting energy and flowing more of who you are into your life and impacting others.

Facing Death to Better Face Life

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There are three big benefits from contemplating death in a positive sense. Firstly, it adds to appreciating every living moment, making the most of it, and not taking things and others for granted. Secondly, it adds a sobering depth and motivation to contemplating the big picture of life and contemplating spiritual meanings. Thirdly, it gives perspective on what the little things and big things are in life and worth your energy and focus. In other words, what is important and not taking too much too seriously.

In terms of spiritual growth and general maturity, as we let go of fear and embrace life more fully, one of the final fears to face and move through is the fear of loss and death. It may not be the concept of death that is frightening but times in your life when you come close to it personally or with someone close, or when you get a sense of letting go fully into something unknown where your own sense of self is put to the test, then facing death and fear of death can seem pretty close.

Spiritual awakening as a transformation ultimately hits the chord of any fear of death, because true awakening marks the end of identification with the ego self. This can feel like a type of death for the part of us we are letting go. In the Bhagavad Gita (Gita 6:37-39), Arjuna’s question reveals one of the final fears and anxieties in the mind of one who has recognised the truths in Sri Krishna’s teachings yet still has doubt in himself to fulfil them. Self doubt feeds this final fear when we are poised to let go of what is tangible and familiar to the ego mind and step in faith towards the values and consciousness of the higher Self. Essentially Arjuna is asking what happens to a person who is unsuccessful in yoga (spiritual union) who has let go of material identity but has not mastered his mind, so ends up short on union of consciousness as well as material success and identity. It is a fear of being lost between worlds, of failure and loss in gaining nothing.

Sri Krishna’s answer (Gita 6:40-44) reveals the Gita’s view of life and death. He reflects on the immortality of spirit as consciousness and that anyone with good intentions and actions will never meet with an evil plight or death. The idea of reincarnation is a strong part of Indian thought and culture, providing a context and karmic rationale for both heavenly and worldly, life and death consequences for choices about living one’s life. Whether you are of a culture or personal belief in reincarnation back in the material world or incarnations through higher levels of spiritual realms beyond this world, the same principles apply, whereby salvation does not arrive by merit of a heavenly pass at death. Rather death is just a portal to further ongoing existence and where we continue to reap what we have sown, playing the main role in our own salvation and development towards true awakening.

Similarly (Gita 2:27-28) is less poetic but very clear and applicable to all of us whatever our faith, convictions or belief. Considering a universal truth in this world for those prescribing to different views of life beyond death, no one can argue about the inevitability of death. Krishna notes this and the veiled nature of existence before and this material life as a fact of life, so “why lament about it”?

That everything material changes and passes is cause to ponder the big questions about reality, before and after the fleeting time we have in our current physical body, and the profoundness of experience and consciousness accessible to us. Whatever our lifestyle, bodily deterioration is occurring gradually and is ever present on a physical level, until at some point the body will be cast aside (Gita 2:22).

Easwaran in his Gita companion says “It is good to face death with courage, but that is not enough; we must learn to face it with understanding.” (p.191). In a spiritual sense, through meditation and practice of presence generally, we can become familiar with consciousness that transcends sense organs and objects, including projections of mind. This transcendent awareness brings with it a sense of living awareness and identity independent of the body and thinking mind. Thus, an intuitive sense or even knowing of death as a doorway to another state of pure consciousness comes as a natural part of insight and realisation of the nature of this unchanging consciousness from which our ever-changing perceptions and responses arise.

Being mindful of death can be a means of making the most of each living moment, of the profoundness of every moment. Some saints and seekers do things to deepen this mindfulness. Saint Teresa of Avila kept a skull on her desk. Yogis, saints and masters in India sit before cadavers to meditate to help them transcend mortal mindedness. Warriors (spiritual and military) or those living in harsh conditions often use the inevitability of death to fuel their conviction and focus on their conscious choices, actions and life path. It fuels comradeship. It heightens the focus, conviction and mind power of shamans.

In the Gita (8:12-13), Sri Krishna gives Arjuna a crash course in how to die which is the basis for various meditations and mudras for unifying mind and soul, as well as preparing for optimum consciousness during death. Basically, the meditation describes withdrawing the vital energy and focus from body and senses into the mind where a mantra and intention towards the divine or consciousness of consciousness itself is the sole awareness accompanied by the sound of Aum. This is full immersion in pure awareness and presence. From there in Gita terms the consciousness transcends mind “into Buddhi, the higher mind, and finally into what is called the causal body, the seat of I-consciousness. Easwaran discussing this verse describes the process “like taking off an overcoat button by button, then removing your jacket, and finally your pullover, folding each piece carefully and setting it aside.” (p.194).

In normal meditation, some vitality is kept in the body to keep it living. Experienced meditators will vouch for a heightened sense of aliveness and awareness when in this state than normal body consciousness. Whatever the details of after death existence, Sri Krishna notes the unchanging nature at the seat of consciousness itself, which can be realised in life and continues after death.

Uniting all faculties “by the power of yoga” or the biblical “loving God with all your heart, your soul, your strength and mind” to achieve deep awakening requires sustained devoted and dedicated effort. It does not have to be complicated, done always with closed eyes, but rather a consistent part of being present while we attend to living our lives fully present in our selves, our environment and others. It does require a balanced character and approach to life. Spiritual teachings universally view development of the soul and ‘awakening’ as a cumulative result of mindful practice while living a meritorious life as the key to fulfilment and happiness, as well as readiness for when it is time to go.

Arjuna asks Krishna ‘what if we aren’t ready and haven’t got there?’ The assurance is when death is understood through contemplation and knowing the nature of consciousness itself, it looses its terror. Much of the problem with dying is the inability to let go, along with regrets about life. As Easwaran points out, in conscious dying “all attention is on where you are going: there is no attention on what you are leaving behind, which means no clinging. It’s not so much that you’re not afraid of death; the question simply does not arise”. In other words, like in deep meditation and practice of presence, the process is less about letting go of identification with thoughts and body and more an engagement with a known existential state of being.

Many people who have been in a dangerous instant where they thought they were about to die, experience no fear and an instant acceptance. I have experienced this a few times. My daughter experienced it when she fell from a cliff and thought that was it. As an observer in that instance I confronted my worst of fears as a parent then went into protect and rescue mode when I saw her mercifully injured but okay below. It is different for the person facing this moment for themselves, when all of life has lead to one key instant.

The cumulative effect of spiritual effort contributes to our level of consciousness at death. Meanwhile, we can enhance the experience and depth of conscious choosing in our daily lives as the layers of conditioning stored in the material mind is unravelled in the light of that consciousness and spiritual identification. The opportunity for continued learning and discovery, facing challenges “calmly, courageously, and compassionately” is part of our purpose.

I’ll finish with a final note from Easwaran that the getting of wisdom is not just learning more, but the capacity to learn from past mistakes while facing new difficulties by ‘detached intellect’. “Detached intelligence is the very source of wisdom … that acquired wisdom awakens us to the extent we listen to it, not so much in the head as in the heart.” (p.203).

Photo credit: h.koppdelaney via Visual Hunt / CC BY-ND

Recommended Reading:

God Talks To Arjuna: The Bhagavad Gita, by Paramahansa Yogananda (Self Realisation Fellowship, 2nd Edition 1999)

The Bhagavad Gita, by Swami Sivananda (Divine Life Society, 15th Edition 2015)

Essence of the Bhagavad Gita: A Contemporary Guide to Yoga, Meditation and Indian Philosophy, by Eknath Easwaran (The Blue Mountanin Center of Meditation, 2011).

Shine Your Inner Light of Life in the World

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“No one lights a lamp and puts it in a cellar or under a basket. Instead, he sets it on a lamp stand, so those who enter can see the light.

Your eye is the lamp of your body. When your vision is clear, your whole body also is full of light. But when it is poor, your body is full of darkness. Be careful, then, that the light within you is not darkness. So if your whole body is full of light, and no part of it in darkness, you will be radiant, as though a lamp were shining on you.”

(Luke 11:33–36)

It is with a relaxed heart and mind, open to love, peace and connectedness that we can best share the light within. Practicing presence and meditation trains us to get beyond thoughts and feelings to the pure awareness from which they arise. When attention and identification can be maintained on this pure awareness while communicating with others, we can consciously appreciate the pure living consciousness which is the essence and living light we share in common with one another.

This light shines most brightly in our eye connection with others as well as our voice and gestures when we are fully present in mind and body with what is going on in the moment within ourselves and around us. Expressing or discussing something that is felt passionately is when many people really light up, as well as being with loved ones like a beloved partner or child.

Therefore, to shine our light more brightly, to consciously share or inspire the light in others, is to practice mindful presence which requires being open and aware on every level of our being that we can while connecting with others. Having an agenda is based on wanted outcomes and expectations based on past and future, while being fully present with another and sharing our light means being fully present with yourself and the other and allowing that to be a primary purpose in and of itself. Jesus uses the analogy of light in two other brief lessons, “the Lamp of the Body” and “the lamp on a stand,” which may be different versions of the same lesson or different lessons using this same analogy. People throughout the ages can relate to this analogy of light and the concept of the inner light of our being. In any good philosophy or spiritual teaching, there is no question that every person is here for a reason. Each person is unique and has a special quality to contribute. Inner light and inner Spirit are closely correlated, and each of us has the gift to let it shine brightly in our own lives and for others.

Jesus’s teachings of inner peace and salvation are a dynamic and practical teaching to be a positive influence to others and the world. The light he speaks of is the pure authentic light of awareness.

An indicator of spiritual progress is the degree of unconditional love, mercy, and compassion we progressively feel and express toward others in the world. Spiritual connection is like the difference between a stand-alone computer or device versus a network-connected computer or device. Thoughts and feelings constantly change, their significance to us being private to the separate ego self. Consciousness of the consciousness from which they arise is where we find a true common ground and connection from which rapport, connection and deep understanding of one another can arise.

A cause and effect of universal love for each other — friend or stranger, or enemy — is openness to insightful understanding of another’s circumstance and how they came to be who and where they are in that moment. Real understanding of unfamiliar or challenging people often requires overcoming self-interested perspectives that are often triggers for switching off our ‘light’ and disconnecting from others. Our rational mind often thinks it has a good reason to judge or take a mental position against another. But this can lead to division within and without, by identifying with fixed pre-conceived ideas of mind which condition our experience instead of the wholeness of identification with full presence.

Understanding someone’s circumstances, character, and actions from their perspective is the most effective way for getting past any preconceived judgments or biases. If there is a frustrated agenda involved, gaining such an understanding between all parties provides an authentic space to find reconciliation. Being, doing and sharing in pure awareness is the path towards a sense of oneness and universal Spirit. It is in this space we can draw on compassion in circumstances where we would have once reacted defensively or judgmentally. It is a progressive ability because we develop a deeper capacity each time we break through our own barriers and reactions.

The “whole body full of light” means expanding aware presence in the moment to every part of ourselves and our present circumstance. When we do this, through pure conscious intent we invite the divine in to take part without limit or conditions, then we can find our sense of being and doing with a “whole body full of light.” It can often be a literal description of the experience.

All aspects of our nature embraced in this light leads to transformation. Perceiving some aspects of soul and human character experience as spiritual and non-spiritual creates inner division and social stigma. The sexual nature and body identification are an example of this division of identity and source of neurosis in those seeking pure mindedness who then suppress or reject these aspects of themselves. Wholeness requires embracing the whole self in humility, love and acceptance. We need to let the divineness of pure consciousness and presence into all aspects of ourselves and allow it to reside there in each present moment. This is where transformation takes place, where we become more functional and integrated, expressing presence and higher will aligned in good ideals and values through all aspects of ourselves and life.

Suppressing or disconnecting from aspects of ourselves will result in suffering and folly. Examples of this are the modern scandals of sexual abuse within various church organizations where celibacy has obviously been practiced out of suppression, guilt, and disconnection, resulting in aberrational and perverted behaviors. Embracing our pain, anxiety, confusion, and uncertainty with the “light” of consciousness and learning to be present in equanimity with our pains and pleasures is a key to embracing our full nature and allowing the transformation of Spirit through self-love and self-acceptance do its work. There is a fine line between trying to artificially conform to ideological perspectives and practices versus applying true personal realizations of them as a spiritual practice.

Practices based on fear, guilt, self-judgment, and denial are fraught with the dangers of extremism and neurosis. Jesus’s path was not extreme and was based on inclusiveness and soulful love. While he set a high standard of spiritual mindfulness he demonstrated mercy and forgiveness. While he firmly denounced falseness and sin his love broke many taboos of his day – racism, sexism, social status and was what considered ‘clean’ – it was a love for all humanity. God’s love and ‘kingdom’ was a shared experience within as we are now, creating space for realisation and transformation. Life’s private challenges and victories are about developing a whole and balanced character. When our vision is clear, “looking” or perceiving with the light of our whole being, the body is physically and energetically illuminated with spiritual energy.

Spiritually illumined people touch others with their love and compassion. They inspire people to be better human beings, invoking peace and good faith by their presence. Thus, their words and deeds have great impact. People will feel empowered rather than intimidated or belittled. The nature of our living consciousness enables us to recognize its truth, light, and presence, sometimes in the illumined eye gaze and presence of a child or person fully present. Conscious alignment to our own inner experience, realisation, values and ideals leads to an added dimension of self and self-potential.

Great possibilities exist if we can arise from within and brighten spontaneously in our roles and communications with each other. Benefiting each other is a mindset, manifested in the smallest of moments and ways, in following our passions and sense of purpose as well as through significantly life-changing and charitable ways. Happy and productive is the person driven by love of doing right, with no fear or guilt of doing wrong. We all crave a sense of progress, purpose, and wholeness despite our frailties and faults. Our inner light is not for self-aggrandisement but to inspire and bring forth depth and profoundness in our worldly lives.

The Most Valuable Means to Abundance and Fulfilment

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There is a common deeply imbedded key and truth in the counsel and teachings through the ages for manifesting abundance and prosperity, happiness and fulfilment, living a life purpose, the primary relationship you dreamed of, great quality friendships, or awakening to a new level of spiritual experience. It’s a message being redefined and much needed in these times.

In uncovering this critical key for fulfilling success, a few underlying principles are a necessary context for understanding it and the laws that operate around it.

The first is obvious yet an easy trap to fall into as we accumulate wealth. Many of the ‘things’ we want and dream of in life can be truly experienced, but not if we are looking to them as the source of our happiness and fulfilment. Many people who have things we dream for are still unhappy. This is the paradox, because many of us would still like more of certain things in our life, right?

However, there is a difference in the content of our life being an expression or vehicle for shared joy, love and abundance in life versus things in life being a source of validation, identity, status or security and happiness. When they are a goal in of themselves or invested with our identity, then we are not living in consciousness of what we are and the true nature of life from within. We are utilising external things to fill where there is a vacuum of meaning and identity. Yet, we give the meaning all passing or changing things have for us from within ourselves. So they cannot fill this space inside us, only be a place we externalise it as separate. The ideal is to consciously live with a sense of completeness with or without the things we have that support our true selves and provide ease or enjoyment, a life certainly tests this at times.

Of course, the tribulations of life will show us where we need to go more deeply within and place our personal investment there. Letting go of materiality is not rejecting the external world, but embracing it with a total identity and connection in the essence of the life and consciousness it actually arises from. Our conscious efforts to shape ourselves and our lives will either come from fear and need for security and a sense of belonging, or it will come from the creative urge of adventure and discovery with a sense of certainty, connection and completeness.

Living from the inside out, means we serve the true essence of ourselves, each other and life, knowing this essence cannot be lost, limited or scarce. We open ourselves up to greater abundance from the fullness of life itself rather than from relativity of circumstances and possessions. How much of our life is really spent in awareness and gratitude of the gift of life? It is the key to coming from love and not fear.

Many modern teachings and some ancient teachings like Buddhism deal with habits of thinking, beliefs and conditioning of the mind. Clearing old habits and out-dated states of mind that arose as adaptations to past fears or suffering, helps create the space for inspired and present-time creative and energised living, to come back to the fullness of who and what we are.

Clearing our negativity and old emotional baggage while developing positive thinking in alignment with life affirming consciousness, is a transformative step that changes and prepares our perceptions and awareness for this next level of conscious living. Yet, happiness, success and fulfilment doesn’t come from positive thoughts and feelings either. These do help focus us to a certain level of experience that they resonate with and from, and do this on a biological and psychological level. Thinking can only be (at best) a relative reflection of who is doing the thinking and what we can most truly and abundantly manifest in life.

The deeper heart of all teachings is that the external world and the inner world (our inner projections of ourselves with thoughts, feelings and perceptions) are both reflections or symptoms of where we are coming from and the state of being we are living at.

In all the various teachings that I have come across, what really shifts my life into another gear (as an ongoing journey of expansion) is a state of being in the experience that is left in the wake of full surrender and letting go within and without, to trust in my own sense of the consciousness and energy that I am. Then going forth and exploring how to best embody and express that in the world to me is, living with spirit.

One of the greatest ways to engage in the world is to productively do and share what you love and what makes you feel most alive. What is most authentic and core within us can then flow into our worldly lives. When we see other people doing the same, really thriving in expressing their inner self through what they do, we feel inspired and on a higher frequency. It is not just about what you do or how well, because in the end, it can be experienced in countless pursuits, careers at many levels and scales. So alignment with what we do is a factor and part of the exploration. It reflects the level to which we connect and engage our inner self in our doing.

Doing what you love and loving what you do

creates a harmony and resonance between

the greater field of love and abundance and worldly life.

Meditation, positive thinking and all the actions in the world don’t provide true awakening in and of themselves. These practices can only prepare the space for making that decisive and true shift in ourselves. They can help create the space to feel, experience and recognise true infinite and abundant being of authentic love and life in ourselves. Freeing identity and experience of the detail and content we can lose ourselves in is part of creating this space. When we find, trust and invest our identity in the space in which it is all happening, then we can find we are truly fulfilled and free just with that, then better embrace and handle all that is happening.

It is a form of inner renunciation, free of dependance on other people and things, to really align ourselves with the source and force in which it all happens. It helps to distinguish between outer appearances in the world and our own narratives about them versus the true essence of people and the common substance we share. This creates space for greater compassion and understanding, love and alignment with each other, and loving more unconditionally.

A lost, broken or worn out cherished possession has no inherent value in itself. The value we think something gives us comes from within ourselves. Our own story and experience of material life can’t be broken, lost or worn out. Practicing this when we are frustration or sadness arises from big or little material losses, allows us to truly let go of things, enjoying them without attachment while the are there and moving on.

With this understanding, comes the critical point. The laws of attraction and abundance are all based on firstly connecting with who and what we really are, which is a complete and shared experience of ‘presence’. It is in and from this presence that all our experience of life arises and occurs. The second aspect of this key is to experience our life as a unique conscious channel for the love and energy inherent in our unified presence, life force and pure consciousness. To let ‘true being’ flow into all our actions, relationships and self-expression. What ever the approach to life, this is where it becomes transformative.

When we align in conscious presence as a channel of its infinite source,

we can experience greater and deeper levels of unity

and its shared flow in the world.

Focus on a living and present essence of life also transforms egoistic tendencies. Opening up to presence becomes a more real, all-embracing and enlivening place to invest ourselves than holding fixed and changeable concepts of how life is and how we ‘should’ be. We can experience all people and things also as expressions and channels of one unified consciousness and life energy. This unified field can then flow from within us and flow to us from the reality we embrace around us. The flow works both ways. Intent and conscious participation in both directions of flow, like an exhale and inhale, allows universal consciousness and energy to fulfil the promise of fullness and abundance in our lives and with each other. Learning how to experience financial wealth as an aspect of this energy flow is easier when we understand the universal laws along with the practical knowledge of our undertakings, and operate as a channel unified with others with the attachments and power struggles of separateness and external identification.

A major transition time in my life now, where life in every way is changing and being renewed, is teaching me these truths on whole new level. Life challenges in recent years seem to have come from different areas of my life. Yet taken all together it is increasingly clear the crisis points have come from where I have needed the world to validate me and where I have put the source of meaning, value and fulfilment in other people and things. When upheaval and change leads to healing, realisation and transitioning back towards the source within, transformational adjustments and new life opportunities occur. I feel this is really what is going beneath all our crisis and breakthroughs. Out of every crisis as well as every success, we each get an opportunity to move forward more consciously.

I encourage you to open up to the life energy in and around you with an open heart and mind. Daily invite the full experience of what is already present, initially without having to do, achieve and try anything. Breath and move so that any tight, constricted or vacuous areas you sense within or immediately around you, release and you become an integrated and harmoniously unified field of energy. Dream and imagine more about how to be and what to do to more fully live and express fullness of being in joy, peace and love. What is it you do when you feel this the most and how? Is it also a strong and grounded sense where the full spectrum of highs and lows, successes and challenges, can be handled with equanimity and fullness? Aligning with and being a channel of abundant energy and life as you feel it, will gradually, or sometimes quickly, transform your world around you to reflect greater abundance and fullness.

Being Successful With More Purpose and Meaning

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What pursuits are best for us to live quality ‘being’ and quality ‘doing’ in a way that is progressive and meaningful for us and beneficial for those around us?

The last couple of blogs have looked at mechanisms between mind and body we can consciously harness to optimise our wellbeing and performance. Wellbeing is about a state of mind and body. Performance is about ‘doing’ and while there are psychological and physical dynamics that enhance our state and capacity to perform well and experience it more fully, it still remains for each of us to choose day to day (and for any significant phase in our lives) what is on purpose for us to do.

Dr. Wayne Dyer in his books and lectures made a distinction between the ego’s motivation of needs being “what’s in it for me?” versus the higher soul mind motivation of wholeness being “how can I best serve?”. He has often quoted from Maslow’s work on self-actualisation. One point from Maslow is that self-actualised people are detached from outcome. The Bhagavad Gita goes into this in great depth. Maslow in his research and observations saw they are not motivated by what could come to them but follow pursuits because what they do is essential to them feeling complete, rather than the ‘fruits’ of their actions. Another way to say this is that there are things some of us feel personally called to do and with this calling comes a sense that acting on this inner calling is what will give our sense of completeness meaning and purpose.

Napoleon Hill in “Think and Grow Rich” also describes what drives people he has studied who have enriched lives in every way (not only material ways). He describes it as a “burning desire” to act on an inner calling which invariably includes expressing their gratitude in life along with contributing some aspect of what excites them in life in a way that could benefit others or share that excitement.

I see this dynamic in my own life. My 20 years work in as a therapist and counsellor fulfilled my urge to help people with a specific set of skills and knowledge while compelled to better understand the relationship of mind and body in the process. My 16 years of building and running a company with wellness products and promoting sustainable business ethics and the organic industry, was an extension of that same urge with the addition of contributing to environmental concerns in the world. Meanwhile, I fulfilled a desire to learn about business and to represent these values internationally as an example of the change I see needed in the world right now. These days I am developing my writing as a communicator of all of the above values and principles with more focus on spiritual teaching, albeit an ongoing part of my outlook and inner practice all along. My roles as father, partner and friend are motivated and infused with the same values.

The substance of your deepest calling defines you and so touches all aspects of your life. For me it is being a practitioner and communicator for aligning mind, body and spirit to achieve life fulfilment in all aspects of our lives individually and as a society.

There can be stages in our life when the primary form or ‘doing’ of the calling changes, or it may not. There may be numerous things we feel passionate about and would participate in, in addition to one or two primary interests, or there may be only one consistent focus through your whole life. The key is that where our true conviction and passions lie tend not to fade but remain with us whether we pursue them or not. They may shift and transform with life experience, but these callings we each have are tied in with our own life long primary values and convictions.

What hits your ‘excite’ button? What not only excites the passions, ideals or opinions but incentivises you into go into greater depth of understanding and go into action? To find this requires the ability to listen within ourselves to come to know our most inner and authentically deep urgings to share and serve as well as to stay on track as we respond and act from them. Thus, the value of meditation, the alpha and conscious theta frequencies discussed in my recent blogs, coming to know our inner stillness, inner silence and being present in the ‘now’ with open heart and mind. From there we can start to really listen and tap into the depths of awareness, before bringing that awareness to engage with the activities or discussions we spontaneously and consistently resonate with fully. The ‘calling’ is what you deep down feel you must do to truly feel you are fulfilling a purpose you’re designed for or would most want to do if all else was sorted in your life. Out of anything that you’re here to do, what would give you a completeness at the end of the day and fulfil your sense of purpose throughout that day?

For some, it may not matter ‘what’ so much as ‘how’. Every work position, relationship in life is a vehicle to act in loving and fully present awareness and be conscious of how it is of benefit to others. Each little moment is an opportunity to act with love and awareness. As Dan Millman said “There are no ordinary moments.” This consciousness purifies the mind and invigorates the spirit. A sense of “selfless service” is the zone where happiness and fulfilment hit unusual highs, as shown in many studies. This is especially true where people have found a way to selflessly do something they love in recognition of the need in others they are helping to fulfil.

As with Maslow’s observation, having a true calling shape our ‘work’ of choice or life interest, is not an outcome based intention. It is an expression of an inner purpose-based intention. Relative wealth, fame or power can sometimes come about as a consequence of the authentic and vibrant energy mobilised when we follow our passion. These worldly rewards can and often are used for tremendous good, yet can be equally destructive when they become an end in themselves rather than a means.

Someone on purpose and doing good inspires those they serve directly and others who recognise the energy and consciousness they are coming from. A truly deep and authentic sense of mission rides an energy that energises others. This is most fulfilling and powerful when the ego is cast aside, replaced with an integrity to convictions, values and burning desires that are discovered within during moments of quiet connectedness and inspiration.

As Wayne Dyer says: “Success becomes defined by how you feel about what it is you are doing”. It is knowing combined with action, while sharing real love and passion. Whether it be the way you go about and perform basic tasks and services at work or in the family, the way you communicate a message, design or deliver a product or service you represent, consistent action of good intent from a generous heart inevitably makes an impact in someones life or in the lives of many.

Putting the above into action requires a little progress every day. As Lao Tzu of the Tao-Te-Ching says, “a journey of a thousand steps begins with a small step”. He also says “To do something big, think small.” So spend at least a little time daily on something you have a passion to do or achieve. An inspiring friend, Paul Dunn of B1G1, also promotes the idea of thinking small. He promotes and educates others on the enormous value in distinguishing yourself, a product or service to others by the little things, the thoughtful small differences and touches of what you do and offer. It is often in these extra touches or little things where you can also actualise what you stand for. Great things are achieved by focusing on each little step at a time to get there, each detail, each person who is part of that journey and the little things and surprises that occur along the way to yourself and those you benefit.

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What You Need to Know About Wellbeing and Peak Performance (Part 2)

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There is a powerful integration and feedback loop between mind and body that is being understood more and more. Understanding this not only helps you to take charge of your mind and body wellness, it also opens up new possibilities in personal life experience and abilities.

In the last blog, I shared key points and ways to access optimum states of consciousness for wellbeing and peak performance and how they relate to specific brain wave patterns. There is a reciprocal relationship between states of consciousness indicated by brain wave patterns with specific bio-chemical production and pathways in the body that directly affect our moods, immunity and endocrine (hormonal and neurochemical) systems. All cells in the body participate in what is being understood as a feedback loop where consciousness impacts many aspects of bio-chemical processes which in turn impact our consciousness. Thus we can get into loops of body and mind reinforcing psycho-emotional and biochemical wellbeing or else reinforcing dis-ease, both of which impact our perceptions and spiritual receptivity.

All brain wave patterns reflect important and functional mental states – there are no good or bad frequencies. Issues arise when there is an imbalance and certain brainwave patterns predominate chronically rather than our minds being able to move through the full range of frequencies at the right time for the relevant tasks and perceptions. For example, low levels of focus and attention or high levels of depression can be associated with slow or minimal beta patterns. Short intense periods of beta during high focus problem solving and tasks are good while in the higher frequencies (23Hz-40Hz) are the zones of stress and anxiety. However, the modern problem is over-active high frequency beta activity (characterised by constant mental chatter) displacing the alpha range where creativity, innovation and wellbeing is promoted.

As we looked at in the last blog, alpha wave patterns reinforced through practices like meditation help balance an overactive mind, promoting creativity, the sense of connection and well-being. Neuro-chemicals (bio-chemicals produced by brain neurons located in the brain, heart and gut) are associated with happiness and mood elevation, increased immunity to disease and improving a range of mental and physical conditions. These neurochemicals are also promoted generally by predominant alpha states and some other states as described below.

Among hundreds of neuro-chemicals that provide physicality to our sense of bliss, pleasure and wellbeing, only a portion have been studied. Of those, Christopher Bergland in his Psychology Today blog explains seven well studied ‘neurochemicals of happiness’. These chemicals produced in our body are promoted or inhibited according to mental states and certain activities, so that we can impact our body chemistry through our consciousness and lifestyle. Also note that genrally, natural production is inhibited by drugs and alcohol as well as lack of physical activity or exercise.

  1. Endocannabinoids: “The Bliss Molecule” Our body has its own cannabinoid system, producing endocannabinoids that work via CB-1 and CB-2 receptors. “Anandamide (from the Sanskrit “Ananda” meaning Bliss) is the most well known endocannabinoid.” It is likely that we self-produce just as many variations of endocannabinoids as the 85 cannabinoids isolated from the Cannabis plant but it will take neuroscientists decades to isolate them.

    A University of Arizona study, published in April 2012, shows that humans and dogs have significantly higher endocannabinoid readings following sustained running. Because “other research focused on the blood–brain barrier (BBB), has shown that endorphin molecules are too large to pass freely across the BBB”, suggests these naturally produced cannabinoids are likely responsible for the blissful state of runner’s ‘high’.

  2. Dopamine: “The Reward Molecule” “Every type of reward seeking behaviour that has been studied increases the level of dopamine transmission in the brain. If you want to get a hit of dopamine, set a goal and achieve it.”

    Many addictive drugs, such as cocaine and methamphetamine, and addictive behaviours like computer games, act directly on the dopamine system. There is also evidence that extroverted, or uninhibited personality types tend to have higher levels of dopamine than introverted personality types. Bergland advises: “To feel more extroverted and uninhibited try to increase your levels of dopamine naturally by being a go-getter in your daily life and flooding your brain with dopamine regularly by setting goals and achieving them”.

  3. Oxytocin: “The Bonding Molecule” Oxytocin is a hormone directly linked to human bonding, increasing trust and loyalty, some studies suggesting correlation with romantic attachment. Some studies show that “lack of physical contact reduces oxytocin and drives the feeling of longing to bond with that person again.” There is debate that ivasopressin (a close cousin to oxytocin) may actually be the “bonding molecule” , especially in men. Either way, skin-to-skin contact, affection, love making and intimacy and these bonding hormones are associated with the physicality of the ‘warm fuzzies’ we feel from companionship.

    In these times of digital devices and isolated lifestyles reducing physical interaction, “it is more important than ever to maintain face-to-face intimate human bonds and ‘tribal’ connections within your community.” Quality family and friend time, team and contact sports, group or buddy activities are all important human bonds and release oxytocin. “If you don’t have another human being to offer you affection and increase oxytocin your favourite pet can also do the trick”.

  4. Endorphin: “The Pain-Killing Molecule” The name Endorphin translates into ‘self-produced morphine’. “Endorphins resemble opiates in their chemical structure and have analgesic properties. Endorphins are produced by the pituitary gland and the hypothalamus during strenuous physical exertion, sexual intercourse and orgasm. Make these pursuits a part of your regular life to keep the endorphins pumping.”

    “In 1999, clinical researchers reported that inserting acupuncture needles into specific body points triggers the production of endorphins. In another study, higher levels of endorphins were found in cerebrospinal fluid after patients underwent acupuncture. Acupuncture is a terrific way to stimulate the release of endorphins.”

  5. GABA: “The Anti-Anxiety Molecule” “GABA is an inhibitory molecule that slows down the firing of neurons and creates a sense of calmness.” Not surprisingly, it can be increased by practicing yoga or meditation. Many sedatives and anti-anxiety medications work by increasing GABA. “A study from the ‘Journal of Alternative and Complimentary Medicine‘ found a 27% increase in GABA levels among yoga practitioners after a 60-minute yoga session when compared against participants who read a book for 60 minutes. The study suggests yoga might increase GABA levels naturally.”
  6. Serotonin: “The Confidence Molecule” Serotonin plays many different roles in our bodies. Many studies associate higher serotonin levels with self-esteem, increased feelings of worthiness and a sense of belonging. Bergland suggests “to increase serotonin, challenge yourself regularly and pursue things that reinforce a sense of purpose, meaning and accomplishment. Being able to say “I did it!” will produce a feedback loop that will reinforce behaviours that build self esteem and make you less insecure and create an upward spiral of more and more serotonin.”

    Popular anti-depressants called Serotonin-Specific Re-uptake Inhibitors (SSRIs) — like Prozac, Zoloft, etc. are prescribed for clinical depression, anxiety, panic disorders, obsessive compulsive disorder (OCD), eating disorders, chronic pain, and post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). However, “how anti-depressants work in each person’s brain varies greatly and is not fully understood by scientists or researchers.”

  7. Adrenaline: “The Energy Molecule” Adrenaline, or epinephrine, is central to the ‘fight or flight’ mechanism. When released in your system, it is exhilarating, creating a surge in energy, increased heart rate, blood pressure, and increased blood flow to larger muscles. An ‘adrenaline rush’ comes with a limbic brain sense of fear or mortal danger. “It can be triggered on demand by doing things that terrify you or being thrust into a situation that feels dangerous.” Short rapid breathing with muscle contraction can stimulate adrenaline in small healthy doses.

However, many people with chronic stress, anxiety or fear can have exhausted adrenals which can recover with prolonged relaxation away from environmental, situational or dietary stresses. Bergland warns ‘Adrenaline Junkies’ to try balancing “potentially harmful novelty-seeking by focusing on behaviours that will make you feel good by releasing other neurochemicals on this list.”

Bergland concludes that this list of 7 neurochemicals can be used as a “rudimentary checklist to take inventory of your daily habits and to keep your life balanced. By focusing on lifestyle choices that secrete each of these neurochemicals you will increase your odds of happiness across the board.”

Deepak Chopra M.D., in his blog “How Meditation Helps Your Immune System Do its Job”, discusses how since the ‘80s, we have begun to understand the intelligence of the immune system. “It became known as ‘a floating brain’ because of the ability of immune cells to participate in the chemical messages sent by the brain throughout the body. This means that your thoughts, moods, sensations, and expectations are transmitted to your immune cells.” Chopra also makes a point in his lectures that there are receptors for these chemical messengers in all the cells of the body, so that the whole body is in on the physical response and mirroring of your state of being.

Chopra in his article, draws attention to the studied and important changes that occur when you meditate:

  • Your immune system responds to both negative and positive thoughts
  • Meditation creates a positive mental environment for the immune system to flourish, this study showed a reduction of pro-inflammatory gene expression in older adults.
  • A UCLA study shows that HIV positive patients who practice mindful meditation slow down the reduction of their CD-4 cell count. These are the immune cells that are associated with keeping the virus from propagating.
  • Meditation boosts antibodies. A recent study confirmed that, after weekly meditation training for 8 weeks, 48 biotech workers had significantly higher levels of antibodies than the control group (coworkers who didn’t meditate) as well as higher levels than before the study.
  • Meditation stimulates immune system brain-function regions. Mindfulness meditation has shown increases in electrical activity in the prefrontal cortex, the right anterior insula, and right hippocampus, all parts that control positive emotions, awareness, and anxiety. These brain regions act as command centres for your immune system. When stimulated, they make the immune system function more effectively.

Chopra concludes: “These findings bring into focus a clear message: Your response to potential illness, as managed by the immune system, improves with meditation. This is in keeping with another strong message. Being susceptible to chronic disorders like type-2 diabetes, obesity, heart disease, and high blood pressure, conditions that are not the result of invading microbes, is also reduced through meditation. The entire mind-body system is brought into a natural state of balance, the key to what I’ve called the higher health.”

The science of brain waves and body chemistry is revealing we are designed for happiness and wellbeing, and our chosen state of consciousness impacts this significantly. Our understanding is diminishing the boundary we once projected between mind and body. New models are suggesting brain and body are conduits for mind and consciousness. Such a view enables many meditators and other subjects studied to demonstrate high levels of mind and body control to reach optimal states to produce wellbeing and experiences of conscious awakening.

Conscious breathing, meditation and exercise done in quality inner body awareness all help to create balance and harmony as well as receptivity to new states of wellbeing for each of us personally. I hope some of the perspectives and suggestions above assist in your journey.

Additional recommended reading & reference: ECOC Institute name 141 Benefits of Meditation, each with some related studies https://eocinstitute.org/meditation/141-benefits-of–meditation/?gclid=EAIaIQobChMI_InK8P_J2AIV2wYqCh1QIwrHEAAYAiAAEgLuBPD_BwE

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Six Simple Life Enhancing Principles for an Awesome Year

Posted on by colinchenery

The start of a new year is a good time to look at these six principles that may seem simple, yet can be applied to enhance your life and have an awesome year! Five of them are the key principles of Sivananda yoga with another one added to include life engagement with others. Identify an area you could do more of in your weekly routine, or enhance by applying a principle that stands out for you.

Proper Relaxation

There are enormous benefits for mind and body to regular practice of deep relaxation. Quality sleep with complete sleep cycles is an important aspect of rest, recovery, and balance. The practice of conscious deep relaxation supplements this and carries benefits into daily activities by teaching conservation of energy, how to let go of worry, fear and tension, as well as how to relax the mind while being focused on a single activity. The key to the yogic principle of proper relaxation is combining complete rest of mental and physical activity to fully rest the whole nervous system.

Certain systems of yoga intensify the ability to fully relax by alternating concentrated activity that is not overly stressful or over exerting (not inducing fatigue) with full relaxation in between with a deeper and longer relaxation at the end of a session. Exercises that help open up circulation and energy flow in the body are also complimentary in preparation for deep relaxation.

To completely relax, it helps to get into a posture like floating in a float tank, where there is complete comfort and no need to move for a time. This is good to do for 5-10 minutes or more after activity, once the breathing and stimulation from activity has settled right down. Lie on your back and have the arms and legs spread out enough that the feet comfortably turn out and the palms of the hands turned up with the shoulders and chest open. The spine should not be too curved, but elongated along the floor or mat with the neck also comfortably lengthened. Use auto-suggestion going through each part of your body mentally, from the feet up, that “ ____ is relaxing” and “___ is relaxed”. Finish with the internal organs and then your mind itself and let go fully into receptive stillness for a time. Autosuggestion is a technique used by masters to control body functions usually not able to be voluntarily controlled like heart and metabolic rates.

Relaxation can be the most challenging of the five principles for some people, and if that is the case then start with shorter time and lengthen it on a regular basis. The sense of rejuvenation and fullness in the body is like pressing a reset button for mind and body and is a great start or finish to the day.

Proper Exercise

A quick summary of types of exercise and benefits: Resistance training has great benefits in maintaining circulation, muscle and bone density throughout life. Cycling, running and swimming can be great for cardio-vascular health and fitness. Interval training is considered one of the best ways to keep up metabolic rate, loose weight and increase fitness with efficiency of time and energy. Dance, martial art and gymnastic practices provide great co-ordination, core strength, agility and flexibility. All exercises can help restore hormonal balance as well as stress release in mind and body. Regular exercise elevates mood and mental focus.

Yoga asanas, or postures, can work systematically on all parts of the body – strengthening, toning and stretching muscles and ligaments (including minor muscles groups that can be neglected in certain sports), enhancing and maintaining spine and joint flexibility and improving circulation. Yoga, or practices like xigong and taichi can combine meditation and exercise by synchronising movement and breath in a relaxed state of full presence and conscious release of tension.

Proper Breathing

Proper breathing is full and rhythmic breathing, making use of all of your lungs to increase oxygen intake and maintain full functioning of the respiratory system for life. Any exercise that raises the volume and rate of breathing is of benefit. Yogic breathing teaches how to utilise the three key areas of abdominal and diaphragm, chest or thoracic and clavicular breathing. Yogic systems of kriyas and pranayama also teach methods to recharge body energy and control mental states by regulating the flow of prana (chi or life energy) stored in key energy centres of the body called chakras. These centres also correlate with key points of nerve ganglia (bundles of nerves and vascular tissue) aligned in the brain and spine, associated with key organs and glands of the body.

Various breath patterns can be powerful and specific to releasing physical stress, emotional blocks and mental/emotional patterns. Techniques like anuloma viloma focus also on quietening the mind.

Proper Diet

Proper diet obviously needs to be nourishing and well balanced in nutrients and food types. Processed foods need to be eliminated from regular consumption or all together. A diet based on fresh food (not overly cooked) is a key. Whatever the diet, mounting scientific evidence is showing a number of factors determine the best diet, so that a good diet for one person may not be the best for another. While there are many diets claiming to be the best, genetics, blood and body type, level of activity, and other factors play a part in determining the best food combinations and quantities. A predisposition to over-heating or feeling cold, stiff joints, bloating or gas, headaches, allergies, lethargy or large swings in energy levels, skin or digestive disorders all indicate issues with diet. Most types of disorders can be managed or resolved through diet. Over-heating and acidic foods should also be minimised, so a predominance of vegetables (with fruit eaten separately) is a common dietary principle in many systems.

Most of us know ways we can improve our dietary habits. Practicing a new habit for 21-30 days is a great start to make it a permanent change. Aryurvedic, naturopathic or nutritionist consultations can be a very positive step to make for anyone at a point of wanting to optimise health or deal with disorders sustainably and holistically. Is this something you can do this year to improve a health or lifestyle issue you know is better addressed sooner than later?

Positive Thinking and Meditation

Being conscious of the positivity or negativity of our thinking can be a game changer. The tone, language, and subject matter of habitual thinking are all influential to our character, perception, how we respond or react and how rewarding things can be. Using affirmations or adjusting a negative train of thought to a positive one are great skills to practice. The ability to observe and adjust our thinking is enhanced with meditation which trains us to observe our thoughts and feelings as they arise. Ultimately, meditation can train us to still the mind and transcend thoughts to reach new levels of conscious being and awareness.

Finding books, courses or teachers in these areas can be a great place to start to enhance this aspect to your life. The mind is essentially the most important aspect of self to consciously train in order to achieve greater life enrichment and harmony. If you already are on a personal journey here, is there something you can do in your life to take insight and awareness to a new level this year?

Conscious Doing – Expression, Engagement, Relationships and Daily Activity

The first five points set the stage to have better awareness and mastery in how we communicate and respond in relationship to our environment and others. Bad habits and compulsive behaviours can erode the many good things we do and impact our ability to be our true self within and in relationship with others.

This year, how can you better embody balance and health in mind and body to others and inspire loved ones to do the same? Is daily attention to nurturing one or a combination of the following points a good focus for you this year? :-

  • invoke a sense of love in your actions, be they personal or professional, through focusing on relaxing into open heartedness in all circumstances,
  • listening to others more by taking a few seconds to breath, feel and understand their points of view or repeating back what they say,
  • breaking and transforming a pattern of negative or compulsive thinking or behaviour,
  • making it a focus and reviewing daily where you are reinforcing positive values and principles you stand for and where you can do better,
  • separating thoughts and ‘doing’ from ‘being’ and awareness – practicing being present more in yourself and the moment, on your own and engaging with others. Identifying with the consciousness doing the thinking and actions is a significant step in awareness and conscious interaction in the world. Eckhard Tolle’s teaching focus on this with a modern, practical and universal approach.

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Winning the Most Important Battle with Love and Unity

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The Battle Within

Both Mahatma Gandhi and Paramahansa Yogananda among other esteemed masters and teachers of India hold that the war of the Gita is the war within. There is a field called Kurukshetra (north of Delhi) where the battle is said to have occurred. Yet these great teachers insist in the Gita the field is an analogy for our mind and the battle one we must all fight within. The entire Gita poetically and profoundly narrates a conversation between Arjuna and his treasured lord and companion Sri Krishna during the legendary battle between a divided ruling family and their forces.

Much in the Gita supports this such as when Sri Krishna tells Arjuna the enemies he must conquer are lust, fear and anger. The dialogue between the two becomes a living truth when the principles covered throughout the discourse are applied to thought and action. The Gita concisely represents the essence of India’s ancient and timeless spiritual wisdom as well as teaching true yoga before it diverged into its many modern streams.

Life as Unity

Eknath Easwaranin his companion book The Essence of the Bhagavad Gita states that “the central message of the Gita is that life is an indivisible whole – a concept civilisation flouts at every turn”. The principles of unity and how to live with them in the Gita is the only way we can have abiding peace or live with one another and the planet in harmony.

Getting to the Root of our Problem

While Krishna’s initial response to Arjuna’s pleas of counsel in the battle field sounds hopelessly philosophical, instead of hacking at the branches of Arjuna’s issues (and our own) it goes to the root. As frustration leads to anger and eventually war or a cycle of crisis, it is only in understanding who we are and what truly satisfies us that can provide a basis for living together in peace and prosperity. The Gita presents the bottom line of all human dilemmas as a conflict between a lower self and a higher self. This is the dual nature of human and divine. Both Christ and Krishna embody the purpose, path and fulfilment of unifying this dual nature once the divine is given dominance. Yet the path is difficult and the aligning requires an artful approach to life and knowing ourselves.

Suffering and Awakening

With awakening comes a even deeper connection to others, greater understanding and compassion. Easwaran makes the distinction between those who suffer life’s hardships while dwelling upon themselves versus those who experience no separateness and experience suffering universally – “with such a vast field to absorb your capacity for sorrow, there is little left for dwelling on your own suffering” 1. A hallmark of the Gita (and a universal theme in spiritual traditions) is the two approaches to spiritually aligned living of contemplation and action. Victory over selfishness is through selfless service, where there are always things to be done to ease sorrow and suffering of others. (Note Gita 6:1).

Easwaran says: “The main problem with identifying ourselves [predominantly] with the body is that we spend our lives trying to satisfy nonphysical needs in physical ways” 2, such as through relationships based on separate needs, compensating for ego driven desires, needs and deficiencies or through material wealth, power, recognition for security. This can occur in all spectrums of human life from survival level to high levels of excess. Sri Krishna and the Gita would counsel that this is a bottomless hole because “that which is infinite can only be filled with something infinite”. The deepest drive within us, beneath appearances and conditioning, is for “direct, personal, experiential knowledge of the eternal reality that is within” 2.

Stress

Easwaran notes it is often not the circumstance or task itself that makes us stressed but the mind dwelling on our dislike, wishing things or people were different, making people wrong, while “always making ourselves the frame of reference” …. “stress flourishes in a divided mind” 3. He suggests that no one really knows what the external world really is, since what we experience is largely determined by our nervous system and mind. We create our own turmoil and the nervous system responds to our choices while we think we are reacting to things outside. (note Gita 2:14). “Events are just events, neither pro nor con, neither for us or against us. That is why the Gita says when we see life as it is, we see that there is no cause for personal sorrow. This one insight brings compassion and the precious capacity to help without judging or getting burned out” 4.

“This is practicing yoga on the surface of life” and “what begins as training attention becomes, in time, training of the will, and eventually desire” … unification of consciousness gradually moves, level by level, deeper an deeper into personality” 5.

Yoga to Unify self with the Divine

Most spiritual traditions agree, the little self will (ahamkara in sanskrit) or the ego is the culprit behind our difficulties, conflicts and sufferings. Yoga is about healing the ‘split’ consciousness and resolving the battle perceived through ahamkara. The word ‘yoga’ relates to the english word yoke; signifying binding together parts that have been separated. But yoga originally did not mean so much union of body, mind and spirit so much as “complete identification with the atman, [universal spirit within] which uses body and mind as instruments” 6.

The mark of healing the split between our true nature and identification with mind and body is unconditional love of life (Gita 6:29,32). Because there are countless problems and issues to work through, Sri Krishna says: “Don’t just try and tackle the problems the mind creates. Go to the root: tackle the mind” 7 (Gita 2:41).

Just like walking is a great skill that becomes unconscious, yoga as explained in the Gita, trains us in the experience of monitoring the lower mind from the higher mind, providing a higher level of feedback. Thus with training we can maintain balance when faced with anger, fear, negative emotions and thoughts. This does not impair feeling deeply, but removes compulsive and reactive responses so the mind regaining balance quickly is at its best in dealing with what is at hand. Easwaran recommends practicing doing little things you dislike or are uncomfortable with to “lower the like and dislike threshold” and gain a more balanced mind 8. Ways to do this are including less liked foods in your diet, prioritising chores at home or essential tasks at work that you tend to avoid, while affirming their benefits to others as you do them.

Becoming more “free to enjoy everything and equal to every situation” means “you have choices everywhere, so you never feel trapped: whatever the circumstances, you can break out”. The Gita says this brings a lasting joy long before yoga is perfected (Gita 2:40).

Through regular practice of yoga combined with right intent, the spiritual aspirant can achieve the goal of unification and become a yogi. “The ultimate goal of yoga is lofty, not at all easy to attain. Shankara says succinctly, “Yoga is samadhi*.” It is not just a matter for faith, although the first steps require it. Sri Krishna asks us to put the teachings to the test for ourselves and Arjuna finally rises to the challenge (Gita 18:73).

* Samadhi – direct experience of reality when the mind is still and settled in living realisation of the unified and consciously awakened state. Sahaja samadhi – continually established in wisdom or samadhi. The experience of unity in meditation and realisation must be experienced repeatedly for direct awareness to gradually become continuous. Sahaja samadhi is to live in samadhi in all creative acts and normal life moments, navigating challenges and successes without any disturbance of the unified state.

Recommended Reading:

Essence of the Bhagavad Gita -; A Contemporary Guide to Yoga, Meditation and Indian Philosophy, by Eknath Easwaran (Nilgiris Press, Tomales, CA, USA, 2011)

Quotes: 1. (p.64); 2. (p.73); 3. (p.164); 4. (p.165); 5. (pp.165,166); 6. (p.111);

7. (p.113); 8. (pp. 116,117);

God Talks With Arjuna: The Bhagavad Gita, by Paramahansa Yogananda (Self-Realization Fellowship, USA, 1999, Second Edition)

The Bhagavad Gita, translation & commentary, by Sri Swami Sivananda (The Divine Life Society, India, 2015, Fifteenth Edition)

Mind Clearing for Energy and Success

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Six Steps to Gain Insight and Releasing Limiting Beliefs

Meditation, yoga and practices that help maintain a calm mind and heart are key disciplines to developing awareness, and help us tackle the mind at the root by deepening our identification with consciousness deeper than thought.

However, to deal with specific recurring thoughts or negative life patterns, it is useful to address specific outmoded beliefs and views. This can be liberating and enhance our capacity for growth and happiness, especially when we have some unconscious block to break through.

During the years I worked in therapy, one of the techniques I used was rebirthing which uses a circular pattern of conscious breathing that opens the mind up to memories and insights. It energises mind and body and can clear blockages.

One client suffered chronic fatigue and had noticed patterns of ill-health and self-sabotage in her career at specific times of opportunity and success. Cycles of feeling energised, excited and hopeful seemed always brief and repeatedly ended in disappointment and fatigue.

I will call her Chloe here. During a key session, Chloe’s breathing became more intense in waves until she wept deeply. Over much of an hour she moved through layers of healing as a result of re-living an event in her child hood that she had forgotten. She was age 4 or 5, standing on a train platform with her little sister and father. It was the end of a hot day out and they were all tired. She was repeatedly asking her father if she could carry the box of donuts he had bought for them all when they got home, but he wouldn’t let her.

She got increasingly upset until he reluctantly and impatiently thrust the box at her, saying “Alright, just be quiet and do not drop them!” Tired and sooky, she held on to the box as they waited on the hot platform for the train. When the train pulled to a stop, the doors opened. As they stepped into the train, Chloe felt the box slip from her hands and fall between the train and the platform, irretrievably on the stones below. Staring in shock and disbelief, she felt her father angrily grab her arm and pull her into the train as the doors shut. He was swearing under his breath and angrily stated the obvious, “I told you not to drop them! That is exactly why I didn’t want you to carry them. How could you do that? Unbelievable!”

Standing forlorn with her head down, Chloe felt herself as a child with a terrible sinking feeling in her chest and stomach. The child quietly wept, while the adult registered a deep decision to the effect of “I can’t be trusted” and “I can’t even trust myself”. As she felt the pain of the child, the life between then and that moment flashed before her. She registered a familiar bad feeling and saw how she had reinforced that decision and belief in countless ways that had limited her. The adult also wept and gradually realised she could now let it go.

This simple situation really brought home to me that it is not the adults version of a ‘serious’ event where some of our pain stems from. Some people come out of the worst situations with great survival strategies and positive convictions. At the same time simple situations like Chloe’s ‘donut moment’ can prove life impacting in deeply reinforcing a negative belief and unresolved anguish or pain.

It is not what happens to us, but the decisions we make as a result of what happens, that conditions the mind.

Chloe was able to release her sadness and connect with the pain at the level and mindset she remembered it being locked in. In our debrief she further came to terms with this old belief and forgave herself, her father and many situations and people since that time that she could see she had protected and reaffirmed that pain. She affirmed a new trust in herself. Months later she sent me a card to say her energy levels, positivity and motivation personally and professionally had improved significantly. A change had occurred and she felt more free with more choices.

It you have an ongoing hurt, recurring negative thoughts or specific negative outcomes try the following six-step exercise:

  1. Write a list of painful experiences in your life, especially in childhood, when you have a bit battered and bruised by life or had some momentous event occur and challenge you. Another approach here may be to first look at what obstacle keeps coming up in your life now and you want to break through.

  2. Take time to go through the past experience writing key thoughts and feelings that occurred at the time. Alternatively, do the same with the feelings and thoughts you get around a blockage you are experiencing now and, with some deep breaths and relaxation, find times earlier in your life when you felt the same (the focus is your inner feeling not the situation around you).

  3. At the time of your earliest experience, what basic belief or decision did this affirm to you about yourself or life in general? Don’t over-think it, but just note anything that comes to mind. Allow a flow of thoughts and make a list of decisions or beliefs, noting how each one makes you feel or the location, size and nature of feeling in your body.

  4. Now identify the one’s you still feel a ‘charge’ on that you may still be proving to be true at times in your life. Turn each negative thought into an “I” thought, such as “I am ….” or “I can’t ….” or “I’m not ….”.

  5. Affirm these are only beliefs that filter our perception and experience of life and flip each of the negatives into a positive affirmation or life affirming thought and belief. Like Chloe affirming “I am fully responsible, trustworthy and loved as I am”, or “I, Chloe can be trusted and completely successful with anything I really want”. Imagine the possibilities if the positive affirmation you had was applied to the most valued things in your life now.

  6. For each negative belief and associated feeling spend a week or more with the positive affirmation. Forgive yourself or any specific person associated with the past event and belief. For those really hurtful events, remember that forgiving someone is not necessarily making what happened okay. It is about letting it go so it doesn’t continue to negatively impact the quality of your consciousness and perceptions any more.

Use the positive affirmation as a mantra silently or out loud. You can write it down daily twenty times noting how you feel, until the emotional or body sense associated with it feels comfortable and real. You can also write little signs of the affirmations that really lift your energy and outlook, and leave them in places you like to be reminded (such as a bathroom mirror, fridge, car dashboard, work computer screen, etc.). Then go through any others in your list.

Taking stock and working with conditioned thoughts and beliefs for a period of time is an important stage in really understanding how our conditioned mind impacts our perceptions, experiences and outcomes. It empowers us to know we can identify and change this conditioning and discover more choices for ourselves and life circumstances.

Meditation is about getting beyond the thinking mind and beliefs, until every moment becomes a choice in the quality of awareness, consciousness and state of being. In the meantime, facing discomfort and negatives in ourselves is not only a huge source of maturity and growth but also creates new outcomes and possibilities in life.