A new beginning

Dec 21, 2012 is a day worthy of a blog. For many it is worthy of much more, like reaping the fruit of preparing for the end of the world in their well equipped houses or bunkers. I heard about two Romanian businessmen brothers who spent 100K euros building a refuge in the mountains. At least they have learned organic farming.

Haven't thought much about this day in the past. But today thinking about it, I know that this is the beginning of a new era. I believe people will become more spiritual, where human values like compassion, friendliness, enthusiasm, contentment will be widespread, similarly how negative news, horror movies, violent games etc have reigned in last decades.

More people will meditate than not, finding another dimension, not explored, the inner world, the inner strength.

Luckily I have started to align with this new era for the past ten years since I started to practice meditation, breathing exercises and changing my negative patterns like anger, anxiety, etc to become more aware about I feel and think, all this owing to the teachings of  +Sri Sri Ravi Shankar. But in the last couple of months I started to think that I'm not using the ultimate freedom I got by freeing myself of negativity, fear and by gaining deeper intuition, clear mind, and new skills in dealing with people around me.

It is like I became a beautiful mature tree, full of green leaves, strong roots, even the birds are chirping on my branches but I'm shy to make flowers.

Sri Sri Ravi Shankar says: "one thing that you should know is that you don't know yourself. But when you wake up and see that, ‘Hey, I don’t know myself’, then it is a new beginning. Then you will discover that there are so many strengths within you that you were not aware of."

Ok, now I woke up. Now what? I'm looking for the next clue. Again I return to the same source to get the next clue: "You need to have a goal, a vision of what you want to be and what is it that you want to do – this you must have."

Most people have an idea of what they want to become, few are pursuing it. Most of us we settle with what society, family, job is requiring from us, getting comfortable in the railway tracks of life. Inertia comes. When was the last time a passion arose in me, in you, that brings out the vigor, valor, joy or enthusiasm. In Sanskrit there is one word that describes all this: shakti.

And the beauty is that any small step towards the goal doesn't feel like a burn, no, it's more like a flame giving you that inner pleasure that you are one step closer.

If I have to reconstruct myself, with no limitations, adding  a red flower on this branch, and then blossoming a blue flower on the other branch, painting my own Eden garden, what would that be? I learned from one of the most powerful +The Art of Living teachers, Rajshree, that unless you have a crystal clear concept, any vague, fuzzy ideas will not manifest. I need to have a clear image of the one I'll become.

This morning I spent some time to paint that Eden garden, with all the details. You know it takes courage. Because there is always sneaky thoughts whispering: 'It is too far out, it is impossible for you, it will take all your life to get there and if you get there, you are too old for it'.

The paint for tomorrow has drawn a scene where I sleep 6 hours, take a shower, do my morning practice (padmasadhna, meditation, breathing exercises), and not fall asleep again.  I usually do my practice first and then shower as water first thing in the morning calls for some old drowning impressions.

+Sri Sri Ravi Shankar says: "every moment is a new beginning. You wake up and say, 'This is a new beginning!' That is it!

There is no 'How'. That is how it is. Just let go!"

I got it. There is no 'How'. The beginning starts now. 'That is it!'

The first true sentence

I just heard that Hemingway said to write something you start with the first true sentence. "All you have to do is write one true sentence. Write the truest sentence you know." - Ernest Hemingway, A Moveable Feast."

Here's my true sentence: One of the most challenging and yet fulfilling moments is teaching the art of living course. I've been teaching it for a few years, but each time it is completely different and unpredictable. On the first day we do an hour of breathing exercises, some meditation and people find themselves in a peaceful and blissful state. And I love asking them at the end of the meditation how they feel. In my last course, a woman started by saying that it was the "the only meditation where I had so much guilt and despair". I swallowed and prayed that my usual response of "whatever is happening it is fine" will not sound too ridiculous. Then she added that she could hear some music playing during meditation which I could hear as well coming from somewhere outside. Then she started to recognize the songs one by one to the point that she had the scary thought that it was her own ipod which she activated by mistake. She had only one thought for battery to die which eventually did.

I'm trying to figure out if the rest of the people meditating could nullify her anguish, guilt and the rest of plethora of negative emotions.

In another course I asked one participant to imitate me and play my role. She was supposed to ask the other participants to share some of the knowledge in the course and supposed to make make it light, even make fun of me. I put on my face of practicing what I preach by having a check on my ego, not forgetting to smile and getting ready for my accent to be imitated or some other embarrassing characteristic to be played out in front of my eyes.

She started and the first participant shared some knowledge point and it made sense. The second one's knowledge point made sense too, and I start thinking that wow these guys are getting it after two days while these points it took me years to get comfortable. +Sri Sri Ravi Shankar has said that if you fully live one knowledge point you are enlightened. By the third sharing I was fighting the tears. It is such a feeling to see the beauty of the knowledge blossoming like in a time-lapse photography. 

Have you had that feeling while you are doing something that you are passionate about, you put everything you have, your whole energy, creativity and somewhere in the process you realize you are not doing it, it comes from somewhere else. 

Einstein once said:  "The intellect has little to do on the road to discovery. There comes a leap in consciousness, call it Intuition or what you will, the solution comes to you and you don't know how or why".
I must say that my intuition started to develop after practicing meditation.

The more I meditate, the easier is to find the right solutions, right judgements. It is like carving the shores of a river called life in such a manner that water never gets stagnant, it gushes like it knows what direction to flow.

It is the greatest comfort. I cannot imagine how I carried my mind before. Now another water analogy comes to my mind that +Sri Sri Ravi Shankar used to say, but now I experienced it. Before my mind was similar to an agitated lake where events and people are creating impressions in the mind like pebbles are thrown in the water, never letting me see the clear water, the bottom of the lake. What a relief I get everyday discarding all those impressions to start the moment fresh.

My date with magic

Today is said to be an auspicious day to start something new. So I decided to start a blog today. Not sure about what yet :) But I have been meditating for 10 years and they say creativity comes from a deep meditative state, therefore I count on the fact that I made enough creative reserves to get me through the first post :)

I would say that the period in my life where I have experienced growth in leaps and bounds, were the last 10 years. And the culprit in my spiritual path abundant in meditation and self-knowledge is my great master, +Sri Sri Ravi Shankar.

I have all the time in the world to go through those years, but I learned the importance of living in the present moment and now I'm all about applying what I have learned. Living with intensity, without fear, making the impossible possible and keeping my mind cool at the same time.

Just two weeks ago I was passionately involved in a project called Yoga Rave, which pioneers entertainment without alcohol or any other substance. We invited a known high energy music band from Argentina called the So That Project, who are the creators of this cool concept, which involves music, meditation, yoga and dance.

I got to test my comfort boundaries while organizing it. I was flyering for about ten days in San Francisco and indeed this is not an easy job, but I learned new things about myself this time. It helped that we have a cool flyer :) When people hear the words Yoga Rave they all became curious how the two words go together.

I had good moments and not so good moments flyering. There are moments when nothing is happening and moments when almost every person wants a flyer. They even chase you down asking for the flyer.

I realized that your prana (subtle energy) level is what attracts people and a feeling of surrendering the fruits of your actions. You want to see how prana impacts people around you? You want to practice surrendering the fruits of your actions? Nothing better than flyering :-)

I haven't had so much fun in a while. LaShanda, my friend, is a great flyering partner, making me laugh as we went through some crazy situations.

We were flyering in Castro in a popular gay bar and the bartender told us the best spot for posters is the restroom. We took a deep breath approaching the women's restroom but then we saw a guy coming out of the restroom. We took a second deeper breath and we locked ourselves in to put the poster. We got out together from the restroom and we got inquiring looks. It didn't helped that LaShanda was wearing shorts and I was wearing a skirt.

I've done many development courses, which test your comfort zone, but my boundaries were really pushed when we put a poster on a highly visible street poll while a naked guy was sunning on a chair next to the pole. 

How to keep your prana high when flyering or doing any activity out of your comfort zone:

1. get a partner

2. surrender your fruit of the action

3. know that you have the choice of feeling good or bad every moment

4. look for creative ways to look at your activity e.g. knowing that the flyer in your hand is more valuable than a 100 dollar bill as it has the potential of changing someone's life

5. grace flows with action

Am I suppose to close with some signature phrase?

How about "Magic never ends, you only have to arrange your date with it" - +Sri Sri Ravi Shankar