Change

One thing I know for sure is that good, bad, or ugly, change is going to come. Some people like to reminisce about the past, talk about how things were better in the good ol' days, or constantly bring up other people's past mistakes. It's good to know your history, so as not to repeat what doesn't need repeating, and also to see where you've been so that you can know where you need to go. But we can't spend too much time looking back, especially since we should be moving forward, one is likely to run into something that way. That's why I reflect with the intention of making adjustments for my forward movement, because like I said, change is going to come, I want to be ready.


People are often resistant to change, at least change for which they didn't ask. Take Facebook, for example. They're about to make enormous changes without having consulted their subscribers. They have so many people on their network around the world that they're not worried if they lose a few thousand. So, our choices are to leave, or get used to half a million people knowing everything about us and every move we make. Sounds like the CIA or something doesn't it? Zuckerberg did meet with President Obama....but I digress. The point is, the change is coming and we have to make some sort of change with it. Some other changes are more vital to our stability and can severely disrupt our lives. A loss of a loved one, job, or home, changes in the economy, and natural disasters can be devastating. We can prepare, to a certain extent, for these challenging changes by having savings or other plans in place. One of the best ways to prepare for change, I think, is to have a solid spiritual center, or something from which you can draw strength.


What about the good changes? A change in financial and love status, achange in address to a better neighborhood or more comfortable home, a change of health, can all be very good types of change. Believe it or not, we have to be prepared for those too. More money could mean more taxes, love won't last if you aren't ready for it, a bigger home needs more furniture, better health means more life to live, how will you live it? Again, I say, a solid spiritual foundation is the key. Regardless of what the change is, if we are going to survive it or thrive in it, we need to be grounded, peaceful, thoughtful, and aware. That is why I think having a solid spiritual center from which all thoughts, words, and actions radiate is necessary.


Then there are the changes we want. This week, I saw people around the world rally in support of one life. Desperate for a change in this young man's fate, people signed petitions, protested, made calls to government officials, tweeted, blogged, and posted information to try to save Troy Davis' life. Unfortunately, these efforts were unsuccessful, but hopefully not in vain. I really hope that losing this battle has not discourage you from continuing to fight. There are many more awaiting the same fate who need us to fight for them (Reggie Clemons is facing execution in less than a month). Millions of people in the Horn of Africa are still dying of malnutrition and could benefit from a fight to save them. Change doesn't have to just happen to us, we can create it too. I listen to people complain about President Obama and what he is or isn't doing, but they don't do anything to change that. You, a record number of you, African American and Caucasian alike, voted him in. It took grassroots efforts during his campaign to get him there. YOU did that. That's not a slight, it's a compliment. You have proven what you can do when you act. Write the President a letter outlining what you think he needs to do to be a better president. Someone does read them, and I bet if you begin it with, "Mr. President, if you want my vote to get re-elected...." it will at least get to his advisers, especially if enough of us do it. I'm not campaigning for President Obama, I'd just rather do something other than complain.We've all seen or heard Mahatma Gandhi's quote, "Be the change you want to see in the world."  Have you thought about what it means? If you want to save the environment, recycle, use natural products, do something towards that change. We can't just will it to happen and continue doing the same things.


There are many huge changes going on around the world, much of it is being created by people who want to see change. We've seen Egypt, Libya, Israel, and Palestine make moves towards big changes. People are camped out on Wall Street as you read this. What the outcome of these movements will be, still remains to be seen, but I am sure they will create some sort of change, one way or the other. The earth is even changing. It's shaking in places it hasn't before, or in a very long time, some places are being covered with water, while others are becoming dust bowls. Tsunamis are now a concern after every quake. Mother earth is telling us it is time for things to change. We can prepare by looking back briefly to see what we've done wrong, and then forging ahead to create the change for a better world. Yes, good, bad, or ugly, change is going to come. Are you ready? Love and light.

Silence and Solitude

I've been trying earnestly to figure out what it is about me that can be so off putting. I really have. When I'm negative, people don't like it. When I'm too positive people hate it. So I've tried to have balance. But I'm thinking now that it's not at all about balance when it comes to me. Perhaps, it's about silence...and solitude. I think I want and need too much out of life. I could deconstruct and analyze my past to justify these wants and needs, but it doesn't matter. One should be grateful for all of the blessings he/she has in life and know that it isn't necessary to want or need anything.

I've tried very hard to be in this state of mind, and I have been to some extent. But want and need creep back. Maybe it's the human condition in this world that tells you that what you have and who you are is not enough and we continually try to create happiness from external things. I can reclaim my joy at any moment because I know The One who is always with me, who always provides me with everything I need. But I'm in this place right now and I need to feel it before I find the cause and rid myself of it. So I'm feeling it. Yes, I have feelings, contrary to popular belief. There are those who think that unkind words and deeds, or no words and deeds at all, roll off of me like water off a duck's back. I've tried to surreptitiously convey that in some of my blog posts, but of course, those people don't read my blog.

Solitude is such an unwanted condition. We associate it with loneliness, ostracization, and rejection. But we come into this world alone. Even if you are part of a multiple birth, you have your own mind and soul. You alone think your thoughts and feel your feelings. And we leave here alone as well. I know I always have the Most High with me so I will never really be alone. I will just be one. I'd much rather keep to myself than to allow my vulnerability to become a salted open wound. Solitude can be a blessing. It can allow one the opportunity to go deep within, reflect, and heal.

So what does this solitude mean? For me, it will mean distance. This is not where I wanted to be in life, nor is it where I thought I would ever be. I've always been a person who loves people. I love meeting new people from different backgrounds with different interests  from whom I can learn and grow. But I think this isolation I have been in for the past year has made me too eager, too much. But I can only be who I am at this time. I have music and wonderful memories to keep me company. Please forgive me for not being positive today. It is a daily effort and sometimes I fail. I will take some down time to regroup and try it again another day. I sincerely wish you love and light.

What About Love?

People seem to make a really big deal about love, yet they don't seem to make a big enough deal about it. What I mean is, we as humans tend to want to qualify and quantify love. We categorize love as romantic, platonic, and familial. Then we say we love one more than the other. We find reasons to love each other instead of loving for the sake of loving. When someone tells us they love us, depending on the type of relationship we want with that person at that moment, we either run away scared, shine it away like they're crazy, take it for granted, or put so much meaning on it that everything else they say or do from that point on is weighted by it. Then there are the conditions. I love you only if, when, because. I only love these people, but not those. I find people have an easier time loving things, places, and activities than they do other people. But what is love anyway?
This tendency to categorize love as if it comes from a different place depending on our relationship with the beloved is baffling to me. Love is love. Sure there are physical reactions that come with attraction, but all feelings of love come from the same place. The instinct a mother has to nurture and protect her child, the desire to mate, the connection you feel with a friend all emanate from the same place. Love doesn't actually come from the physical heart. The physical heart is just a muscle (albeit a very important one) that pumps blood through the body. The brain tells the heart to do this work. Feelings come from the limbic system in the brain. It's a complex system that governs feelings, emotions, self preservation, and memory to name a few. But there's actually a part of the brain that specifically governs this emotion/feeling. This is why love comes naturally to us as humans. We are hardwired for it. Love is our natural state. But, the brain being the amazing organ that it is, is capable of filtering and mutating this emotion/feeling as a survival mechanism.


We allow past experiences to taint how we love and our definitions of love. Although the words "emotions" and "feelings" are often used interchangeably, there are some differences in their meanings. There have been many philosophical, psychological, and biological theories and debates on this, but I like this explanation : Feelings need external stimuli to occur such as heat or cold, or a sad or frightening event, whereas emotions can occur internally, without external stimuli. An emotion is deeper and can be longer lasting. It can be triggered by a thought, memory, or external sensation, and can often change our physical state. When I read these explanations, it became clear to me; we allow our thoughts, memories, and external stimuli to influence how we experience love. It's interesting how selective we are in that process, however.  We let past hurts and deceptions color our view of love, what it is, should be, or can be. Yet, we fail to allow the good feelings or emotions of the past to influence our view of love. When someone lies to you or betrays you, do you automatically think 'I'll never trust again' or do you take a moment to remember the people in your life who have been faithful and loyal to you?

It's ashamed, really. Think about what it feels like to "be in love." You can't stop smiling. Everything seems wonderful, more colorful, vibrant, fragrant, pleasing. And if you think really hard about it, these feelings come even before the object of your affection expresses his/her love for you. That's because it feels good to love. You may think the good feelings are coming from how sweet he/she is being to you, but it's actually coming from within. It's not the short lived external stimuli causing a feeling, it's you recalling the love that you have experienced in the past as an emotion that may cause you to cry at sentimental commercials, or your heart to beat faster. It's you remembering your natural state. What's strange is, even though you may love the person before you know if they love you, you somehow stop if you become certain that they don't.

Love is so expansive an emotion, it should show up everywhere. If you love curry chicken, why can't you love the man who held the door open for you? Sure, curry chicken may taste good, but that door wasn't going to open itself. I joke, but every smile, good deed, hug, thoughtful act, every kindness, is an expression of love. If we take a moment to see these things that way, maybe we would be compelled to oblige, to return the love. Lately, I've decided to see everyone I met as someone I loved. I consciously told myself 'I love this person'. I found strangers were drawn to me and I think it's because they felt the love I was sending them. To love and to be loved is the greatest thing one can do or have done to them. If someone expresses love for you, you should feel honored and grateful. It is not natural for us to avoid, run away from, or limit love. It should be so natural and commonplace for us to love and express love, that the ideas of reacting negatively to it, putting conditions on it, or ending it should be foreign to us.

Nelson Mandela said, "No one is born hating another person because of the color of his skin, or his background, or his religion. People must learn to hate, and if they can learn to hate, they can be taught to love, for love comes more naturally to the human heart than its opposite. " We are, after,connected; one energy taking different forms. If you love yourself, and I hope that you do, then you should easily be able to love me, or anyone else. LOVE and Light.

Balance

Over and over you can be sure

There will be sorrow but you will endure

Where there's a flower there's the sun and the rain

Oh and it's wonderful there both one in the same

                                Joy and pain are like sunshine and rain ~ Frankie Beverly & Maze

While reflecting on the past year or so, I have come to realize that life for me has been an equal blend of trials and blessings. Everything in life is in divine order, perfect balance. When life seems out of balance, it's usually our reactions that are actually out of balance.  Some people say life is like a roller coaster, it has it's ups and downs. The crest, or the top of the hill are the ups, and the trough, or the dip, are the downs. But if you've ever ridden a roller coaster, you know that when you dip into those troughs, you never stay there. The ride either takes you back up, on a curve, or evens out. Life is like that too. That's where the balance comes in.

I read, "Krishna Hindus are very conscious of the paradoxes that make up the universe. Siva is simultaneously the creator, maintainer, and destroyer of life. All phenomena is a constant interplay between hot and cold, male and female, light and dark. Vedic medicine teaches that keeping these opposing forces in balance is central to the maintenance of bodily, social, and cosmic well-being."* We see this to be true in everyday life. Too much of anything puts the universe off balance. Imagine a scale. Differing weights make it tip to one side. One might find themselves pleased if the heavier side contained all of the pleasant things of life. But how would we grow, become stronger, smarter, better if we had no reason to try?

When everything seems to be going the way we'd like, we are happy and positive. However, when things aren't going the way we'd hoped, we become sad or angry and negative. This uses a lot of unnecessary energy. It is not really that times are "good" or "bad," rather how we interpret them. If making a lot of money, having a nice car, or being with a beautiful woman is, in your opinion  "good" and will make you happy, then if you should lose it or are unable to attain it, you will interpret that as "bad"  and become unhappy. The key, I am learning, is to feel these feelings of anger, depression, or low self-esteem caused by the so-called "bad" events in life, get to the root causes, but then, ask yourself what you can do to change that. It is often not about changing the situation, rather, how you interpret it and react to it. It is both simple and complex at the same time.

I was watching a video of a talk given at Google by a Buddhist nun (posted below) about being your own therapist. It was very interesting because the concept she spoke of was about achieving balance not by taking the "bad" and "good" with equal acceptance, but by removing the idea of "bad" altogether She said that we are all "good" in the core of our beings and that it is not natural to have any bad qualities or thoughts. We must seek out the causes of our bad feelings or thoughts and change them. We are "mutable" as I said in a previous post. This idea of not being "good enough" is self imposed and derived from some past experience or teachings. Balance comes when we can see ourselves and our lives as good. Pain will come, but suffering is unnecessary. Coming to this mindset takes time and work, and I am still taking the time to do the work myself. What I am noticing is that as I remove each neurosis, and it is neurosis because it is delusional to think that any of us is lesser, in any way, than anyone else, but as I remove this neurosis, joy is present more often.

Back on the roller coaster, think of where the real fun is. Is it at the top teetering for a few seconds knowing the thrill of the drop is coming? Is it the thrill of the drop itself? Or is it the excitement of it all knowing even the drop has something thrilling coming after it? Yes, yes, and yes. It is a ride, and all parts of it together make it thrilling. The top of the hill is only thrilling because of what is coming next. Know that it is all necessary to move forward on this joyful ride, and it is all good. Love and light.