A TUT Message

“Most people will find the following very hard to believe, but, there is nothing, ever, worth being unhappy about.

Because no matter what happens, it will add to you, you’ll still live forever, and our love affair will remain tabloid fodder in realms far, far away.

Thank you,

Earth Rocks

The Universe”"

A good friend of mine sent me the original subscription link to Mike Dooley’s TUT daily quotes. www.tut.com a long time ago, and sometimes I read them and say, thank you, and other times–today being one of those times, I say yeah! Powerful thought, indeed, THANK YOU!

Upon waking and after my ahhhs, I reflected on my work and career. I wanted to revisit my work habits and the various kinds of work I am attracting and not attracting.  I had considered starting the day by doing some deep, deep office cleaning although I was not necessarily looking forward to dusting and vacuuming, and deciding what to discard and what to keep. I selected meditating on Living Up to Death.

Living Up to Death is a Buddhist meditation where you practice total letting go at all levels until emptiness shines through your Buddha core- the vajra body and you are timeless, deathless, open and  yet complete. Happiness arrives and settles in and there is nothing but joy throughout. Leaving the cushion I knew I had to clean and clear old stuff, including some hardy cobwebs settled in the corners. Then…I stumbled upon the quote as I turned my laptop on.

I did not want to leave the nirvanic state I was in, yet in wanting to stay there it put me back on attachment, craving…The opposite of death! Yet living in joy and happiness brings nirvanic peace. Is TUT reminding me that cleaning and dusting and choring are all part of it?

“The Universe” reminded me of why I was cleaning. Not for now, not for then, not for any reason but to bring about clarity to my present, cleanliness to my thoughts, sparkling wisdom to my mind, and time…time to honor the past, harness the power of the ego and prepare for the future without attachments to the outcome. Cleaning my glasses I can see better, clearer. Cleaning my office now, I can see better, clearer, what comes my way and decide what to keep, what to give away and what to share. Clarity IS happiness. Happiness is in every act I perform with joy and I embrace this happiness now and eternally.

In wanting clarity and deciding to clean I noticed the “note”. Maybe I’ll be reborn in a spotless world!

Have a happy day everyone by loving and enjoying everything you do!

“Sometimes I sits and thinks, and sometimes I just sits.”

This amazing quote by Satchel Paige was sent to me this morning by Dale Donelly, one of my www.blitztime.com meditators. 

We were discussing having a “hard time focusing on expanding an area(my term for goals)  of my life” I answered that sometimes you just have to breathe, sit, and receive. I posit that there is time for outputting and a time for inputting, then I reflected about Right Effort, one of the eight paths to awareness according to Buddhism. 

 Interestingly enough, Right Effort is part of Meditation; in itself also one of the practices on the same path. It is so, because meditation is not passive but dynamic. Right Effort actually means spiritual effort, for as we work to elevate ourselves and develop more wholesome mind- body states we learn to go deeper and live more fully. It is precisely through this effort that we open and awake our hearts, minds, body and soul. Right Effort means sincere effort to examine our lives and work at cultivating ourselves. Practicing  introspection, prayer and contemplation-the mindfulness and awareness practices, we can take advantage of the timeless, tried and true, effective inner science of transformation. Lama Surya Das writes that this is how Bodhisattvas (enlightened beings) do their productive Dharma farming (enlighten others on the path), thus “bringing forth the beautiful flowers for the entire world to enjoy”! 

What exactly is Right Effort on the spiritual path? Perseverance, diligence, self-discipline, courage, and yes, PATIENCE! Like in the Thomas Troward discussion, we implied that what is easy for some of us, is arduous for others. Our habitual conditioning, our histories, our points of reference moves us into the various spiritual paths. Moreover, we tend to go with the known–the habitual, whether good or bad for us and others. It takes effort to change our habitual patterns of thinking and behavior, but it takes courage to examine these same thoughts and behaviors.  

 Have a courageous day everyone and …sometimes just sits!!!     

  

   

 

 

 

 

  

   

   

  

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

  

  

  

Thomas Troward wrote that…

“Our repeated failure to fully act as we would wish must not discourage us. It is the sincere intention that is the essential thing, and this will in time release us from the bondage of habits which at present seem almost insuperable.”

Mr Troward was an English author whose works influenced the New Thought Movement and mystic Christianity. He lived between 1847 and 1910 and was British Assistant Commissioner and judge in India in 1869.

I like the way in which this statement focuses on the sincerity of the intention to work with the ego-based emotions.  Awareness, and ego don’t co-exist. It allows re-alignment with Source, space to contemplate what we don’t want, look at the beliefs still holding us prisoners and to the doubts still keeping us from changing from chrysalis to butterfly.

Assume that you will fly!

The Year of Discernment

I have been an open book for the past four years. I have written about my process as a woman & mother , as I interviewed a dozen women, synthesized their stories, healed my past & released the suffering of women for myself & others (book on hold due to intensity of the interviews & I am so needing a sabbatical from the dark places I visited in my psyche).

I also wrote about our crazy drive from Boston into Central America with our two young daughters (6 & 3 at the time). I was raw, present & vulnerable to those who read our two-month escapade. You know, typical story, heroine & hero are in suffering, go through their journey, and live happily ever after. Only that the happily ever after is not as rosy as as the honey moon like feelings days after we arrived back to the U.S.,  mind you in total culture shock.

I have been open. Why? Mostly in an attempt to talk about things that most of us don’t want to talk about, feel we can’t, or are afraid of what others will think if we mention the many ups & downs of life as a human being. It’s my way of making sense of my life, and my contribution in inviting other people to question the status quo & define their own path.

I’ve been criticized (mostly by some close to me), hugged for expressing what many feel (Mothers seem to connect to my honesty)  and I have allowed people to know me more intimately than I know them (it’s always funny when people I pass every day smirk when they see me the morning after some intense post!)

Yet, I am feeling the energy of Discernment knocking on my door. The energy feels Masculine- yeah, definitely, trying to put structure and boundaries around my very flowing and spontaneous typing fingers. Discernment… what do I do with you? I don’t know how to be in relationship with you.

Discernment pounds down on the door as In-laws want a say on the safety of  our daughters, as we so proudly show these young minds third world countries and other ways of being. Discernment of how to speak my truth in a loving and constructive way. And realizing that sometimes love is not soft, but to the point and at times hard to hear.

Discernment calls me to live as a porcupine.   Love this visual, by the way! I love how porcupines walk past predators completely untouched, aside from the curious sniff. Porcupines- only vulnerable when she turns her belly up. Discernment, tell me when to show my belly! Interesting that as we age, we show less and less of our midriff. Not out of shame for the fullness, but more because we honor the womb of our ever flowing creations.

My soul would cringe if I were to confuse discernment with hiding in a cave, or being in fear of what could happen.

So, how do you explain discernment? Is it wisdom or a calculated risk/ management analysis? What is discernment?

My success is related to the quality of my entrance, my bed position or where is my office located? This is crazy!!!

 

I know it sounds funny. Yet what I am going to tell you sounds even funnier: There is a direct connection between the floor plan of your home and office and your body!

When we look at a floor plan, we can see where the rooms are located and what function each room may perform as well as what other activities may go on within it. Is it a bedroom? Storage? Kitchen? Home office? A floor plan and layout also speak volumes regarding the occupant’s chances of success, health, wealth, relationships, family, children, creativity, recognition and spirituality, because the home and the body are connected. In Feng Shui terminology, a floor plan is the holder of the “mystical being”. The mystical being is our inner persona. That is what guides us to select a particular environment to live and work given the course of our life path when we buy, rent or select the particular space even for work outside our homes. Each body part and organ has a direct correspondence or vibrational resonance with an architectural detail, a sector of the space and the crucial systems that bring in electricity, plumbing, sewage, and ventilation. The energetic vibration of these elements corresponds to every atom, particle and molecule of our living system. I will elaborate on this concept on the next entry. Today I want to explain the connection at the practical level.

To begin to grasp the enormity of what I am presenting today, if we were to lay face down with our head at the front door, and then, given the locations of the other spaces, we follow to where our “neck” is laying, where are the “shoulders”, the “legs” and so on; we can identify not only parts of our bodies that may be sensitive, but also aspects of our lives. For example, if the neck is laying in a very narrow and shortened entry hall with the body abruptly going up the stair case, it leaves arms and shoulders down below as the chest angles upward. Given this scenario, in life we may exhibit difficulties getting cooperation to move our projects forward, our intimate relationships maybe difficult and we may have digestive issues such as reflux. This is because the head, the neck and the shoulders energetically resonate with our ability to attract benefactors and to help others. It resonates with our ability to comprehend information as well. Thus we may have difficulties grasping ideas, and carry them out or enable us to properly plan our projects and research necessary information. These parts of our anatomy also “speak” of obtaining support from business, banking, managing banking investments and dealing with authorities in general. Specifically to the body, if this area were constricted, cluttered or unkempt, a dweller may also suffer constant headaches, exhibit neurosis and skin problems, lung and large intestine conditions, and/or stomach ailments in general. It should be noted that not everybody will exhibit the same symptoms or problems in a family dwelling or an office setting. But it will affect those with a weaker vibrational field. Stress, illness and other factors affect the degree to which an individual resonates with the difficult space design. In short, analyzing a space and observing how energy flows around the dwelling, into it and throughout the interior can tell a lot about how our lives are flowing. When the design problems are identified and correlated with life situations or health conditions, we are able to address each of them either separately or concurrently with the ultimate goal of learning our life lessons and moving on to the next stage of our human path in this lifetime. The space you picked, yes, you did, offers you pearls of wisdom about yourself. Embrace its message!!!

More in a few days…But if in a hurry, go to www.lasassociates.net or leave message or comment here.

Gratitude and healing

Ashaglen’s entry on gratitude has prompted a couple of beautiful responses. We are grateful!

As I read the responses, I feel an outpouring of love both from the original entry and from the responses. I said many times that love is the strongest of all healing medicines. Gratitude is its best partner! You can’t feel thankful and not feel love. Nor the reverse.

On Monday’s meeting we discussed ethical speech. We said that words–said and unspoken, can heal or destroy. We talked about the enormous responsibility of being a conscious human. Ashaglen’s words promote healing. In helping others heal through speech, touch, feng shui, meditation …you also self-heal and in the process, heal our world. What an enormous power we have!!!

There is another aspect of feeling gratitude and love and therefore experience the power of healing. As you move through life powered by the resulting emotions, we leave behind our habitual self-cherishing.

When someone else’s well-being is more important than our own, we begin to understand compassion. In Ashaglen’s moving piece, she touches compassion through the relationship with her daughters.

Funny, but that is how we human beings, especially women, are given the chance to learn compassion. As we move through life and get busy and the little tikes grow up, we seem to forget these precious feelings. Yet, precious they are. Our grown kids can continue to elicit compassion, our relatives, our friends, yes, even the one who said some “nasty”, uncaring  things to us. Our neighboor who made a fuss about something we did; the man who opened fire on unsuspecting co-workers and the authorities who believe that by sentencing someone to die it will deter others from commiting crimes.

They all deserve the same level of compassion, because we and they want the same thing: happiness. However distorted our idea of happiness is, those of us who are commited to the path of awakening know that compassion, love and gratitude can heal our wounds and the ones of those around us.

Commit to create healing today through gratitude for all the things you are and you have. Through love as you feel gratitude swell up from your heart and because of these powerful emotions, summon compassion for yourself by forgiving yourself and others as we strive to be happy, as Marci Shimoff says: “for no reason”!

Gandhi on responsibility, meditation and seeking truth

Two weeks ago I was nursing a nasty virus, and my dear Dr Wang reminded me that when animals are sick, they sleep. So I did, I went home with my herbs and feeling quite listless, I went to sleep. Upon waking I thought I watch a movie on my laptop, and selected to see Gandhi. I had not seen it before. Yes, Ben Kingsley was awesome as Gandhi, and even though it was a glamorized version of this great human being, the power of the real Gandhi comes through loud and clear. It needed no glamorizing!  His ability to move masses of people through love was as clear as was incredible. He knew that the thoughts he thought,and the emotions he felt affected the world around him. So , he felt love, a deep abiding love for all. His firm conviction that peace begets peace, that love begets love and that his living it and believing  it was his responsibility was the most powerful message out of Gandhi’s life and works. He learned it through the art of meditation. In the stillness he  understood that his beliefs, his behavior and his ability to embody those truths emerges when one feels unity with all. In this morning’s meditation we talked about personal responsibility. We reminded ourselves that what we do affects the fabric of humanity and the entire universe. That “when a blade of grass is cut, the whole universe quivers” (The Upanishads). We reminded ourselves why we meditate, why we love the silence, in Gandhi’s own words…

 

 “In the attitude of silence the soul finds the path in a clearer light, and what is elusive and deceptive resolves itself into crystal clearness. Our life is a long and arduous quest after Truth.”

 

So, today reflect on what you feel and take full responsibility for your feelings and emotions. Keep on practicing  because what we do, think and feel ripples beyond our minds and affects everything. Keep on practicing, it works!

 

Thank you Dale Donelly for the wonderful Mahatma Gandhi quote.

Dale is a member of the morning meditation group at http://www.blitztime.com and she is a relationship manager and representative for SendOutCards. You can reach Dale @, daledonelly@cox.net

 

Gratitude has been on my mind

What is Gratitude anyway? Well, after Monday’s meditation group, this word has changed for me. I am a giver at times, and at times a taker. But to be in gratitude feels more like  a state of being connected to Spirit.

During the meditation that Lidia led, she asked us to choose an image that we hold dear to our hearts, and a picture I had seen hours before class jumped at me. My sweet daughter as she laid on my chest days after being born. We were both asleep basking in the comfort of our heartbeats & the familiarity of our rhythms. So sweet.

But, these last few months have been trying with her. The sweet days seems so far gone, and yet I had this longing to experience ease with her, and her with me.

So, Divinely timed, Gratitude invited me to see her sweetness in that picture. So, I decided I was going to hold it dear to my heart. Then Lidia asked us to share this image with the world. At that point, I felt as if my heart was exploding with love, and I had a real excitement about spreading not just the image, but all the feelings, hopes, sense of connection, bond, mother-daughter healing that accompanies this relationship. I felt abundant and so, offering this gift to the world, felt expansive.

To be honest, I don’t know what else we did in the meditation, but I remember coming out of it KNOWING what it feels like in my body to be IN GRATITUDE.

For me it is when I feel so full & sharing of this fullness is the natural next step. Giving of myself simply because it is born within me.

One other thing that really stuck with me was to CHECK IN constantly to feel if giving is in alignment in each moment. It sure brings up a lot around Mothering. And the questions of : When is giving feeling more like a should, and when is it really Gratitude. And the difference in vibration between the two.
Something to explore.

The week of “Growing the Lotus”

In our morning meditation group–see 30 Days-30 Minutes Meditation in Action  on http://www.blitztime.com. we completed a week of “growing the lotus”, a stand-in for the area of your life we’ve selected to grow. We did this to begin to understand that whatever we desire to grow outside of us, begins with a seed inside of us. We alone have what it is needed to nurture our healthy desires. We have the power to grow our relationships, our careers; enhance our reputation, increase our knowledge, our wealth, our creativity, our happiness, and get whatever we need to have a fuller, more peaceful life. As the “flower” we are growing, we also know that whatever “thing” we desire, it has a cycle, so that we don’t get attached to the idea that what we want is “it”. But it is what we desire now and it is good and because we are not attached to it, we allow that this or something better may show up.
Additionally, for “a flower” to soak up as many nutrients as needed to grow healthy, we have to pull out the “weeds” (the beliefs, the things, the emotions, the people, the circumstances that no longer fit us as we embody the flower we want to be).
I asked the group to spend 15-20 minutes each day of this weekend, simply breathing. Not listen to relaxing music, a canned meditation, or visualization. Just breathe! Watch your belly rise and fall as you breathe in and out. Just be! In the final 10 minutes, hone the visualization for next week and make a list of possible weeds. That is all. Don’t commit to anything else, just breathe, write a “better story” and identify some weeds.
Ellen F. earned a guided meditation this week, which I emailed on Friday, for bringing Jaci, all the way from Israel!!!

Optimal Home Office Design-A Series of Articles-#2

So last week we discussed what success mean to me. I hope you agreed.

Today I like to suggest that in a home office environment you can be incredibly successful, because you have total control of the working environment. Control is a must in Feng Shui terms, for control of your environment equals control over your life.

These are some of the most important areas that you need to exercise control if, in fact, you are going to achieve success:

1. Control of where your home/office is located.

2. Quality of access to both the home and the office.

3. Your ability position yourself in control in your bedroom and in your office.

4. The quality and size of your desk and chair and your bed.

5. Be mindful of conflicting activities.

6. Organize the environments so as to not accumulate clutter, especially in the entry, the bedroom and the office.

7. Check and adjust the center of your home, and

8. Have appropriate lighting.

Today I will discuss having control over the location of the home/office and its consequences.

Just as important as the quality of your neighborhood is to your home and business. The road situation where the home/business is located, affects your business and your life as well.

 Among the many building locations considered difficult is when a road or a water way curves away from your home/business. According to principles of energy, a water way is like a road. Both have defined boundaries and are directional moving elements. In Feng Shui practice, water correlates to wealth. This life situation will portend financial trouble, an under performing  business and difficulties in attracting quality employees, helpers and clients. It similarly affects the home life.

If your business is at the end of a cul-de-sac, you will tend to have even more struggle attracting quality business and employees.

If a major road aims directly at the front door or at a major window, your business will be always unpredictable and may in fact be a target of lawsuits and slander.

There are many more difficult site situations, including where the home/office is located within the lot, within the building and on the street in regards to other streets and walkways, but the reality is that we can’t control what goes on outside our home/office, once we are living in it. But we can control the inside! This is where Feng Shui knowledge is of paramount importance. What you do regarding the inside of your home and within your immediate surroundings will help you offset the negative situations that you cannot control. Your world is in your hands!!! 

That is the topic of my next entry. Stay tuned!