Yesterday I Had Tomorrow

12/05/2000

Los Angeles, California

Today I had my regular get together with my friends in our Awareness Journey meeting.  One friend was in mourning for the passing of her husband who had been suffering from a long-term disease.

The discussion geared around celebration of her husband’s life instead of living in sadness and sorrow.

We discussed that according to the spiritual teachers:

• Coming to this world, staying and leaving are all natural states of well being.  We are not limited only to this brief experience of life.  Spirit which is who we really are, or source, is eternal.
• Our physical body is not who we are. The inner self never dies so we do not lose people after they are gone and their quality is always with us.
• Life and death are one, like the river and the sea.  Behind duality there is one identity.
• I can not lose my life because I am life.  This is proof of immortality.
• Once we give up our fear of death and accept our immortality we understand that we will never cease to be.

We then asked our friend to appreciate her own life and to remind herself that we are here for expression of life which is the expression of joy. 

Each day is a new day.  We play roles and wear different hats.  If the bottom line is against us today we should remember that there is a new tomorrow.

A Proper Cup of Tea

06/13/1999, Los Angeles, California

Today I had a meeting with some of my close friends in which we decided to embark on an awareness journey. To begin with we declared our agreement with all the spiritual teachers that life is a vehicle for waking up and that we each are in a life situation that we need to be in order to learn.  The question was how to respond to life situations and how to minimize the stress.

The help came from one of my favorite spiritual teachers Pema Chodron and her book "The Wisdom of No Escape".

According to her, there is no separation between sadness and happiness in life and we should not prefer one to the other.  We should be able to live fully with both and  hold both in our heart to experience balance and completeness.  This is what is behind rituals, carried on in different cultures. So whether it's making tea or doing other things it is a ritual in the sense of doing it properly while holding both the sadness and happiness in our heart.

"Our whole life could be a ritual.  We could learn to listen to the nature, we could reconnect to ourselves even if we are sad.  If we can hold it all in our heart then we can make a proper cup of tea.  Making a proper cup of tea means that you thoroughly and completely make that tea because you appreciate the tea and the boiling water and the fact that together they make something that's nourishing and delicious and that lifts one's spirit".


Can you make a proper cup of tea?

The freedom to look at myself

09/19/1995, Dhaka, Bangladesh

In the past few weeks I have been reflecting on whether I have a fixed way of being, or whether what I have learned from the Ontological Design workshops in the past have enabled me to be more flexible and allowing. In the process of exploring this I came up with a list of questions I needed to answer in order to make this judgment.

1. Am I open to learning and being a light to myself?
2. Do I believe that my self worth is my declaration of what I am about and what I stand for?
3. Do I believe that my self esteem is about the contribution that I am in other people's lives and in society?
4. Am I aware that my opinions, emotions, moods, and beliefs all contribute to my interpretation of the world and that my judgments could be based on my ungrounded assessments?
5. Do I know that life is uncertain and therefore I should be less upset and less controlling?
6. Do I make sure that my relationship with others is out of commitment and not attachment?
7. Do I know that my commitment to results is more empowering than my attachment to results
8. Do I know that my freedom, in the context of no fear, means that there is nothing to be afraid of and nothing to protect?
9. Do I know that everyone I meet is my mirror and when I judge them I am also looking at myself?
10. Do I know that most of the time I am not conscious of the choices I make, and as a result, I keep making other people wrong for what happens to me?
11. Do I know that when I feel resigned it is because I have failed to recognize my choice in the matter?
12. Am I able to make requests instead of having expectations, and am I convinced that if my request is declined  I am not necessarily rejected?
13. Do I know that when I keep complaining about life and things that don't work out, by focusing on the negative,  I am creating more of it,  and I am determining my future from the past?

Life is a conversation and I encourage you to have one of this nature with yourself.