The other morning I was in a sort of meditative state and a few very interesting things came to me. The first was a message– it came through as the subtleist of impulses, like a soft voice, and it said, “We want you to have deep self-confidence.”
self-confidence and knowing
Now this is interesting because it was in response to my question, which was, “Why are you making it so damned hard!” I was sort of meditating and praying as I lay there because the business that my wife and I have, 11:11 Enterprises– which my lovely artist wife created, is growing so fast that we need more money to keep up with production. We’re having greater success and it’s been a challenge to keep up. I know this doesn’t quite make sense, but when there’s demand, you have to have enough supply to fill that demand and that takes Capital until there’s a flow. It’s sort of like priming a pump. You pump and pump until the water has filled the pipe from deep within and then it flows freely.
So as I meditated, I was asking very openly for a solution to the problem at hand and what I was told was “We want you to have deep self-confidence.” That’s interesting, isn’t it? So I started to think about what Self-Confidence really is, starting with the word “Self.” The self is that You that’s at the core of You– The Self. It’s the soul of you, but with individual identity.
The soul is infinite but when it comes into the body it becomes limited in order to have experiences. You suffer a little, hopefully you enjoy a lot more than that, and you eventually remember the bigger, infinite picture of the self.
And what is confidence? Confidence is a knowing, a state of certainty. Where there is confidence, doubt doesn’t exist. Alot of people mistake self-confidence for cockiness or hubris, but that’s not so. A truly self-confident person will be subtle, soulful and deeply grounded because they’re close to The Self, because they understand the self through experience. The trouble is, most of us are going too fast; texting and surfing the web, playing games and watching Youtube so much that we can’t experience enough of The Self . There’s a shakiness and instability there. It’s in that shakiness that fear and doubt can creep in. When that happens, stress and strain aren’t far behind. Meditation=experience of The Self. ‘Nuff Said.
The next thing I saw in the meditation was black fur– like that of a bear. It wasn’t big like a rug, but it was narrow and long, and it seemed to go on in each direction like a timeline– linear, like one’s life. Then, just as I saw it, it was under my feet and I was standing firmly on it. I had an amazing revelation from that vision. I realized that problems are like a big, life-threatening bear– seemingly scary and impossible to defeat, but then once they’re slain, they’re under foot– the problem you thought was going to do you in, is now part of your foundation. One more thing that takes you higher.
Finally, in the last part of this mediation I was in the high desert of New Mexico, on the land where we do our Summer Solstice practice– Ram Das Puri, just above Espanola. As I stood on the ground, I saw water– cool, clear, spring water bubbling out of the earth. It flowed a little, pooled and then seeped back into the earth. I could see from that mini-dream-in-meditation that everything eventually comes full circle. Plus the picture of that cool clear water under the hot, crisp blue desert sky was comforting.
These three visions came through in meditation and showed me the answer to my problem–
I was worrying too much. What I needed was self-confidence, because deeply knowing my self, would remove any doubt. With the self-confidence, true self-confidence, would be a deep understanding from the well within me and from that, the problem would be under-foot soon enough and then everything would come full circle.
I chose a yoga set and a meditation that somewhat reflected these themes and I went in to my Sunday morning class and taught about this, which came through in my meditation and the result was a mind-blowing class. Without boring you with the details I will say that come Sunday Night and then by Monday morning, the solutions came and we’re now well on our way.
People sometimes ask me how I decide what to teach and talk about in class. Well, first it must be understood that a kundalini yoga teacher isn’t actually teaching the class– it’s a delicate dance with the energy that’s coming through the teacher. The teacher is like a conductor of an energy symphony made of breath, sound and the angles of the postures. The students are like sections of instruments, each adding to the collective field of energy. That’s why a good teacher can create a space for a mind-blowing class while others might just teach an okay class. It all starts with teaching what you know, what’s closest to you.
I learned all of this from my teachers of course. Watching them closely, going to their classes and then emulating them in my classes. Harijiwan Khalsa and Tej Kaur Khalsa are two great yogi’s who are masters at this. They teach from their deep well of experience and it’s because they are able to not only conduct the exercises in the class, but because they have such a strength of energy of their own, that they literally go into a meditative state and channel energy into the room through the subtle body. Each of the students then feels this through their own subtle bodies as the kundalini rises and that’s how a great class is achieved– the infinite energy litereally breathes life into the sacred geometry of the yoga postures and breath exercises. Add sound, another form of energy to that mix and you’ll understand why Kundalini Yoga is so incredibly powerful when taught from the center of the teacher.
And that’s what I did the other day. I went in and taught what I knew– what came through was incredibly powerful, and the result was like that pure, clear water coming up from the center of the earth. It refreshes and then returns deep within.
Photo courtesy of .Licht und Schatten via creative commons license on Flickr.com
I saw the His Holiness The Dalai Lama recently in Los Angeles. My wife sent away for tickets well in advance and we were lucky enough to get them. On Saturday, before he did the Medicine Buddha Initiation, he took some questions from the audience.
One of the questions was along the lines of:
“In practicing non-violence, how do you deal with someone who is trying to do you harm or acting negatively toward you.”
The Dalai Lama’s response was very interesting. He said that you have to separate the action from the actor. It’s perfectly fine to defend yourself against the action but you must not lose your compassionate regard for the person doing the action i.e., the actor. I thought this was a profound and amazing distinction. It takes incredible discipline to maintain that kind of compassion when under attack and uphold the realization that we’re all one– cut from the same cosmic cloth. Love thy enemy, but you don’t have to love the idiotic crap he’s pulling on you.
It reminded me of a story that my teacher, Harijiwan tells often. The Dalai Lama gives an audience to any Tibetan refugee who makes it over the Himalayas into India. This one particular monk had been imprisoned and tortured for many years and finally made it into exile.
The Dalai Lama asked him, “What was your greatest challenge while you were imprisoned?”
The old monk responded: “I was afraid I would lose my compassion and love toward my captors.”
Harijiwan added, “because you see, it was his love to lose.”
I was blown away by that. “It was his love to lose.”
Think about that. There’s the lesson of the millenium: “It was his love to lose.” He had achieved a state of mind that viewed the whole world with love. He earned it. He had more to lose than his captors, who were clearly taking the low road.
Now most of us are going to take a while to get there. It takes a lot of training and discipline and practice to maintain such a state of peace, but what this old monk knew was that it was his peace of mind, his love, his compassion, his connection to the flow of all that is, which he would’ve lost by stooping to the level of his captors.
Add in the fact that he was being physically tortured and forget it. Who among us could do it? Think about this one the next time your boss is being a dick.
Just remember when you’re fighting with someone or someone is clearly out to do you harm, that this other person is you in another form. Stop the action with counteraction, but remember that you work hard for your peace of mind and if you “lose it” over something, it’s you who’s lost it.
This might not take hold right away, but it’s worth practicing. You’ve got this whole life ahead of you and you can have peace and you can have a good life– and that’s where the fight is. It’s with yourself, not with the world out there. The fight is inside, to get to that state where you can be at peace and come what may, nothing can shake you. Not even torture. Can you imagine that state of peace and that strong a connection with the eternal love? Holy shit! I can. I can imagine it. I’m not sure I’m there yet, but I want to be.
photo courtesy of Rusty Stewart via Creative Commons License on Flickr.com
Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson went on a camping trip. They pitched their tent under the stars and then went to sleep. In the middle of the night, Holmes awakened and exclaimed, “Watson, look up and tell me what you deduce.” Watson opened his eyes and said, “I see billions and billions of stars. It’s likely that some of thse stars have planetary systems. Furthermore, I deduce that there is probably oxygen on some of these planets, and it’s possible that life has developed on a few of them. Is that what you see?” Holmes replied, “No, you idiot, someone’s stolen our tent!”
I told this story in class and no one laughed either. Admittedly it’s not that funny (if you have a way to make it funnier I’d love to hear it in the comments.) but funny or not, it does illustrate a good point.
And that is:
We tend to make things too complicated
And we over-think things when sometimes the answer is right in front of our nose. One of the things that meditation gives us is the ability to step back and relfect. When the mind is calm, it’s like the surface of a pond at dawn– crystal clear and it allows you to see your true reflection. Meditation is such an important tool these days because of the vast amounts of information being tossed at us. The mind can go on excessive journeys of calculation when the most obvious aspects of our human lives is right in front us.
Calming the mind is the first step to solving any problem. Clarity and peace of mind is the only state of mind in which you can make truly solid decisions. Scattered focus and fear lead to shaky solutions.
Here’s Five ways to simplify and solve a problem
Step back and look at the big picture, are you missing a simple solution that is obvious?
Ask a friend to look at the problem and see if there’s something obvious you’re missing
Take a break from thinking about out and come back when you’re rested and see if there isn’t a simpler solution
Listen to your gut. When you re-look at the problem through the simplistic lens, don’t be afraid to follow your instinct and act.
Give up and relax. Often times we sit around and stress about a problem that seems impossible. We’re not making progress but we’re agonizing over it. Switch gears and put your energy into something you enjoy. Work on something that you have some control over and make some progress at. Flow makes you feel good. After flowing with something new, come back to the original problem when you’re clear.
I look back on my life and realize that there are times when I should’ve thought more before I leapt. Most recently I took a job which precipitated a series of events that were really a pain in the ass.
I used to employ this tactic of going to the woods alone and camping out for a night and writing out the pros and cons of the situation. That was my way of getting quiet and clear– a meditation of sorts.
This time however, I felt rushed and out of time.
So I took this job doing specialty marketing for a real estate developer and since I didn’t have a lot of “time,” but the promise of a lot of money in commissions, I made quick decisions and moved a lot of things around in my life without thinking them through. The job was a full time stress monster and I was getting paid a lot of money, which somehow allows you to justify and accept undue stress.
In addition to the new job, during this time I met the woman who is now my wife and fell in love. We moved in together right away, but since we both had very small apartments, we were looking for a new place together. The job had me in a rush with everything because I let my concept of time get skewed. I pushed things that should’ve taken the time to set themselves.
Anyway, one thing led to another and we moved into this big loft downtown (<–see pic of awesome loft on left). We told ourselves, somehow magically, the extra space would be justified because we’d be teaching yoga out of there on our off time. Short story longer, the market changed, my real estate developer friend who I was working for had to change his tactics and my job slowly went away. None of the dream commissions that I had counted before they hatched came through.
Patience Pays.
The illusion of not enough time is so prevalent right now. The most important thing you can do is to slow down– especially before making big decisions. Why? Because when you slow down and relax you can hear yourself think. What that actually means is that when you get quiet you can hear your gut talking– which is actually your intuition and it’s your intuition that gets you to the right places. When things are going at breakneck speed the intuition almost always gets lost and you suffer.
Don’t let anyone or anything pressure you into making a big decision before you are comfortable. You might still have some fears and apprehensions, but if you look deeply into your gut before you make the decision you’ll get a feeling when it’s okay to jump. Then jump. You might get the opposite feeling: No Way! Don’t jump. Either way, you won’t be able to do that properly if you’re under pressure and think you’ve got to make a crack decision because of lack of time.
Sometimes you have to make an instant decision, but that’s usually on smaller issues– On the big stuff, the major life moves, you should relaxxxxx and oftentimes you’ll realize you’ve got some time.
critical decisions photo courtesy of dddgirl79 via flickr.com
Yesterday morning in class we were talking about how commitment is a way of pulling yourself to the other side. The other side being where you want to go with your intention. Once you’re committed, the universe lines up to deliver it to you, but because of the mind, there is resistance along the way.
Think of commitment to your intention like a story where the hero throws a grappling hook with a rope across to the other building and then pulls himself (or herself ) across. Your intention is getting across to the other building and your commitment is that grappling hook. Once you’re connected to your intention a lot of things can threaten you along the way and you will absolutely meet with resistance because that’s how our world works, but if you pull yourself across bit by bit, you’ll get there.
It’s like the story I related from going to my wedding last week. I was on my way and even once I got there all kinds of things popped up to annoy me. They could’ve stopped me, but they didn’t. They just annoyed me: having to go back to the Southwest counter because some of my groomsman gifts didn’t pass security. My hotel room sucking when I got there and having to change to a new room, which also sucked. Vegetarian unfriendly Thai food that didn’t make the cut even after I sent it back once. All of these things could’ve shaken me… if I wasn’t committed. I was going to my wedding and that was that. Those events, which were no doubt Karma popping up from such a big energetic event as a wedding, were mere annoyances and once I recognized them for what they were, they didn’t bother me.
I stayed focused on my intention: having a memorable, loving, amazing wedding shared with my lovely wife and our awesome families… and that’s what happened.
This is the power of intention and although there may be turbulence, once you take off, barring any life-threatening emergencies, you shouldn’t stop until you get to your destination.
Photo courtesy of Mauricio Santana via creative commons license on Flickr.com
When we have trouble getting something done, it’s because something in the mind is doing the blocking. Fear causes a flood of sub-conscious thoughts surrounding that fear to come up and the mind tries to reason its way out of it. All dis-abilities are imagined. I’m not talking about physical limitations, but rather the inability to manifest a desire.
If you want to manifest something. To get something, to experience having something in your life, you have to move toward it. Work for it as it were. But this is deceiving. Really you just have to allow it in. Instead of thinking of working hard to go get something, think of ways you can put energy behind your intention so that it comes to you.
Set your intention for the experience
Analyze your current situation, honestly
Research how it’s done, or how others have done it
Forget how others have done it and know that it will come for you differently
Do what’s in your sphere of control.
Don’t let anything stop you.
Go back to your intention for the experience.
Allow it to happen with patience
Most troubles come from thinking about a situation and not doing anything. Procrastination, resistance, are all phenomena of the mind which block. We want to Know, we want to be assured that by going down the road and putting our heart into something, that we won’t be crushed by failure, so we let fear stop us in our tracks. You have to move forward step by step with a knowledge that no matter what happens, it’ll be alright.
Courage is a funny thing. Whenever you engage courage and move past a fear there is a positive outcome.
It’s funny to see how much yoga is catching on day after day. As a teacher I see articles like this and I’m glad the word is getting out, but it also makes me laugh a little bit because we’ve known it for a while through simple experience, that yoga works, even without the $400,000 experimental studies.
This week I’ve been teaching sets that clear the lymphatic system and strengthen the immune system. One of the greatest things about Kundalini Yoga and yoga in general for that matter is that it acts very directly on the glandular system. Also known as the endocrine system. (hang on while I google endocrine) Yep, sure enough, endocrine just means a bunch of glands that secrete hormones. The glandular system of the body.
Editor’s note: I really wanted this post to have some humor in it, but as of this writing I’m having a really hard time finding any good jokes about the endocrine system.
Lots of problems are happening now because people are more sedentary a.k.a. Sitting on fat a@@es playing computer or video games or to be fair, working really hard. Nonetheless, it’s true that more people are sitting at desks and that technology has started to keep us indoors a lot more…
When the body’s glands secrete hormones into the blood, the blood chemistry balances and the body gets on the path of righting itself. Lots of problems are happening now because people are more sedentary a.k.a. Sitting on fat a@@es playing computer or video games or to be fair, working really hard. Nonetheless, it’s true that more people are sitting at desks and that technology has started to keep us indoors a lot more and more sedentary. In an ever increasingly toxic world, the body needs to rid itself of its garbage and rejuvenate itself in order to be healthy.
Those of you who know me know that I don’t like to get into an “east coast vs. west coast rapper thing” with Kundalini Yoga and the other yogas out there. In fact I’m a fan of all yoga and have done most styles. BUT. Kundalini yoga is really extra good for you because many of the kriyas are very pointed in how they stimulate the glandular system to not only clear toxins from the body but to strengthen these systems for better health.
Preventative medicine is basically taking good care of yourself. The body was designed for health. When you strengthen the body’s natural defense mechanisms you cut down on a lot of potential problems. Surely there are toxic enviromnents, but it’s simply not true that anything and everything out there is just waiting to attack you and take you down. Kundalini yoga is one of those amazing sciences that delivers this knowledge and the technology to maintain the human apparatus.
Jokes! As I got to the end of writing this, I thought, “surely there has to be a joke somewhere about the glandular system,” and this is what I found…
A man wanted to get married. He was having trouble choosing among three likely candidates. He gives each woman a present of $5,000 and watches to see what they do with the money.
The first one does a total make over. She goes to a fancy and gets her hair done, new make up and buys several new outfits and dresses up very nicely for him. She tells him that she has done all this to be more attractive for him because she loves him so much. Needless to say, the man was impressed.
The second woman goes shopping to buy the man gifts. She gets him a new set of golf clubs, a new i-Phone some really nice clothes. She tells him that she has spent all the money on him because she loves him so much. Again, the man is really impressed.
The third woman invests the money in the stock market. She earns back several times the original $5,000. Finally, she gives him back his $5000 and shows him how she’s reinvested the remainder of the money in a joint account for them both. She tells him that all she wants is to save for their future because she loves him so much. The man was really, really impressed. But now he had a dilemma, they all passed impressively, with finally colors.
He thought a long time about what each woman had done with the money he’d given her.
And then finally, he married the one with the biggest boobs. (a.k.a. mammary glands and thus I’ve managed to find a joke about the glandular system.!)
I love it when you come across something so perfect that it gives you an ah-HA moment. This video of Guru Dev Singh is one of those. A little background on Guru Dev Singh: He’s the only student of Yogi Bhajan whom Yogi Bhajan called a master. More accurately, Yogi Bhajan called him a living saint.
Guru Dev Singh is the master of Sat Nam Rasayan, a yogic healing technique which Yogi Bhajan passed to him and asked him to create system, a method, a way to teach it to others. Very simply, Sat Nam Rasayan is a healing modality wherein the healer gets into a deep meditative state known as Shuniya or Zero State and in doing so, creates a state of oneness with the patient, which creates a state of healing.
If the patient has the capacity to receive the energy, then they can heal themselves through the interaction. Complicated stuff, but this video explains it in one way. This video is bigger than that though. It applies to all of life. IT sums up why we meditate and why we practice kundalini yoga… because in a relaxed state we become compassionate, and when we’re compassionate as a simple state of being, then our presence works. Our presence simply uplifts the others we come into contact with, simply by being there. Yet another example of how being excellent and living up to your best and brightest self helps the world around you.
This morning during the end of Sat Kriya, I had this notion about the subtle difference between reaching for excellence and pushing. I think we’re all taught that since life can be tough, we have to be tough with ourselves and push, push, push. Sometimes this can be helpful, maybe when it’ a really tough day and you have to push, like if your car were to break down and you’d have to get out and push it. Not comfortable, but necessary. Pushing, when you think about it is a more aggressive mindset. It also implies resistance and opposition. We push things that can’t move themselves, that have no ability to motivate themselves.
Reaching for excellence however, is a desire to go higher with whatever it is that you do. You’re reaching for a little better part of yourself than you expressed the last time. Reaching implies that you want to do what it is that you’re doing. Your psyche is behind it and you’re inspired. It may take some time to get started, but once you’re there you’re into it. You reach and you pull yourself up because you want to. Then you reach again. Each time going a little higher, being a little more excellent. Each day you get up to do whatever it is that you do, you should try to do it a little better than you did the last time. This is not without its challenges. Resistance is a problem of the mind that affects everyone.
It’s a subtle difference, this reaching versus pushing but it’s a good one to meditate on. Reaching is going for the inspiration and the victory of creating something excellent where as pushing can be a mundane getting through of the unpleasant things. Sometimes this is necessary as there can be some unpleasant things in life and they have to be gotten through. When we recognize the subtle difference between this, then we can choose to reach for excellence and push through when we have to. In This way we create a habit of reaching for excellence and when you do that you can get higher and higher until you’re in orbit. A satellite has to expend a lot of fuel to get into orbit, but once it’s there in the earth’s gravitational pull, it can just ride that gravity around the planet at great speeds with a little thrust to either side to stay on course.
Reaching for excellence creates a habit of being excellent. If you create the habit of being excellent, soon you won’t have to push yourself as much.
I saw the His Holiness The Dalai Lama recently in Los Angeles. My wife sent away for tickets well in advance and we were lucky enough to get them. On Saturday, before he did the Medicine Buddha Initiation, he took some questions from the audience.
I look back on my life and realize that there are times when I should’ve thought more before I leapt. Most recently I took a job which precipitated a series of events that were really a pain in the ass.
