Meet Soul, Karma & Ego

Dalai Lama in NY– why pay some US$400 to hear him speak when what he says is no diff from what any spiritual/religious person would say?

Don’t our *genuine* local parish priest, our local rabbi, or our local iman talk about tolerance, forgiveness and acceptance – and humility?

Surely, he does not need them for reassurance, so why does the DL need to be surrounded on stage by 200 monks?

I imagine that maintaining such a retinue on the road would eat in a few 1000s of donated dollars.

Would it be fitting for Obama or any other *luminary* to come on stage accompanied by such a cohort of their own people? I wasn’t there myself, so were these monks the entertainment factor? Did they chant and dance? Uh … do monks dance?

Why are we, in the West, so mesmerized by the DL?

In spite of a lifetime of hand shaking with a myriad of presidents and CEOs and crisscrossing the globe to fundraise for the Tibetan cause, what has he achieved besides inspire a few thousands of devoted converts in the West and 100s fo honorary conferments and major awards?

If charity starts and home, as the saying goes, I believe so does *enlightenment*.

Are the run-of-the-mill monks and Tibetans in the Kangra valley, around Dharamshala, more genuinely deep down caring, deep down accepting of their karma and enjoying inner peace, deep down in the moment, deep down forgiving of the Chinese, deep down more altruistic than any other people?

If not, then shouldn’t the Dalai lama stay home and enlighten his people first?

Dear Reader, all these are honest questions and I would love to hear back from you – in peace – deep down

Leverkühnm, the syphilis-crazed, artist character in Thomas Mann’s novel, Doctor Faustus, ends up being visited by a very clever devil who, in effect, says something to the fact that though Leverkühnm can only see *him/it* because he is mad, does not mean that he/it does not really exist.

Cool, and that made me think of Soul.

It made me think that, though only some rare individuals do see or feel their soul because they are enlightened and realized, the fact that our most eminent scientists have not yet succeeded in grabbing a snapshot of her energy does not mean that Soul doesn’t exist in a very real energetic way – right smack in the middle of each of our chests.

Now, THAT’s a cool thought, no?

Here is a nice tale related to wooden statues of Buddha.

It’s about a Zen master who arrived, one stormy night, to a deserted temple.

The rain had been coming down heavily all day long and it was very cold as well.

The Zen master walked up to a wooden statue of the Buddha, paced in front of it for a few seconds. Then, he suddenly hefted it in a great bear hug and rolled it into the fire.

While warming his hand by the flames, he grinned: “Finally some concrete usefulness has come out of you!”

Great teachers have always known that objects, even objects of worship, are purely symbolic and have no spiritual value in their own right.

So bottom line: if you really must buy yourself a Buddha, do pick a wooden one. It might prove more useful than a cement or clay statue.

About someone: “Totally incompetent and arrogant as well!” For sure, we did not get from this person what *we* wanted form them – or we didn’t get it in the way we wanted it.

About someone:”Really lovely and so efficient!” For sure, we got from that person what *we* wanted from them – and the style of delivery exceeded our expectations.

“Good” = *we* enjoy – *we* understand

“Bad” = *we* are not comfortable – *we* don’t understand

Nice or not/ good or bad/friend or foe = it all comes down to how the *protagonist* in my skit is playing me i.e. playing the low end of my ego.

A series of 15 podcasts based on my articles on All Matters of the Soul.

My soul is looking down the barrel of an ongoing cycle of incarnations, along with most of the souls currently incarnated which, for our souls, amounts to nothing less than an endless string of life spans spent in captivity, bag-over-head, with a disorientated sort of *feeling*, even though in the eternal spiritual realm, lifetimes are over and done with in the blink of an eye.

Our soul can suffocate over time. When she does, we become terminally ill, psychotic, or chronically depressed because she has given up hope of any karmic amendment from us, and she is sinking.

It has to be understood that matters of the soul can only manifest themselves to us at the mental/physical levels – how else would we take notice?

As long as we react from an automated response system, what we put out comes back to bite us on the tail, and we complain about our bad luck and the futility of life.

Our souls cannot exist independently from our thoughts and our deeds.

What we sow, they reap.

Karma is our personalized balance sheet. Unlike our bank statement, keyed in by human fingers, the spiritual tabulator of our consequences is infallible.

When “Hey … ”

“Hello!”

or ” How r u?” come from my mouth, I’d like them to come from somewhere in the middle of my chest.

When a smile comes on my lips from my mind, I’d also like it to come from somewhere in the middle of my chest.

The fuss I keep making about being present – awake and aware – in the moment that is under our feet – the only moment that truly exists – is because being in the moment is good for us in many, many ways. So much so that my practice of being in the moment is not all that altruistic.

In fact, my entire practice, as one who determined to not only stay, but move forward on the Path, is not at all about *being good* to others and *doing good* for others.

The daily aim of my practice – a rigorous and sustained effort it is – is to make me a calmer, softer, gentler person from the inside/out. That, in turns, generates spin-offs that have me as the prime beneficiary.

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Being in the moment lowers our pulse and therefore lowers our stress level – of course!

When our mind is not cluttered by a myriad of What-If and Why Not and How Come and How could I and Why didn’t I and Why Me thoughts, our mind can process what is in our daily life a lot faster – just like my computer works faster once I’ve purged out all the temp files and all the corrupt ones and once I’ve defragged it and debugged it.

The benefit that flows on from that is that we are more efficient in whatever it is that we are physically doing. When we are in the moment, we are much less likely to make mistakes – any mistakes, be they physical, mental or emotional mistakes.

We remember where we have saved the file we amended last week. We are aware of what the traffic and road conditions are around us at any given moment. We react as we would prefer to have reacted once an emotionally charged moment has passed.

We sleep better. Once we have mastered the art of being in the moment, we just don’t let ourselves be overwhelmed by distracting, scary, useless bits of nothing intangible suppositions. We do not let them become monster thoughts over which we have absolutely no control.

Being Aware in the moment is the only natural and truly effective tool with which to break free of our addiction to Worrying.

When we are aware and awake in our moment, we don’t have to meditate because … in the moment we are aware and in control of our knee jerks.

We are aware when a test of Acceptance has just presented itself to us – in the moment that is under our feet.

We are aware that a test of Patience has just arrived and is staring us in the face. Pass or Fail?

We are aware when a test of Non Separation has just presented itself to us IN the moment under our feet.

We are aware when within our family or friendship group a new situation has developed that requires  more than hugs, more than TLC, more than a good sleep, more than a good listening session, more than a free round of drinks, more than letting it all hang out. We are ware when a situation requires active energetic empathy from the heart.

As only the fool knows not what s/he knows not, even as we become aware that we are not all that aware – that is a great start.

So, forget all the fuss about the power of the moment and just be a bit more selfish.

Be present, awake and aware in the moment that is under your feet.

Be good to yourself – you’re worth it

Here’s a fable found a few minutes ago from deep within the bowels of my hard drive.

No idea as to how it has ever found its way there, but there I found it and it’s certainly well worth sharing as it is a lovely little piece.

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“One day an old farm horse fell into a deep pit.

The animal cried for hours while the farmer pondered what to do.

Finally, he decided that the horse was old and that, as he had been intending to pill the pit anyway, he might as well get on with that task right away. Clearly, he saw no reason to justify the effort required to get the animal out.

When they heard the news of the pit being filled, many of the villagers came to help with the arduous task. Armed with their shovels, they started throwing dirt into the pit.

The horse was quick to understand what was happening and he cried bitterly. Then … to everyone’s relief, he became quiet.

The villagers kept shovelling dirt into the pit and each time a shovelful of dirt landed on his back, the horse did something very odd.

When the old farmer peered over the edge, he was astonished by what he saw: the old horse was shaking every clump of dirt that pelted down on him and, stepping on the growing pile of dirt, he came that much closer to the rim of the pit.

Eventually, and to their total amazement, the farmer watched on as the old horse stepped out of the pit and galloped away.”

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The moral of this fable is this: in various ways and at various times, Life will pour on us dirt by the shovelful.

All we need to do in order to not suffocate under that weight is to shake that dirt off our back and step up – one step at the time – and another – and another until we feel warm sunlight on our head – until we are able to breathe in the fortifying fresh air – until a smile breaks on our lips – until we can just BE.

Bottom line: each one of our problems is not just a test but a milestone. We can emerge from the deepest pit provided we don’t wait long enough to feel sorry for ourselves and wail, “Why me? What have I done to deserve that?”

hungry_cat

Ego is definitely not *a rose by any other name.*

Psychology has its own definition/understanding of the ego i.e. something in our personality that needs to be cancelled out or shrunk, at the very least, no matter what or how.

Religion also has its specific understanding of the ego – one that equally maligns it.

In reality, Ego and Karma are the only tools we have, the only tools we can use towards a cleansing of the channel that leads to Soul.

Though Ego is neutral by nature, knee-jerks, automated reactions to any stimulus do feed the *low* end of Ego, the one that craves sensory gratification and the best of what the material world can tempt us with.

Every time we react in a way that spells out Not now, Too tired, Can’t be bothered, Go away, You’re stupid, What’s WRONG with you!  – regardless of with whom we are engaging – we feed into that *low* end.

Reality is that Soul constantly beams at us messages of Best Practice, but either we are unable to *get* them or we fail to understand them because Ego doesn’t reflect them back clearly for Mind to snatch in mid air and decode for us – or we DO understand them well enough but we ACTIVELY choose to sidestep Best Practice – We are unwilling to sacrifice time/space/money/principled opinion and/or pride.

We are unable to soften and open up.

We are unable to *give* and we choose to hold on to cold, old ideas, resentment and insecurities. We let our bad mood push us along.

We create all the thoughts and images we need to shore up our stand until Mind ends up totally convinced that the decision made is the correct one.

Soul sighs in resignation and curls up in her corner, knowing that the wait is going to be a long one before we action any positive change to our M.O.

In not resisting our own thinking, we, bodies, allow Mind to indulge our base nature by feeding the *low* end of Ego instead of the *high* end of Ego – the soulful end.

What we end up with is this great beam of pure energy reflected fuzzily though tantalizingly by a pitted mirror – the *low* end* of our ego and so … what’s a good person to do, huh?

Bite-sized videos: More of my take on Soul & us [part 1/5]

Being a good person, by anyone’s yardstick, is one thing but, though it is essential, it is not what my understanding of karmic amendment is about.

Western philosophy and science trap the universe in the network of words, thoughts, equations and substitutes as well as an ongoing confusion of rules, laws, grammar and mathematics called *reasoning*. Sadly, we take in this network and make it rigid. We then use it as so many weapons against the ordered and logical spontaneity of nature.

As a rule of thumb, I will say that even as we consider ourselves thoughtful and caring, we are, to greater or lesser degrees, a part of our culture’s worship of personal power and profit and therefore equally to greater or lesser degrees removed from our spirit’s energy, from our energy field and the karma that is currently ours to edit.

The ever-spreading juggernaut that has become western-styled culture is one of upgrades and supersizes; of heroes who hit, throw, bounce or chip balls of varying sizes; of great, easy sex; of I want it now-I want it to be easy-I want it to be cheap-I want it to be fun; of self-indulgent behavior, of blame-shifting, of anger flare-ups, and of il[legal] drugs.

Our lifestyle menu is as full of mind-numbing options and escapist behaviors as a jellybean jar is full of beans.

The only assumed power we have is that of trying to ‘make things happen’ in a hit-and-miss manner, usually with a success that is relatively short-lived.

As the amateur juggler knows well, there are only so many balls that can be kept in the air before one is dropped. The juggler blames gravity. We blame karma.

The reality is that most of us are unaware of how any thought, any decision, any un-decision will boomerang … somewhere, anytime, anyhow … to hit us on the head or, if we are lucky, to simply bite us on the tail.

The sad thing is that by the time that moment occurs we will, as always, have lost awareness of its connection to that one action, or decision, made back in time. Yet, this synchronistic connection will nonetheless be real.

Being in the present, the only way to be if attempting to edit any karma, means not being mentally absent as we eat, talk and think. It means that we should be aware of ourselves, in the present moment.

Editing karma does not mean that we have to stop doing things we find pleasant. It merely means that we need to observe ourselves in the middle of the little moments spent alone or in our tribe, little and everyday moments that are as innocuous as the small breaths that link to a sigh.

Editing our karma begins with the observation of ourselves whilst riding the crest of the waves; the moments of pain we are desperate to avoid – the ones that [almost] break us; and others, usually the rarer ones, the ones we live for, the ones that are said to make life worth living.

The question at hand is where are we in between these peaks and troughs? Where is our head, where are our thoughts in between our highs and our lows?