Choose Your Path Wisely

How many times have your heard to follow your own path? There are many times that a well worn path and a good fence is a welcomed relief as we try to find our own way.

Spring cleaning

I am deeply cleaning the apartment today, all the way to my closets. As I clean, here is what I'm training my mind to think about instead of all the other crap that usually swirls around inside:

Never take more than we need;

Thank Creator for what we have or what we will receive;

Use all of what we have;

Give away what we do not need.

Everything on earth is alive;

Everything on earth has purpose;

Everything on earth is connected;

Everything on earth is to be embraced.

Talk to the Animals.

## do yourself a favor, create a sacred space today ##

navigating the world ocean

Finding answers in a barrage of a million questions

Here is a method from a Barbara Brennan book:

Sit with a pen and paper and quietly meditate until your mind is calm.
Take your time. Wait until your mind is calm.

Say outloud that you relinquish all personal stake in the answers to your questions.
Quickly write your questions and stay open and relaxed.

Then write the answers as they come without thinking about it.
Whatever comes, just keep writing.

Ask as many questions as you want and then put the notebook away for at least four hours before going back and reading it.

Even better, wait until the next day.
Keep your mind calm in the mean time and don't be tempted to taint what you've already written.

Then trust what's written and take action.

Trust.

To be congruent

You cannot be truly healthy if you are out of alignment.

You cannot be truly honest with yourself or others if your head and heart exist as two separate forces within you;

You cannot ever know what the fulfilled life is about if you are always compromising your intuition and inner guidance for fear of the consequences;

You can never consider yourself a truly honest person if you live a life of continual compromise and self-betrayal.

Nor can you fully heal when you fear truth and honesty.

credit to Carolyn Myss

+++++++

First Concentration, Then Meditation

This is my spot and view for today. I'm trying to create three yoga workshops for the upcoming year. The workshops will be held either in Cairo, or at Ain Sokhna.

Before the invention of watch, Yogins used to calculate time by measuring the shadow in day and study of the movement of the stars in the heavens at night. They were perfectly exact in their calculations.

(No one comes here in winter, and thank God! I have my meditative space on the beach. Ain Sokhna, Egypt)

sea of emotions

Earth pushed and pulled by water. It's only where the two meet that the turbulence is the strongest. Stepping through on either side, and balance can be regained.

Tide flows in. Tide flows out. I asked the sea who am I?

Taking my meditations to the beach, I moved in walking meditations over the last few days.

Living in Cairo, a flurry of business and activity, my surroundings easily disconnect me, not only from my Self but from nature.

Some times I lose site of hope for connection and all of life seems futile. I used to deny such feelings. I would mentally punish myself for thinking in this way and create such a vicious cycle of anger and depression. I label it American psychosis...the self-centered, pity-me depression cycle...except I don't blame anyone, nor do I seek a pharmaceutical drug to cure.

Gaining strength again with my current yoga practice, I pull myself into balance with confidence and neutrality. My posture is durable, not only to my outer world, but to my inner world. I welcome my forlorn thoughts and recognize that is all they are...thoughts.

The thoughts ebb. The thoughts grow. The thoughts flow.
In the moment that I embrace them, they fall away. I breath in the moment, only to be distracted by another thought wave, and then another. With each thought, I breath my emotional tide to the present moment, accepting love and joy. And soon, I am back to center and neutral again. Only to discover again, my yoga and meditation behold me the beauty to hold steady the present moment in my breath.

I am the creator creating my creation.
I am
I am the creative principle;
I am the energy and intelligence that chose to create this universe…

I place one foot on the sandy shore, I bless the earth with peace.
I step forward to place the other foot ahead, I bless my self with peace.

++  Peace Be With All of Us. ++

steady

I prepared to start the kriya, and then I stopped. My mind kicked in with force and rebellion. I had to pause for a few minutes and just let me be. I told myself that I could stop at any time, but I set the timer for the full time. In each posture, as I glanced at the timer, I would say, just a few more minutes. Breath in "Sat", breath out "Nam." Leg up "I am", leg down "I am". I have never looked at the timer as often as I did today. Yet, it wasn't that I was struggling with the pose, it was all mental junk.

My internal temperature isn't heating up as it did when I started. This set really amps up the heat.

Yogi Bhajan on the navel point: "There is a very powerful psychic power under the Navel Point. It sits there like a cobra snake and when it wakes up, it travels through the six centers of the body and awakens them with its touch. When it touches the Seventh Center, the person knows all. When it intermingles with the aura, it delightfully enlightens the arcline and makes everything work out for the person."
a pic that i took at a fire show performed at the pyramids. kinda feel like this today.
:

write off

Some years ago I used to say, "I don't know what I want, but I know this isn't it.”

I search -- to know what I want. Because, if I don't know what I want, I have no chance of getting it.

The web of duality weaves through my search into my deepest desires. In and out, up and down, thoughts snarl into a tangled mess and my search within becomes an ordeal of frustration. My consciousness finds it a hard task to realize Cosmic Consciousness.

It's day sixteen of nabhi kriya. All physical responses have come to pass and I'm feeling top form...almost. Now my concentration is being challenged. Usually, my pen flows with words. Two days ago, I found my pen is stuck. Writers block? No. Monkey mind? Oh yea.

In a moment of great resolve, I remembered a processing technique that I learned from a lecture I attended in Santa Fe about four years ago. The woman giving the lecture, Leslie Temple-Thurston, developed this technique from her own self realization.



I used it for several months after learning it, and found it to be effective in many ways. The technique, called "Squares" involves writing lists of polarities and then delving into of each word using in a four-level exploration technique:

For example: Desire of control and Fear of control -- and Desire of no control and Fear of no control.

With each square, you explore, with one word or short phrase, the "Desire" or "Fear".

Determined to curb my rowdy mind, I set the technique in motion for my daily journal writing. I won't go into explanation of her technique because I feel that she describes it best. I spent a few hours making a list of polarities and then taking the most "charged" words, I plunged pen first to bring light to my egoic exchanges.

I met Leslie Temple-Thurston a few times and she is very dedicated and genuine being. Her book "The Marriage of Spirit" describes the Squares and other interesting processing techniques as well. You can read more about her at The Marriage of Spirit -- Enlightened Living in Today's World.

++ Day 15 of nabhi kriya. "Keep up and You will be Kept Up" (Yogi Bhajan) ++