Animals Are Our Partners in The Sacred: An Excerpt

   

This selection about recognizing the Sacred and spiritual stewardship is excerpted from 

       How to Get to Heaven (Without Really Dying), Wisdom From a Near Death Survivor

      Our continued misuse of the sacred expression of animals to feed

our needs is quite harmful to our spiritual growth and realization.

This idea may sound extreme to you, but you can test it within yourself.

Does it make you uncomfortable to seriously consider livestock

factory conditions and methods of animal breeding and slaughter?

Look it up, focus on the actual techniques, and honestly consider

it in your own experience, and if it makes you uncomfortable at all,

you’ll know that you’re doing spiritual damage to yourself. You’re

making it virtually impossible to realize the graceful potential of Life

that’s available to us all when we recognize and respect the Sacred in

all things.

      Overlooking this potential is easy when we don’t recognize the

Divine Nature of Life, but many of us don’t think we can live any

other way. Acknowledging the Sacred in all things brings a saner and

more spiritually responsible way of living to light. For example, the

big beautiful steer we feel we must rely on for a source of protein got

big and beautiful by eating grass, so a more rational option, on every

level, is to do what benefits all Life, and try switching to a vegetable

protein–based diet. If it’s too big a leap at first, then take it a little at

a time. Look for providers who practice compassionate methods of

raising livestock—who treat, pasture, and feed animals in humanely

natural, spiritually evolved ways. Look at this issue from a spiritual

perspective—primarily as a respecter of Life, then as a responsible

steward of the planet.

     Proof of this improved reality exists in embodying all the benefits
that a vegan or vegetarian lifestyle can bring. Not only will you always
have more and better energy pouring through your body, and be
physically much healthier by every available measure, but you'll also
likely live a lot longer. You'll find it easier to maintain a better attitude,
and to be happy—free from the subconscious guilt of participating in
any unnecessary exploitation of the Sacred. Instead, you'll elevate
your spiritual well-being by consciously celebrating it in every form.
It's the single best way you can personally address the extreme
environmental destruction and waste that animal exploitation inarguably generates, and you'll comfortably contribute to the recovery of the environment and the spiritual balance of the world. 

Look Beneath the Surface (and Watch the Spirit Arise)

"I am ever present to those who have realized me

in every creature. Seeing all life as my manifestation,

they are never separated from me. They worship me

in the hearts of all, and all their actions proceed from me.

Wherever they live, they abide in me."

                   The Bhagavad Gita, 6:30-31

With that somewhat invisible foundation in place, let's consider that it's really basing our judgments on the surfaces of what we see that creates a great many of our world's problems. They insist that by being the "visible" parts of life, they are also the most important parts—the parts we're actually interacting with all the time. But that's not really true, is it? Aren't we seeing, and more importantly feeling, the invisible parts of life, perhaps more deeply, all the time?

You can neither tell a book by it's cover, nor the content of a person's heart from the clothes they wear. It's impossible for our limited vision to see into the whirring masses of sub-atomic particles all dancing inside of our supposedly solid world. There is an inwardly exponential relationship of the outsides of everything to their insides, where the real story is told in the many pages beneath the cover.

When we're confronted by surfaces—appearances, behaviors, "final outcomes"—it does us no good to compare our insides to those outward presentations, but to start by considering what we don't know about the insides of each. That's where we can find our real understanding. We've all experienced the illusion of something looking really good on the outside, only to find out that it's actually full of pain. (I've picked a lot of chocolates like that...)

So, it's our ability to witness this occupation by spirit, and the outward expression of it (as mysterious as it is miraculous,) that's the most important, truly interactive, and compellingly honest perception we can have—whether we can actually see past the physical surface of something (or someone) or not. When we don't get too wrapped-up with surface appearances, we can see that remarkable relationship pretty plainly...but we have to relax, stop labeling, and allow ourselves to. So try this sometimes—pay as little attention to the surface of things as possible. Practice looking into it (intuit); and just try to witness the spirit arising from within things and people, as often as you can. Like everything that's worth getting good at, it takes practice.

"To God belongs the East and the West;

and wherever you turn,

there is the face of God."

The Qu'ran, Surah 2

These quotes from ancient wisdom sources really say the same thing, don't they? We display a kind of silly ignorance when we rely on visible affirmations—on outside appearances—when we know that every surface changes, and that it's the mystery within that remains Eternal. Everything we witness with our minds, and our eyes, and our hearts, is actually just more proof of our shared elemental composition—the substance of our Source, and our ineffable connection to each other and every living thing. It's all the real "face of God."

So, it's just a matter of our perception, and allowing ourselves to look beneath the surface of things by looking with a vision that's free of judgment and comparison—that's the only way to be more fully, more realistically, engaged by our compassion, identifying with the insides, instead of the outsides. Heres a quote, from a wonderful egghead, that tells us the same thing:

"A human being is part of the whole, called by us "Universe," a part limited in time and space. He experiences himself, his thoughts and feelings, as something separated from the rest—a kind of optical delusion of his consciousness. This delusion is a kind of prison for us, restricting us to our personal desires and to affection for a few persons nearest to us. Our task must be to free ourselves from this prison by widening our circle of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature in its beauty."

Albert Einstein

And this last natural note – did you know that bald eagles have naturally "polarized" vision? They can see right past the surface reflections, past the glare, into the river, at all the fish swimming by. Life looks like a parade of candy bars to them. They sit, fully and appropriately engaged, and, once they've learned the proper technique, they swoop down and snatch up the bounty of life, whenever they want.

"The disciples asked him:

'When will the Kingdom come?'

Yeshua answered:

It will not come by watching for it...

The Kingdom...is spread out over the whole earth,

and people do not have eyes to see it."

The Gospel of Thomas, Logion 113

The book: How to Survive Life (and Death), A Guide To Happiness In This World and Beyond, based on lessons (learned the hard way) by a three time near death survivor is now available everywhere – but ask for it it at your local bookstore! How to Get to Heaven (Without Really Dying) is due out early 2018, from Llewellyn Worldwide.

The Spiritual Lives of Beavers and the Purpose of Life

   
     We walk around in a bit of a stupor at certain times in our lives, with a head full of crazy questions, like: who am I, really? And what am I doing with my life? We should know those answers naturally, shouldn't we? But things are always changing (including us), and life can be very demanding, and it might all become a little confusing now and then. At those times it's good to recognize that the answers we should know naturally may actually be living in plain sight, in our very nature, in our very form. Perhaps we should look to natural forms to get a handle on our elusive sense of the purpose of Life.

     As I see it, Life is three things: a matter of expression – expressing your true self, that is; an evolution – that is, growing toward some kind of connected self-realization; and naturally (and most importantly) finding, feeling, and living in Love. So let's take a look at a very natural example of all those things; let's look at beavers.

     But why, you may ask, would we seek such advice from a beaver? I mean we all know that they’re fuzzy, have paddle-tails and build dams and all, but what does that have to do with expression, evolution, and Love? Let’s look at the natural forms of beavers and how as simple, purposeful expressions of what I like to call Divine Consciousness, they present living evidence of the Love in everything, and a lovely lesson we can learn for ourselves.

     Beavers have dense oily fur that keeps them warm on the inside no matter what. They have flaps in their ears and noses that block out water when they submerge, clear inner eyelids that serve as goggles, and even a set of inner lips that seal their mouths off when they carry cut greenery in their teeth underwater. Their teeth are self-sharpening, so they never, ever get dull their entire lives. They can chew through practically anything from the coarsest bramble to large tree trunks, and cut and arrange wood with precise dexterity and intelligence in such a way as to build dams and lodges of unequaled design efficiency for their uses. 
     Their homes are multi-roomed, vented at the ceiling, and have multiple entries – one conveniently leading directly to their storehouse of cut greenery, naturally refrigerated underwater to retain freshness. Their tails not only propel them above or beneath the water with great speed and grace, but also serve to pack mud as a building material, or to slap the water loudly as a warning to their loved ones.

     In terms of their impact on the environment and the creation of their habitats, the beaver's expression of intuitive engineering skills is second only to humans – except that beavers don’t harm the natural world in realizing them. 

     So who is smarter than who? Who has real direction and purpose? Whose form provides an unencumbered connection to the Divine, and brings balanced and beneficial contributions to our shared planet? And what might all of this have to do with Love, as opposed to being a simple accounting of natural selection? How, exactly does Love come into play for our beavers?

     It’s because Love – as survival of the most cooperatively adaptable – actually is natural selection. That’s true authentic purpose, “survival of the fittest,” in its most loving, heavenly sense. The beavers form facilitates expression, evolution, and, yes, Love – like our form does as well (or almost as well).

     Did you know that beavers mate for life (something a few of us have trouble with)? They give birth to numerous young, spread out over time, and they all live together sharing their food and warmth and companionship – at least until the kids can make it on their own (no surprise, it can be difficult to get young beavers to finally leave home too).

     Their homes not only serve to shelter and protect their families, but create ecosystems that dozens of other species thrive in, and contribute to the health of the greater, holistic environment. It’s a kind of natural stewardship of the Earth that demonstrates a purer purpose, and the metaphor of “The Garden” – where plants and animals contribute to the planet just by being, not by being able to think about it too much. Beavers don’t cut down trees to spite anybody, only people living in ignorance of their natural Divine Unity do that.

     The First Nation Americans recognized the merging of these purposeful forms of nature and Love. They called beavers the “little people.” They saw Love in the building of their homes and their families. They witnessed, with wonder and res-pect, how Love created their perfect purpose, which was simply, perfectly, to be beavers.

     The indigenous peoples of all countries around the world have never had any problem with the presence of Love in all of their surroundings – as the body of Mother Earth, as the land they love (which no one ‘owns,’ and which bears the bones of their ancestors); the air they breathe (the same air as their forefathers breathed); the water which cycles through themselves and this layer of Life on Mother Earth; and as the Sun which brings energy to the cycles of Life. They saw their purpose clearly was to be natural human beings – part of something infinitely larger than the rigid concepts of what our material lives “are supposed to be,” and more as a channelers of greater energies – more what we are meant to be.

        “The heart is a sanctuary at the center of which there is a little space, wherein the Great Spirit dwells, and this is the eye…by which He sees all things, and through which we see Him.”

                                     Black Elk

     It’s with this perspective of shared Divine Consciousness and the presence that allows us to find Love in every eternal moment, that we can receive the gift of our purpose – the expression of our innate intelligence, our potential for rea-soned and responsible stewardship of the world – and its other, very important occupants. Getting there does require effort, even if it’s just by living by those principles that we know will liberate our spirits and contribute to the welfare of all Life.

     It’s not supposed to be easy being a human being. This is where we learn some of our very hardest lessons, but the beavers show us there are easier ways to cut through the obstructions created in our inner lives – the destructive beliefs that tie us to the illusion of separateness and struggle, and remove us from the direction and purpose of our natural forms. They direct us toward an unimaginably rich and magical world where our purpose is to protect the forms of life who aren't subject to the ravages of self-centered thought. A world of expression, evolution, and Love.

     Beavers show us how to live in a world we might call Heaven. 

The latest book: How to Get to Heaven (Without Really Dying), Wisdom From a Near-Death Survivor from Llewellyn Worldwide can be ordered direct on this page or online; and the first book: How to Survive Life (and Death), A Guide To Happiness In This World and Beyond is available the same ways – but ask for them it at your local bookstore!

"What is Consciousness?" On Consciously Speaking, Co-Hosting with Michael Neeley

Join Michael Neeley and me, co-hosting his 

excellent iTunes podcast, Consciously Speaking, 

as we take up the fascinating question:

"What is Consciousness?"

Find out about how I came to my ideas about our relationship to Consciousness in my book, How to Survive Life (and Death), from Conari Press, based on my three near death experiences and what I learned about living (and dying) from them. It's available everywhere books are sold (so ask for it at your local Mom n' Pop bookshop). 

The Spiritual Consciousness of Animals – A Vegan Resolution

"I am the true Self in the heart of every creature...the beginning, middle, and end of their existence."

The Bhagavad Gita 10.20

In sharing this thing we call consciousness, we all share the singular expression of the creative source that takes place on this planet. We share what we might call "the Consciousness of Earth." Deep within us, we have a sense of the most basic elemental forces of the Earth; the deepest cold of the icy subterranean. The dense, smoldering pressure and heat of the innermost; the heedless baking burn of the unabated sun.

Deep within us, we know the natural experience of life, of the wild. We feel the elements as any animal does, and like any animal we live the play of forces that govern our needs for sustenance, for regeneration, for love in the form of the mysterious power of creation.

Look within yourself and you'll see that somewhere deep within, you understand the exhilarating speed of the cheetah, or the overwhelming seasonal sleepiness of the grizzly bear – especially on those days when it's tough to get out of bed. Likewise you can identify with the fear a young calf feels when surrounded by the slaughterhouse cries of his family; or the panic of a yellowtail tuna or porpoise as the indiscriminate mile-long nets of a fishing trawler scoop up the contents of your entire world.

It's not just humans that share the experience of this thin veneer of consciousness that tenderly wraps and energetically enlivens this planet, it's all life on earth. Despite our differences, species to species, we are all one thing: the consciousness on this earth.

"...my own true inner being actually exists in every living creature...[and] is the ground of that compassion upon which all true, that is to say, unselfish, virtue rests..."

Schopenhauer

Animals simply live their being. Their consciousness is joined with source purpose and intention, and so they attain a purity of experience within consciousness, through their senses, that humans seldom know. They have developed senses which allow them to live in a much richer world infused by light, sound, and electromagnetic wave perception that connects them to the field of being, and so they are not burdened by elaborately convoluted thinking, as are humans.

Being ignorant, and unwilling to experience or imagine the sublimely transcendent intelligence alive in the spirit/mind of a whale or an elephant, for example, the human ego denies all other creatures their true positions in the hierarchy of being, simply because it threatens human self-enhancement and self-importance. Also because it suggests a fatal assumption of human intelligence; that we have the "divine" right to kill animals for our own purpose – which is a conclusion based solely on delusion and ignorance. Some indigenous peoples have naturally found the way through The Great Spirit to respectably cycle the energies of hunted and farmed animals to meet their needs for sustenance, but this has little to do with the barbaric industry of animal subjugation and slaughter most of us contribute to today. 

And, for those sticklers, I wouldn't suggest that a hungry crocodile wouldn't eat me, if given the chance. That's what he lives to do. Not to accomplish. Not to steward. Not to choose.

The fact is that the actual nutritional needs of the earth's entire population could be met in a much more healthful and efficient manner agriculturally, with a bare minimum of animal slaughter and consumption. (All the flavors, textures, and nutritional qualities that are supposedly exclusive to meat can be reproduced with vegetable substitutes) In this way, wildlife populations would be brought back into balance, and humans could begin to exercise their divine dominion over the other occupants of the planet.

Unfortunately, the regressive human psyche has developed an appetite for something else: the energy of fear. The collective human ego manipulates and exploits it's animal relatives, feeding on the energy of fear generated by this exploitation. Feeding on the bodies of our animal brothers and sisters while ignoring their actual place in the divine order of life, and, without properly honoring their sacrifice, failing to release their spirits with love, imbues people with a deep, negative energy of guilt and fear.

In this way, the collective human ego, the singular most destructive force in all being, enforces the separation of human individuals from the divine source of being, which is the consciousness of the earth. It also contributes to the build-up of the energy of fear at a cellular level in the bodies of meat-eaters that leads to the inability to perceive the spiritual on a personal and collective level, and provides those fear-triggers that are regularly exploited by unethical interests to elicit the ignorant and inhumane mass attitudes that so threaten all life on earth. Simply put, it's why there are far more fist fights at barbecues than at vegan yoga retreats!

It's this essential barbarism, and these more esoteric – even occult – systems of exploitation that we may know, deep in our hearts, but continually deny for the simple, insanely selfish excuse that for a few minutes "it tastes really good." For a direct example of this, consider the epidemic of obesity in our culture, so often blamed on soda pop and fast foods. The chemicals fed factory animal to make them grow at an abnormal rate are consumed by meat-eaters, who then grow abnormally as well. Factory animal production destroys our spirits, our health, and our environment.  

The time has arrived in the evolution of humankind, to stop the barbaric and wasteful subjugation, cannibalization, and vanity slaughter of all crawling, walking, flying, swimming, thinking and feeling sentient creatures; and instead, to seek their wisdom of simple harmonious being-ness. And to stop and redirect the earth's energy and resources, squandered by this pointlessly egomaniacal vivocide, into an intuitively intelligent and sustainable (re: vegetarian) approach to being on earth, aligned with source energy, which is the consciousness of the earth. Studies now definitively demonstrate that it is the heartless, mindless exploitation of animals as a food source that is the single greatest contributor to global warming, sea life destruction, and ecological collapse – greater even than transportation or power generation in many areas.

 Keep in mind that mankind is not the top of the chain of being in this system of consciousness, the Earth is. As mankind continues to hasten the grievous imbalance of energies through the destruction of earth's natural systems and expressions of it's consciousness, the world will simply adjust to maintain it's harmony. We're not talking about the end of the world. The world will continue on, finding new ways to express divine consciousness, only Man will cease to exist. Wouldn't it be wiser to save our vanishing animal species, and live in a union of biodiversity with them, all contributing to the greater, and to the welfare of our precious Earth?

"I do not see a delegation for the four-footed. I see no seat for the eagles. We forget and we consider ourselves superior, but we are after all a mere part of the Creation...The elements and the animals, and the birds, they live in a state of grace. They are absolute, they can do no wrong. It is only we, the two-leggeds, that can do this. And when we do this to our brothers, then we do the worst in the eyes of the Creator."

Oren Lyons, to the United Nations (1977)



Read about concepts like these and much more in: How to Get to Heaven (Without Really Dying), Wisdom From a Near-Death Survivor  from Llewellyn Worldwide available direct on this page, or online. The first book: How to Survive Life (and Death), A Guide To Happiness In This World and Beyond is available the same ways – but ask for it at your local bookstore!

Look Beneath the Surface (and Watch the Spirit Arise)

"I am ever present to those who have realized me

in every creature. Seeing all life as my manifestation,

they are never separated from me. They worship me

in the hearts of all, and all their actions proceed from me.

Wherever they live, they abide in me."

                   The Bhagavad Gita, 6:30-31

With that somewhat invisible foundation in place, let's consider that it's really basing our judgements on the surfaces of what we see that creates a great many of our world's problems. They insist that by being the "visible" parts of life, they are also the most important parts—the parts we're actually interacting with all the time. But that's not really true, is it? Aren't we seeing, and more importantly feeling, the invisible parts of life, perhaps more deeply, all the time?

You can neither tell a book by it's cover, nor the content of a person's heart from the clothes they wear. It's impossible for our limited vision to see into the whirring masses of sub-atomic particles all dancing inside of our supposedly solid world. There is an inwardly exponential relationship of the outsides of everything to their insides, where the real story is told in the many pages beneath the cover.

When we're confronted by surfaces—appearances, behaviors, "final outcomes"—it does us no good to compare our insides to those outward presentations, but to start by considering what we don't know about the insides of each. That's where we can find our real understanding. We've all experienced the illusion of something looking really good on the outside, only to find out that it's actually full of pain. (I've picked a lot of chocolates like that...)
So, it's our ability to witness this occupation by spirit, and the outward expression of it (as mysterious as it is miraculous,) that's the most important, truly interactive, and compellingly honest perception we can have—whether we can actually see past the physical surface of something (or someone) or not. When we don't get too wrapped-up with surface appearances, we can see that remarkable relationship pretty plainly...but we have to relax, stop labeling, and allow ourselves to. So try this sometimes—pay as little attention to the surface of things as possible. Practice looking into it (intuit); and just try to witness the spirit arising from within things and people, as often as you can. Like everything that's worth getting good at, it takes practice.

"To God belongs the East and the West;

and wherever you turn,

there is the face of God."

The Qu'ran, Surah 2

These quotes from ancient wisdom sources really say the same thing, don't they? We display a kind of silly ignorance when we rely on visible affirmations—on outside appearances—when we know that every surface changes, and that it's the mystery within that remains Eternal. Everything we witness with our minds, and our eyes, and our hearts, is actually just more proof of our shared elemental compo-sition—the substance of our Source, and our ineffable connec-tion to each other and every living thing. It's all the real "face of God."

 

So, it's just a matter of our perception, and allowing ourselves to look beneath the surface of things by looking with a vision that's free of judgment and comparison—that's the only way to be more fully, more realistically, engaged by our compassion, identifying with the insides, instead of the outsides. Heres a quote, from a wonderful egghead, that tells us the same thing:

"A human being is part of the whole, called by us "Universe," a part limited in time and space. He experiences himself, his thoughts and feelings, as something separated from the rest - a kind of optical delusion of his consciousness. This delusion is a kind of prison for us, restricting us to our personal desires and to affection for a few persons nearest to us. Our task must be to free ourselves from this prison by widening our circle of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature in its beauty."

Albert Einstein

And this last natural note – did you know that bald eagles have naturally "polarized" vision? They can see right past the surface reflections, past the glare, into the river, at all the fish swimming by. Life looks like a parade of candy bars to them. They sit, fully and appropriately engaged, and, once they've learned the proper technique, they swoop down and snatch up the bounty of life, whenever they want.

                 "The disciples asked him:

'When will the Kingdom come?'

Yeshua answered:

It will not come by watching for it...

The Kingdom...is spread out over the whole earth,

and people do not have eyes to see it."

The Gospel of Thomas, Logion 113

The book: How to Survive Life (and Death), A Guide To Happiness In This World and Beyond, based on lessons (learned the hard way) by a three time near death survivor is now available everywhere – but ask for it it at your local bookstore! How to Get to Heaven (Without Really Dying) is due out early 2018, from Llewellyn Worldwide.

Why is Love So Hard to Find When It's Everywhere? Realizing the Obstacles We Create

The idea that Love is everywhere is enough of a challenge since everywhere you look there are terrible examples of "man's inhumanity to man."  But all that sadness really serves to demonstrate where Love isn't, so we are talking about the same thing, really.  It's not that Love isn't everywhere, it's that we are actively creating obstacles to it – in our big, collective unconsciousness ways, and then on a personal scale, in each of our own little heads. 

Why does it happen? Why do we tend to separate ourselves from that one beautiful thing we really want more than anything else? The answer is that we actually train ourselves to do it, a lot of the time completely unconsciously. It's a kind of mental self-sabotage that has a lot to do with our easiest to overlook, biggest challenge – the way we think.

When we train a dog, it's taken for granted that the most effective way to achieve success is through the classic Pavlovian model of conditioning, or Behavioristic approach of rewarding good behavior. Now, so that you don't get offended by my comparing you to a dog, I'll pick on myself. Let's pretend that I'm a dog:

A dog is (I am) hungry pretty much all the time. A tasty morsel to munch on always makes for a welcome repast – and I'm afraid I can personally reward myself that way all too easily. Especially with potato chips, and even when I haven't done anything to deserve it. The dog thinks he's going to eat when the bell rings, and then he eats when he can. With a human like me, on the other hand, when the bell rings, he may begin making elaborate, completely unnecessary justifications for eating the wrong thing at the wrong time. I mean I may do that. Woof.

My dog self, or I'll say my natural self, relates me to the world in a pretty simple, direct way; but my artificial self – my human ego – is almost always seeking some level of nonsensical self-enhancement, or unnecessary self-protection. Most of the time my ego is reacting in ways that were conditioned into me as a child, before I really had the awareness to realize that later on in life, those childhood self-preservation instincts may start working against me instead of for me.

 For example, I was raised in a very unsettled and insecure world, where adults sometimes behaved in inappropriate ways. As a result, I felt unprotected. I assumed a profound unfairness was at work in the world (because it was, in my world) – but that experience constructed obstacles to my ability to see the Love there. Obstacles my ego continues to habitually impose on my life, often with no reason whatsoever, if I let it – just out of habit.

It's my human ego that's being fed, rewarded by the comfort of habitual thought, and the feeling of being right – not my authentic, natural (spiritual) self. I end up reacting to the world subconsciously based on old,  warped childhood instincts. I respond to what I can see as "unfair" situations by automatically thinking that I need to enforce a sense of rightness, a proper sense of fairness in an unfair world, again and again. And, since our world tends to become what we think it is, my "unfair" world continually requires more of my ego reactions – my desire to control things I can't control. 

"As you think, so you are."  "As a man thinketh in his heart, so is he."                 

            The Buddha and Proverbs, 23:7 

So when that "bell" rings – a challenge, an affront, a desire – my ego begins to salivate. I can be sent into my irrational behavior over and over, until it's really the only thing I'm really good at. My human ego has built a perfect, very personal obstacle to Love again. So I'll go on and on, missing the point, missing the Love that's alive in everything. Or missing the opportunity to bring Love in where it's most needed.

In Hindu spiritual traditions, these obstacles are called samskaras, from sam meaning "intense," and kara from the root "to do." They're automatic thoughts. Thoughts that think themselves – automatically grounded in the psychic constructions of our earlier life experiences. Whatever we tend to resent, to brood about, whatever kicks up a compellingly dramatic reaction – fearful feelings of victimization or entitlement – those set off samskaras; unnecessary automatic thoughts that can, and will, define our lives. Thoughts that create our personalities, whether we like them or not.

I, for one, would rather be more like a faithful, loving dog than a willful, love-starved human...but how? The great teacher, Eknath Easwaran, compared samskaras to furrows, eroded out of our consciousness by habitual thoughts we let run like little streams. Resentments and desires that cut furrows deeper and deeper into our psychic ground. We have to re-route those streams, and the best way to do that is to start by becoming aware. By noticing how your thinking is following that same pattern that results in an uncomfortable feeling, even when we think we're right. That's the thinking that separates us from the Love that's alive in every body, and in every situation – if we can get out of our own way and allow it to arise.

There is fresh ground in each of our conciousnesses (and so in our collective culture) that we can divert those old streams of thinking towards. Thoughts of acceptance, tolerance, and Love that can gently erode and irrigate happier results in our own lives, and in everybody else's. As always, meditation is how we come to recognize those particular tributaries, and so put our natural, spiritual selves at the helm, heading downstream with the flow of Love.

"...at a deeper level of consciousness, we can learn to go against these conditioned ways of thinking and actually change ourselves from the inside out."

Eknath Easwaran, Essence of the Upanishads