A Drop in a Day: How Ego Puts Us on The Little Spot

"We are created by our thoughts. We become what we think. Pain and suffering follow negative thoughts like the wheel follows the ox that pulls it." 

The Dhammapada, 1: 1

      It's crazy what a fussy thing it is to be a human being sometimes. Fussy, itsy-bitsy preoccupations can end up occupying an entire day, or week (or life). Small slip-ups can cascade into torrential hang-ups and unexpectedly put a lock on practically everything, even when it might all be based on nothing, really. Just look at the way we look at things, and wonder why we tend to see them in such an upside-down way…

      We're up, awake, and "fully-functioning" for what – about sixteen to eighteen hours a day? The other six or eight we're safely in dreamland. During the course of that sixteen hours of activity, everything usually goes fairly well. Usually. For the most part everything runs pretty smoothly, except for the occasional day when nothing at all seems to go right. (My wife often blames that on "Mercury going retrograde," which doesn't do anything for me, except to get me mad at Mercury–a very hot planet that I barely even know…) 

      Even then, the problems of a problem-filled day at most add up to just an hour or two of difficulties, if you're really keeping track of it. One-sixteenth of your waking day. Most of the time, the trouble spots we experience are actually very brief – singular sticky moments that pass quickly, but that for some reason we may hold on to and inflate well out of proportion. 

      It could be one cross look. One misplaced word, or phrase, or gesture. One tiny misunderstanding, or slip, or traffic cross-up, or failure to hear something right, and suddenly it's as if the world got knocked off it's axis. That minor flaw—possibly only two minutes in the whole of our otherwise smooth sixteen-hours—can  take us hostage, eat up all of our mental bandwidth, and demand ownership of the entire day. Just two minutes – out of the one-thousand-four hundred and forty-four in a day.

"The cleaner the tablecloth, the more obvious the spot." 

      …says my mentor Ray, pointing out that unnecessary obsession with the one itsy-bitsy thing that goes wrong, the one little thing that can throw our entire well-being out of whack. So what's really up with that?

      Part of the hardwiring we labor with as humans being human is our vestigial, eternally fearful Ego – the picky, judgmental part of our thinking that still likes to imagine some prehistoric predator is hiding behind every bush. Nothing is ever right for this fuss-bucket from our left brain, constantly pointing out the smallest flaws in an otherwise beautiful finish. Unless we recognize that aggravating inner voice as not being who we want to be, and consciously calling it out, it will happily take ownership of our day in two silly, uncomfortable minutes. 

      That's the simple mindfulness  required – to become aware of that fearful self-criticism (by default), and reject it! After all, who needs a scold when things are actually going quite well?

      The other thing we can do to defuse that out-of-proportion foible is to fix it immediately. Blot out the spot right away! Instantly apologize for the dumb thing you said. Spontaneously extend forgiveness to someone who seems to have slighted you. Brush off the inconsequential objection your fussy Ego wants to stick on your forehead, and... 

"FLIP YOUR SCRIPT!"

      Instead of letting one wrong minute own your day, take ownership of the fifteen hours and fifty-nine minutes you got right! Be empowered by the fact that you're doing very well, thank you, and you won't need any more help from the self-criticism department. The fact is—you're really on a roll when it comes to living well, and as long as you remember that kindness, honesty, humility, forgiveness, compassion, and service are everybody's friends, you can ignore that little spot on the tablecloth – who cares? It just means you had a nice lunch.

      In the bright light of Love, one little spot is nothing...really.

"We are created by our thoughts. We become what we think. Happiness attaches itself like an inseparable shadow to the positive thoughts that precede it." 

The Dhammapada, 1: 2

Read about this 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 it at your local bookstore!

Fear Is Like A Giant Multi-Legged Caterpillar

This "Mechapillar" from Codename: Kids Next Door will have to do...

"Fear is a giant, ugly caterpillar that just wants to eat the grass you're hiding behind."

Why would anyone ever say such a thing, unless they were launching into hyperbolic metaphor?

It's out there, rooting around your wild perimeter, slowly tracking you down on a hundred disturbing little legs. Yep, it's fear again, though it may be dressed in some new form, like a giant multi-legged insect, an impossible deadline, or the potential discovery of one of your closely guarded secrets.

You hunker down in the grass, pressing dirt into your knees, and almost stop breathing. Perhaps it will move away, maybe pass right by you. But no, inevitably the huge waxy leaves part, and there it is! A screaming caterpillar the size of a brownstone (an apartment house east of The Rockies), waving it's creepy multitudinous arms, twitching it's bug jaws like a Cronenberg movie, and worst of all, it knows right where you're hiding!

Things look awful bad, as it raises up on it's haunches, haunches, haunches, etc., coiling itself like a cobra about to strike...and here it comes—right at you, it's pinchy jaws bearing down around you! THIS IS IT! IT'S, IT'S ...wait a minute...it stops just before it actually does any harm to you, and gently and fastidiously, begins munch munch munching all the grass around you, until you're just hunkered down, completely exposed, and completely safe. Then it happily whirrs away, leaving you standing up again, brushing the dirt off your kneecaps.

That grass will grow back you know. You'll want to hide in it again, like so many times before. But notice how good it feels to be out in the open. Honesty is a real, powerful action to take, that will deliver you to freedom you've never imagined possible before. You're fine. It wasn't real. It just had to reveal to you what you can be.

I always like to say that unless a bear is chasing you, fear isn't real. That works for tigers, and crocodiles too–God bless 'em.

And as for what you can be, the caterpillar thing works that way too. After it eats enough, it latches onto a suitable branch and forms a chrysalis around itself. Inside that bag, it turns into a chaotic mush, a complete chemical deconstruction that doesn't seem to know what it's going to be, until order begins to return, and inside it's new form finally takes shape. I know what that feels like. Everyone probably does. That confusion before it realizes what it can become...and then... 

Schmetterling, in German. Choucho, in Japanese. Mariposa, in Spanish.

A Butterfly for you.

This blog is a revisitation of a favorite topic, seen in it's original form four years ago. Read about this and much more in the new book: How to Get to Heaven (Without Really Dying), Wisdom From a Near-Death Survivor, from Llewellyn Worldwide, and the first book: How to Survive Life (and Death), A Guide To Happiness In This World and Beyond. Both are available everywhere – but ask for them at your local bookstore!

The Mystical Way to Diet: How Swamis Stay so Slim

Do swamis like blueberry cheese croissants? I don't know, but I do. I suppose a swami will eat the occasional danish, but certainly never two in one sitting. That's probably how they stay so slim and trim. You rarely see an oversized swami. So what is it swamis know that apparently prevents overeating from becoming an issue? Is it "being one with everything" that keeps them so fit? Well, it couldn't hurt. We all know that our attitude – what we're thinking and feeling – has a great deal to do with what and how (or how often) we eat.

From The Bible to the Buddha, "what a person thinks, so they become," naturally makes real sense to everyone. Natural. Real. Sense. Let me take those three in reverse order, and backtrack on that slender swami's inner path to a slim, spiritually sexy exterior. 

If I become what I think, then if what I'm thinking about is eating both of those blueberry cheese danishes, I just may gain weight. It's a good thing my total powers of discernment don't rely entirely on what spontaneously pops up in my mind, as a result of what my senses want. Because my senses usually want a second danish.

Fortunately, we're all connected to a kind of reservoir of shared wisdom and intelligence, what we may commonly call "common sense."  My common sense tells me that I don't need the extra calories from a second danish, that one is enough for now. You see, I don't really have a weight problem, I have a wait problem. A swami, sitting in meditation, develops that healthy space in their thought process, where they can discern between their common sense and their sudden, sensory desires. When I take a minute, I realized that there are probably plenty more blueberry danishes in my future (I hope).

My spontaneous, reactive mind usually responds to my senses (and stresses), and what they demand at any given moment – predictably a demand for some kind of gratification. For something that's going to make me feel a little bit at-one-with-everything, even if it's just for one little moment of relief. Swamis talk about "withdrawing the mind from the sensory world," especially important when dealing with these potential spontaneous lapses in judgement. They compare our senses to a team of horses that can suddenly pull our thinking in a dangerous direction, if we're not minding the team –a discipline commonly called mindfulness.

We've all had hard lessons taught to us this way, lessons about overdoing it that we may have ignored and had to keep repeating. Like binges, hangovers, and regrets. Finishing the whole pie and not fitting into our jeans; or having one more margarita "to take the edge off," and waking up next to Godzilla (God bless 'im).

Swamis read the Bhagavad Gita, which is a great story where God is your chariot driver, and tells you how the world works (he also has a pretty good idea of how hard the horses have to work to pull you around).  Listen to this amazing breakdown of how we continue to do things against our own self-interests:

"When you keep thinking about sense-objects, attachment comes. Attachment breeds desire, the lust of possession that burns to anger. Anger clouds your judgement, and you can no longer learn from past mistakes. Lost is the power to choose between what is wise and what is unwise...when you move amidst the world of sense, free from attachment...you live in the wisdom of the self."

Bhagavad Gita, 2:62–65

That describes the process pretty well for me. I know I want the second pastry. Then, for some reason, I suddenly decide that it's something I need, something I deserve to have. So I eat it, and immediately become angry with myself for eating it; which causes me to carry around that unresolved agitation, creating the perfect conditions for that sensory demand to repeat the whole process over the next time. 

What I really need to do is to healthily disengage from my senses – to lose my senses (in a good way) and concentrate on my common sense, listen to my inner voice. Then our common sense – that small voice – can tell us how to properly, consciously practice eating. Eating slowly. Chewing food well. Thinking about the food we're enjoying, not about other things that excite or agitate us. It gives us the space in our meal to appreciate what we're eating, and to notice when we've had enough.

The "real" part is about self-honesty. It's about recognizing what is really at work in our personal world. We have to become willing to admit that there's some reason we want to eat more than we need to, or to eat things that we don't need to be eating. Swamis know how to deal with that.

If there seems to be a deeper, underlying pathology at work within our desire to eat badly, or too much (or both), we need to allow ourselves to become aware of it. We need to strip ourselves right down to the place where that compulsion originates from – the place where the truth is staring us right in the face. Then, we can educate ourselves about it, and find the way that has worked for others who have suffered from that same agitation. Our slender swami would have us meditate on that, too, to slowly and surely smooth it over. To heal the hurt that keeps demanding to be fed. Getting "real" with someone who's been there, and benefitting from their experience will help too.

Honesty, which is the fundamental starting point for any change for the better, leads us to confront another glaring dietary disaster that many of us skate right over, which is this: It is self-destructive to eat the flesh of dead animals. Modern medical science tells us that it's not good for us to eat too much (if any) meat – particularly meat that's a "product" of the modern science of corporate animal husbandry. In the mystic's sense, animals are our brothers and sisters in shared consciousness, so eating their cadavers is self destructive in the same way that cannibalism intuitively is. If you're okay with cannibalism, then usually, somebody calls the police. It's much healthier to do no harm.

Swamis have "sacred cows," that they would never dream of harming. They know that killing the cow will kill the children's milk – not to mention killing the cheese for the pizza (swamis do eat pizza, but only with whole grain crusts, and no more than two slices at a time). They know that the meat of the dead cow cobs up their energetic system; throws them out of whack. It leads to weight gain and physical and spiritual disease. 

If they must eat animal protein to survive, and they have a spiritual arrangement with the animal being sacrificed to their survival, then that is a different story – but it's not our story. So your slender swamis, for the most part, don't eat meat (...and really very little cheese). And if you think about it, you rarely see an overweight vegetarian.

The natural part of a slimming, swamis diet is pure common sense, which tells us that fresh plant protein, raw foods, whole grains, all-organic products, and homestyle preparation – with Love – are always the way to go. Swamis call these sattvic foods. Think of what the family of your heart would want for you, and your health and appearance. Calming, healthful, nutritious foods. The only family that profit-driven corporate industrial food producers bring to mind is what Orwell would call Big Brother.

Industrially prepared foods are tested on people like so many caged rats, to determine precisely what agitates and excites them to eat impulsively. Processed, packaged, sugary, white flour – a swami skips all that stuff. Sweet, gooey, deep-fried – those empty, addictive grab bites aren't even really food. They're something else – more like a drug. And speaking of drugs, alcohol is nothing but lots of empty calories, organ damage, and potential regrets. Slim swamis don't drink alcohol, in fact they stay clear of anything that will possibly undermine their common sense; their voice of reason. 

Your diet swami would always ask you to take a moment to meditate on what you would put into your body, after all, "you are what you eat." In fact, your diet swami would have you meditate on everything, regularly, because meditation brings us the balance that makes our inner wisdom possible and prevalent. That balance is what it's all about – in our life, as well as in how we look and feel. Be sensible and honest about it to yourself, because it doesn't take a swami to tell you this simple truth: Your insides will always become your outsides.

Now, I'll try to look a little more like just one blueberry cheese croissant.

Read about this and much more in the new book: How to Get to Heaven (Without Really Dying), Wisdom From a Near-Death Survivor, from Llewellyn Worldwide, and the first book: How to Survive Life (and Death), A Guide To Happiness In This World and Beyond. Both are available everywhere – but ask for them at your local bookstore!

Freedom From the Prisoner's Perspective; Beating Conundrums

The other night I was watching the Yankees game and a televised political debate at the same time, switching back and forth, when I began to notice something strange happening. As the Yankees kept striking out, and the political misrepresentations kept piling up, a powerful feeling welled up inside of me, moved to center stage, and started directing my thoughts and comments with unwanted authority. It was a feeling of acrimony, of aggravation, of anxious agitation...and I'm still only on the "A"s.

"The universe exists in order that the experiencer may experience it and thus become liberated."           Patanjali

Suddenly I realized that somehow I'd just taken myself from a relatively serene state of mind to a discombobulated tangle of self-centered sensations – spontaneously arising opinions, judgments, perceived injustices – all the product of having momentarily attached myself to these two televised events. If I hadn't been watching I presume I would have been fine, calm and at-ease within that very same moment.

So as well as I could (after the shows were over) I returned my self to it's former tentative state of serenity, relaxed and refocused my mind on other, less aggravating thoughts, and made a note to try and not do that anymore. You'd think I would know by now, but they can come so automatically, those waves of thought and sensation, can't they?

It's in the nature of our sensory experience itself that I spontaneously respond to outside stimuli that inspires certain thoughts, which evoke certain feelings, and then engages a cascading circuit of thoughts and feelings that usually makes me want to do something about it, when there plainly isn't much I  actually can do – except maybe to calm down again. But why do I always have to go the long way around again? Where does this willingness to get myself all worked up again come from?

I called a mentor (whom I like to call Fascinating Ray), told him about this all-too-common loop I'd just taken again, and asked why I can so often condemn myself to that circular confinement, as opposed to remaining in an easier, less agitated state. He told me something that reminded me exactly why I call him with these questions; in essence he said this:

In the body-mind-spirit trifecta we experience in this life, there's an underlying intuitive sense of being stuck in this form, for the time being, subject to the electrochemical, physiological machinations of thought and feeling that "this flesh t'is heir too." It can feel like a kind of sadness, anxiety, dissatisfaction, or longing to "return to the garden," so to speak – and what's more, it's true – it arises from a subliminal reality, the innate understanding that our spirits can function on a much broader energetic level – lighter and freer – than simply being a human being allows us.

So, sometimes we unintentionally carry with us this "perspective of a prisoner," and part of our challenge in this life is to avoid being defined by that truncated view, and to allow our greater (spiritual) potential to be our friendlier guide through life. The trick in escaping that perspective, that self-created prison, lies in becoming aware of the thoughts and feelings that promote it; and also in recognizing when we might be taking on that role ourselves, sometimes intentionally, feeling like we need the excitement and anxiety to provide us with some kind of sensory encouragement.

"All life is a play of universal forces. The individual gives a personal form to these universal forces. But he can choose whether he shall respond or not to the action of a particular force. Only most people do not really choose – they indulge the play of forces."             Sri Aurobindo

Ray went on: There can only be limited growth when we're in prison, you know. There isn't the requisite space and variety of influences necessary to allow your world to expand in a healthy, balanced way; and so your world gets smaller, hemmed in by uncontrolled cascading thoughts and feelings. ("Isolation is a darkroom where your negatives are developed"). You repeat behaviors that don't really work, and eventually prove to be [destructively] defining, like 'em or not.

The cause of this self-imposed confinement is usually due to what a Buddhist might call "attachments," or "selfish cravings" – the identification of ourselves and our sense of well-being with some special interest or need that we feel is being threatened, has been slighted, or that might go unfulfilled. In short, the imaginary ideas of how we want to control our world that really end up controlling us:

People don't do things the right way; my ideals are under attack; there's a fundamental injustice at work in the world...some of which may really be the case, but unless we escape that mentality, that "prisoner's perspective," we'll never be able to muster the vision to find any meaningful solutions. To grow out of our imaginary, and real conundrums. We'll be stuck stacking up those blocks around ourselves, driven by that drumbeat, wondering why our world seems to be getting smaller, instead of evolving beyond the attitudes of confinement that this body-life often insists upon.

"Emanating from the finest ether, these souls become entangled...in the prison-house of the body...but when once they are released from the bonds of the flesh, then, as though liberated from long servitude, they rejoice and are borne aloft."                 Josephus, describing The Essenes' beliefs

It's right, in a way, to naturally want to identify myself with my team or my cause; it's part of what Joseph Campbell would call "the metaphysical impulse to transcend the delusion of separateness." It's a wish to be a part of something larger than myself; to effectively contribute to a worthwhile cause for humanity, to be of service; and to identify and share with others who believe what I believe, and give themselves to the ideals I'd wish for myself and others to experience in this life. Notice, none of what I really wish for has very much to do with winning, or with even being right.

That's where beating it does come in – by answering with a different kind of beat: call it to heartbeat it; using the shared heartbeat of the joy and creativity alive within us all, and in the world. That's what I had to do – open my heart to escape the corner I'd painted myself into. I needed to stop my thoughts, and liberate my heart to gain that freedom, that grace.

"There's no problem that acceptance won't help solve" is an axiom I don't naturally react well to, probably because it's so painfully obvious. The more elaborate my entanglements become (or I make them), the less likely I am to escape them. I need that open-hearted freedom. I need to change, to escape that "perspective of a prisoner." It's my choice, really...I could just turn off the TV, and actually do something about it; starting with accepting, relaxing, letting it be, and letting the world roll right off my shoulders...

"If an earthquake opens the prison walls, do you think an escaping prisoner will complain of the damage done to the stone and marble work?"

Rumi

Read about this 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 it at your local bookstore!