Ridding Habbits

I found this inspiring from The Essence of the Bhagavad Gita pg. 289:

The time to expel from teh body any unwanted thought or habit is while deliberately exhaling --blowing that thought out of one's being, so to speak.  'Habits,' Yogananda used to say, 'can be changed in a day.  They are simply the result of concentrated energy.  Direct that energy in a new way, and the habit you want to overcome can be instantly dispelled.'  The breath, when accompanied by strong mental affirmation, is the best medium for bringing into one's nature the thoughts nad qualities one wants, and for ridding oneself of those which one wants to dismiss.

Ahimsa: The Path of Non-Violence

In the book "The Art and Science of Raja Yoga" it is explained that Yogananda took Ahimsa to a level beyond the physical. In the 4th chapter it deals with the Yama's... the don'ts.  Ahimsa is translated often as "do no harm." 

It states, "The principle of ahimsa must be understood in the subtle ways, not only in gross.  If you harm anyone in the slightest way - if, for example, you kill his enthusiasm (which is in a sense the life within him), or if you deride him, or if you treat him with disrespect - in all of these ways you will be harming him and also, by reflection, yourself. 

This is an important teaching for me, for in it is my guideline for daily life.  The bread of my spiritual life is this message. Harm none in Body, Speach or Mind - my lama used to say.

Feeling and Emotion

According to the teachings of Yogananda - Feeling and Emotion are NOT the same.

Emotion is a grasping to what's outside of you - It is the use of feelings, pushed downward.

Feeling is like fuel. It can propel motion downward or upwards. By directing feelings inward and up - feelings can conquer emotions.

It's important to feel... Repression is not the teaching here. Sometimes people mistake the spiritual life as a life of repression. But we are not to repress. In fact it's better to express an emotion then to repress it.

Again - the way to overcome emotion is not to repress it, but to direct feeling upwards and inwards.

From the Inner Peace course at Ananda:

Emotions are what bind us to this world. If you learn to handle and use emotions in the right way, you can get out of emotionalism, and into calm feeling. Through calm feeling you can release yourself from the bondage of materialistic desire.

Karma

The meat of this post, was taken from:
http://www.anandaclaritymagazine.com/2011/06/karma-novak-god-yogananda/

The first premise is to recall that we are here for a reason.  This reason isn't to find bliss in the physical life.  The reason is to grow to God.  To bring others to God.  I do not mean to suggest this as a indoctrination, or door knocking crusade.  I mean bringing others to God, by smiling, sending positive energy, loving them, and if asked - giving advice.  But our reason for living is not to reproduce.  It is to learn, grow and share.

So why do bad things happen?

What makes something "good" or "bad"?  Our perception.  The more we identify with the body, the more anything that "takes away" from the body is "bad" - but for those who are identified with the spirit, little "bad" occurs to them.

That said, we all have committed actions that will bear fruit for us.  Each action we do, plants a seed.  The result we will interpret as either "good" or "bad" depending on our perception.  But if our perception is mainly physical, then we know that harming another will harm us.  Loving another will bring love to us.

When I was a Buddhist, my Lama (Lama Marut of Asian Classics Institute) used to talk about "Our Enlightened Self Interest."  This was a concept of doing those acts that will return in such a way to help us with our path towards self liberation.

We can think of it as the Golden Rule.  Do Unto Others as We Would Have Done Unto Us.  But it goes deeper.  It's not about "I want to get rich, so I'll give money away" (which works actually), but this is about "I want to be enlightened - so I will do those things to return to me in such a way to achieve that result."  Gaining money is nice.  It may help our spiritual path - or it might kill it.

I recall a time, I gained a large sum of money, by giving my money away.  This large sum of money was so distracting, I forgot about the spiritual path for quite awhile.  We, like children, do not always know what's best for us.

But to change Karma, we can devote equal time and energy of the "bad" action, to a "good" action(s) to neutralize the result.

But what about the Karma coming?  Results from actions in this life or from before?

The advice from the Article I linked to at the top, is this:

Detach yourself, control the reactive process, and live the teachings

Detaching:
The first thing we usually do when something bad happens, is identify with it - and blame the source of the negativity.  I went through this last week.  Someone talked down to me, I blamed him for his actions.  But, why was he there blaming me?  Go deeper.  It wasn't about my job.  EVERYTHING IN LIFE IS A LESSON.  This is true ESPECIALLY if you see a pattern.  If you've had 5 bosses all do the same negative thing to you - there's some lesson you need to get through to end this cycle.

Again, taken from that link from Crystal Clarity:

Suppose you were obeying the traffic laws, and someone ran a red light and collided with your car. If you blame that person, you’ve done absolutely nothing to change your karma. But if you detach yourself and think: “There’s something for me to learn from this experience,” you bring a positive reaction to it.  Your positive reaction will help expiate the karma.

So the first step in detaching ourselves is: Don’t blame people or circumstances. Nor does it particularly help to blame yourself. Just accept what’s happening as coming from God for your own spiritual freedom.

Detachment also means, being grateful for whatever comes.  This is a hard thing to accept some times.  I lost my first child in divorce... my ex-wife relocated to Europe with my child (when she was 1 year old.)  My daughter is now 10 years old.  I see her a few weeks each year.  I haven't been able to afford seeing her the past 2 years.  It's very hard sometimes... but there is a reason and a lesson.  I'm grateful to God for the lessons He is giving me, to help me towards union with the Divine.

This is of course, the lesson Jesus gave in Turning the Other Cheek.  When everything is seen as "from/of God" then there's less bite to it.  It becomes lessons for our best enlightened interest.  Rather then punishment, or random cruelty.

The goal is to stop our reaction in the moment.  To be so tuned to PRESENT TIME that we don't loose control.  For me, this is the hardest part.  I return to my senses after hours, or days - but I need to catch the moment and not react at all.

Live The Teachings:
Whatever your spiritual teachings are - live them daily.  Embrace them and keep them close to your heart and mind. 

I posted a few days ago, that last Friday I had this negative run in with someone at work.  At first I did what everyone else did - I was angry with the negativity.  Upset with the boss.  Then I turned on Ananda Radio and listened to a rebroadcast from the Gita.  It hit me:

Am I just someone who listens to spiritual advice? Or do I take it to heart?  Do I live it?

I LIVE IT.

And so, at that moment I let go of my ego's desire for resentment.

Work, Life, Furstration and Ultimate Love

I'm noticing that I figure out the real causes of situations now.  I recall back many years ago, I couldn't do that.  I would be swept up in emotion for months over something.  I would obsess about those who harmed me and hurt me.

But now, I can see the spiritual cause a few hours after an event, or a day or two.  But this isn't good enough.  I need to see the spiritual causation at the moment of the problem.

I will write a real life example that occurred to me this past week. 
The week started fine, but towards Thursday we had a problem at work.  It was a project that was rushed and given to me at the last min.  The expectations of upper management was that a miracle could happen.  Pressure was put on all of us to "just get this out to production."  Which we did, but then (now) have a problem.  I gave up lunches, weekends for this project and it was in no real shape to go live, but upper management just pushed on it to squeeze it out.  Now we had a bug.

The problem was a big one.  A big bug.  So, I worked 15 hours on the bug fix.  I didn't get dinner with my wife and I, till 11pm.  I wasn't in the best moods.  I felt this would come back to me as blame.  I was stressed, fearful, angry... a lot of bad feelings going on.


When my wife and i got back from dinner (around 12:20am) I had to work on a separate project.  That's a 16hr day now.  I finished up, went to bed and went to work.

I meditated in the morning and it helped me get passed the emotions in that moment - but a 10min meditation doesn't cover a multitude of problems.  As I was driving to work, I had a bout of road anger.  I lost it (as seen in a post here a few days back.)  I finally got to work - now feeling guilty for my loss of anger.  Only to get a tap on my shoulder to go to a meeting.


In that meeting a upper management entity is lambasting us for the bug that was in production.  He tells us he's disappointed and just can't believe we had this error in production.  He throws a few stones like "other issues we should have caught also."  He tells us he will take responsibility but he blames us.


Many would say "you had every right being angry.  He told you to push that live, when you were finding bugs saying he already tested this throughoughly..."  That's what i was feeling. That's what made me so angry.  All that hard work, lost, and not recognized.  All that was remembered was an error - that was created in part, by upper management forcing something live.


Then as I sat at my desk, I started thinking: Do I just study spirituality? or is it my life?  Shouldn't I see a spiritual lesson here? After all this is the forth major boss in my life who's been like this.

I began listening to Radio Ananda and feeling so wonderful.  There was a reading from the Gita - and it directly spoke to me... which I put the synopsis in a post on Friday.  

That's when an email came to me from a teacher at Ananda.  As I read it, it reminded me of my purpose.

I began looking at this situation and a few hours later, I realized - I can't be angry with upper management.  It's them I should feel empathy for.  Their actions are not against me.  They are to free me.  Everything in my life is a projection to help me get past the spiritual problems I suffer from.  Like my ego.

But on a less deep note, those who are being used to free me, incur for themselves problems.  So feel compassion for those like this upper management.  We all have examples in our lives of people like this, who blame us, or look down on us - BUT those actions don't hurt us.  We, spiritual followers, are breakign free of our body identification.  What could they possibly do to cause harm?  It is they, who are identified with the body, who are harming themselves.  As they get the karma for their actions they will suffer. So we, who are here for only one reason:

To bring people to God

Should try and help them.  Pray for them.  Have compassion for them.  Speak no ill of them.  Just love them, as God would want.

The karmic return of ego, self gratification, delusion - is more of the same.  Either in business, personal lives, family... The return will come - and people like this are identified with their bodies - they will be the ones who see this suffering come back in the world.

Let me not be like that... so I choose to break free and love the ones who are affected by the world, and remember I am unaffected.

It's a great realization - I need to get to this point IN THE MOMENT, next time (and there will be a next time, until I get it right) rather then wait hours or days to come to understand this.

Here's a beautiful teaching on spiritual teachers and devotion from Ananda.org:
http://www.ananda.org/mp3/PeterG082811.mp3

How one should See

and... the day gets worse.

But is worse really anything more then perception?

I was listening to Ananda Radio online streaming and they had an audio reading from The Essence of the Bhagavad Gita.  I didn't catch the chapter this is from, and this is all paraphrased from what I heard:

As the swan's wings are unaffected by the water - so should the man of wisdom be unaffected by the world.

This doesn't mean he's indifferent - he doesn't desire anything for himself. 

The cause of perception for everything and everyone is from himself.

Rejoices in their good and grieves in their evil and what it will do to them.

His only desire is to help others to know God.

As I sat thinking about this - I can hear Rev. Michael Bernard Beckwith (in my mind), in a old memory of him saying:

I See... I see with NEW eyes....

This is the new eyes.  New perspective.  Not being caught in the emotion and the wave of like and dislike... But in bliss

...and then I got angry...

This morning's meditation was successful in helping me in that moment.

Then i got in my car, and started driving to work.

I got caught up in my thoughts and was going over and over why something happened at work.  I was frustrated, and my frustrations I put aside resurfaced again.

While going through this, i moved slightly to allow a bycyclist to pass me on the right, and a car on my left honked at me. 

I went into anger very fast.  I flipped them off.  It was very uncharacteristic of me.  I was mentally in anger for the next 10-15min.  Yelling at the driver of the other car.

I still need to meditate.  I need to get past my issues with anger.

In thinking about it, i thought of the driver, as other people in my life - pushing me around, bullying me and saying "my way is superior to what you are doing."

and so I am now guilty over my anger and frustration. 

It was a wake up call from the universe.  To wake up and realize where i'm at and what i need to work on. 

There's no need to feel guilty.  Just face the problem without an opinion and work on a solution.

The solution is meditation, and spiritual practice. 

Purging Desire

Last night was rough for me. I spent 15hours working. It was a very frustrating experience for me. What I didn't realize or remember in the moment, was that Anger is a root or brother to Desire.

I had a lot of desires last night: Desire to have dinner (which was delayed till 11pm) Desire to feed my wife Desire to make my wife happy (she was upset i didn't spend time with her) These obstructed desires ended in Anger. Anger, that I repressed, rather then transmute. So it created some stressful dreams for me last night, related to those I work with.

This morning, I sat in meditation, with new desires being birthed in my mind. I sat there, and thought of Paramhansa Yoganda. Then this idea came to my mind. It's a practice that I felt should be called "Desire Purging."

1. I start with the desire and think about it - not in a "you shouldn't desire" but more like embracing it for a moment.
2. Once the desire is felt in the body... feel the energy. Get in touch with it.
3. Now feel the energy of the Heart Chakra (if you have a hard time of that, you'll need to first open the heart and feel the energy there... that can be done in a variety of ways, which I won't go into detail here)
4. Now, on the In Breath, draw the desire energy from it's body location, into the Heart Chakra.
5. Now, feel the Third Eye Chakra - the point between the eyebrows... and on the Exhale, send the energy to the third eye. I like to visualize at my heart a pink lotus flower - in the center is the energy captured... and it shines like a beacon, the light/energy to the Third Eye Chakra.

I repeat this process... I go through a variety of desires. Desires could be monetary, sexual, or something as simple as desiring recognition at work. I'm going to continue this practice over the next few weeks.

My Focus This Month

Taken from the online Ananda community: www.anandaonlineclasses.org Introspection People commonly delude themselves with easy rationalizations. “Maybe I wasn’t as kind as I might have been,” they’ll say, “but wouldn’t you have been unkind, too, if he’d treated you that way? It wasn’t my fault. The fault was his.” Thus, the blame for every wrong is placed at one’s neighbor’s door. Introspection means to behold oneself from a center of inner calmness, without the slightest mental bias, open to what may be wrong in oneself-not excusing it, but not condemning, either. Introspection means referring what one sees to the superconscious mind, and detachedly accepting guidance, when it comes. Affirmation I am what I am; wishing cannot change me. Let me therefore face my faults with gratitude, for only by facing them can I work on them, and change them. Prayer Let me not delude myself with desires, Lord. Teach me to see behind the play of my thoughts Thy ever-calm gaze of wisdom.