A Course in Miracles

I finally got the book on the course in miracles. I have been reading Marianne Williamson and I like her work, but I wanted to go to the source of it all.

The book is packed with little phrases that can be meaningful and require lots of thinking, so I was only able to read a little, but the interesting thing is that it has a workbook where it provides you with 365 exercises to be done throughout a whole year, so you actually learn to apply the principles of the course.

Lesson number one starts with: "Nothing I see in this room (on this street, from the window, in this place) means anything".

Nothing means anything.

I dont like it already.
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On Second Series

Claudia, a friend I met in Mysore in January, came to visit over the weekend just to have brunch with the few of us at yogasutra who met there. We practiced and then went to Au Pain Quotidien.

As we were eating I took the "Success Cards" that I got from the Chopra Center and we all pulled one out.

For Perry, the one that came out said " I protect my inner life from the opinions of others", hmmm, wonder if I should even be publishing that one.

Claudia got: "I touch my spirit"

I got "I am patient"

We were all getting into spiritual discussions while they got their cards, but for some reason when I got my card, about patience, I felt so inpatient about being in primary series for so long.

Perry mentioned that perhaps the best indicator that I am ready to move would be to be able to drop back on my own. This petrifies me at the moment. "Patience", he assured me.

Later on as my god-children came to visit me, one my friends suggested trying this dropback on the bed. Fantastic idea. Might be trying it soon.
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Next time you pick up mayo

Next time you pick up mayo at a deli, wonder weather there might be a story behind them... there could be.

Today I returned the 5 blinking mayo packages to the container at the deli under the Rockefeller Center.

It was my atonement. I feel relieved and somehow so mature and responsible, so much that I am beginning to doubt the feeling as being a little "full of myself" already.
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I stole the mayo

I confess. I did it.

The other day I stopped by at the shop on the Rockefeller Center where I get my oatmeal and on the way out I took 5 packages of mayo (you know those individual ones for sandwiches?).

The cashier was not the usual cashier, for some reason they were short of staff and so I got the owner, and... he noticed.

He asked me if I eat mayo with my oatmeal. Very funny. Not.

The most interesting part of it all is that I was actually carrying with me a whole pot of mayo that I had gotten the day before in the Whole Foods. I really did not need any extra.


Of course I get the lesson here, the owner was there as a conspiracy from the universe to let me know that my action was not exactly conscious, and now I am stuck with these 5 mayo thingys which I cannot even look at.

I thought about what to do. Should I apologize? Should I just return them when nobody is looking?

The yama niyama is getting to me... all the way in... I will return them to the store. I am sorry universe.

Then again, I am human, this is part of my growing conscious, and I still love myself. Yes I do.
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Meditation = Detachment

I have been meditating for years now, I even keep a record of the hours in which I am involved in it. This year so far I have been on the cushion for 72 hours.

Over the past weekend I was feeling energized, but with a little anxiety which manifested as a certain uncomfortable vibration around the area of my stomach, and no matter what I did, the sensation would not go away.

That is how I came to try and see weather meditation would do it. So on Saturday, after the representative from PS&G left after fixing the dryer (thank you God), and the house was clean and in order and all was in harmony, I pulled the cushion from under the futon in the living room and sat down.

For the first 20 minutes I was just going over thoughts that refused to go away. They insisted on being interesting and playing loops on me. I watched them. Then, on minute 21 or so, a deep breath suddenly took me by surprise, it is that breath that happens only "after a while". Suddenly I became aware of the leafs in the tree outside my window and how intensily red they were, how the tall trees across the street seemed to dance to the wind, and how the light played with all the leafs falling slowly as if everything was a symphony of color and sound and.... And just like that, I was in the moment, I was meditating.

I repeated this operation in the evening and then again on Sunday morning and evening.

The most striking result I have noticed is that after the meditating the "attachment" to outcomes is what seems to disappear. Meditation helps me "detach", and suddenly all the things I was running around to get just don't seem that important any more.

For a Westerner type A personality like me, this is, well, plain weird, but I love the feeling. Highly recommend.
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That was good, what happened?

As I came back from the backbend, Arthur, Greg's very sweet assistant, uttered those words.

I just laughed it off, but really, what happened was that I have been practicing at least 13 backbends per day (three from the floor, three with the wall, and seven with a teacher), so I guess something has to give.

OK I am bragging.

I am just so happy that my backbends are getting to be better, and I like the side effects too, surges of energy, less apetite (sometimes), ease of posture in meditation.

Seems that life is good when the spine is flexible.
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A Room of One's Own

As I browsed through the large print section of the West Orange Public Library last Sunday, looking for a book about change, A Room of One's Own by Virgina Wolf suddenly stood out in all its magnitude.

The book was also in large print and free, so what was there to resist?. I had read the book in college but, well, not really, back then I was just trying to graduate and get the heck out of there. This time, I told myself, perhaps I could appreciate the message.

I was stunned to read it, the beauty with which she composes her sentences, the way she carries the reader through her elegant stream of thoughts, her descriptions, and oh, yes, the message.

In the book she says that between having the right to vote and having the right to money coming in every month without having to work for it she chooses the later. Virginia is interested in talent, not politics. She realized the importance of a woman having her own independence to be able to create.

Today as I walked back from practice somewhere around 49th street I wondered if things would be different should she be writing the same book today. I wondered if in these days the room that is more necessary, even than the money, would be a psychic room of one's own. I could not help but notice that with all the negativity in newspapers, the bombardment of advertising, and the strong propaganda of the media telling women that there is something wrong with them (we need botox, surgery, tons of make-up etc), having a room of one's own may not even be enough.

A mind that is free from cravings, from addictions, from low self esteem would perhaps be even more necessary these days, and yes the equivalent of the 500 pounds of those days per month would help.

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How exactly does one trust God

Walking up Fifth Avenue last Thursday I realized that the game of life is played by trusting God.

I have read enough spiritual books and been to plenty of retreats to not only be learned about but also have enough experience to appreciate the fact that we can set an intention on the direction in which we want to go about in life, but the ultimate word is up to God.

Whatever God brings into our lives is what serves the highest purpose of our lives, which is to work and grow in the areas that we need to develop. That is our sacred contract in this life, we came here to work through something, to advance in our quest for spirit, to get to that peaceful place we all yearn for.

For me this contract points to learn to balance my life and to clear the negativity that obscures the shinning soul I am. But the purpose of my life maybe material for another post, back to trusting now.

When a tantrum attack of "I want it my way" came over me on that sunny Thursday I could not but wonder, if I trust God, then the way things happen may not be as I want them, if I just set the intention and then trust and go with the flow there are no guarantees. If I am not "willing" things into manifestation, if I am just flowing with whatever comes, then, I am not really even an active creator.

This is my ego speaking of course. Is just that just trusting and knowing that God is bringing to me what is best for my development regardless of the intentions and the burning desires I have inside of me feels unfair.

So, how do I do that? I humbly asked God. How do I trust You?

Not surprisingly I got an answer immediately. "Pretend you do, and you will" said a voice in my heart. If God was American She/He could have used the expression "fake it till you make it".

The thing with trusting God is that it leaves me in this vulnerable state where I feel so at the mercy of the universal energy. And what about the desires that have been planted like seeds within me?

As I relax into the awe of creation and continue to fake with only glimpses of full trust, I realize the desires are there for a reason too, and it is OK to have and trust them.

If I get really quiet I can almost hear the voice of God whispering into my ear: truuuuust meeee,
truuuuust meeeee.

So be it.
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What did you smell today

One of the pre-course assignments I have been asked to do before I go on my paradise trip to Thailand is to keep track of a series of things I do throughout the day, like when do I eat, what do I eat, what is my mood etc. The most interesting question to me has been what did I smell

This week so far I have smelled:

I sprayed my little office with a fragrance my friend Natalie created for me that has some citrus on it, to lift the moods.

The smell of crushed mint as I mowed the lawn

The smell of church candles burning

The smell of poverty from people in Penn Station

Strong perfume of a woman that entered the meditation room at the Chopra Center while I was meditating

and you, what have you been smelling?
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Now you see it, now you don't

Early last week it was Lehman... now it is Barclays.

No wonder that sometimes while I practice yoga and my gaze floats distractively into New York, sometimes it feels as if the buildings are made out of paper.

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