50 Ways To Leave Your Karma
50 Ways To Leave Your Karma
50 Ways To Leave Your Karma
Your Karma
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By Eric Klein
2011 by Eric Klein. All rights reserved. Help your friends leave their karma Send them to www.wisdomheart.org/50ways so they can get this e-book. Go deeper Get more teachings and practices at www.wisdomheart.org Facebook Wisdom Heart http://tinyurl.com/3klmp3t Follow on Twitter www.twitter.com/ericklein Get in touch Feel free to write with any questions, comments, or suggestions. eric@wisdomheart.org Dharma Doodles for your home and office The art in this book is available as art prints and t-shirts at: www.dharmadoodles.com What are you doing this Sunday? If youre in the vicinity of Encinitas, California on Sunday, come to our Wisdom Heart Meditation. Learn more here: http://www.wisdomheart.org/programs/sunday-meditation/ Wisdom Heart 1455 Hymettus Ave Encinitas, CA 92024 USA Email: eric@wisdomheart.org Phone: 760-436-5535 Typo patrol Youre invited to join the typo patrol. If you find spelling, syntax, punctuation mistakes in the text, tell us: eric@wisdomheart.org Each month we will select one member from the typo patrol to receive a special bonus.
Gratitude
To Goswami Kriyananda for transmitting the teachings. Big Dave Blair (Goswami Kripananda) for the first draft. To Devi for walking the Wisdom Heart path with me. To Jann for editing and more. To Lynn for years of graphic beauty. To Jess for behind-the-scenes grace. To my Brain TrustJenn, Mark, Michael, Michele, Molly for revealing the concealing. To all who have supported and shared this workmay we realize the blessing.
Imagine a friend comes to you all excited about her new relationship.
Shes glowing. Youre wary. Youve seen her like this before. Youve heard all the same words. And based on her history, youre pretty sure where this relationship is headed right into the same rut.
She needs to step out of her karmic patterns in order to generate new life experience.
But, how can she do this, when the sensations, emotions, and thoughts that are swirling through her body and mind all insistthis is the one. She needs to observe with compassion and detachment her own thoughts, words, and deeds as a pattern, and then see the connection between that pattern and failed romance. And she can. She just has to learn how. But, heres the rubthis isnt really about your friend.
Un-observed patterns of thought, speech, and action continue to generate experiences without your conscious participation.
If you arent mindful of the connection between your pattern and its results, if you dont witness patterns with compassion and detachmentthe karma repeats. For example, if youre identified with the thought, Nothing comes easily for me, that unobserved thought will automatically generate experiences that reflect, verify, and reinforce the unobserved thought. When youre identified with your karma, the experience nothing coming easily continues to happen to you. When you observe your karma with compassion and detachment, you see how that thought propels your life experience, moment-by-moment. You witness this pattern as it arises with an open heart and clear mind.
The wisdom traditions from around the world suggest using death as your advisor.
These traditions view the awareness of death, far from being a morbid preoccupation, as the light that illuminates the sacredness of this moment. I remember teaching a meditation retreat on Maui and waking each morning to the most amazing spider web bedecked in glistening drops of dew. Each drop sparkled like a jewel in the morning sun. The very sun that would cause each radiant drop to evaporate within the hour.
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Youve reached your current level of success based on patterns of thought, speech, and action.
Youve mastered a pattern of mental, emotional, and physical riffs that are characteristic ofyou. You can play the riffs-of-you effortlessly. These are your karmic success habits. Youve practiced them for years and now they run on auto-pilot, which works welluntil it doesnt. When your automated patterns of thought, speech, and action no longer work, its a wake-up call. For most people, the wake-up call comes as unexpected failure: A presentation you make bombs. A conversation with a loved one turns sour. A project you developed falls flat. A skill that youve grown to rely on, no longer produces the same results. You dont plan on the wake-up call. The music of life around you changes and your tried and true riffs no longer work.
Its a shock.
Ive asked thousands of people what kind of emotions they experience when their welldeveloped patterns of success no longer serve them. Here are a few: Shock Disappointment Anxiety Fear Embarrassment Doubt Anger Shame
Its not the new skills or behaviors that are the challenge.
Its these surging emotions. They can easily overwhelm. And when they do, your awareness fragments, your flexibility and creativity evaporate, and your connection to those around you is broken. The key to growth is to maintain awarenessconsciousnesswhen these powerful emotions errupt. Because the tendency is to go unconscious and slip back into the patterns that you know so well. Its soothing to the nervous system to be back in the familiar routine. It feels safe.
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But retreating into karmic patterns, while temporarily soothing, only amps up the intensity of the wake-up call. As the disconnect between your outmoded patterns and the needs of the present situation growspainful emotions magnify. And your capacity to deal skilfully with the situation decreases. Better to face the difficult emotions sooner than later.
As your capacity to rest in awareness deepens, you can let every emotion be fully itself.
You dont have to manipulate or manage emotionsreactively pulling some towards you and pushing others away. You experience, breath-by-breath, that emotions cant threaten awareness. Rather, awareness provides the unshakeable context in which you can experience emotion completelywhile remaining fully present.
To the degree that you are fully present to emotions, they naturally come to rest.
When your fear button is triggered, you arent swept away in a tidal wave of emotions. You surf the wave of emotions with a sense of compassionate and detached awareness. And within that uncontrived field of awareness, emotion, like a wave in the ocean, completes itself. Through the power of awareness you can naturally replace outmoded habits with wiser and more skillful ways of interacting with others and contributing to the world.
Its not that youre suddenly able to leap tall buildings in a single bound.
That would be wishful thinkingnot mindful awareness. Rather bringing awareness to inner experience frees you from the confinement of success. Youre not limited by what youve mastered in the past. Through the power of awareness, you open to untapped inner resources and to the world around you. Youre able to listen and learn without defensiveness. To experiment with new ways of being.
at first. Youre out of your depths; your nervous system is working hard to wire in the new way of thinking and acting. Whenever you take on a new behavior, new project, or a new way of relating to your life you wont have it mastered on day one. Youre at the base of a learning curve and walking your way up will include some stumbling. Its not the stumbling that makes you uncomfortable.
Youll seek out experiences and opportunities where you can lean into your discomfort.
Not simply to feel the hardwood rubbing against your ribs but because you want to grow, learn, and develop. And opportunities abound. Think about a conversation that you know youre going to have in the next three days. Pick one that is important and that will take both courage and skill on your part if it is to go well.
Let yourself sense the energy that starts swirling in your body.
When you bring the upcoming situation to mindintensely picturing and feeling it youll activate your body/mind. As neurobiologists tell us, even if the intensity seems to be less than when youre in the real situation, the neural pattern is the same.
Because your neurology doesnt distinguish between being in that conversation and thinking about it.
The same neurological patterns are stimulated whether youre having the person-to-person encounter or imagining it. This is good news!! You can start to lean into your discomfort before you walk through the door. You can begin to change your experiencebefore youre in the conversation. You can begin to develop new and more creative responsesin the privacy of your own awareness.
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Explore through your imagination what it would look like for you to show up in that conversation with just a bit more courage.
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Be Still
Action is seductive. When youre in action mode, a torrent of adrenalin runs through your body like high octane fuel. Theres no time for reflectiononly forward motion, production, outcomes, and making it happen.
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falling short? Take a few moments each day to stop, settle into stillness, and find out whats behind your busy-ness.
When the voices keep insisting you do what they say, how can you be still?
You cant make it happen. You cant force yourself to be still. But you can just attune and open up to stillness. Its a paradox of the spiritual lifefinding what is ever-present. Stillness is always present. Even in the midst of intense activitythere is stillness.
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You can change your inner responseand learn to dance around that bump.
Then when they do what they doyou dont trip, stumble, or react. Nice. Through a simple inner practice of meditation (which I will teach you on the link below) you can learn how to stay balanced, clear, and resourceful when interacting with a trigger person.
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Thats what its like when youre moving deeper into your life.
Everything heats up. Your mind, emotions, body, relationshipseverythings on fire. In the ancient language of Yoga, this fire is called tapas. Its whats burning in times of transformation when youre moving to a deeper level of authenticity and embodied wholeness in your life.
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but through awareness. Effort, will power, and goal-setting generate improvement not transformation.
It generates a burning sensation all the way to the bottom of your soul.
And rather than allow the tapas to burn and the transformation to proceedtheres a tendency to pull away. How? By moving into action. By doing something to fix, modify, or improve the patterns of the past. These strategies can be very useful. If what you want is to improve. But its not transformation.
The fire is there to teach you, purify you, and transform you.
This teaching, purification, and transformation occurs as you stay steady. You dont have to do the transforming. You cant. The fire of awareness does all the work. Your role is to stay present. To allow that which is burning away to do so.
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You are not the ideas, projections, hopes, or fears you have had about yourself.
As self-images fall awayyou do not disappear. But the you that remains is not an idea or projection. Its a living presence that has more in common with the fire of awareness than with thoughts of self. Discovering this fiery self, beyond words and ideas, you suddenly find that the hot spring isnt boiling you alive. Its healing you. So, you eagerly step in deeper. Deeper than you ever imagined.
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If you practice intentionally for about 10,000 hours you get more than good.
You gain mastery. Thats what K. Anders Ericsson and his colleagues discovered. Now theres more news on the power of practice. The practice principle doesnt just count for externally observable skills. The principle also applies to inner states of mind. Thats what the research in the relatively new field of contemplative neuroscience suggests. Contemplative neuroscientists study the brain science of meditation. And what theyre learning provides hard scientific support for the discoveries that yogis, mystics, and meditators have said for centuries: meditation practices work. We all know that if you engage in certain kinds of exercise on a regular basis you can strengthen certain muscle groups in predictable ways, says Richard Davidson of the University of Wisconsin. Davidson and his research team have hosted scores of Buddhist monks and other meditators for brain scans. Strengthening neural systems is not fundamentally different, he says. Its basically replacing certain habits of mind with other habits.
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Get Wired
I live in Encinitas, a town mentioned in the famous Beach Boys song Surfin USA. There are many wonderful surf spots along our stretch of the Pacific Ocean: Swamis, Cardiff Reef, Stone Steps, Bamboos, Beacons, Grand View, to name a few.
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Its your deeper-than-surface self that is able to connect with their deeperthan-surface motivations and needs.
Fortunately evolution has wired your nervous system to do just that. Youve got the neurological hardware to be empathic, an empathy-enabling structure in the brain called the insula.
The more youre in touch with your own bodily sensations, the more youre able to attune to and understand the inner experience of others.
By strengthening the insulayou strengthen your neurological empathic hardware. By strengthening the insula, empathy gets easier. And also more precise.
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A well-developed insula enables you to tune in more deeply and more precisely to anothers inner experience.
And when you are more tuned in, youll be able to respond skillfully to others inner needs. Without empathy, your attention is focused on what others are doingwithout any connection to their inner experience, motivations, or needs. When what they are doing isnt working for you, the tendency is to attribute all kinds of negative intentions or qualities to the other person: Hes not capable of collaborating. Shes just a difficult person. Instead of taking other peoples emotions personally, you become aware of the other persons inner struggles. That shes not just being a difficult person, shes really a struggling human being. Struggling to adapt to change, navigate through difficult choices, and balance conflicting priorities. In short, dealing with emotional challenges just like you.
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To communicate with this somatic mind, you need to use language it understands.
Wordy-words and logic wont communicate with this somatic mind. You cant argue with it. You cant lecture it. It doesnt respond to logic or words. You can communicate to your somatic mind through the breath. You do this by intentionally approaching the invisible fence. Simply activating a memoryof a person, situation, event where your memory-based habits no longer serve you, where you want to show up in a new way. But where you keep falling, reflexively, into patterns of the past.
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Activate the memory just enough to stimulate your somatic reactions: tightening muscles, tension, anxietyto initiate the pattern of tensionbut not enough to get overwhelmed. Focus your awareness on the obvious place of tension in your bodywhere you feel the reaction percolating. If you can, place your hand there with a gesture of care and attention.
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Un-habituate
When Devi and I first moved to San Diego, we lived in Ocean Beach, a neighborhood close to the ocean and the airport. I loved being close to the beach. But the roar and rumble of jets overhead tortured mefor about a month. Then I habituated. I didnt just get used to the noiseI stopped noticing it. The noise didnt register in my awareness. Through habituation, the roar had receded into the background.
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Its tricky.
Lets face ithabituation has its benefits. Turning off your awareness protects you. So before you make any changes, appreciate what the habituation has done for you. And with the very next breath, recognize that habituation confines you.
Heres how: realize that you wouldnt rant about something you didnt care deeply about. Your rant is actually an expressionemotional as it may beof your deep caring. So turn your attention towards that caring. Shift your attention from the drama of emotions to the depths of caring. Become aware of what really matters to you, what you really want and care most about. Complete these sentences: What matters most to me in this situation is What I care about is What I really want is What I am deeply committed to is
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You can turn up the volume on the TV to drown out the Call.
Or throw yourself into highly demandingbut soul-deadeningprojects. Overbook your schedule so theres barely a second to pull your head up, look around, and wonder, What am I devoting my life to? But distractionseven of the highly profitable kinddont contain the minimum daily requirements of spiritual vitamins that your soul needs. And when your soul is malnourished, every area in your life withers. Your soul wants to heed the Call.
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The Call needs your best stuff and your worst stuff.
Your well-polished skills and your clumsy bits. Your flair and your flaws. The Call doesnt want you dressed-for-success. The Call knows that for you to serve fullyyou cant leave bits of yourself behind. The Call wants you to go all in.
The incompleteness of the world and your own incompleteness fit each other.
Thats what the Call is telling you. It says, Your need for wholeness and the worlds need for service complete each other. Heed the Call.
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I plowed on.
I was going to force him to step aside and let me pass.
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Im not giving into him, I thought as I walked angrily into the mirrored wall at the end of the hallway crashing smack-dab into my own reflection. The threatening man was none other than myself. I stared into my own angry eyesnow blinking with shocked embarrassment.
Even if you never walk into walls, you will confront people who oppose you.
It comes with the territory whenever you exercise leadership and take a stand that challenges conventional thinking. When you put yourself and your work out there, when you advocate changenot everyone will welcome it.
When the conflict turns personal, the primitive centers in your brain fire-up.
Now youre not interested in understanding. Couldnt care less about feedback, possibilities, or collaboration. Nope. Youre in a game of chicken, which leaves you with only three options: Overpower them. Placate them. Avoid them. Picking any of these options will only sever the eroding communication connection and perpetuate the power-struggle.
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You use conflict as a mirror and ask, Am I more prone to overpower, placate, or avoid the opposition? Personally, I find myself using all three strategies. But mostly I avoid or overpower. Depending on whether I think I can win. Not elegant or particularly enlightenedbut true. What about you? What do you see when you look into the mirror of conflict? Whats your preferred strategy when it comes to the chicken game?
The deeper you look into the mirror of conflictthe more you see your own reactive tendencies staring back.
Conflict situations that have degenerated into chicken games offer you a stark and soulpurifying mirror. It can be uncomfortable to look. But looking is one of the most powerful acts of liberation and leadership you can perform. Because when you look, it becomes clear that substantive change in the world around you hinges on whether or not you are willing to do most of the changing. As you own, integrate, and transform your own reactive tendencies, you reshape the world around you. This isnt easy. Its just the inevitable choice when you see how your own reactive strategies keep the chicken game alive and perpetuate the very situation/relationships/world you long to transform. So the next time it seems like someone is challenging you to a game of chicken, pause. Take a deep breath. And dont crash into the mirror.
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actions that require courage and skill. They come with the territory. They are not the signal to run. They are the early indicators that youre leaning into your discomfort, discomfort that is a necessary part of growth.
Where in your work or life are you waiting to feel like it before moving forward?
Take a deep breath and let it out. Now, whats a small step you can take to move forward? Take it.
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Dont Be Positive
I was at lunch the other day with a friend. While I waited for my soup, I kept smelling the spicy aroma of Tabasco sauce. When my soup arrived I liberally dosed it with the spicy sauce. I went overboard. By adding too much of a good thingI ruined the soup.
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Her father tells her to be thankful for the crutches. Why? Because theyre reminders of the fact that she doesnt need crutches because she can walk. Excuse me?
Positivity that doesnt face and embrace whats really going on isnt positive at all.
Turning away from disappointment, anxiety, upsetsufferingisnt being positive. Its denial. And denial just perpetuates and intensifies suffering. You dont transform the causes of suffering in your life by putting on rose-colored glasses.
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Meditation doesnt remove your neurological wiring. You still have natural human responses and reactions. But you develop the capacity to stay present even when strong emotions arise. Anxiety, anger, fear (and all the other emotions) can still arise. More than likely, they will. But with meditative awareness, you wont need to deny, avoid, or override emotions with platitudes like: Dont be negative. You can infuse emotions with awareness. And this reveals something amazing.
Soon the very emotions that scared you become reminders to slow down, attune within, and heed the deeper call.
And with this deepening awareness, you realize that rather than pretending that everything is fine you can take off those rose-colored glasses and allow what is real to guide you.
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Nice is a knife.
Its a knife you use to cut-off parts of yourself that are unacceptable to you. You started using this knife when you were young. Cutting off the parts that didnt fit with family expectations. We all do this. Its part of the human condition. But those dismembered parts are still there, are still part of you.
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You cut out the buoyant, leaping, energetic parts of yourself and stuff them into the shadow bag.
Year-by-year the bag gets heavier, filled with the unacceptable parts of your life. The parts of your soul and self deemed unacceptable by powerful othersparents, teachers, leaders, friends, lovers, etc. Those parts arent gone. Theyre in the shadow bag. You drag them behind you but dont offer them to the world. You tiptoe along. You modulate your voice. Youre nice.
Its the odor of your cut-off parts seeking to rejoin your life.
Theyve been reaching out to you for years. But you were trained not to notice. So you didnt. You were taught from a young age to hide your deepest longings, to deny essential and sacred parts of who you are. In your family, school, and at work youve been encouraged to act as if you are complete while simultaneously cutting of parts of yourself and exiling them to the shadow bag.
When you cut off parts of yourself, you cut off the flow of your life.
To get unstuck and live a more powerful authentic life, start reclaiming whats in the bag. This starts when you notice that persistent stink. In the Gospel of Thomas, Jesus is quoted as saying If you bring forth what is within you, what you bring forth will save you. If you do not bring forth what is within you, what you do not bring forth will destroy you.
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The stink that is pursuing you isnt a problem to make go away. Its a call to live more fully and contribute more completely.
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When your attention muscle is strongyou can focus awareness on a chosen activity, idea, problem, or person, and it will stay there.
This allows you to infuse your experience with full awareness. As your attention settles into effortless focus, the door to the flow state opens. But you will need a strong attention muscle.
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And you see that rather than struggle against conditionsyou can meet them with effortless focus.
You can let go of efforts to control and manipulate experience to allow deeper and more skillful ways of being shine through. Your work, relationships, healthevery domain of experience is enhanced as your attention muscle develops. It can also be useful on the golf courseas long as youre not trying to impress your father-in-law.
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Certainty comforting.
It means youre right. That you see reality as-it-is. That youve got the answer. But as comforting as it is to know-for-sure, spiritual traditions have always valued questions more than answers.
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The path of awakening is paved with questions not answers. It takes a deep faith to leave the smooth, well-traveled road of knowing for the unmapped path of the soul. The conditioned self believes that without certainty it will drift about lost in the world. So it clings to fixed views, to knowing-for-sure. The more it clings, the less secure it feels. Because deep down at the level of soul, what you really know-for-sure is that you dont know for sure. That you are floating in a vast universe of mystery.
What is an answer?
It is a point of view. Thats it. An answer is a particular way of seeing and experiencing self, life, and the world. Its not definitive. Not the whole story.
Not-knowingness allows you to meet life on its own terms, not those devised by your mind, memories, or expectations. Breath-by-breath, as you meditate, you let go of knowing, fixed ideas, and points of view. You return to life as-it-is without needing to know-for-sure. Try it right nowlet go of these words and what they mean to you. Feel your breath and restin the mystery.
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You can trust that knowing. Because the knowing wont abandon you.
No matter how many times you turn away: Distracting yourself with new toys, tools, and techniques. Pursuing what looks easier, more rewarding, or more prestigious. Overwhelming yourself with expectations, plans, and activities. Through all thatand morethe knowing wont abandon you. It will wait for you seeking those quiet moments when youre alone. And then it will tap you on the shoulder to say, Over here. This is the path you came to follow. Over here, Sometimes when you look into the depths of your morning coffee, the knowing is there staring back at you with unblinking, truthful eyes. Because, the knowing wont abandon you. You could be driving in your car when you hear the knowing speak in a steady voice that cuts through road noise, radio, and mental chatter. Its message is always the same: Come this way. Listen to your heart. This is the way to your true life. Trust the knowing. It wont abandon you.
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handle the situation and take action. Look past their furrowed brow and pleading eyes. Cut through their story of being victimized or lost. Look past these surface faades and see them as capable of turning the situation around.
Notice if they actually answer your goal-focused questions or if they revert to a litany of complaints.
They may repeat their well-rehearsed complaint. They may try to lure you back into the Yes, but rut. Be alert. Dont take the bait, even though it will be tempting.
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What can you do when you get this kind of pickled feedback?
Other than stick out your tongue and spit, I mean. The first and most important thing to do is focus is on your body. Why? Because receiving pickled feedback will send your body into fight-flight-or-freeze response: narrow vision, shallow breathing, rapid heartbeat, tense tight muscles.
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Soften your eyes and gaze off into the middle distance.
Dont look at anything in particular. Certainly not at the person in front of you. Soften your eyes. It will relax your mind.
Because until your body is back in balanceyou wont be able to respond skillfully.
All of this body re-balancing can be done in a matter of 1020 seconds. Really. Just as a few pickled words can trigger a fight or flight response, a few measured and mindful breaths can produce a profoundly calming effect. It only takes a few breaths to return to balance. The challenge is that when your heart is racing, it can feel like you dont have the time. You do. Give yourself the care you need to meet the situation from a position of wisdom and strength. Because once youve shifted your physiology from flight-or-fight to a state of equilibrium, you will be able to reflect on the feedback and address it in a balanced manner.
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So what should you do when someone tries to get you to swallow sour pickled criticism?
Shift your attention away from them and what theyve said. Attend to your body: Notice where your body is tensing up and relax it. Breathe. Soften your gaze. Take 1020 seconds to soothe your body. Once your body is back in balanceyoull know whether it makes more sense to chew on this feedback and digest itor spit it out onto the table.
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You cant see the green stuff thats stuck in your teeth until you look in a mirror.
Or until somebody tells you. Heres a karma liberating secret: theres something about the way you show up in the world thats like a piece of lettuce in your teeth. Its not pretty. You cant see it. Other people can.
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You can only learn about your blind spot from others.
Their feedback is your mirror. Its the magic mirror that reveals the assessments youre creating in others. Read that last sentence again. Most people assume that feedback is the assessment others are making of them. But they have it backwards. When people give you feedback, theyre revealing the assessment you are creating in them. Are those the assessments you want to create? Does the feedback youre getting mirror the way you want to relate to the world?
Youll never be able to answer these questions without others peoples feedback.
And if you havent shown that you welcome and take their feedback to heart, people wont tell you. Theyll work around your blind spot, compensate for it, and avoid talking about iteven when you ask. Particularly feedback thats hard to hear, that contradicts your self-image. So, you may need to ask more than once.
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Accepting this allows you to take a step back in consciousness and notice thoughts as they arise and fog up your windshield. Rather than see the world through the fog of thought, you begin to observe the movement of the fog. And when you do, you see something important.
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Their questions and disagreements tell you precisely what matters most to them.
Their non-verbal signals of confusion, discomfort, disagreement, or disinterest, highlight exactly what you need to understand them more completely. When people flash yellow lights, theyre telling you to slow down and shift from being convincing to being curious. When youre curious, you naturally slow down to learn, investigate, and pay attention.
Next, time youre driving your agenda forwardpay attention to those yellow lights.
When you see one, put your foot on the brake, not in your mouth. Slow the conversation down, listen more than talk, ask questions, and deepen your connection with the other person. When you slow down, youll reach your destination much more quickly.
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Heres why.
Imagine sitting in a meeting. Youve just presented your thoughts on a project. A colleague looks over at you like you just coughed up a hairball on the conference table. Then someone makes a jokea not-so-cleverly disguised put-down. You see another person trying to muffle a laugh. At this point you can feel a churning in your gut. Its your inner Neanderthal waking up from a nap. Yes, theres a Neanderthal napping lightly in your nervous system. He or she is on the lookout for danger. Hes monitoring the environment for threats.
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The Neanderthal Alarm works well when something is threatening your very existence.
Your Neanderthal keeps things simple. If something appears to be threatening you, your Neanderthal assumes it needs to be destroyed or avoided. Your Neanderthal has only three options: fight, flight, or freeze. No gray areas. Thats whyunless youre in a life or death situationthe best response to a Neanderthal Alarm is to breathe. Breathe slowly and deeply. Take your attention off the apparent threat and focus on soothing the Neanderthal with full, relaxed, diaphragmatic breathing. Despite the sense of urgency it generates in your body, the Neanderthal Alarm is not a signal to act. Its a signal to stop, breathe, and re-balance system. Its a primitive response that rarely brings out your best. The wisest response is to cool down. But there is another kind of gut reaction that you need to pay attention to: your Congruence Alert.
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As you sit there, you feel restless. Your face is hot and theres a churning in your gut. Whats going on? Theres no external threat. Its your Congruence Alert letting you know that youre teetering on the edge of incongruence, of potentially acting in ways that dont fully reflect your core values.
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The truth of your situation becomes clear in the light of awareness. Such clarity, while liberating, can also beuncomfortable. Thats why what happens next is the key to the transformation process.
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You can cultivate awareness while performing any simple manual task.
This gives you an easy way to practice awareness-based change. Simply go about your normal activity. But instead of doing it habitually, infuse it with awareness. For example, when youre walking, be aware of your feet touching the ground. Sense the swinging of your arms. Bring awareness to the rhythm of your breath. Washing dishes, chopping vegetables, pressing an elevator button, opening a door, brushing your teeth, and folding clothes are also great activities for cultivating awareness. By cultivating awareness in activities that are simple and unimportantyou build your capacity to practice awareness-based change with behaviors, habits, and situations that are more demanding. Youll see the truth and it will, in its own time, reveal the path to freedom. Of course, it will probably make you uncomfortable first. Maybe youll even hear my grandmother chuckle.
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At the crossroads youre poised between the paths of Conditioning and Calling.
At the crossroads, youre in a suspended state that endows you with a kind of stereophonic consciousness. In one ear you can hear the voice of your Conditioning. In the other ear, theres the voice of your Calling.
When Conditioning is satisfied that youre doing as youve been told it relaxes.
It stops causing you discomfort. It stops reminding you that youre not good enough, that you dont measure up, that theres more to do, and that youd better hurry up. It stops putting pressure on youas long as you continue to follow its dictates.
The discomfort of Conditioning comes from convincing you that youre fundamentally blowing it.
That youre a failure. A fraud. And that unless you get with the programyoure goin down. And hard. Its just too painful to hear that. So you take the blue pill, follow the dictates of Conditioningto prove that youre worthwhile.
Theres an oak tree inside you trying to grow into full expression.
Theres something that wants to be expressed through youthats yours alone to do. Thats why its a Calling. Its calling you. And you cant delegate this Calling. You can turn away from it. You can delay enacting it. You can even dull the pressurethrough a variety of self-medication strategiesincluding following the promptings of your Conditioning.
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How to be Coachable
When I was learning to ride a bike, my father would run along side of me holding the back of the seat to stabilize my balance. At a certain point, he would let go. Id be riding on my onfor a few seconds. Then my balance would wobble and hed take hold to stabilize me again.
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But, its not my fault! They are being unreasonable! you may think.
And Im not arguing with that. Im just suggesting that holding this thought wont help you receive lifes coaching so you can transform yourself and your situation. The more you focus on their unreasonableness, the more off balance and ineffective you become. The key is to be coachableto sit at the feet of life and allow it to teach you.
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How can you receive their resistance as feedback not judgment? How can you accept their reactions as lifes guidance? What will help you allow their responses to guide you into new ways of being?
4) Stay curious.
As you interact, spend more time listening than you would normally. When you feel like youve listened enoughstay with it. Remember, youre letting life guide you. Youll know youve listened enough when you see them shift and the signs of their resistance begin to soften.
6) Inch forward.
Moving the situation forward will proceed more quickly if you take it an inch at a time. Dont look for a major breakthrough. An inch will do. Remember, youre learning how to act differentlyin order to get a new response. And youll tend to wobble at first. So small moves are better. They allow you to practice your new way of being and receive lifes coaching as you go.
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The next time you encounter resistance, think, Ah, life is coaching me.
Become coachable. The more you open yourself to the coaching that life providesin the form of other peoples responsesthe more quickly youll rebalance yourself and peddle smoothly on.
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The cadence of developmental time contrasts sharply with the pace of contemporary life.
We live in a nanosecond culture where most of us are what author Sue Monk Kidd calls quick-aholics. Were addicted to the instant response. This speedy tempo is ill-suited to the goo-ification process. The goo phase cant be rushed. It will dissolve the addiction to speed along with everything else.
Only by letting go of the old forms can you make space for something new to be born.
In spiritual literature goo-ification is called the dark night of the soul. When youre navigating through goo, your old ways of staying on track no longer work. Its like youre adrift in an inner sea without stars overhead to guide you. All you can do is let go. Its time to become a mystic.
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The mouth smiled and said: If you feed me, youll be fed.
The hand wasnt sure. It didnt want to just give away its food and get nothing in return. Using its thumb and index finger, the hand opened up the mouth and peered in. Oh, I see, said the hand, Its the tongue and the teeth talking. You just want the food for yourself. Im not going to let you take whats mine.
The hand pulled away from the mouth and grabbed a croissant.
The almond pasted oozed out but the hand was still hungry. By this time, very weak and hungry. It simple, said the mouth, if you feed me, youll be fed. Seeing no other options, the hand reached up and put the rest of the croissant into the mouth. The food disappeared inside. The mouth smiled as it chewed and swallowed. The hand was livid. I was right, the hand cursed, the mouth just wanted all the food for itself.
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Love Demands
Love is much more demanding than Law. Desmond Tutu knows. He lived in a country where Law dominated Love. And he fought back with love. Intense. Indomitable. Encompassing love.
Law is easier than Love. Law follows instructions. Love heeds the Call. Law says, This far and no further. Love propels you into unmapped territory. Love pours it on. Law takes a number.
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Love throws you into the deep end of the pool and then says, Go deeper. Law gives you a job description. Love says, Now. Law punches the time card. Love says No to what limits you. Law sets up barriers. Love demands your own voice. Law hands you a script. Love sweats. Law requires temperature control. Love acts before its safe. Law gets insurance. Love shows upeven when theres no audience. Law measures your value by the numbers. Love is much more demanding than Law. Whats Love calling you to do?
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These inner judgments are less about them and more reflections of your own mind.
You dont see the personin truth. You see them through your emotionally colored lens. There is a person out there. But not the one you see. What you see is the person filtered through your personal history and cultural conditioning.
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Youre lost in the mirror world of your own projections. So youre not connecting with them. And youve lost touch with your deeper being as well. Youre in the karmic maze of thought, emotion, and memory, which perpetuates the image you have of them and blinds you to who they (and you) really are. Heres a poem by the 17th Century mystic poet Tukaram that offers a method for seeing through the colorings of your mind and removing the emotional labels that blind you to the sacred nature of everyone you meet: I could not lie anymore so I started To call my dog, God. First he looked Confused, Then he started smiling, then He even danced. I kept at it: now he doesnt even bite. I am wondering if this Might work on People?
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Synchronizing your breath with theirs Experiencing the sacred presence that surrounds and interpenetrates both of youand all life Heres a video of my conversation with Ram Dass describing how he does this very practice: http://www.wisdomheart.org/2010/love-everybody-ram-dass/
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Stop Raining
Are your thoughts raining on your parade or encouraging you to move forward towards your deepest dream?
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When you begin to move forward towards your dreamits inevitable that youll stir up doubt, confusion, and uncertainty.
The creative process inevitably calls out all the hidden emotions that kept you from moving forward in the past. These hidden emotions need to be brought out into the open, into the light of consciousnessso their energy can be released and re-channeled towards your dream.
If the emotions of doubt, fear, and uncertainty remain in the shadows they will keep you from moving forward.
Youll unconsciously identify with them and theyll drive your life in directions that are more congruent with fear and doubt than with your dreams fulfillment.
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So the next time you find yourself raining on your own paradepause.
Become aware of the thoughts that are raining down. Sense the emotions that get activated and course through your body. Thank them for making themselves known and lovingly shine the light of awareness upon them. Dont seek to change, improve, upgrade, or repair them. Just allow them to bask in the sunlight of awareness and witness these emotions transform into creative energy all on their own.
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barriers. Theyre pointing you in new directions that seem off plan but can lead you to something better than your highly focused, effortful mind can envision.
When situations, projects, relationships in your world are not working well, its likely that your instrument is out of tune.
Youre either pushing too hard or not being engaged enough. Youre either over-focused on doing it one way or open to so many alternatives that the path of action is obscured.
To get yourself back in tune, you need to either tighten up or loosen up.
Once youve decided which it is, you can begin to re-tune your mind/body by doing the following: Sit in a comfortable position. Close your eyes. Take some deep breaths to release excess tension. Feel the quality that you needthe quality of more tightness or more looseness spreading through your nervous system. Get a sense of what being in tune feels like in your body. Then visualize yourself stepping into the situation in a way that is tuned up. Picture yourself taking that tuned-up action. Feel what its like to act in this way. Finally, let go of the visualization and open your eyes. Keep the feeling of being tuned up as you step into the rest of your day.
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Its easy for the mind to confuse strong opinions with facts.
The mind holds that your truth is THE truth, which is why its hard for you to see things any other way. Loosening your grip on your truth, even a little bit, feels threatening. The mind equates loosening with losing. And not just for this specific argument but for its total grasp of reality.
The first step is gently relaxing the minds insistence on your truth.
Become aware of how the mind holds on. Notice how defensive thoughts, emotions, and tensions arise when you begin to loosen the minds grip on your truth. Tell your mind that whats happening is no more drastic than taking off a favorite pair of sunglasses. Youre not tossing them away. Youre just setting them down or slipping them into your pocket.
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When its time for you to pick up your truth againit will be enriched.
Your truth will be informed by the other perspectives youve explored. And most powerfullythe emotional tone behind your position will be softened. You can still support the value of your truth. But you wont mistake it for THE truth. Youll hold your truth more lightly which encourages others to hold theirs lightly too. And this replaces the struggle to determine whos more right with a mutual exploration for a shared truth that will allow you to move forward together. Even if the menu calls for chopped liver.
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When you talk with Godusing symbolstheres a surging, intense, energetic exchange.
The energy of the symbol feeds you, heals you, and completes you. If youre in the dark, when you touch the sacred symbol, the light goes on. If youre thirsty, contact with the G108
symbol quenches and satisfies your thirst. If youre fearful, your heart is filled with courage. The G-symbol is a catalyst of completion. When you attune to it healing happens.
The deeper you sink into that silence the more your words come alive.
As you rest in silencewords flash forth like sparks from a fire. Words come alive and transmit more depth, power, and meaning when infused with the presence of silence.
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One way to do this is by having conversations with people who dont think like me. I want to keep an open mindnot to believe as they believebut to be able to deeply and truly hear what theyre saying.
Its your capacity to enter diverging perspectiveswith curiositythat builds your capacity to learn from life. Particularly from the people life presents you with that appear most different from you.
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Choose Nothing
We had gathered to celebrate our friends 60th birthday. Between sips of chai tea and bites of dhal, I was catching up with the woman sitting next to me. She was relating her recent relationship adventures.
When I met him, she told me, I knew at some level that he wasnt a fit. But I thought its better-than-nothing. So I started dating. After a few weeks I began to wonder, is this really better-than-nothing? After another month I decided that nothing was actually better than better-than-nothing. And now that Im experiencing nothingits not bad.
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other side of the threshold. To step across the threshold is to enter into uncharted territory...into nothing.
Its a story thats activated whenever you approach the threshold of change.
Whether that change is focused on work, relationship, money, your body, health, childrenit matters not. The minds strategy of telling scary stories is the same.
As you approach the threshold of change in terms of your love/relationship lifethe mind flashes warnings.
Step away from the threshold, the mind screams Warning, warningif you cross over you will doom yourself to a life of loneliness and isolation. Youll wander endlessly down draughty hallways wishing for a companionDo not proceed any further. Stay with the knownno matter how painful its better-than-nothing.
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As you move towards the threshold of change in terms of your workthe mind sends up flares.
What are you thinking? Do you really want to lose your house, your reputation, the respect of your kids and your peers, as well as all your savings? Stick with what you know, regardless of how deadening and soul-sucking it may be. All the propaganda about living your dreams is just thatpropaganda. On the other side of the threshold is endless failure. Stop while you still canits better-thannothing.
Its the thoughts of nothing that your mind uses to maintain its sovereignty.
The mind uses its powers of memory and projection to keep you from experiencing nothing. Because the mind is a big fan of better-than-nothing. But if you follow the fearful dictates of your mind, all youll experience is versions of the past. Youll never open up to the richness and limitless potential that is waiting within nothing.
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Reduce Drag
When I was thirteen years old, I capsized a canoe and swam 100 yards to shore with all my clothes on. It wasnt an accident. I was at a Camp Takajo and this was the test I had to pass before I could to take out a canoe on my own.
If youve ever had to swim 100 yards fully clothed, you understand a basic idea from physics called drag. Drag is the mechanical force that opposes your bodys motion through the water. When youre fully clothed you experience a lot of drag. Contrast this image with that of a dolphin. Dolphins slice through the water. Evolution has honed the dolphins body to minimize drag. Even when were skinny dipping, the human body cant match the dolphin design.
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The worlds fastest swimmers only convert 9% of their effort into forward motion.
That means that 91% of their effort is spent moving water out of the way. Thats why great swimmers focus much of their training on reducing drag. What does this have to do with your life, your karma, getting unstuck? Well, drag isnt just a matter of physics.
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Concordant goals, in contrast, do reflect your core values. Theyre expressions of what matters most to you. When youre pursing concordant goals youre naturally motivated. Every step of the journeyfrom idea to implementationis a chance to embody and express your truth. What are the goals that youre working towards in your work and life? And how can you refine/edit your goals to be more reflective of your core values?
2) Setting priorities
Even when your goals are aligned with your core values, there is still the question of prioritization. In a given day, week, quarter, youve only got so much mental, emotional, creative, and financial energy to spend. How will you allocate your life energy? What matters most?
If you fill your mind/life/day with too many goals, you create drag.
Some goals need to be set asidefor nowso you can focus on whats most significant at this time.
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Theyre learned. And so new habits are also learnable. (But, youll need to go through a learning curvebefore the new habit reveals its true benefits.) What habits from the past are limiting your progress? What habits do you want to develop that will be more fulfilling, meaningful, productive?
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Imagine youve landed on the island of Maui and youre at the rental car lot.
The smiling attendant points out your car and tells you to check it for dings, dents, and scratches. You take the little piece of paper with the drawing of a car on it and start circling your vehicle.
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Your purpose is to see whats thereto make notes about the dingsand then get into the car and on the road. If youre still circling the car after 15 minutes, going over the same dings, and leaning in really close to look for variations in the paint coloryoure missing the point.
The point is to be clear about the condition of the car and then to start driving it.
Granted, starting a new business (or new relationship or new project) has more risk than renting a car. But the process of checking and re-checking can trap you just the same.
Its important to complete your due diligenceto see what there is to see, before you move forward.
But if you find yourself revisiting the same concerns and same issues again and again, youve moved past diligence into the hamster wheel of your mind. No matter how hard you run, the hamster wheel wont move you forward. And thats what you need. To move forward. Either get in the car (business, project, relationship) and start the engine or walk away. Both choices move you forward.
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The breathing itself will naturally convert the anxiety into enthusiastic energy.
Enthusiasm is a good feeling. But its not the same as being certain or in control. The future is inherently uncertain. Thats what makes it exciting (keep breathing). Its the uncertainty of the future that makes it capable of being shaped by your creativity and actions. But only if you stop circling the vehicle, get in the car, turn the key, and start driving.
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Your role is the form through which you express the energies of the soul.
Whether as parent, partner, artist, or leader. The role provides structure and context through which the deep qualities of your soul can touch and be touched by the world.
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Answer:
Thank you for writing and asking a question. Im grateful :) Attuning to gratitude is a powerful practice. Incorporate it into your morning meditation
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and recall it throughout the day. As you attune to the feeling of gratitude, youre giving your consciousness a massage. The places that are tight, tense, and constricted begin to loosen and relax and opento receive the blessings that are ever-present.
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Still, there's a tendency in the mind to hold back. To only let in those experiences that conform to the past. To keep you barricaded within the rooms of your personal history. So how can you open the door and begin to live more fully and more creatively?
Then you shift the focus of awareness from the memory to the feeling.
As your attention becomes more and more absorbed in the beauty of the memoryallow your mind to shift from focusing on the content to resting in the feeling of gratitude. Let go of the sights, sounds, and particulars. Just breathe the feeling of gratitude. Without content or memory allow your attention to become more and more absorbed in the feeling of gratitude. Let it permeate your body, mind, and heart. Rest in the quality of gratitude. This will open the door of your consciousness.
Because the grateful mind perceives that Life is good, friendly, and beautiful.
The grateful mind readily opens wide to explore, embrace, and realize ever-deeper states and experiences. So you dont have to force openness. As if thats even possible! All you need to do is cultivate the feeling of gratefulness. As you attune to gratitude, the defensive postures of consciousness relax. The cells of your body and the petals of your mind open to receive the ever-present blessings of Life.
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If Only
Many people are chanting the if-only mantra. Day-by-day theyre chanting away: if-only, if-only, if-only. Lost in regrets of the past and fantasies of the futurethey chant if-only, if-only and miss the radiant, open invitation of this moment. They miss the purpose of life.
You came into this life with purpose. Your purpose isnt an abstract idea. Its an aware, breathing force field that gently and persistently seeks full expression. The if-only mantra obscures this expression and traps your attention in stories of unfulfillment. Attuning to your purpose connects you with a living state of consciousness that knows your path to greater creativity, meaning, and joy. When you touch this state of consciousness, it touches you. In that communion you dissolve all hesitancy and open to that which you are here to realize. You bid the if-only mantra goodbye and live your purpose now.
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Jump
In the climactic scene of the movie Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, Indiana must pass three final tests to reach the Holy Grail and save his dying father. In the first test, called the Breath of God, he must bow down at just the right instant to avoid being decapitated by revolving metal blades. In the second test, called the Word of God, Jones must walk on just the right stones to spell Gods name in Latin and avoid plummeting through the floor to his death.
In the final and most challenging test, the Path of God, Indiana comes to the ultimate learning edgea chasm one hundred feet across and a thousand feet deep. On the other side is the door to the Holy Grail. He is told, Only a leap of faith from the lions head will prove your worth.
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He steps into the void and is upheld by an invisible force. Leaving your karma and embracing your possibilities is comparable to Indianas final trial. Like the hero in the movie, you can choose to take the risk and step forward into thin air. Through the practice of compassion and detachment, youve learned that the emptiness beyond thought is not void of life. Rather, it is filled with the creative energy of life itself. Energy that animates every cell of your body and every petal of your mind. Life is on your side. Life is relentlessly supporting you to awaken to wholeness and to transform unconscious and self-limiting patterns of karma into life-enhancing creativity. Life calls to you at every moment and you, by how you live, answer that call.
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Fully experience the liberating teachings of the Wisdom Hearthrough these home study programs. Based on recordings of classes taught by Eric Klein each program has been edited and designed so you get the maximum benefit.
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About Eric
Ive been a doodler since I could hold a pencil.
Im both an ordained swami in the Kriya Yoga lineage and a best selling business author. Ive practiced and taught meditation since 1970 most recently through www.wisdomheart.org Since 1989 Ive worked with over 20,000 leaders to infuse their work and workplaces with spirit, meaning, and purpose. My books You are the Leader Youve Been Waiting For, Awakening Corporate Soul, and To Do or Not To Do have sold over 200,000 copies. The 50 Ways to Leave Your Karma project brings all the elements together: doodling, spirituality, writing and teaching. Its been such a joy to bring this to you. My wish is that these images and words support you in opening to the ever-present blessing that is Life. You can read more about how I found meditation, met Devi, and what we do here: http://www.wisdomheart.org/about/thelonger-story/ Listen to our band here: http://www.wisdomheart.org/free/sacredmusic/
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www.Dharmadoodles.com
Eric, your dharma doodles always catch me. They make me stop, breathe, smile, and then almost always something in my heart -clicks- and I can relax and trust. Thank you for cutting through the guff and helping make such timeless wisdom accessible and helpful. You've got a gift, man. Mark Silver Heart of Business, Inc. Designated Master Teacher in the Shaddhilliyya Sufi Tariqa www.heartofbusiness.com