Thursday, November 17, 2011

Looking at the leafs of the maple trees in autumn….


When you look back at your life, what do you see? Do you see the crossroads? Do you see the missed turns, the lucky breaks, the shady spots and the faces of those that have made an impact? Do you see the moments of “aha,” the moments of “oh, shit,” the moments of “I don’t have a clue,” the moments of “OMG,” pure joy, pure love, pure fear, pure being? Can you lay your head down today and say that you have lived an authentic life? One that at every step of the way represented you at that very step of the way, 100%...If not, what are you waiting for? When do you start living your trueness? When do you start strutting your goodness around for everyone to see?

Each leaf that falls to the ground does so in its full glory of color, splendor and complete fulfillment. It goes out in a blaze of orange, red, yellow glory like no other leaf before it and falls gently to the earth, resting peacefully, contently, delicately under its tree. Soon the branches will be necked and quiet in the cold of winter with the potential for a renewal deep in the roots, waiting for the sun to welcome it back in the spring. Every tree loses its crown without anxiety. Every tree grows beautifully a new set of leafs in the spring. Every leaf is its own creation. Every creation is completely unique. Every uniqueness transforms in the fall and lets go of its security on the tree branch to meet the earth in an elegant fall. It deposits it’s beingness to become food for the roots out of which it was created, giving back, without anguish, that which it had received in order to come to existence.

Each person lives a unique life, but each person holds on to memories, holds on to security, to safety and fears to let go. Fears a fall.

Some day we all have to fall. Sometimes we fall more than ones in a life time. Ultimately, the human life ends less gloriously and less colorfully than the life of a single maple leaf. When that moment comes and you look back all you will see is not a labyrinth of choices and possibilities but a single path you’ve walked, curving and twisting. Will you die with a smile saying – this life was an awesome experience? Will you get there full?  Full as in there isn’t anything more that can be added to become any happier, any fuller, any better. That kind of full. The yogic word is “Purna.”

To get there at the moment of your death, you have to live that way every day. Every night you go to bed and recount the steps of your day, you should feel that fullness, contentment that comes from knowing that you did what you are here to do. It has nothing to do with the circumstances of your life. It has nothing to do with the events of your life. It has to do with living from your deepest heart, authentically and mindfully.
You will never have all the answers. You will never be able to see what happens in the future and how your decisions in this moment will ripple out to tomorrow, to others and back at you. You may guess, anticipate, hope but ultimately you have to resolve yourself to not knowing and to being totally comfortable with that. When you are totally comfortable with not knowing than you can allow life to express itself through you and make your decisions based on what is the best course of action NOW.

To know what the best choice is NOW, you have to know yourself intimately. You also, have to be willing to behold the reality of whatever is going on in your life and call it what it is. If you are not willing to accept the way things are, because this is how they are, than you are eliminating the possibility to move forward from right understanding into right action toward the right outcome – whatever this outcome may be, even if it is different than what you are planning for.

If you are mistaking complacency for contentment, then you have a problem. It’s like mistaking numbness for comfort. It’s like mistaking an ice cube for an ice cream. They are both cold, but one actually has flavor and the other does not. Contentment has flavor. It’s the intensity of living – magical, curious, vivacious, joyful, open, rich, full body contact, kind of living.  Complacency is just dullness and flavorlessness.

If you are conflicted about something, it is because there’s friction between the way you live your life and the way you could be living your life. Only living from you trueness produces frictionless living.

Making mistakes is OK. You can always correct them. Waking up and realizing that you are different person is also OK. Now live up to that realization even if you have to re-arrange the furniture in the living room of your life, haul off a few pieces that no longer serve a good purpose. Nothing should be left just sitting there because it was there 10 years ago, or because you simply don’t know what to do with it. Everything in your life should glow with meaning, richness and purpose. Everything in your life should feed your soul with inspiration and creativity. Even when things are “bad.”

Nothing should be left unturned, unchecked, undigested. In the process, if you discover that things are not the way they used to be, that’s fine. It means you are paying attention. Now what do you do? Do you try to make things into what they used to be, knowing that it’s impossible? Do you pretend that they are the way they used to be? Do you make excuses and continue to allow things to be without responding to the call of transformation?

You have a responsibility towards life and towards yourself, to rearrange, change, move away, or whatever you need to do to keep things in alignment with your purpose.

What’s your purpose?….It is the same thing for every human. It is simply to be yourself. You are Life! You have to express potential. You have to express creativity. You have to express you self. 

We start by being a blank slate on which living writes its story in a way of experiences, impressions and learning. We, then, proceed to mistaking this story line for who we are. This leads to continuing along the same lines and building more experiences, memories and solidifying even deeper this identification with the story line.

Being yourself is the easiest and the hardest trip you will ever undertake. Naturally, most people get disoriented among expectations, cultural values, commercials, available options, desires and fears. Disoriented to a point of tuning everything out and going back to what one always does. Most people chose to turn the other way instead of turning in and digging deep, asking questions that may, or may not, lead to answers one wants, or does not want to hear. Getting out of the groove takes work. It’s scary for most people to let go of the tree branch they’ve been hanging on all this time and take the plunge towards transformation. They mistakenly fear “the end of what is” with simply “the end” when in reality “the end of what is” may mean a “transformation into betterness, richness, awesomeness.” Transformation is scary. Transformation is resisted. Transformation may cause conflict with others who are expecting you to be what they think they need, selfishly…. Transformation may mean losing a few things you think you care about, re-defining relationships, boundaries, re-drawing the blue prints, letting go of a few suitcases of stuff you carry around for no particular reason, discovering something about yourself that needs your attention, learning to shine, bravely opening to the unknown… Transformation leads to contentment. Otherwise, there’s just complacency.

As the seasons change, so can we. We all spring into existence in one way, express it, and eventually transform into something different whether we like it or not. If we make this process a mindful, conscious process, than we fertilize this future metamorphosis with the death of the previous. If we are not willing to accept that, then we get stuck. Unhappy. If we are willing to transcend and include all previous experiences, and forms of being, without guilt, conflict or attachment, than we grow and refine our personality, our existence, and fulfill our potential, for that moment and into the next, all the way to the end of a life time as we know it, and for the benefit of all beings…..

Each one of us not only lives to transcend our individual karma, but in the process, delivers karma to all we come in contact with. Now that’s really big. It means that if you are not growing, learning, fulfilling your potential, if you are not being yourself, NOT only are you NOT transcending your own karma, but you are robbing others of the opportunity to transcend theirs by not “delivering” those opportunities to them, the opportunities that become available due to your own transformation. Nothing is an isolated event in a world of interconnectedness. The realizations that you have today, which lead you to take action NOW, produce a reaction of some sort in those around you, which then affords them the opportunity to look within themselves, should they chose to, and can lead them to be the best they can be, and in the process making a difference in the lives of those around them…and so on, and so forth.

Be well. Be full. Be happy. Really happy.
Love & Light.