In this inspiring video Ryan Levinson teaches a powerful lesson in what it means to truly exist in the present moment, and how he is able to get there.
Take a moment today to find what brings you utterly into the present moment. That experience of presence can teach you what it feels like to be right where you are, instead of in past or future thoughts. After experiencing a profound oneness with the present moment, it will be easier to practice present moment awareness in all aspects of life.
MY 21ST BIRTHDAY SURPRISE AT THE SATCHIDANANDA ASHRAM
What happened on the best day of your life? What did it feel like?
One of my more recent memorable days happened while I was in the midst of the first experiment from Pam Grout’s E-Squared: Nine Do-It-Yourself Energy Experiments That Prove Your Thoughts Create Your Reality. I won a raffle that included 30 days of unlimited Yoga classes at studio steps away from the new apartment I was just about to move into.
There is nothing in the world like the experience of pure joy, which in extraordinary circumstances overwhelms all of the thoughts and feelings that had since been covering it up. Recalling that state and feeling is a powerful tool, and essential aspect, to perpetuating that joy. Michael Beckwith explains how to use this “WHAT!” moment beautifully in this video.
Photo By Peter Spero
I love to sing and dance. I sing and dance alone, I sing and dance around friends, I even love to sing and dance in front of an audience. But thus far in life I have not created a career out of singing and dancing. While I love to perform on stage, what I truly enjoy is expressing myself through music, whether someone is watching or not. As a teenager, throughout all of the normal trials and tribulations I experienced going through high school, what carried me through was the thought, “As long as I can play guitar I’ll be okay.” No matter what life situation I encountered, I experienced joy when I was playing music.
By no means am I a great musician. Everyday I enjoy listening to musicians whose talent and skills will always be far superior to my musical capabilities. Does this take some of the enjoyment away from singing and dancing? Not in the slightest. On the contrary, I am truly thankful for the musical gifts more talented artists share with the world for our enjoyment.
At the end of the day, I can still sing with my family. I can always dance around my own living room. In these instances of action I truly experience life. Attaching my identity to the thought of “being a singer” or “being an artist” pales in comparison to that felt present moment experience.
This video of Mark Nepo is truly liberating. If you have a passion going unfulfilled, or are being blocked from your own creative expression, Mark offers a freeing perspective:
There are a million tiny things we do each day. Some actions are so small and routine we hardly even notice them. Things like taking a breath before drinking a glass of water, blinking our eyes to adjust to daylight after waking up, brushing hair out of our eyes, turning the lights on and off, nodding at a passing stranger, saying “bless you” after someone sneezes. The entire day is composed of minuscule, seemingly insignificant actions.
The following video of an impossible and beautiful display of dominos reminded me that each of us is only seeing from the perspective of one small domino. In each moment we witness a single domino, the present. All amazing feats of humanity, like landing on the moon, the creation of vaccines that cure diseases, and the building of the Sears Tower, are beautiful images like those shown in this video of what happened after all of the dominos had fallen. But their creation was made up of one domino at a time, one small moment, one tiny insignificant action after tiny insignificant action.
When life becomes tedious, and nothing seems to be getting accomplished, think of the domino effect. You are currently witnessing the slow fall of one small domino, which holds the power of the outcome, the vision, the entire purpose of your being here. Even though it seems small and insignificant, you need only take one step, for as the old adage truly states, contained in the one step is the entirety of the journey itself.
What would life be like if the people you encountered were always happy to see you? What would our relationships be like if everyone was already enjoying themselves, having a great time?
While asking these questions can lead to a seemingly impossible utopian vision where all people are happy and healthy, creating this world is a lot easier than we ever thought. Creating an environment of health and joy can be accomplished in your life without controlling or changing those around you. While at first this task of creation can seem overwhelming, Swami Satchidananda brings our role right down to its essence in this week’s Weekly Words of Wisdom:
“When you fill your system with vitality, with health and happiness, you become contagious. People will sit with you and feel happy and laugh. Fill yourself up to the brim with your good health and energy and let it overflow. Just by your mere presence, you will bring health to others. You don’t have to talk about Yoga and health to others. If you constantly emit that vibration, that will be the beginning of world health. So, where should it begin? With you. It’s not only that charity begins at home, even health begins at home. Individuals make the world. So before we go and transform the world, let us transform ourselves. Let us reform ourselves. Make yourself healthier and happier and pass it on to others. God bless you. Om Shanti, Shanti, Shanti.” Swami Satchidananda
What do you desire from others? Do you want appreciation, recognition, love, kindness, help, opportunity, or understanding? Swami Satchidananda’s message of beginning health at home is also true for anything that we desire more of from our world.
The surest way to experience gratitude from someone else, is to first become grateful yourself. If you feel a lack of love and compassion in your life, become more loving and compassionate towards others. The result of giving that which you desire to receive is momentum. Your action creates an equal and opposite reaction.
As an experiment, think of something you could receive from others that would make your heart sing. Focus on whatever that may be, and spend a day giving that to all those you encounter. For example, if you want more appreciation, recognize and thank the people around you. You may find that what you once desired is coming back at you in larger ways than you could have thought up.
It is so easy to become consumed with worry about other people. I find myself worrying about the wellbeing of friends and loved ones, worrying about their habits, the path they are on, how their future will affect my future. Have you ever experienced these thoughts about the people close to you?
When I have these thoughts of worry they seem incredibly important. I am operating under the assumption that if I don’t solve that which I am worried about right now through my own thoughts I will end up worse off in the future, things will go terribly wrong.
Yet, the truth of the matter is that everything in life will come and go except for myself. My being. No matter what happens to those around me, what choices they make, or how they create their future, I will always be myself right here in this one moment called the now. There is nothing that can add to or take away from the being that I am. And my own future is determined by the state of my consciousness right now.
So instead of trying to solve the problems of everyone around me, I return to the only true place of power, the present moment. When you find yourself trying to solve the problems of those around you, and begin to feel overwhelmed, or even start to dread the future, come back to your immediate experience. Shrink the world to the small space you are currently occupying, the perceptions that you are taking in through your five senses, and the breath.
This is real life. This is what is actually happening.
The worries, while they seem so real and important, are no more than thoughts in the head. Although they seem irrefutably valid, allow yourself to relinquish them, and come into the present. All of the solutions you will ever need are contained right here in the present moment. They will arise as needed. The present moment carries you through life with ease and grace. By allowing yourself to come back into the present, you are allowing life to work all situations for your good. Being present is the true nature of trust. Learn to trust the now, trust life, and all of your needs will be, and already are, met.
How can we change our reactions to Mondays? I’m sure there are many who spring out of bed Monday morning, just like any other day, and enjoy themselves. Yet, the going notion seems to equate Monday with misery.
Do you have any strategies to charge your positive energy at the beginning of the workweek?
For me, one of the main strategies to not dreading the coming of the workweek is to stay very present on Sunday night. It is so easy to create bad feelings through anticipation, so I bring my attention right down to my current perception of the moment.
It is also easy to create a bad Monday by making up your mind that it is going to be bad. This is the same momentum in my own life that sometimes prevents me from trying new things. When I’ve decided in my mind that I’m not going to have a good time, it becomes much more likely that I will create a bad time through my negative perception of the situation. Letting go of thoughts of the future is another helpful step to curing the Monday blues.
Using Monday to let go of reaction can also change what was once an undesirable situation. I experience this phenomenon with cold weather all the time. There is nothing wrong with the temperature starting to drop and feeling that cold wind upon my face. It is as it is. What is so unpleasant about the cold is my negative reaction to it. I know many people here in Chicago that love the winter season, and are just fine waiting at the bus stop in 30-degree weather.
By letting go of my reaction, I can allow the circumstance to be as it is, and even if it isn’t good it is no longer bad by any means. Letting go of negative reactions to the start of the workweek can transform what was once an unpleasant situation, to a neutral or even enjoyable experience.
For those of us who need a little extra revving up for the start of the week, let’s make a game out of Mondays. While that day of the week so often gets a bad wrap, lets change “misery Monday” to “miracle Monday!” Choose something to focus on that would really make your heart sing. I’m going to look for signs of prosperity. I don’t know what that will look like, but from the time I wake up to the time I fall asleep on Monday night, I’m going to focus my attention on prosperity and look for it however it may manifest. You could also have a Monday where you search for things to be grateful for, look for abundance, seek out signs that the universe is supporting you, search for signs of health, focus on finding your passion or calling, or keep your eyes peeled for love and new relationships. Whatever you choose to manifest for “miracle Monday,” the end result will be an exciting and fruitful first day of the workweek.
Tonight I send out all of my positive energy to you for this coming week. May you see prosperity, joy, love, and growth! After all, when it comes to the days of the week, it is you and I who decide the perspective we experience them from.
Did you dress up this Halloween? Were you an animal, a popular character, a pun, or a “sexy” something? I saw a huge range of costumes yesterday; both children and adults went all out for Halloween. I then found myself asking the question, why don’t we do this all year?
The answer is: we do. While my sweaters and stretchy pants are not as exciting as a panda bear or Hermione Granger costume, I still wear clothes that are attached to an identity.
On Halloween we all ask each other, “What are you?” On all of the other days of the year we wear costumes that are associated with clear roles and identities, so no one bothers to ask what we are dressing as.
The person in a suit and tie is in the businessperson costume, just as the person wearing a mail carrier outfit is in the mail carrier costume. The difference is, we take our everyday costumes very seriously. Our daily costumes are attached to an identity that we hold firmly in our minds, and which portray to the world what we think we are.
In the end, whether dressed as a lion or an executive, we wear costumes that are attached to an identity in our minds. When we change out of our Halloween costumes into different clothes the next day, we don’t think twice about it. But if a job, status, or title changes we can feel lost, distraught, and diminished.
Even though the roles and identities we wear day to day have been taken very seriously, as our absolute truths, throughout human history, we don’t have to buy into them anymore. After all, when at the end of life we discorporate and lose our human costumes, all of the suffering created by our attachment to identities will dissolve, and life will be seen as one big Halloween party.
What roles do you play in everyday life? What daily costumes give you a sense of identity? Create an experiment out of loosening your grip on these thought-created selves. What you end up discovering beneath them will be more truly yourself and more miraculous than every costume Party City has ever sold.
I swear this will feel better than any regimen of protein or cinnamon.
What weighs you down even more than half of a leftover birthday cake? What is worse for your health than a fast-food sandwich containing bacon, cheese, pancakes, and syrup in one? Its energy is just as real and contains consequences like any physical substance we ingest. It’s a grudge.
When I was in high school I found little wrong with holding a grudge. If I thought you “stole” my boyfriend, or talked badly about me to friends, that was enough for me to carry the weight of negative feelings for you. It seemed just at the time. My compassion grew after graduating high school a semester early, and finding that the daily lives of others were not at all like I imagined them to be. It took time, but I slowly realized that just as my inner life was incomprehensible to even my closest friends, so too were the inner lives of all people. I found that even though I could be affected by the choices of others, their choices were made from their point of view, in their world, with that person as the main character of the story, just as I am my own life’s main character.
To drop a grudge doesn’t mean you approve of past actions taken by an individual; it means you allow the past to be as it was, and forgive it for being. To expend energy fighting against that which is already the case is, bluntly put, insane. The past that now exists in the present as a thought in the mind can persist in draining your life energy through your reliving it in the present, or it can be relinquished.
What would change in your life if you let go of a grudge?
What would you receive if you relinquished your non-forgiveness? The reward looks different in each circumstance, but rest assured there is a reward, not to mention the actual of feeling of being lighter. The mind doesn’t know this, because its aim and reward is its own thought-made sense of self, which one grudge can easily keep in place. By letting go, the mind thinks it’s losing. And it is. It’s losing its firm grasp on your attention. It’s losing its stronghold on your sense of self. It’s losing what it thinks is all there is: thoughts. Because of this it has cunning ways of convincing you why you can’t let something go, why it is in your best interest to not forgive. Don’t be fooled, the mind will use its best logic to keep its identity as your sense of self. When it uses convincing logic to maintain its position on the pedestal of your awareness all that is needed is to see it for what it really is. The ego.
The mind-made sense of self pales in comparison to who you truly are. A thought in your head can never come close to the majesty of your being. You are consciousness. You provide the space for thoughts to be created and noticed. And one of the best ways to gently let go of the ego is to let go of a grudge. Who can you forgive today?
What is so wonderful about a vacation to the Caribbean? What is appealing about walking along a white sandy beach at sunset? Why do we so often long for the next vacation, or live for the weekend? To put it simply, we long for the feeling.
If you’ve ever had a wonderful experience on vacation, or a revitalizing weekend after a long week of work, you have experienced a beautiful inner feeling that keeps you coming back for more. Many addictions begin just this way. There is an experience of a feeling that you enjoy to such an extent that you want to feel it again and again. What are you actually enjoying?
Your mind will tell you, “I love the margarita,” or, “I love laying on the beach in the sun with nothing to do and a good book to read.” The mind confuses the state of joy with the outer experience it perceives while in that state. But it is not the form of the experience that keeps you coming back for more. It is the state of joy. The joy of being. I call it a “state” because it is not the same as an emotion that passes through your consciousness and then dissipates. Joy is an inherent natural state of the being that you are. Joy is discovered when layers of form, emotions, and thoughts are uncovered. Joy is revealed, not created.
That longing for a vacation, or the weekend, is a longing to be back in that state of pure joy, your true state of being. Once you have realized that what is so enjoyable about a good time is not the experience, but the state of joy itself, you open yourself up to being able to experience that which you desire regardless of circumstance. Joy is your natural state, it is always present. It merely gets covered up by thoughts and the “cares of the world.” How did you feel on your last vacation? How did you feel Friday after work was over? Relax and allow that sensation to well up from within you, imagine you are on that beautiful sandy beach with clear waves rolling over your toes. Joy can be uncovered at any moment in any situation; it doesn’t have to be Friday.
The following video on manifesting abundance operates under this very same principle. Abundance, like joy, comes from within. The experience of abundance in outer form is only its surface layer. The state of abundance originates within you:
Let Yourself Learn 