Thought Power, Happiness, and the Yuba River

I am been moving around quite a bit lately. I find myself now in Colorado and in all of the movement over the last month, from CA to Boston to PA to CA to Boston and finally to Colorado...well let's say my Vata is WAAAY off balance! (Vata is a dosha in the yogic science of medicine Ayurveda). So after finally making my way to a health food store and getting some triphala, sesame oil, and ashwaganda, I am on my way back to balance. But regardless of the awful physical symptoms, what has been worse is the mental tossing...by far! The mind is racing, the heart rate is up, concentration becomes tough. And this leads to unhappiness, worry and in the end, suffering. It's where most of the world lives...time to grab some control!

This takes me to 2 of my journal entries from the Yoga Farm-

January 13, 2010:

The fewer thoughts you have a time, the more powerful they are. So if you have 100 thoughts/minute they are weak thoughts whereas 1 thought/minute...the mind's power becomes limitless.

Have few and positive thoughts to bring the best life.

January 14, 2010

You are only as happy as your mind is slow...the slower and less amount of thoughts the happier. 'Empty thy vessel and I will fill thee' said Jesus.

My current thoughts and desires aren't serving me. If I can dispell, empty, then there is space in me for Bliss & Clarity! I can trust that when Divine energy fills me I will have the thoughts and ideas that will assist me in fulfilling my highest dharma.

OK- so now OUT of the Yoga Farm I read this and am like...whoa! How easily we forget. That's right, it's not about me, I don't need to plan everything. That causes suffering. I need to be that yogini, that seeker of BALANCE in order to work towards dharma (Dharma is one's life purpose or duty). I look at it like this: there is a beautiful river near the Yoga Farm, the Yuba River. We would go there weekly to pick up some prana from the water and relax in the beauty, the shakti. I would always contemplate the river, thinking, that right there, that river IS life. Just like the Ganges to the Indian Yogis...why is it SO special? And what I came up with is this: life is the river...it's moving at a rate and current completely out of our control. It is simply up to us how we navigate the river. We can be a leaf being tossed hither and tither, we can be a big rock, not making movement, being carved up, or we could be a salmon, swimming upstream...so tiring! OR...we can be a kayaker...a skilled, wise and trusting kayaker (or canoer-you get the jist), navigating the river. Knowing where to give, where to take, when to push and when to surrender.

Now it's just LOVE the river, CONTROL the thoughts...and live the life you were meant to.

Om shanti!