Techniques 1-3, All is Love!


Welcome to the first "Techniques" post.  As I said in my last post, I would have to fit the first three (of the 27) techniques into one month since I have been in Moldova for almost three months now-crazy!  I really gave myself a challenge in writing this up so quickly but when I started to read the document in-depth, I found much of what was being said quite familiar!

 A few notes on how I am doing this:

• Explanations directly from the document, Ascension: The analysis of the Art of Acension as taught by the Ishayas,will be underlined and anything that is a direct quote with be in parenthesis.
• I will typically start with the explanation from the document and then either delve right into my interpretation, or take you along my thought process in my attempt to make sense of it! 

Technique #1: Praise
Praise corrects the fundamental stress of the modern world, that "something is wrong."  This root stress begins when we are very young and continues to happen again and again, always assuring us that in some way, we are "not enough".  Not pretty enough, not funny enough, not smart enough...enough, enough....something WRONG.  Sound familiar?  These are the very basic stories that we tell ourselves based on an observation we obtain from our external environment.  Except if they were truly just observation, they wouldn't be harmful.  It's that we turn these observations, "Johnny didn't sit next to me today" into judgements: "Johnny didn't sit next to me today, because I am not good enough for him."  You see how this works?  We therefore use praise- praise of ourselves, praise of those around us-to correct this terrible imbalance we place on ourselves.  Reminding ourselves and others of how truly wonderful we simply ARE.  I think you are wonderful.  In fact, you were perfect the day you were born, and when we converse, when we laugh, when I look into your eyes, I see all the beauty of the world.

"Identification with your mind creates an opaque screen of concepts, labels, images, words, judgments, and definitions that blocks all true relationship. It comes between you and yourself, between you and your fellow man and woman, between you and nature, between you and God." -Eckhart Tolle

Technique # 2:  Gratitude 
The attitude of gratitude is focused on the objective world, "designed to cure all erroneous beliefs and concepts" about the body and the external world.  Gratitude is the first step towards  mastery of the outer world, and therefore "invaluable for healing disease of all kinds."  That last part took me a while-gratitude healing all disease....but what I came up with is that when we live through gratitude, we further nurture this objective side of our reality, the pure observation.  If we battle the subjective judgements with praise, then we nurture WHAT IS with gratitude.  The sun rises...THANK YOU SUN.  The neighbor's dog barks...I AM SO GRATEFUL TO BE ABLE TO HEAR ALL THE SOUNDS OF THIS BEAUTIFUL LIFE...and so on and so forth.  Yes, our bodies and even our thoughts (mostly them), our homes, our neighbors may not be exactly as we want, as we expected, as we desired.  BUT (always a but-huh?), once we are able to stop judging these things (via praise) and start to just feel gratitude for them, all negative thoughts and intentions slip away and we are left only in the glow of positivity and life-promoting thought.  This heals all indeed.

"I find hope in the darkest of days, and focus in the brightest. I do not judge the universe. " -Dalai Lama

 


Technique # 3: Love 
An attitude of love (and opposite of fear) is designed to "heal all misconceptions about our relationship" with the True Self/Spirit/Connection.  Love is something we absolutely cannot prove, but know we feel.  It's the sweetness of life.  It's pure connection with other people.  When I was in high school, I would doodle on my book covers incessantly.  And one little phrase that I would write on every single book?  "Life is love".  This came through clearly to me at a young age.  So much so that in fashion class, I made a jean skirt with the same slogan embroidered into the pocket.  I have always believed that the end all, be all of this experience, life, is to to experience truly unconditional love while in human form.  I say it this way because I believe we come from and return to a source of unconditional love.  And if we can acquire the wisdom to hold onto that feeling, to act out of a place of love rather than fear, we have accomplished our greatest goal.  Indeed we do experience moments of this, if we did not we would not want to continue to live.  That's how sweet love is.  It's what keeps us motivated to keep going day in and day out.  Even when we don't recognize what it is that motivates us, in the end it's either love or fear.  A lot of the world, a lot of the time, is operating out of fear, which is why we have so many issues that are basically due to greed (war, famine, starvation, poverty) which basically is born of fear, " I will take  yours too in case I do not have enough for me." 


"Love is a fruit in season at all times, and within reach of every hand." -Mother Theresa



Summary of first three techniques towards "Ascension"? (I will have another post around the meaning of Ascension soon!):  With these three attributes or attitudes, we are able to remove beliefs and judgements about the limited nature of the three primary divisions of life:


1.  The subjective (Judgement), Praise--->helps us to cease to judge
2.  The objective (Observation), Gratitude---> for what we observe
3.  The spiritual, Love--->the sweetness of life, the nectar.  What life is worth living for, what keeps us going.


-----



Life is love.  Om tat sat.

If you're really feeling the love, go to this link and turn up the volume on your computer :)

The Next Big Thing

I wrote this blog post first in my head last night while I was lying in bed, mind spinning, unable to sleep.  This is a common problem among people and I know for me it's usually the first sign that I am getting off-balance.  When I have had too many nights in a row of mind-racing, I know there are some big changes ahead.  The hardest part is that these changes are ones that I need to implement.  Sometimes we just need some guidelines, whatever they might be, to tack us along, to stoke the fire of motivation...

At the ashram, Swami Sita would tell the story of the mind being like a lake.  When it's still, we can see straight through to the bottom of the the clear waters, into the depths of what lies beneath.  We can also see the reflection of the trees, mountains, hills, plains, buildings...whatever is of our world, we see in a clear reflection.  And so once this lake is disturbed, with waves (thoughts), the water gets to be murky and the view of the world around us, distorted.  In other words, the more thoughts we have and the more excited our thoughts are, whether happy/sad/angry ect., the more we disturb the mind and induce the forgetting of "that which lies within" or, our purpose, and begin to distort our world, bringing on a need for judgement rather that pure observation.  It's the cycle.  We are all intimate with these fluctuations.  

And so it's time for me to get this lake of mine to calm down.  I canfind some empathy for myself.  I did just move halfway across the world two and a half months ago, and I am looking at 24 more months of living in this new place, without familiar faces of friends and family, not knowing what my work will look like and so on and so forth.  Last night was my first real "fight" with myself about this.  As tears welled up about all of the things I would miss in the lives of many of the people whom I love, I moved further from the sleep I desperately needed.

And with this blog, with you, the beautiful soul sharing  in these words, I want to retain a space where I can transmute some of this "excitement".  These pages are not only a journal, but a place for me to take those waves from my lake, or better to prevent the winds from ever reaching its shores.  And so that means I share truth, my truth, and this makes me quite vulnerable to you-doesn't it?  But I am going to be OK with that (over time).  I trust you and I love you.  We are all in this together.

And so, also with this blog, I hope to have a place of consistency and regularity.  After recieving my placement in Moldova with Peace Corps, I scanned the web for blogs of volunteers already in-country.  I noticed many blogs having large gaps-sometimes for months at a time.  "Hmmmm", I thought, "I wonder why?"  I had my suspicions of course.  People get complacent, tired, lazy, busy, bored...depressed.  And once I got here and spoke to the volunteers (many of whom did admit to not keeping up with their blogs), coupled with my own apathy to share what amounts to, at times, more hearthache and lonliness than sunshine and rainbows, my suspicions were confirmed.  Moldova is a tough place.  Though most of us have toilets and running water, there is a layer of mental stress here that can be more difficult to overcome than the hardships of physical infrastructure and economic constraint.  These "thought waves" that we are swimming in here are of a calliber that will take some strengthening of ones own mind to overcome.  I have heard numerous accounts of depression, especially in the dark and cold days of winter.  I anticipate that my own mind will take some downward turns.

And so last night, as I didn't sleep, I began to plan a way to ensure that I stay on top of myself mentally (and physically will be good too!) to ensure that at the very least I am posting on this blog once per month.  Yesterday, I came accross a free Ebook on a Twitter post.  It was called Ascension.   Being the new-agey type that I am, I have an interest in other's views of how our world is changing in the more sublte realms.  And this link came from a yogi I follow so I indugled.  I began to look over the document last night and found that it provides, "27 steps towards The Art of Ascension as taught by the Ishayas".  The who?  Their website states, "The Art of Ascension is a systematic mechanical process that directs the mind to the stable point of reference...the home or seat of consciousness itself....Ascension is simple and effortless.  It takes more energy to maintain our fear and illusions of life than it does to relax into the simplicity of the present moment."  Ok, it's yoga.  Just a different taste.  Yoga is like this...like ice cream, like religion, like shoes...there are all different kinds but ultimately the function is the same.  For yoga, the function is to still the mind. 

And so, no I am not subsrcibing to some new sect of anything, I am simply noticing the relevance of a 27-step philosophy towards this end and the fact that Peace Corps is a 27-month endeavor.  And so, the next big thing for me is to use one step as my theme for each month that I am here.  This guarantees I write AND points my mind and thoughts in some direction...ultimately towards my inner Self.  Now since I have already been in Moldova for almost three months, I will have to post about those first three steps before September . The first four of these "techniques" as they are referred to in the book, are what they call Root Stresses, with the first three being:

1.  Praise
2.  Gratitude
3.  Love

You will know when I am posting about one of the 27 techniques because I will call the post "Technique #  ____".  Some of these will certainly be a little "out there" as I look ahead at techniques titled "Lunar" and "Glory" but it is my challenge to myself to find a way to make it all tie in to my life, your life, and ultimately to some Universal truth towards human happiness and peace of mind.  We're all in this together...so happy to have you along for the ride (Praise!), for this is am so GRATEFUL.   I LOVE you!

XOm,
Julie

Karma Dharma Ding-Dong

Yeah...so there are just some things in life we are meant to face.  You know?  

What I know I must face and why: By no means do I think that these areas are in any way unique to me.  In fact I think they are areas most people deal with, just in varying levels of intensity.  For me, they seem to be the BIG ONES.  And I am sitting here with fingers crossed (as I type-pretty talented, huh?) that if I can somehow conquer these (I say this with a tinge of sarcasm) within my first 30 years of life, I will have a pretty rocking adulthood.  Or are there more layers I am not even aware of yet?

Wealth in Society- As my yoga teacher, Swami Sita put it, no matter where I go I will always attract and be attracted to wealthy people because of my karma.  This has caused me distress in the past because I couldn't understand the great disparities I saw in wealth amongst the many people whose paths I have crossed.  It is my challenge to realize why this is so and what I am to learn from it in this lifetime.  Her advice, per usual, was to just surrender and detatch. "What is real wealth?" is the real question.  Peace of mind, she would say.  I have to agree.  We are all just people.  I've seen the same struggles, desires, fears and joys in the wealthiest and poorest people on Earth.  I've had the gift to see both, to understand.

Business as Usual-When I was working in product marketing, I loved being busy but I didn't love the way that I handled everything like it was the possible end of the world.  I had to constantly remind myself that we were making bags, not saving people's lives.  So I knew at one point that if this was my tendency, I would need to channel that "serious" energy towards something that was a bit more "life-changing/saving".  And so I decided I should work in non-profit and teach people about health and wellness.  (My dad thought nursing was the best fit-I can't say I disagree wholey but the fact that I get squeemish when people speak of injuries I just wasn't sure this path would work...)  To spare many, many details, I can boil it down to that while at one job I thought I would mostly teach kids to make green smoothies and start farms, and at the other I would mostly teach yoga, at both I ended up mostly sitting in front of a Mac working on spreadsheets, social media, newsletters and emails.  Couldn't get away from that one, could I?  (Can any of us?  I'm curious...)  I was learning, and still am, to do this work with joy...to use my practicality, marketing and people skills-what I am good at...for the good of man while understanding that by simply "just doing it" I am doing just that.  Does it matter where I work, or how I work?  Getting closer here...

Beauty, Only Skin Deep...Right? -I've loved it my whole life.  In first grade I wanted to wear my church shoes to school so I could hear the click-clack of the soles as I made my way down the halls.  (So what if I was wearing stretch pants and a sweatshirt...I sounded like I was dressed up).  For her 17th birthday, my sister recieved a subscription to Seventeen magazine.  I was a 9-year-old sneaking into her sister's desk to devour every image, every word of those pages telling me what was beautiful and seeing how happy the gorgeous girls on the pages appeared.  After attempts to convince my father that fashion school was for me (he didn't buy it) and the realization I would never really look like those girls in the magazines, I started to take the beauty thing in stride.  I know that I am a pretty deep person, a seeker, looking for Universal truths.  And I did pretty well in various parts of my life leaving the make-up and primping behind.  And Peace Corps?  Are you kidding me?  I was so excited at the prospect of super-simple living- in a hut, hair grown out, dirt under my nails...ahhh!  Well guess what?  K-A-R-M-A.  Not only did the folks at Peace Corps place me in a city, they placed me in a former USSR city where the women are gorgeous and primping is a way of life.  The young people here are dressed to kill, hair and make-up in place.  And then there's me.  I decided to cut my  hair short (did I mention they all have long luxurious locks?) and forgo highlights prior to my departure.  I am facing my 30th birthday in mere weeks.  Here I go...Miss Spiritual yogini freaking out because, "I'm old and my hair sucks"  Still a lot of work to do here, to find a way to use beauty as a vehicle towards peace, not away from it.

The amazing writer, Gwen Bell, recently posted about triggers.  She describes triggers akin to shenpa (an idea which Pema Chodron covers at length in Taking the Leap) and according to Ms. Bell's post, "shenpa is like an itch you want scratch but know better. It’s taking the bait."

Yikes.  Yes, it's those situations that you somehow keep coming across that make your skin crawl, make your throat tighten up, your heart race, eyes glaze over...we all react in different ways.  But it's you reacting on a surface level to something that affects you deeply, to your core.  Your triggers, your karmas.  By looking at these beautiful young women and seeing them as just that and not turning it into myself being "not young and not beautiful", I resist the bait.  It's time to get strong...


Om tat sat.

It's Been a While...(все хорошо )

I did it!

Women of PBN

Driving home through fields of sunflowers, one of Moldova's main crops

Since I have written.  I guess you might say writer's block.  I mentioned in a recent post that I was doing a lot of processing. I find in these times it can be difficult to properly express oneself.  But I figured an update is due, and while I am not currently in a state of intense inspiration or ponderance (I am usually pretty hyped about something when I write on here...maybe you will notice in my tone?), I want to share.

I moved to my permanent site, Balti, on Friday after officially swearing is as a Peace Corps Volunteer (PCV from now on).  My new host parents were there to watch me swear-in and then we drove me back to their apartment where I began to unpack and "settle in".  We live about two blocks from my new work site in the second largest city in Moldova.  On Saturday, I took a stroll with my host mom and her sister and found that there are stores for just about anything I could need here in Balti.  I know it's NOT a village, but somehow I was still surprised with the ease I will have in buying food and other products.  (On Saturday it was hangers I was after).  It was a beautiful day.  The weather since I have been here has been remarkable.  Sunny and dry with a cool breeze.  A good sign I suppose.

Yesterday,  Monday, was my first day of "work".  I put the word work in quotes for two reasons.  One being that I don't have a "job" so to speak as I am a volunteer.  In fact, I was inspired to join the Peace Corps largely due to exercise the concept of Karma Yoga, that is, doing one's duty and not being attached to the outcome AKA, selfless service.  But this is my partner organization and I do aspire to "work" as though I were an employee and to always give them my best.  Secondly, I quote the word because on my first day, we went on a picnic :)  It just so happened that the organization had worked over the past two Saturdays doing trainings and having wrapped up their summer series of training, decided to celebrate with a picnic!  It really was perfect.  Not only was it a relaxing day of fishing, walking, and eating, but I got to know the women I will work with over the next two years and their families in a relaxed setting.  I see this as an immense blessing in that we were able to quickly build a sense of familiarity and trust all while having FUN.  Key word here...I have a feeling that this word is going to be a big theme coming up so watch out for my lessons in this.

On a walk with Anna, who will also be my Russian tutor, we began to discuss the social and economic situation in Moldova and associating that with the health and happpiness of the people here.  I have realized, as has been stated by our Country Director as well, that yes, I may be living in a city and having access to modern day ammenities and supplies, that yes, my Peace Corps experience is not roughing it in a village with no other Americans for hundreds of miles...no the challenges I face are different.  Rather than difficult physical contraints, I will be facing difficult mental constraints: thought patterns old and outdated that don't allow for growth and development and belief systems that constrain positivity and peace of mind.  Are these "mind-forged manacles" more difficult to "fix" than an issue of clean water or shelter?  

Ok, for some FUN stuff; I have two remarkable stories to share from the day: one from the ride to the picnic, and one from the ride home.  I am not sure how the subject arose, but my work partner, Elena, told me the story that one of our trainers tells the women we train in positive lifestyle skills:  фсо хорошо (fso horocho, in Russian means: All good).  The story, which I will tell in lenght another time, is about a king and his prime minister, who was always telling the king that "all is good/all if for the best" and this annoyed the king until a series of events proved the belief true.  What is Очень круто  (ochen cruta, in Russian means: very cool) abou this is that Krishna Darshan, my Yoga teacher during teacher training at the ashram, told us the the very same story and it had impacted me greatly!  I remember calling friends back home and telling the story to them.  These women I will be working with are on a similare thought-vibration as me!!!  Sometimes our blessing are just so rich.

And then, on our ride home from the picnic, I asked what time I should be to the office the next day.  They told me noon.  "Noon?  Whatever will I do with my morning?" I thought to myself.  Immediately what popped into my head was the following (and it was in Russian which is so cool...to begin thinking in your new language and all): много (manoga, in Russian means: a lot) Yoga.  "MANOGA YOGA"  Love it!  I am totally coining that and since I plan on teaching free classes here, they now have a name :)

HARI OM TAT SAT Moldova!  I feel blessed to be here and together we shall discover много.