Can I scream my way into silence?
Can I think my way into stillness?
Can I negotiate with my mind’s projections, hoping to settle on one that temporarily suits me?
As the mind seems stuck playing a circus tune, I remember that there’s a better way:
Laying the heavy load of the ego mind at the feet of the moment as it is, grace instantly embraces me and carries me into the silence and stillness that I mistakenly thought, yet again, I had to deserve before being allowed to experience.
Surrender is strength.
Peace is power.
Only God is real.
All I had to do to free myself from the fever dream of the ego is to forget myself for a moment. All I had to do is do nothing and remember that my power lies in undoing.
Instant relief. Immediate peace. An inspired mind is a mind that waves the white flag of surrender.
Because nothing the ego tells me is true. It never was and never will be. Truth simply is, independent of my perceptions and interpretations, and the ego’s ceaseless but futile attempts to rewrite reality.
What a joy it is to be proven wrong, over and over again, and to be shown the simplicity of freedom lies in my continued willingness to stop feeding the imagined devil on my shoulder.
The ego’s fever dream never was. And I know with perfect certainty that my happy learning of that simple lesson is my journey back home.
“Curving back within myself,
I create again and again.”
(Bhagavad Gita)
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Intuition will be your most important tool moving forward.
Do you believe everything you hear? Has true perception been blocked by layers upon layers of tightly held beliefs?
What is belief but a decision you made at some point in the past? That decision may have been appropriate then, but maybe it’s time to reassess your belief system.
Making a new decision now will significantly shelter you from suffering brought on by confusion, fear and cognitive dissonance.
If you ask: Whom can I trust when I get conflicting information?
I ask you to ask yourself what resonates with you. Not with your beliefs, but with you. Not with your ego, but with you. Not with your pride, but with you. Can you tell the difference?
Maybe it’s time to get still, to meditate, to pray, to leave the world and old beliefs aside for a while.
Because what’s a more reliable and reputable source of information than guidance from spirit, your true Self? Everything else is ultimately fake news.
INtuition
INsight
INtelligence
INner peace
All roads worth taking lead INward.
Be still and know.
No resolution, this year or any other year. Instead, complete devotion this day and every day to the One Who eternally lives in my heart, as I live in His.
Here I am, Lord.
What word would you use to sum up 2020?
For me it’s clarity.
Just like the clear blue of the sky, the pure white of the snow and the crisp fresh of the winter air on my hike this morning, on the last day of this challenging year.
Clarity may be the last word you’d use, but consider that things may not be as they seem.
Imagine you grew up in an upside down world, so all you know comes from an upside down way of thinking. Maybe you sensed something was off but the world told you in various ways that you’re the upside down one. When things finally start to get turned right side up, you perceive chaos and want things to go back to how they used to be. And no wonder you perceive chaos because the keepers of the upside down are fighting like hell to keep things upside down. You think you want things to go back to how they used to be, but the way things used to be is upside down. In short, right side up is what you actually need and want, but you may not know it yet. That’s 2020.
But forget about the world! Maybe what you think of yourself, about your true Self, has been upside down and therefore the way you see everything has been upside down too. In 2020 you were nudged and maybe even forced to question your way of thinking and perceiving yourself and the world so that you can gradually turn yourself around by turning your mind right side up.
Now do you see how great of a gift 2020 was?
There can be no clarity in an upside down way of thinking. But the moment you answer the inner call to guide yourself toward the right side up way of being, clarity is inevitable. Even in the midst of seeming chaos, even while surrounded by messengers of fear, and despite your old self’s best attempts to drag you back into the upside down way, your freedom, your salvation and your victory are certain.
On to 2021: the year of renewal. May we all stay true to Truth as we walk ourselves from darkness to Light.
“And as we wind on down the road
Our shadows taller than our soul
There walks a lady we all know
Who shines white light and wants to show
How everything still turns to gold.”
(Stairway to Heaven, Led Zeppelin)
As a child in Bosnia I was drawn to this song although I knew only a handful of English words back then and had no idea what the song was about. I was fascinated by “the lady” and wanted to know who she is.
As a teenager, living in Germany, one day I spontaneously drew an adult version of myself and included some verses of Stairway to Heaven in that drawing. It was odd because I hadn’t heard the song in years.
About 15 years later, while teaching a yoga class in Reno, Stairway to Heaven started playing on an electronic music Pandora station. I almost fast forwarded to the next song, but I’m glad something told me to let it play because it wasn’t a mistake.
“The lady” kept visiting me through the years but I guess I hadn’t been quite ready to hear her message until that day in 2011.
It was only then that I finally heard the lyrics of the song and understood what “the lady” had been trying to tell me since the mid 1980s!
I cried then and cry still most times now when I hear this beautifully heart opening, wisdom filled and almost otherworldly song because I know I’m taken care of and have been all along.
Since 2011 I’ve heard this song play in many “random” situations in which I felt discouraged and dispirited. “The lady” just knows when I need her guidance and love.
That’s just how the Holy Spirit works: always there, always speaking to us, always having our back. We ask for guidance and help, but do we really listen? Are we open to get our answer from unconventional and unexpected messengers?
There are infinite ways through which spirit talks to us. Whatever is going on in our life is our lesson and the answers are hidden within our questions. And, like in my case with “the lady,” we’ll hear the message when we’re ready. All is well and everything works in perfect timing. Because, like “the lady” shows us, everything still turns to gold.
Although the whole practice of 108 sun salutations is a meditation in itself, especially with the specific dedications preceding each of the nine rounds of 12 salutations, I felt compelled to start our fall 2020 practice with this “undoing” meditation. The practice of yoga, which means union, is really a practice of undoing because never having separated from God, we don’t need to strive for union but we do, as A Course in Miracles teaches, need to remove “the blocks to the awareness of love’s presence, which is your natural inheritance.” I find inspiration in music, and am often moved by either the whole song or just a single line. When we truly listen, teachings and inspiration are everywhere. The Holy Spirit speaks to an open mind, a mind willing to listen, through very ordinary and everyday things. In this meditation, I used lines from some of the songs in the fall 2020 sun salutations playlist, which I included below. May this “undoing” meditation touch your heart as much as sharing it with you touches mine.
Welcome this practice of undoing.
What will be undone are the false perceptions you have of yourself, of the world, of God, of Love. The undoing of the conjured up brings about the remembrance of the Real and the Eternal.
You have been called to this practice of undoing eons ago. A still, small voice of comfort and peace has been whispering to you tirelessly, but fearful of letting go of dreams, you have ignored the call for far too long, or paid it very little attention. The world seemed too important, too harsh, too tempting, very real and tragically inescapable. But deep in your heart of hearts, you already have decided to heed the call. The undoing has already started. You have already declared:
No matter what it takes, I’m coming home.
And thus the undoing has begun. You’re about to face deeply cherished illusions about yourself head on, finally having mustered the courage to come to terms with them, reinterpret them and forgive them.
In restless dreams I walked alone.
You mistakenly believed you were this finite person, this mask, veiling your true face of Innocence and Light. You asked, and rightfully so:
Am I more than just the sum of every high and every low?
And this question was the beginning of the answer. Something inside had shifted. You asked for help to carry on, to use your heart and not your eyes to navigate the darkness.
And the help came and will never, ever abandon you. Your call cannot be unanswered.
Once you had chosen to rise above the noise and confusion, to get a glimpse beyond this illusion, a whole new world, yet an ancient one, had opened up.
The angel opens her eyes.
And you see, and you remember that
It’s times like these you learn to live again,
It’s times like these you give, and give again,
It’s times like these you learn to love again,
It’s times like these, time and time again.
The fear is no longer the terror of knowing what this world is about.
The world is forgiven, as all your dreams pass before your eyes of curiosity. Just like dust in the wind.
Now the world has become a place where trouble melts like lemon drops. Not because the world is at peace but because your mind is. Not because you’re waiting for the world to change, demanding it become Heaven on earth, but because you have tasted Heaven within, you have touched your inner Light.
You know now that it takes an inner dark to rekindle the fire burning in you. So you welcome the fire. You welcome it all, whatever comes; and you release it all, whatever goes. Knowing that Love is the higher law, the only law, you can finally show yourself, destroy your fears and release your mask.
You have started ascending the stairway to Heaven. There’s nothing left to fear and everything left to forgive. And now your heart sings the sweetest melody of Home:
I’m free. I’m free. And freedom tastes of reality.
- Coming Home, Pt. II by Skylar Grey
- The Sound of Silence by Disturbed
- White Rabbit by Jefferson Airplane
- I Can’t Escape Myself by The Sound
- Crawling in the Dark by Hoobastank
- Times Like These by Foo Fighters
- Down to the River to Pray by Alison Krauss
- Dust in the Wind by Kansas
- Stand by Me by Florence + The Machine
- You Say by Lauren Daigle
- Under Pressure by Queen & David Bowie
- One by Johnny Cash
- Carry On Wayward Son by Kansas
- The Light by Disturbed
- Lightning Crashes by LIVE
- Somewhere Over the Rainbow by Israel Kamakawiwo’ole
- Innuendo by Queen
- Stairway to Heaven by Led Zeppelin
- Aad Guray by Deva Premal
- I’m Free by The Who
