Close your eyes, fall in love, stay there. - Rumi

Few poets say as much, in as few words, as Rumi. In this one line he captures a lifetime of profound spiritual teaching.  

Close your eyes, and keep turning your attention away from the many objects of the world, mind and body, back on itself with patient affection.  

Keep it there, and resist (by ignoring not fighting) the mind`s persistent, conditioned tendencies to distract you through thoughts of boredom, a need to do, a sense of lack, or a deep drive to change or improve on the present moment.  If you don’t feed any distractions, with attention or belief, you will experience a subtle upwelling of contentment.  

This contentment when experienced via thought appears as understanding. When it is known through the senses, it takes the shape of beauty. And when experienced through feelings, it is felt as love. Really, it’s all just different facets of the one live, knowing, love.   

If you hold on to that felt experience of love/contentment when you re-engage the world, by letting your attention again flow outward, you will not completely lose yourself to the powerful objects of thought and sight.   

This allows you see life through the lens of love, and look at life through Rumi’s eyes.  

Close your eyes, fall in love, stay there.

You can visit Steve's site for business, executive and life coaching, or find him at Google +

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Do Not Meditate, Be!

The 20^th century Indian sage Sri Ramana Maharshi was a great spiritual teacher and a man of few words. He taught vichara or Self-inquiry as the most direct path to realizing the truth of one’s nature.  The Marharshi instructed:

Do not meditate – be!
Do not think that you are – be!

Don’t think about being – you are!

Let’s explore this teaching by first looking at who the intended audience was. Ramana was sought out by sincere seekers. Those that through frustration, exhaustion, intuition or Grace had come to the conclusion that lasting peace and happiness was not to be found in any combination of status, riches, relationships or objects of the world.  These seekers had turned their attention around and begun the inner journey. And many had explored a wide variety of teachers, philosophies, religions and practices.

So when Ramana said, “Do not meditate – Be!”, he was not judging meditation as being useless. Meditation and many other practices such as asanas, chanting, praying, acts of service, contemplation and gratitude journaling can and do help millions to temporarily calm their minds and experience more peace, love and presence.  Rather Ramana was cautioning his more advanced students not to allow a practice to become a religion. Not to let the thoughts that keep alive the most subtle mental sense of self to take charge of any process of becoming better or enlightened. In other words do not get addicted to any ego-led practice, where one could become more masterful, holy, spiritual or otherwise worthy. Such activity would simply strengthen that which you seek to be free from.

This directive is echoed in the second line, “Do not think that you are – be!”  The thoughts that comprise our mind can never figure out, experience, or “know” the Self.  The Self is the only one that ever “knows” anything. The mind can only work with objects, and as the Self has no dimensions or physical properties, its discovery lies beyond the capability of mind. In fact, it is often said that the only way the mind can know the Self, is the same way a moth can know the flame - by dying into it.

The last line in our quote admonishes students to forget about leaving the mind in charge of “being” for the same reasons mentioned above.  It is only when you take your attention off the thoughts, perceptions and sensations that comprise our mental experience of the world, and what we believe ourselves to be, that we can we put it on the very experience of being.

What we seek is not far away. You cannot take one step in any direction and be closer to it than you are at this moment.  As the Marharsi says, just be.

You can coach with Steve at www.acoach4u.com or find him at Google +

It Is The Same Self In All

American mythologist and teacher Joseph Campbell, who studied the spiritual teachings of the world for over 40 years, once observed that the best direction he had found comes out of India.

One of the classic Indian works is the centuries old Avadhut Gita, written by the sage Dattatreya.

An Avadhut is a mystic who has moved past the dictates and conditioning of the human mind and discovered the truth who’s fragrance is wisdom, peace and bliss. Gita simply means “song of. ” In this classic poem/teaching there is one stanza that I believe summarizes a great spiritual truth. It goes:

A yogi has no particular path;

He simply renounces imagining things,
His mind then ceases of its own accord,
And the perfect state just naturally occurs.

When Dattartreya refers to a yogi, he is not talking about someone in expensive spandex who can wrap their leg around their head. Rather he is talking about one who is called by Grace to find the truth of existence.

In speaking of renouncing imagining things he talks of the voluntary removal of attention, belief and identity from all changing things such as; thoughts, emotions, sensations, the circumstances of everyday life, etc.

Whenever attention is turned inward, away from external objects and towards its source, the volume and machinations of the mind subside into the background.

With nothing needing to be resisted, acquired or changed in any way, peace and contentment flourish. Without separation, between in and out, here and there, you and me, all differences dissolve into love.

The yogi directly realizes, at our essence, we are fundamental, unchanging, blissful, impersonal, all pervading awareness. It is the same Self in all.

(Steve is a Master Certified Life and Business Coach. Connect with Steve at Life and Business Coach )

 

The Value Of Contemplation

For those seriously seeking to cultivate more mindfulness, peace, or presence in their life, I have always found great wisdom from contemplatives of all traditions. Recently, while leafing through an old edition by Trappist Monk Thomas Merton, I stumbled onto this quote.

“Man was made for the highest activity, which is, in fact, his rest. That activity, which is contemplation, is immanent and it transcends the level of sense and of discourse. Man’s guilty sense of his incapacity for this one deep activity, which is the reason for his existence, is precisely what drives him to seek oblivion in exterior motion and desire. Incapable of the divine activity which alone can satisfy his soul, fallen man flings himself upon exterior things, not so much for their own sake as for the sake of the agitation which keeps his spirit pleasantly numb. He has but to remain busy with trifles; his preoccupation will serve as a dope. It will not deaden all the pain of thinking; but it will at least do something to blur his sense of who he is and of his utter insufficiency. 

Pascal sums up his observations with the remark: “Distraction is the only thing that consoles us for our miseries and yet it is, itself, the greatest of our miseries.” ”

Merton points us to the paradox that while we strive so hard to secure peace, happiness, and success “out there” in some activity or accomplishment, it can only truly be found in the reflective inactivity we try to avoid at all cost.

Any contemplation slows down the mind and nourishes the soul. It is all good.

However, contemplation of Self is the highest of practices.  When you seek to know that which knows, you might avail yourself to the greatest of discoveries.

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Mindfulness: The Cure For The Optional Suffering Of Life

It is a common expectation amongst those engaged in any form of mindfulness practice; meditation, contemplation, prayer, asanas, mantras, etc., that with practice they will achieve a permanent “zen like” state, and from that point on experience nothing but bliss.

Forget about this idea. It is not true and there is precious little evidence that any saint, sage, messiah or yogi has ever achieved such a enduring state.

If you are breathing, you are human. Part of being human is experiencing pain, real physical, emotional and spiritual pain.

However where a good mindfulness practice can make a huge difference, is in limiting the amount of optional suffering we needlessly add to the mandatory pain of life.

It is the nature of the human mind to want to resist and control change. Yet change is the one constant in life. Sometimes change brings pain.  A good mindfulness practice can provide many opportunities and teachings to better accept and learn from the pain of life.

Mindfulness practices also provide many powerful tools to help you limit the amount of optional suffering the human mind will tend to add to any of life’s painful moments. Simply, do not expect the mind to stop resisting change.  Do not expect the mind to cease its compulsion to obsess over any perceived thread. That’s its thing. That’s what it does. Your power is found, and peace is restored, by remembering you can always choose what to put your attention on. 

When the pain of life comes, and the mind responds by going wild with excessive anticipation, planning, contingencies, judgements, resistance, remorse, etc. – simply choose, over and over again, not to feed this suffering with attention, identity or belief.

Put your attention on your: breath, body, prayer, asana, nature, etc, really anything that is here, now. And should you find your attention drifting back to the suffering, simply do not buy the inevitable thought, “you can’t do this”, “this doesn’t work for me”, etc.

Rather, take your attention off that thought too, again and again. It all gets easier with practice.

Coach Steve

The Tyranny Of Doing

Have you ever tried to take a little time out from one of your typical busy days, and sit quietly, doing nothing?

I am not talking about when you collapse on the sofa at the end of the day exhausted. Nor when you stop working on one particular job only to shift your attention to the next thing that needs to be done, or even to your favorite hobby. Rather, I am asking you if you have ever paid attention to the internal dialogue that happens, when you simply attempt to refrain from doing anything. 

I attempt this regularly and am always amazed at how much conditioning I have to move on to the next task, accomplish something else, or generally keep moving and productive. My mind is quite unsettled at the prospect of doing nothing, and puts up a very good fight.  There is no end of ideas that come to mind regarding what I might do next, what I might want more of, what I might not want to happen later, etc.  And if I manage to ignore all those thoughts auditioning for attention, there can come some judgement thoughts about being lazy, or even some anxiety feeling that I might be somehow wasting my time or falling behind the rest of the world.  

The point is, we are highly conditioned organisms. At an early age we are taught the importance of delaying gratification. We dutifully learn how to focus on the task at hand, study hard, compete, accomplish, produce, acquire, achieve, etc.  Our sense of self and social status is often deeply defined by what we do, and we take pride in how much we can accomplish in any particular, day, month, or year.  After a few decades of practice we become world champion doers. Doing is us.  And along the way, we forget how to be.

Can you even remember a few moments where you enjoyed the complete simplicity and wonder of your childhood, before “doing” became a religion? Playing with your favorite toy? Splashing in the bathtub? Enjoying an ice-cream cone? Staring at the clouds or stars?

You are not a human doing. You are in fact a human being.  Being is not something you want to dip a toe into occasionally, when time permits.  It is the ocean you want to dive into. Indeed it is where you want to live from.  It is who you are.

Forget this and life turns into an endless treadmill of unsatisfying accomplishment.

Remember this, and you can reconnect with the source of all vitality, and you can still function as necessary in the world of doing. 

Connect with Coach Steve

Choosing Not To Mind The Mind

It is hard to pinpoint the moment that I began to seriously explore mindfulness. It was a couple of decades ago when I had a busy career and a young family. I began to notice that it was getting noisy inside my head. I began to notice that it was hard to turn off the cascade of thoughts at the end of the day. I noticed that even though some of the things I was thinking/planning/worrying about had a very low probability of actually occurring, it didn’t seem to impact the seemingly endless desire of my mind to chew away at them.

Sometimes I would notice I was thinking about work problems, while doing a household task, and silently reciting a song in my head, all at the same time. It was just getting all together too busy in there.

I first turned towards the world’s great religious traditions to seek the peace and compassion of the saints. I learned much, frequently became inspired, and yet it did little to quiet my mind.

I studied myth. Again, learned much, got a sense of the recurring themes in the life journey, but my mind was still noisy.

I started learning about meditation. It took a while to really understand how simple it was, and that it was not about achieving some amazing, transcending experience – even though I experienced a few remarkable states.  And whenever I meditated, it certainly quieted things down for a bit. A 10 out of 10 stress day would be reduced to 7 out of 10.  A 5 out of 10 stress day would be reduced to a 3.  But as soon as I stopped meditating the noise in my mind would begin to pick up again.

I got intrigued with yoga, thinking that maybe a movement centered practice would be a better fit for someone like me who did not really enjoy sitting still for too long.   This led to a pretty deep dive into yogic philosophy (some of the most comprehensive to be found), years of practice, study with many prominent teachers, and eventually a teacher training course and certification as a Registered Yoga Teacher. Yoga helped my flexibility and strength and taught me a great deal about the link between the body and the mind. However, it certainly did not deal a knockout blow to the noise in my head. When I do yoga I am centered with a quiet focused mind. When I stop, the mind slowly starts up again.

It was only when I almost gave up the search in frustration, and actually prayed to find the right teacher, path or practice, to get me to that more sustainably peaceful place that some deep part of me intuited existed, did I finally connect with the teaching I had been looking for.

How ridiculous. It turned out the part of me that was so intent on solving this problem, was the part of me that had no chance of succeeding. That part of me, the thinking, planning, getting-better-at-it mind, was indeed the main barrier to the deeper peace I was looking for.   And all I had to do is stop identify with it.  That’s it. (It may sound too simple. I know I would not have been satisfied with this answer if it was handed to me before I had exhausted myself seeking some way to figure it out.)

My mind is still here. It is part of my experience. It does useful things.  It also continues to do what human minds are wired to do; judge, resist, desire, fantasize, and generally want things to be different. 

The difference is I no longer plant my flag of identity solely with my thoughts or emotions. I watch them come and go, and every hour there is a new monologue.  I just keep taking my attention off them, and putting it on my breath, whatever else is present, or the source of attention itself. Starved of attention and belief, the mind usually quiets down. And sometimes it doesn’t.

It doesn’t matter, I simply choose to no longer mind the mind.  

Where to Shine The Flashlight of Attention?

Our human mind is powerful and wild. It is capable of helping us create the most elegant solutions to life’s most challenging problems, and also prone to wasting exorbitant amounts of time and energy; judging, comparing, resisting, desiring, fantasizing or otherwise driving you crazy.

It is a gift to even notice the mind’s wildness.

It is a gift to be called to explore and attempt to reign in some of the mind’s most outrageous flights of fancy.

It is a gift to notice that in any mind event, there is the mind and there is some part of your awareness witnessing it.

It is a gift to notice that while you may not be able to choose the thoughts, emotions or moods of the mind, you can at any time direct your attention where you want.

It is perhaps one of the most powerful teachings to coach your attention to rest with affection on your heart. Not your physical heart. Not your emotional center or simply the source of all emotion. Rather let you attention rest on the source of everything.

In other words, if your attention was like a flashlight, capable of shining on anything you are interested in, rather than letting it point outward towards, the endless stream of objects (thoughts, emotions, sensations, etc.)  Turn it inward, on the source of attention, and hold it there.

What do you notice?

A Great Spiritual Teaching From India

Joseph Campbell, who studied the myths and spiritual teachings of the world for over 40 years, once observed that the best direction he had found comes out of India.

One of the classic Indian works is the centuries old Avadhut Gita, written by the sage Dattatreya.

An Avadhut is a mystic who has found the knowledge who’s fragrance is wisdom, peace and bliss. Gita simply means “song of. ”  In this classic poem/teaching there is one stanza that I believe summarizes a great spiritual truth. It goes:

A yogi has no particular path;

He simply renounces imagining things,
His mind then ceases of its own accord,
And the perfect state just naturally occurs.

When Dattartreya refers to a yogi, he is not talking about someone in Lululemon gear who can wrap their leg around their head. Rather he is talking about someone who is called by Grace to find the truth of existence.

In speaking of renouncing imagining things, he talks of the voluntary removal of attention, belief and identity from all objects; things, thoughts, emotions, sensations, etc.

Whenever attention in turned inward, away from objects and towards its source, the volume and machinations of the mind subside into the background.

With nothing needing to be resisted, acquired or changed in any way, peace and contentment flourish. Without separation, between in and out, here and there, you and me, all differences dissolve into love.

The Avadhut directly realizes, at our essence, we are fundamental, unchanging, blissful, impersonal, all pervading, awareness. It is the same Self in all.

Steve

Don't Bother Trying To Be Stabile

Many individuals looking for greater peace and happiness in their busy lives run into their share of obstacles.

One of the most common is the belief that once you have become aware that more balance is possible, you should somehow become stabilized in this new, improved place and be unaffected by life’s daily dramas.

Perhaps you have established a few simple, daily routines; exercise, quiet times, breath work, meditation, gratitude journaling, etc.   And while the benefits of any of these activities may be subtle, you can immediately feel the difference.

Typically, any of these sorts of practices make a good day great, an average day better, and a bad day more tolerable.  But they do not make you bullet proof.  There will always be certain circumstances or people that will get your goat and catapult you back into reactions that you may have hoped you had left behind forever.

Don’t despair. You are not hopeless. You are just human.

It is an unreal expectation to imagine that your best intentions and practice will somehow stabilize you in some perma-zen state that will leave behind all your old conditioning. (Even Jesus, the Buddha and all the Sages and Saints had their bad days too.)

Forget about trying to stabilize yourself in some perfect state.  Forget about judging yourself as being a master at this or completely hopeless. Your job is to simply remember you are that which is observing the coming and going of all states, thoughts and emotions.

The Mind As an Obstacle to Peace

In my life and business coaching practice, I run into a lot of people looking for more success and happiness in one form or another. Occasionally, some of these clients have concluded that their greater fulfillment is not going to be found in usual playgrounds of additional accomplishment in their; career, relationships, hobbies, fitness, fame, or their bank account.

And anyone who has ever had a deeper calling, who has genuinely longed to find what it true and lasting in life, has inevitably run into a few predictable roadblocks associated with  the limitations of the human mind.  Because changing, reasoning with, convincing, pacifying  or sustainably satisfying the mind can seem like an impossible job.

Fortunately, there are many solutions offered.  Various spiritual traditions attempt to solve this problem by offering the a seeker a particular set of long-established, widely-held beliefs, coupled with the invocation that it is a virtue to have faith and not to question.  This works for billions of people, and yet causes others to flee.

Other spiritual traditions teach elaborate practices to still the mind. This approach can keep many people busy for years. Yet, whatever stillness is momentarily achieved, quickly evaporates and sends the seeker back to do yet more practice.

If you are lucky, and ready, you may run into a teacher that can help you realize that any attempts by the mind, to manage the mind, will at best provide limited and temporary benefit.  Ultimately, the conquest of thought is the simply, direct, recognition that you are not your thoughts.  A thought may seem very close, intimate and personal, yet you begin to notice the real, unchanging you, is what is witnessing thought.

I am pretty sure I read this type of instruction a few hundred times from a variety of sources before I was ready to actually personally explore it.  And finding the appropriate guide is a matter of timing and grace. However, once it is directly verified that you are more than your mind, you will come to see that mind is really not your enemy. It is simply one of the many ways the energy of life expresses itself.  All thoughts and emotions, and all life circumstances do in fact come and go. And there is an unchanging part of you that really does witness it all without affect.  Further, this part of you needs nothing, resists nothing and thus is always quite content.

So, ironically, it is only when the mind stops seeking its own improvement or dissolution, that it is truly at peace.   And it is only when you stop identifying with or trying to control the mind, that you can simply ignore it out of relevance.

It is there. It is useful. But it is not who you are. It is just part of what you experience.  

Proceed With Joy

When I was a child and worrying about something, my mother would often ask, “Aren’t you taking yourself too seriously.”

At the time I simply took this as a reminder that the current problem will probably pass, just like all that preceded it, and that I should not worry too much.

Years later, and after working with over 1100 clients in my coaching practice, I am beginning have a deeper appreciation of this inquiry.

In fact I have come to believe that whenever you are not at peace, not experiencing simple, everyday joy, you are probably taking yourself too seriously. By this I mean, there is probably a part of you that has judged this current set of circumstances to be unfavourable. And so the thinking mind has left the moment and is out in the imagined future somewhere working out plans to overcome all threats. Or, alternatively, the mind has left the present moment and is looking backwards to re-hash, re-play, or otherwise dwell on some event that it is judging as significant.

So here is a suggestion, if you are not at this very moment feeling peaceful and happy, simply ask yourself what do I need to let go of to be at peace?

Yes there are times in our day to day life to evaluate, choose and move into action. But it is not personal. If you have too much stress in your life, or too little joy, chances are you are taking things a little too personal. It’s just life. It happens. Trust you will be able to respond as necessary.  

In the meantime, proceed with joy.