The world is enticing. The ups, the downs, the thrills, the spills. The ultimate soap opera to keep us engaged, whether joyous or sad. This is what has us come back over and over, tweaking the details in hopes of the perfect result. But that desire obscures what we are doing here. This planet is a school (and not a PhD program, mind you — it’s more of an elementary school!).

Feeling sorry for the past is completely natural and expected… but not helpful. There are many things that are a part of us that, were we able to master them, we’d be a bit better off without. Regret is high on the list. Why is that? Some of it is ancient programming. We like sweets because thousands of years ago it was hard to get. So when you saw it, you felt like you’d better eat it right away. Now, unfortunately, you can go to the grocery store and get all you want at a modest cost.

I have been away and did not have time to write this week, so I am reprinting one of my favorite posts from a couple of years ago. I will hopefully be back on track next week. 

I had a most interesting experience recently…I went to Castro Street with my wife for a walk and to have a coffee at Red Rock Coffee. Outside the shop I saw a cute, tiny dog. A woman had the adult dog in a small baby carriage. I moved to pet it, but it didn’t act quite right, so she said, “Oh, he’s blind. He had a progressive eye disease….”

A woman was in her living room with her husband. She looked out her window and saw that her neighbor had recently hung out laundry to dry in the sun. The woman said to her husband, “Just look at those clothes! They are filthy. I need to talk to her and tell her how to wash clothes properly. I can't believe at her age she still doesn't know how to do such a basic task.” The next morning as she looked out the same window…

When the vast majority of people hear the word “yoga” they think of postures. The meaning of “yoga” from the original Sanskrit, however, is “to yoke or unite.” But unite what? Our small self with the greater Self. To be precise, postures is called hatha yoga. It was designed millennia ago to calm the body. An agitated nervous system cannot merge with Spirit. Doing hatha alone is, however, a bit like spending your whole life tuning your instrument.

Everyone wants to be a success. Regardless of what your goal is, there are certain attitudes that dramatically increase your chances of hitting whatever target you choose. I of course would argue that true success is an inner state. You can find people at the pinnacle of any human endeavor who, in the end, are not especially happy with what they have accomplished or the heights they have risen to. Except one.

Everyone wants to be happy. Even the lowest of animals seeks to avoid pain and pursue pleasure. (Fair enough: the pleasures get pretty simple for animals. Watching a great movie does not make the list!) But humans are more advanced. We have a neocortex in our brains, which gives us the ability to be self-aware. This further enables us to understand the source of our suffering and the source of our happiness. But it is still not that simple (I bet you knew that was coming…)

There are a beautiful few lines in the spiritual ceremony I participate in each Sunday:

With all my mind, With all my heart, With all my soul
I choose Thy love, I choose only Thee

Poetic and beautiful, but I’d like to go deeper into the meaning this week.

It is entirely natural to have our hearts pulled in many ways. Of course and obviously, we want our loved ones to be safe and secure. We want our own lives to be fulfilling and rewarding. We want our lovely Planet Earth to be cared for. We want…

There is much talk these days about self-esteem. While there are those who arguably have too much (!), the more usual problem is with those who constantly run themselves down in their own minds. The cure for that is self-honesty. If you are reading this letter you are very likely striving to be a better person. Great—and the planet thanks you! But that being the case, we often measure ourselves against too high a standard.

The mind is a bit complex. There are many thwarting cross-currents such that even our best intentions can be diverted by habits and impulses. It is often not important where these foes of our intended direction come from or are caused by, so long as they are defeated! It’s why psychology can help with a specific issue (a deep narrow fear or trauma, for example), but is not really a way to learn to lead a life.

I just got back from Italy Monday night. Several things occurred to me in relation to that trip. We have a natural tendency to go on automatic pilot when in familiar surroundings. Yogananda suggested doing things in a new way each day. It can even be as trivial as brushing your teeth with your other hand. We want to be conscious and in-the-present at every moment, so hopefully we can do better than going subconscious or unconscious as we move through our day.

I teach stress management classes for government agencies and corporations around the world. What I teach is basically the Sanskrit term nishkam karma, which means “to act without desire for the fruit of the action.” Just strive to do the right thing each moment and the result will be the result.

Suppose you are skiing downhill, and trying to make a good time to the finish of the run. You of course have a goal, but if your attention is down the hill at the goal, you will miss what needs to be happening here and now right under your skis.

I had an interesting conversation with a customer at East West. He said he was an atheist. After a brief chat I said: “Every scientist knows that the model of the atom that is used in physics is inaccurate. One could pick at the inaccuracies forever. However, if one relaxes a bit and embraces what it does explain, the scientist can grasp new ideas and concepts he would not be able to grasp otherwise. Using the model, with all its flaws, is of great benefit to physics. 'God' is simply a model for something equally beyond our grasp…

Yogananda used to say, “The intellect is a slave to the passions.” If we want something enough—or want to avoid something enough—we can generally be quite clever about figuring out a compelling argument that supports our preconceived notion.

There’s a joke I have always liked that makes this point clear… A man dies and finds himself at the Pearly Gates. Saint Peter is checking him in, and during the process the man notices a large pile of attractive new items. He asked Peter what they are. Peter said, “Oh, that’s the heavenly junkyard. Those are the items I tried to give people on Earth. But they turned them down.” 

There is a personal quality that is not examined often enough, in my opinion. I hope to take a tiny step in correcting what is perhaps an oversight.

Willingness is the ability to say “yes” to whatever presents itself. Our often overwhelming tendency is to say “yes” only to the things we naturally like. Viewing what comes to us as an opportunity to learn is often a much better approach to take. I believe this is somewhat clear in spiritual realms, but I’d like to look at a different application of that principle today.

Life is the only game where the goal is learning the rules.”
—Ashleigh Brilliant

The above quote caught my attention this past week. I know I have touched on this topic before, but it feels too important to pass up now that the idea has crossed my path again. We are here to learn our lessons. We all have an innate desire to merge with Spirit; feel complete; lose the sense of isolation and loneliness that we all feel deep down somewhere; experience ever new Joy, peace, and deep contentment.

Most widely held beliefs have a kernel of truth in them. That’s how they get started in the first place. But often the truth gets obscured or the aphorism takes on a different meaning. The one I’d like to tackle this week is the notion of expressing oneself. Suppression on one’s impulses is often not right, and is almost always not the highest path. However, in the name of self-expression, unkindnesses are often spoken. “I was just speaking the truth” is a rather poor excuse for being self-indulgent.

“When I became such that I was no longer the center of my own life, I found I was able to see Spirit everywhere.”
—Bede Griffiths

I came across this quote recently and thought it was lovely. It gets right to the heart of an important truth: That it is our self-centeredness that blocks the touch of Spirit we all long for. By self-centeredness I do not mean conceit (though that is surely not helpful!). In this case it refers to the fact that we see the world as revolving around us.

I’d like to write this week about pride. Pride is a form of ego attachment. It is our natural self-centeredness that keeps us from Spirit and closes our hearts to others. By self-centeredness I do not mean we are merely concerned for or interested in ourselves, but that we are the center of reality so far as we are concerned. I came across a beautiful quote recently (it escapes me where I discovered it, unfortunately): “When I became such that I was no longer the center of my own life, I found I was able to see Spirit everywhere.”

It is a lovely and uplifted soul that automatically wants to help when witnessing someone in pain or distress. The heart goes out to those suffering, and wants to ease their discomfort. But the question is actually more subtle than that, though the initial impulse is laudable and appropriate. I would like to share a story that brought this lesson home to me. When I was a boy I lived in a nice suburban home. We had a built-in swimming pool in the backyard and I would spend hours in it, as little boys do. One day I saw a large bug floating in the water….