Sunday, December 28, 2008

The Only Real Change Necessary: from Fear to Love

Change seems to be the word for 2009! It’s about time we embrace the only constant in our lives. What a beautiful concept and yet how we fear it. Imagine if things didn’t change. How boring would life be? And yet the unknown scares us so.

It’s been said that there are only two real emotions, love and fear. All others issue from them. For instance, anger comes from fear of something. Happiness comes from love of something. If I approach life with love then change seems enjoyable and welcome. If I approach life with fear, then change is very stressful and I will try to resist it causing more stress.

We have a choice and, in my opinion, this is the only real choice we have. This is our Free Will, our choice to come from love or fear. All of our life experiences result from our choosing to respond to life from love or fear.

I must admit that in my earlier years, my conditioning steered me in the direction of choosing from fear. As time moved on, something in me noticed what these choices were doing to my life. I made a commitment to myself to start turning my life in a different direction by choosing to come from love rather than fear. That decision led me to the realization that Truth is more important than comfort. To face Truth rather than to seek comfort has become my choice from love. By living in Truth, being true to myself and others, by looking life squarely in the face and not hiding from the messages my body, my emotions and the world mirror back to me, I have found a comfort that is much deeper than the one I sought by avoiding fear.

This is a crucial time in the history of our lives. We are awakened enough to see what our choices do to not only the quality of our lives but to the survival of our planet. We can put an end to life, as we know it, by the push of a button. We can put a slow end to life on our planet by continuing to selfishly and ignorantly exhaust our resources. We can continue to live as if we were separate individuals with no need to care about the welfare of one another. We can go on thinking that our group is better than the others, that our nation is better and deserves more, that our religion is the only way and go to war over these beliefs. But I believe deep down we all know how foolish this is.

It is my wish that we all awaken from our illusion of separateness and drop our silly identifications, which are causing all our wars both internally and globally.

We are like leaves on a tree. Our source comes from the same place. Without that source, we cease to exist. Imagine leaves warring over their individual interpretations of God. The tree could care less about what each leaf thinks. The tree just loves it’s own leaves and equally, I’m sure. Imagine a leaf thinking it was so special and so much better than another. Imagine one branch trying to suck all the water and hoard it. Think of how the whole tree would suffer, if it could even accomplish that mission. The beauty of the tree is in its entirety. If the tree becomes sick, all the leaves suffer.

It’s time we wake up to the fact that we are all from the same source. It’s time we drop our selfishness and our sense of separateness. It’s time we embrace one another and act from love rather than from fear. Our survival is at stake.

The most important change we can make is to reorient our lives and embrace change with love. I recently read this quote in the newsletter of Namaste Publishing "....we will not only come to know and act on the dictum that we are our brother’s keeper, we will at last recognize that we are our brother. We are all made of the same spiritual essence."

Just say no to fear.
Your life depends upon it.

Wednesday, November 5, 2008

How Did You Vote? And Why?

Your Political Consciousness is Showing!

The motivation for the way a person votes says a lot about their level of social and moral consciousness or development. Ken Wilber has written a book called The Integral Vision where he lays out a comprehensive “map of consciousness" which enables you to see for yourself at just what stage or level of consciousness you are presently residing in the various aspects of your life. By looking at your political leanings, for instance, and applying this map you can learn heaps about yourself and others.

In his book, he uses a very simple model possessing three stages or levels of consciousness: Egocentric (me), Ethnocentric (us), and World-centric (all of us). The egocentric is the first stage of consciousness in this model. Looking at a person's social and moral development at the egocentric (me) stage, we see a person who is primarily concerned with his or her own survival needs. A self-absorbed person would also fall into this category. An ethnocentric (us) would be someone who has expanded out enough to be concerned with his tribe, group, clan or nation. At this stage we are concerned with our relationships, shared values, mutual interests, common ideals, and shared dreams. We can put ourselves in the roles or shoes of others and feel what it might be like to be them. Our identity expands from me to us, a move from egocentric to ethnocentric. With a further expansion in consciousness, we begin to care for all peoples, regardless of race, color, sex, creed or country and we open to a worldcentric (all of us) stage. At this stage, our own desires are tempered by the welfare and well-being of all others.

Locating where we fit within this model is a valuable exercise. This model not only shows us where we are in any aspect of life we may apply it to, but it also gives us an idea of our next stage and exercises to help us evolve to that level.

While listening to people talk about their political ideas and beliefs, it becomes clear, quite quickly, where their beliefs fit in this model. If you care mainly for your pocketbook, for example, you voted to keep your taxes low, or you are self-absorbed and don’t care particularly one way or another about the election, then you might want to check out ways of expanding your social and moral consciousness into the second level. If you think your "party" is the right one, no matter what, and you are voting party lines, or you think the color of a candidate's skin or their gender indicates inferiority, then you might want to think about expanding into the third level. If you are ecstatically in the third level or world-centric and know that this was perhaps the most important election in the history of our country, indicating a giant leap in conscious for the nation and possibly for the planet, then you are probably already working on expanding your consciousness to attain the next stage as an Integrated Being.

Sidebar: Please do note that your consciousness can be high in one aspect of your life and low in another. This "map" is just a tool to help you locate which areas need a little lift.

Thursday, July 10, 2008

What I Can Do

Regarding politics, race, or religion, when we criticize or condemn, we are usually projecting an unconscious part of ourselves onto the person or people condemned. This is the nature of all “isms”. For example, racism is a projection of a disowned part of oneself onto the one perceived as different. What we don’t accept in ourselves, we project out onto others and then reject. This is a clever tactic of the ego to stay in control and remain feeling separate and superior. However, what and how we condemn, we usually become or experience. Politically, one side condemns the other and then in turn becomes the condemned and vice versa.

As the spiritual axiom goes, what we focus on expands and what we give our attention to grows. If we are critical and demonizing of the leaders in office, we will continue to find people to criticize and demonize if that is what we are in the habit of doing. Habits tend to keep showing up. This is not an effective strategy. We certainly can use discrimination and proper judgment, give feedback and protest actions taken by our leaders. However, unless we give conscious, mature feedback and take conscious, mature actions toward solutions we will keep manifesting situations to complain about and continue to be dissatisfied, unconsciously polarized and out of balance.

We as individuals are at different levels of maturity. I believe it is the responsibility of the more mature to help guide the less mature. We must act with conscious maturity to stop injustices or dangerous actions as we would if we were watching a child about to hurt him/herself. Just as we would not let a child run dangerously in the street or play with fire, we must speak out and do what we can to prevent and protect those who are less mature from causing irreparable damage to other humans and our planet as a whole. We must do this with balance, discrimination, and kindness. Just as a mature parent would gently guide with care and compassion rather than harshly criticize and condemn, so we must do to those less mature.

Through our thoughts and actions, we individually make our contribution to the world. The quality of the energy of any thought we cultivate or action we take creates a vibration which we personally radiate out to the world each and every moment. The state of the world is the result of the sum total of the radiance of every person on the planet. The quality of the energy we each individually radiate becomes the quality of our own individual experience and, ultimately, the quality of the energy on the planet. To quote Deepak Chopra, “Every action we take generates a force of energy that returns to us in like kind. We reap what we sow. When we consciously choose actions that bring peace and happiness to others, the fruit of our karma is happiness and success.”

Contemplating a profound symbol can sometimes aid us in developing deeper understanding. The Tai Chi or more popularly called the yin/yang symbol, reminds us that it is the nature of physical manifestation to be polarized, to see one side or the other. However, the truth is in the totality, the whole circle. We can’t know darkness without the light. We can’t know right without wrong, female without male. Without the immature, we can't know our level of maturity. To be aware of this polarization is to be conscious. Without the awareness that the total picture is the truth, is to be unconsciously polarized.

We are the most conscious beings on the planet, as far as we know. It is up to all of us to look within and ask ourselves, “Am I at war with anyone?” Am I at war with another’s politics? Am I at war with another’s style? If we are condemning, criticizing and complaining, we are at war. When we replace criticism with proper judgment and understanding; condemnation with acceptance and curiosity; complaining with a sincere desire to act from a place of clarity or if appropriate, allow, “what is”, at the moment, to “be” until it is not, we are at peace.

It has become my practice to visualize “light” on myself regarding any situation with which I am dissatisfied. In my mind, this is an attempt to align myself with the truth of the situation. I cannot see the total picture and even the partial view I have is filtered through the lens of my particular conditioning. If we, at least, realize that it’s possible that we aren’t seeing the bigger picture, we are less likely to be caught in the yo-yo world of unconscious polarization. When we admit that we can’t know for sure why anything is the way it is, we open to seeing a bigger truth. Relaxing our position puts out a new kind of energy that loosens the tension between us, and that to which we are opposed. How can we expect the other to loosen their position, if we can’t?

When I envision the “Light of Alignment with Truth” regarding the disturbing circumstances, things either change or I see them from a more expanded viewpoint. It always delivers a greater degree of harmony by bringing me out of my unconscious polarized position and relaxing my mind and body so that any action I take comes from a place of clarity and maturity rather than reactivity. Not only does this feel healthy for me, it also stops me from radiating negative energy out into the world in which I am living.

As within, so without, it’s up to each of us as individuals to look into our own hearts and be honest about what and with whom we are going to war. We must become conscious of the quality of energy we are contributing at any moment. When we change ourselves from within, we change what is reflected back from the outside.

While not abandoning judgment and discrimination, we can radiate to the leaders of our country the “Light of Alignment with Truth”. We cannot know, absolutely, the TRUTH of any situation. We can only know our preferences and our intentions. If we radiate from our minds and hearts, to the minds and hearts of those in the position of leading, our intention that they be aligned with the Highest Purpose, (and we can’t know for certainty that they are not) and ask for our own understanding to expand to see the Highest Purpose for all involved, we are doing our job. We are accomplishing this according to the law of attraction, by creating a different quality of energy for those people and for ourselves. In this way, we radiate a quality of energy which enhances the condition of harmony and well-being, rather than adding to the dysfunction. Complaining and projecting are powerless ways of dealing with situations in which we want to effect change.

When I ask myself what I can do, I realize I can work on becoming more consciously aware of my own projections, radiance and vibration. I can remember that what I reap, I sow, not only for myself in my own life, but also for the entire world. I can visualize the “Light of Alignment with Truth” on myself and on those who need guidance. I can act from that place of conscious response rather than unconscious reactivity.

I feel an empowering paradigm shift, in my life when I take responsibility for my own thoughts, words and actions. It helps remind me that the quality of my thoughts, words and actions return to me in like kind and create my experience in every moment. We can each make a contribution to that paradigm shift and change the world one person at a time by vigilant and conscious awareness of the quality of thoughts we cultivate, the quality of the words we speak, the quality of our intentions and the quality of our actions. As I experience the difference in the quality of my life when I live these principles, I know this difference extends out into the world, one moment at a time.

Right Thinking
Right Speaking
Right Intention
Right Action

Monday, July 7, 2008

Nothing is Good or Bad but Thinking Makes it So!

As Shakespeare said, “Nothing is good or bad but thinking makes it so.” If I may be so bold, I would like to expand upon this point. “Nothing is good or bad but believing makes it so.” What we choose to think about or focus on actually creates a vibration. This vibration is what each of us radiates into the world. That force is magnetic. But it is what we deeply believe that creates what we manifest into the world of our perception. This is a fine point but one to explore if we want to live our lives more consciously.

Our habitual thoughts constitute most of what moves through our minds. The continuous entertaining of these thoughts creates a vibration. It is this vibration which creates what we experience as the circumstances of our lives. It seems to be the other way around. That is, we think we feel a certain way because of our experiences. Situations we encounter seem to be happening to us or caused by others or larger forces. However, the truth is that it is our vibration that creates the circumstances we experience. Or, at the very least, our perception of the circumstances we experience. Often times, we are cultivating thoughts or engaging in thought patterns quite unconsciously. We are generally unaware of what’s really making us feel the way we are feeling. As a result, we feel justified in blaming the outside world when we don’t like what we are feeling. These thoughts arise in us from the conditioning, which formed early on and continues to imprint until we become conscious of it. Making a change is really not so simple until we become aware of the beliefs we have that are causing our world to seem as it is.

As painful as it can be to my ego, I love it when some aspect of my conditioning gets exposed and I become conscious of it. An example of this occurred recently as I was teaching one of my tai chi classes. My classes tend to be filled with chatter and laughter during our warm-up period until we begin our tai chi set. This particular Saturday morning was particularly chatty. As it was the day after the 4th of July, I was dealing with the aftereffects of a couple of glasses of champagne and a margarita or two. When I am compromised physically, my ego jumps on the opportunity to take control of me and whip me around a bit.

This particular morning my ego, which occasionally hops on the belief that I am not properly listened to, (as a result of my beloved dad often interrupting me in mid-sentence to say something unrelated) reared it’s unappealing head and lashed out at these delightful people who were just having a good time enjoying one another. The thoughts passed and cleared while I was doing my tai chi set, but came back later with a vengeance when my partner Steve mentioned how I had lost my cool. My mind conjured up many reasons why what I was feeling was not only accurate, but good for me to express! I knew by the feeling in my gut, that something was not quite right. But try as I might to “just feel my feelings,” the righteousness remained. So, I decided to give it some time and see what was up.

The next morning I woke up with the thought, “My class was just having a good time, laughing, loving, and enjoying themselves.” My heart softened and I realized on a feeling level that my ego was suffering from that old belief that I was not worth listening to. That little girl who felt what she had to say was not important enough for people to make space to hear was crying out.

As compassion arose for her and I gave her the ear she needed, a feeling of release and acceptance arose in me, for me and for the others. I realized that no one was trying to make me feel bad. No one ever is. We are all just doing our best trying to enjoy ourselves.

When I become conscious of the conditioning and let it dissolve by allowing the feelings to be felt just as they are without the need for them to go away, they do melt away and I am left with the more conscious belief that the most important thing we give and receive from one another, whether we are teachers or students or friends or family, is our vibration.

I’m thankful for the opportunity to explore that bit of conditioning again. It’s like peeling an onion to get to the core. Every time I become conscious of these unpleasant beliefs which cause suffering, by opening to the realization that nothing is caused by the outside world but rather by my belief about it, I become a little more at peace and a little more the master, a little less the slave to that part of me which is constructed and not real.

To me and to my students, I say: I’m sorry, forgive me, thank you,
I love you. Now chat away!

Thursday, May 29, 2008

MARSHAL THE ART OF LIFE

Socrates said, “A unexamined life is not worth living.” Introspection is key to living a fulfilled and satisfying life. Having a daily practice of tai chi, meditation, self-reflection and inquiry is, in my opinion, a great way to attain a life worth living. Tai chi, meditation, and push hands are wonderful tools, but can be hijacked by the ego without the added ingredients of self-reflection and inquiry.

I was recently reading a blog sent to me online in which a tai chi practitioner posed the question to a teacher, “Is the tai chi form enough or do we need to learn push hands?” The answer given was that if one wants the benefits gained from push hands that can’t be attained through the form alone, then yes, one needs to learn push hands. The author went on to give some of the benefits gained by practicing push hands. First, he stated that push hands gives a “softness check.” Practicing push hands helps with understanding and developing a sense of softness that if one were moving slowly and ran into a small tree sapling one would learn to melt around it rather than push it out of the way. Secondly, he stated that push hands practice helps give a sense of how good one’s root and balance, (both developed in the form), are by playing push hands. Thirdly, he stated, playing push hands is good place to test out one’s “calm,” which one is working to attain by practicing the form.

I agree with the author that push hands is beneficial in many ways including the three he stated. It’s also an opportunity to tune into another and experience intimacy. It requires undivided attention and absolute presence, which are wonderful qualities to cultivate and can be avoided by practicing only the tai chi form.

Tai chi and push hands are powerful techniques to help cultivate harmony and balance in all areas of life, a sense of flow, presence, concentration, attention, flexibility, not only physically but also mentally and emotionally. They provide a wonderful way to cultivate a sense of peace and a softening into reality as it is, while it is, until it changes. Rather than opposing, pushing or pulling, we learn to “melt around,” to accept what we can’t change with grace and wisdom, knowing that all is temporary and will change in time. Tai chi and push hands are physical metaphoric practices of staying centered throughout the constant play of opposites, the movement from yin into yang and back into yin.

The real test to see if your tai chi form or your push hands practice is delivering is to look at your life. One doesn’t have to look very deeply to see if the techniques are being properly employed and integrated into the fabric of everyday life. How harmonious are your relationships with your loved ones, your friends and your family? Do you “melt around” perceived obstacles or push and pull to get your way? Does your life feel as if you are in flow, effortlessly attaining what you feel you need or are you struggling? Are you focused on what makes you joyful or do you find yourself complaining in a victim stance? Are you angry and resistant or are you soft and allowing with what you disagree? Do you dislike people who don’t see life as you do? Are you healthy? Are you happy? Are you at peace? Are you patient? Are you grateful? Are you balanced emotionally and know that life is only as you see it? Can you see that all pain is self-inflicted, that there is in fact no other, that we are, in TRUTH, all one?

These are quick tests to see how effective your practice is. If practicing is not delivering the positive qualities in your life, the form is probably not the problem. The problem is within. These wonderful techniques must be approached with a proper attitude and sincere effort must be made to truly live the principles. It’s not what we do, but how we do anything that makes the difference in our lives. As the saying goes, Attitude is everything.

Jarl Forsman 5/29/08

Friday, April 18, 2008

Successful Fiasco!

Last Sunday, our friend Anyo, Steve and I were sailing out in the bay when out of the literally beautiful blue our boat struck an underwater "historical" former pier piling! With a jolt and a (g)ripping sound, we found ourselves in the middle of what looked like a soon to be sinking boat! We were taking on water quite spurtingly. As my eyes quickly darted over to the nearby "above water" pilings looking for an escape route, I envisioned us hanging on like kuola bears waiting for a helicopter rescue team. Steve began baling water and I thought of our motor! Let's turn on the engine and motor back. Good idea. Within less than a minute, what had seemed like enough gas in our tank prior to departure was not, and we were effectively out of gas. Fortunately the wind was blowing sufficiently to send us back to our slip in just the nick of time. As soon as we stopped our forward motion though, the boat began taking on water at an even greater speed. Now that we were safe, we had to act fast to save the boat. It was going down! While Steve made several phone calls, I drove over to the Marina office and borrowed a larger pump. A neighboring boat owner came over with another. With three pumps going we were still taking on water faster than the pumps could handle. I ran over to the gas dock and filled our gas tank while Steve continued his calls for help. I ran to the marine office near our dock to see if we could get our boat lifted out of the water. "Sorry lady, all our lift drivers are gone." "What do you mean gone?" I asked. "Can't you call them and tell them it is an emergency?" I pleaded. "They're gone, he insisted, "it's Sunday evening, no one is here!" "You mean gone, as in off the planet? I asked, my ego had kicked in and I was not happy with his answers. He assured me that he had just given the names of three divers to his assistant who was on his way to our boat after talking to Steve on the phone and that was our only hope. Fifteen minutes later our diver arrived in full gear. He had been sick in bed with the flu but rose to the occasion of our emergency. Our hero! Steve had already dashed out and purchased the necessary "goo" needed to patch the tear and down under the boat with tank and all dove our diver. An hour into the endeavor to stop the leaking, the possibility seemed hopeless. It was still coming in. I made another, this time successful attempt at persuading the man in the office to give me names and phone numbers of drivers of that lift. We had to get this boat out of the water! Soon a driver was there. We put the motor back on the boat and with a full tank of gas, we tried to start the engine. It would start but it would not stay running. We realized we had put the engine down on the wrong side in our haste to get it off the boat and now the carburator was filled with oil. It was not possible to start the engine now until we cleaned out the carburator. The driver of the lift, who was charging us double time to wait while we got the engine working so we could motor over to the lift then told us he had to leave at 7 pm. We had 15 minutes. Couldn't do it. Our diver, still under water, was our only hope. Four hours later our diver Jack and Steve together devised a remedy that held! We pumped all the water out and our boat was now floating and out of danger. Anyo went home and Steve and I went out to dinner. As we were sitting in the restaurant reflecting back on the day's events, Steve looked over at me and said. "I have to say, that was kind of fun!" I grinned back at him and said, "In a weird way, it really was!" We both sat there feeling grateful and happy that we had been presented with a real life situation and handled it well. Now that's success!
About our boat, it is dry docked at the Berkeley Marina awaiting repair, new paint, and a general new look. It was about time.