Practicing Your Faith

A Course in Tranquility Lesson 8 of 14 – Practicing Your Faith

“That one who has faith has God knowledge. Devoted to that, controlling the senses, and having wisdom, the devotee quickly attains the tranquil state.  The ignorant person, who does not have faith, who is of a doubting nature, perishes.  For the doubting person, neither in this world nor the realms beyond, is there happiness.”

– Bhagavad Gita 4: 39,40

We are practicing our faith at every moment. That which we hold to be true about life and its processes manifests, because it is the nature of consciousness to reflect what is presented to it. However we expect life to be, will be brought into our life experience either in the near or distant future. There are, at least, three levels of influence on our consciousness that shapes our life experience and determines our faith: our conscious thoughts, our subconscious store house of memories and past thoughts, and the thoughts and ideas of other people. To be a spiritual master, a fully mature human being, entails gaining dominion over what we allow to shape our faith.

Our minds are built of past perceptions. The building plans that create structure out of our past perceptions is based on our judgments. As we make judgments on experiences, we sow the seeds of our future.  We arrange those past perceptions in a certain way, based on the direction of our judgment. As has always been true, what you sow is what you reap.

Imagine you are attempting to master a musical instrument, and during your early months of first getting acquainted with the notes of the scale, where to put your fingers, and how to hold the instrument you meet with failure at every turn. You play your scales wrong. You have a hard time following the metronome. You get a kink in your neck, because you have poor posture. Now, let’s look at two different possible perspectives in relation to these events.

Option 1 Thought Process: “This is terrible!  I hate this instrument! I’m not any good at all. My friends were right, and I should stop wasting my time learning to make beautiful music!”

Option 2 Thought Process: “Hmmm. This is turning out to be harder than I thought. I guess I’m going to have to slow down and focus on one aspect of this at a time. That’s OK. All this hard work is going to pay off, when I can finally play that Gypsy Jazz Swing  tune I love so much. Let’s get back to work!”

Note that the experience, or the reality of the experience, was exactly the same from both of these perspectives. The difference came in the interpretation of the experience. From those interpretations, the person who chose thought process number one, gave up on music, eventually took a job that was boring and tedious, and every time she listened to the music she loved, she thought back with regret on letting a few obstacles (ones that nearly every musician goes through) get in the way. The person who chose thought process number two, went onto to play in a symphony and became a teacher, inspiring young children to also express their own music through their chosen instrument. She’s happy for the most part, and looks forward to her work in music everyday. This same principle is applicable to our spiritual growth process.

It is easy to think that anyone with spiritual clarity and peace made no effort to this end. When we think this way, we can make excuses such as:

“There is something special about that person that I’ll never have, at least not in this life time.”

“They had better opportunities and better information.”

“I’m not as strong as them or as dedicated.”

“They can just close their eyes and meditate without any distraction or thought.”

“It was easy for them to think positively and have faith in the process.”

Again, we must remember that these are all excuses. For a person to experience success in anything, it requires a strong faith and dedication to maintain the course until the desired end is reached. This is applicable to music, building a business, having money, being a nice person, and even enlightenment.

Now, I’m pretty certain that our life is infinite and that the body, mind and personality are the only things that really change. I’m also pretty sure that as we move from one body to the other we carry our states of consciousness with us. The personality may be a little different, and the history will change with each incarnation, but deep down inside, whatever state of consciousness we had in our last incarnation is most certainly going to show up again once our mind, body, nervous system and personality come to full maturity this time around.

This being the case, you can bet that any spiritually aware person had to wrestle with impatience, greed, lust, the monkey mind, lack of faith, disease, mental instability, being honest, developing a sense of unyielding happiness for no reason, etc, either earlier on in this lifetime or at some other point in infinity before they expressed soul consciousness as clearly as they do now. To think otherwise is just creating another false story, that will empower your own lack of clarity about what you really have to do if you want to wake up.  They did it. You can too. You can say you are too old or too young or too wild or two worldly. It doesn’t matter where you are on the circle of infinity, you can find an excuse. When you decide to stop having excuses and start getting down to business, you will begin moving forward in the direction you want to go.

If you choose to doubt this perspective, you will experience situations that sustain your doubt. If you choose adopt this perspective, you will find that with hard work and renewed enthusiasm, a new and life affirming paradigm will dawn in your awareness.

Three Levels of Influence

As mentioned above, our faith is determined by the current thinking processes we are aware of, the accumulation of past thoughts in the subconscious, and the thoughts of others. All of these need to be dealt with to reshape our faith. Being realistic, this can be quite a job. But remember, we are infinite beings. We have as long as it takes to accomplish this end.  Wasting your time not undertaking this task is only prolonging your experience in infinity as being negative and less than enjoyable.

Our current thinking process is the most immediate level of influence we can change. These are most specifically related to our judgments about reality. If you find that you are thinking negatively about anything, the immediate response is to admit you have had this habit in the past, but to choose to think positively now. What ever reason you have to think negatively is just your excuse, with no correspondence to reality. Countless people have experienced terrible atrocities, and yet still remain buoyant and optimistic.  Countless people also have everything handed to them on silver platter, and can still find reasons to complain. It’s up to you to decide which way you go in life.

At the outset, this may feel like a waste of time. Your negativity persists. You feel you are lying to your self about the possible positive potential of an outcome. You may even begin to experience a quick result of your change of thinking. Something that was about to turn out bad, may unexpectedly turn out good. Then, like clockwork, you think, “But this isn’t going to last.  When is the other shoe going to drop?” Then things go wrong, and you say, “See.  I knew that was going to happen!” This is faith in action.

But if you persist, doing your best to change one little thought at a time, eventually those little drops of thought accumulate into a bucket full of positive faith. Continue, and eventually you have a swimming pool filled with positive thoughts ready to germinate and sprout. The quickness with which you fill your mind with positive expectations, is in relation to your receptivity and stubbornness. If you say, “I’m too stubborn to change too quickly.” Watch your thoughts.  Reaffirm, “I am done with the habit of stubbornness and can accept quick results of my change of thinking.”  Keep this up until your acceptance of good fortune is more powerful than your past habit of accepting ill fortune. Whichever has the most gravity within you wins, and a habits particular gravity grows with the more attention and intention we invest in it.

Our subconscious, that which stimulates our deep feeling state, is vast indeed. You can do your best to change your thinking, but if your subconscious does not align with that thinking, you are at odds with your self, and potentially canceling out your intentions. If you say, “I am very willing to do what it takes to be spiritually free.” Yet, in the pit of your stomach, you feel “Well, yes, this is true, but only if I don’t really have to challenge my current way of life.  As long as I don’t have to make any major changes, then yes, I am willing to do what it takes to be spiritually free.” This is one sure fire way, to not experience spiritual freedom, because you are not one hundred percent committed.

You may say, “I’d like to make more money.” Or “I’d like to have perfect health.” Yet, when someone offers you work, your inner feelings come up as a sense of resistance, and your actions will show your inner subconscious beliefs. You will be late for your interview, or forget to set your alarm, or just decide the work is too hard, and say to your self, “Well, that’s just not the right job for me.” When you decide to have perfect health, it may be easy to tell your self “I’m healthy and happy!” Yet you may find that your subconscious does not agree, because you take no initiative to exercise or to get enough rest, or to choose to avoid actions which inevitably cause suffering.

Watch your actions and your inner gut reactions to any changes you make in your conscious thinking process. If your actions do not align with the new way of thinking, you may need to work on your subconscious too. One very helpful method, is to set up your life so that you can ignore your thinking mind while changing your subconscious and thereby strengthening your faith. Here is how to get around the inertia of the subconscious.

Exercise to Change the Subconscious

Example 1: You decide that you want to be more spiritually awake. You’ve changed your thinking process, so you are no longer telling your self the story, that it is too hard, and you don’t deserve it, or that you are too young or to old.  You read spiritual inspirational literature every night before sleep and do your best to eat your vegetables, exercise, pay your bills, and be friendly. Yet, every morning your alarm goes off at 6 AM, the time you decided to meditate.  Your thoughts kick in and say, “But it’s so comfortable here. I need all of my rest for work, so I can do a good job.” Then you unplug the alarm, and drift back into sleep.

Proper response:  The night before, as you fall asleep, you tell your self, “I am going to get up at 6 AM, and meditate. Before I even begin thinking I’m going to get out of bed and go sit in my meditation chair.”

The alarm goes off at 6 AM. Before your mind gets a chance to engage, you swing your feet out of bed. Put on your robe, and go sit down in your meditation chair and begin with a short prayer, then you practice your chosen meditation technique.

You do this every day. The mind doesn’t gets a chance to engage and express all your subconscious conditioning and resistance towards meditation. Before the mind knows what is happening, you are already sitting and meditating.  You then find your mind was wrong, and that you actually have more energy and are more peaceful by starting your day on such a positive decisive note. If you can do that, you can be successful in just about any other undertaking.

Example 2: You have always wanted to write a book. You have many great ideas, enjoy reading, and have always wanted to contribute your own creativity to the world. Yet, you have made up a reality that you need to be an English major, and you need more time, and you aren’t that creative anyway. You tell your self it is a pipe dream, etc. The result of this kind of faith is that you spend your evenings watching TV, and waste time on the internet surfing for information that has no bearing on your life.

The alternative is that you decide you are not going to tell your self that story anymore. So you do. Everyday you wake up and say “I’m ready to write that book! As soon as I get home from work, I’m going to get started.” You get home from work, think about your book, and then get sidetracked on the internet, or doing laundry, or staring out the window. Your subconscious resistance is at work.

The solution is that you tell your self, “I am going to write that book, and I’m going to do it every day after work for at least 30 minutes to an hour.” Now, as soon as you get home, before the kids favorite TV show is over, and they are demanding your attention, you immediately sit down at your computer and start typing. You brainstorm. You type what ever comes, in regards to your ideas about the book. It doesn’t even matter if you don’t know what you are doing. The point is that you get started, and you don’t give your mind a chance to engage in all its subconscious crap about the impossibility of this project. A half hour goes by, and now you are excited, you don’t want to stop. You experience the success of starting, so that every day when you get home, you don’t think about your negative faith in your abilities, you immediately make the habit that you are going to sit down and start writing.

You may find that you do need more information about how to write dialogue or sculpt a plot or make believable characters, but now you are no longer surfing the internet mindlessly, you are looking for books on “writing books”, you are reading forums about the best way to publish. As the months and years go by. Your thirty minutes to one hour a day, turns into a passion, and you have a completed novel.

This same process can be applied to any area of life. Set a specific time each day to take action in your chosen endeavor. Don’t think about your chosen endeavor through out the day. Then when the bell rings, indicating it is time to take action, you immediately start doing whatever it is you have chosen. You circumvent the mind and your subconscious and begin reshaping your subconscious, your faith and your destiny to a new end.

Your Task

Pick something you have always wanted to do. Set aside a realistic and specific amount of time every day, at the same time every day, that you are going to dedicate to accomplishing this. Set an alarm if you have to. Don’t go through your day anticipating this event, because that gives your subconscious plenty of time to fill your conscious mind with reasons as to why this is silly. Just decide that you are going to do it, and no thoughts or doubts or anything or anyone else is going to get in the way. Once the alarm goes off, you will know its time to begin. Immediately go to where you can get to work and start the process.

It doesn’t matter to me if this is a “spiritual” goal, or a normal everyday goal. Once you can master this process with one aspect of your life it will be applicable to any aspect. I have also found, that my spiritual growth and inner poise has increased simply by being more purposeful and finding that I can do what I say I’m going to do. I meditate better, and am happier throughout the day. You are learning to reshape your subconscious, and as your successes or at least your tenacity to succeed continues, resistance to success falls away, until your natural state is a successful one.

Other People

Other people have been shaping our lives, by our own concession, for as long as we’ve been alive. In an ideal world, we would be raised by healthy minded parents and family and surrounded by supportive friends and coworkers. You may have noticed that for most people, this is not the case.

The way we see the world, what we expect, our judgment and ultimately our faith is usually in direct relation to the people around us. Luckily, after we grow up, and move out, we have the capacity to assess the validity of the faith we have accepted from other people and decide if it is useful, or if we need to recreate a faith that is more useful to our purposes in this world. Just as we may seek out a church that is more in line with our spiritual faith, we can seek out new people that are in line with our life faith.

Listen to the messages you are given by those around you. Are they positive and encouraging? Are the messages demeaning, and restrictive? Do they say, “Sure you can accomplish those little things, but don’t get too ambitious!” Why not be ambitious?  Think of the messages you were given as a child. Are they still valid? Do you find it worthwhile to keep listening to them? Do you somehow think that the people who gave you those messages are special in someway, or are entitled to a specific revelation of truth, that you are not? Look at the quality of the lives of the people who’s messages you allow into your consciousness. Are they happy, successful, wise, and good to the world? If so, their messages may be worth considering. If not, consider if you like participating in their faith, and make a decision.

We are eternal beings, temporarily identifying with a personality, history, mind and body. There is no merit in maintaining a state of consciousness that is no longer useful to you. Change is constant in the external world. Our faith in life can change too, and it should, otherwise we become living fossils of a lost age. When we are children we may see God as a child does.  As we mature, so does our understanding about life. Wear your faith like a garment. When that garment becomes old, worn and useless, cast it off, and decide to take up the mantle of a faith that more accurately reflects your aspirations. As you stay true to your path in life, you will know when a change of direction is called for. Have faith in the universe to provide what you need when you need it, and you will experience the endless flow of grace that is accessible to anyone who chooses to accept it.

Faith is the essence of how our life expresses in this world. The Gita states that, “one who does not have faith or is of a doubting nature perishes.” This is because if we have no faith or aspiration we are in decay. To doubt is to negate. That which you doubt has little power if any tangible force in your life experience. Joseph Campbell said, “You see no Gods outside of you, because there are none within you.” If you have faith in a divine presence, or your higher Self, that aspect of consciousness is empowered and you can depend on it.

Faith the size of a mustard seed, is said to have the power to move a mountain. The best medicine in the world can fail, if we do not believe in its efficacy. Similarly, in Yogananda’s Autobiography of a Yogi, friend of the great Sri Yutkeswar was brought back to life, by seven drops of lamp oil, because of the powerful force behind Lahiri Mahasaya’s faith.

William Blake once wrote, “If the Sun and the Moon should doubt, they’d immediately go out.” He also wrote, “The questioner who sits so sly, shall never know how to reply, he who replies to words of doubt, doth put the light of knowledge out.” We can confuse wisdom and knowledge with the thinking mind, but that does not make our thoughts knowledge. Knowledge, real knowledge comes from within. It is an inner knowing, and cannot be explained in words. By your meditation practice and surrender of your limited ego to a higher power, you tap into soul liberating knowledge. You no longer have to convert people to prove your view point is correct. You no longer have to explain to others why you believe what you do, because it is enough that you know it.

To have faith is not to hope something will occur or that something is true. Hope implies doubt. Faith is the power of life. Remember, if the sun or moon doubted they would promptly go out. To have faith is to live.

It is good to remember, that one faith is not better than another. Just as meditation techniques or spiritual teachers are not in competition. No matter the chosen expression of our faith, if we stay true to our path, we will experience the results of our commitment. Then we will know happiness, because we will have followed our calling to the very end, and then we can return from the journey and tell others what we have seen and experienced. We can strengthen the faith of our fellow travelers, and sustain the divine expression of life.

One Last Thought

This can be a lot to take in all at once. There can be many changes that you can imagine need to occur to be successful in reshaping your faith and moving into a state of spiritual tranquility. To say to your self, “OK, from now I am always going to have faith, and be purposeful and always make the right decision, from now until the end of my life” is a good way to overload your system, and then promptly give up, when on day three you slip back into old patterns.  The best way to approach this transformational process is one day at a time.

Spend some time reflecting on what your life of faith would look like when all is said and done. What will you have accomplished?  How will you have lived?  What values and ideals will you chose to express? What will people say about you after you are no longer in their presence?  Write these down.  After you’ve taken some time to get clear on this, then decide that for the rest of the day, you are going to do your best to live in such a way as to support these intentions. However, unnatural it may feel, you are going to get used to it until it becomes enjoyable and pleasant.

Then you wake up tomorrow and promptly decide you are going to do your best to live up to this new idea of your self. Then through your own will power, and divine grace, you will take the steps towards that end.

There will be moments, hours or even days, that you fall off the path you’ve decided to walk, and get a little turned around. As soon as you are aware of this, you decide you are going to find that path and start walking again. No guilt. No shame. No beating your self up. When you fall down, get up. As long as you are gentle with your self and persistent in your new vision, your new faith, it will eventually grow up out of the dirt and reach to the sun, where it will finally blossom, sharing its fragrance with the world.

Sincerely, Ryan Kurczak 2010

Absolving Your History

A Course in Tranquility – Lesson 6 of 14 – Absolving Your History

“Forget the past. The vanished lives of all men are dark with many shames. Human conduct is ever unreliable until anchored in the Divine. Everything in future will improve if you are making a spiritual effort now.”

-Swami Sri Yukteswar

The universe is vast, both in time and in space. We cannot know with one hundred percent certainty whether the judgments we pronounce on our own and others actions are correct, because we cannot see all the results of an action as it stretches through time. You may have noticed that sometimes, terrible events turn out to lead to a very positive result, while sometimes events that we deem as good and wholesome lead to ruin. Our ideal is to live the best we can in the present, and let the infinite divine consciousness take care of the rest.

There is an intelligence that permeates all, that is beyond the mind, that is beyond our imagined (although useful) moral codes. We cannot know it with the mind. We can only experience it directly. Tuned into and responsive to this intelligence, there is no need for thought. We function at a level of subtler development. In this way, there are no mistakes, only the working of the divine consciousness. Releasing attachment to the past, clears the mental radio, so we can more easily tune our dial to the divine consciousness.

When we consider this from a ‘human’ level, it seems preposterous. That is only because, when we are identified with a human point of view, we experience limitation. That is the nature of human consciousness, to work from a limited view point, through a finite personality. Anyone caught in the trap of intellectualism or philosophy will have great difficulty processing the concept that there is a power and intelligence beyond the mind.

The solution is not to throw out philosophy or intellectualism or reason or the ability to use common sense. All of these have their place just as a fork is used to eat salad and a spoon for eating soup. The main solution is to accept the usefulness and limitations of our minds and then learn to step out of the mind. Done properly, this brings us into direct experience of the creative intelligence that successfully animates all life while simultaneously spinning the cosmos, all at once. (Which, you know, is quite a feat if you’ve ever tried it!) We are then free of our history and free to live spontaneously in the divine consciousness.

What is the Use of Remembering Our History

Our past experiences and our history are very useful when properly digested. Having memories of the past enables us to function in this time-space continuum as an individual. It allows us to play a role, and to accomplish our purposes. We remember where we have been, what we have done, who we have met. From this we are able to learn what promotes our worth while purposes, and what hinders our purposes. We can then choose the proper path in life, knowing what to avoid and what to seek out.

If our ‘mental’ digestion is off, then we become confused. Memories of past actions, thoughts, and feelings become a jumble. We then feel we have to keep thinking about these confusing bits of information until we can make sense of them. All the while, we are still moving through time and space and accumulating even more thoughts, memories, feelings, etc. The mental indigestion just keeps getting worse, because we never stop the incoming flow of impressions!

This is a difficult state of affairs, because everything we experience is based on how the divine light of consciousness projects through the film reel of the mind. The more chaotic, bloated, and uncomfortable the mind becomes, so too does our life experience. When the mind can no longer manage, it breaks down. Mental distress becomes pronounced, and more difficulties arise in the life situation.

There are a number of ways to remedy this. One is daily internalized meditation. By giving attention to the breath or a mantra for 20 minutes a day, while ignoring all else, the mind has a chance to digest and clear out old data. The second most helpful way of dealing with mental indigestion is to have an intentional conscious review of your most immediate past once a day, or at least two-three times a week. The third technique, which can be done at all times is being fully in the present with out judgment.

How Meditation Clears Up Mental Indigestion

You may have noticed by now that when you sit to meditate, often you do not sit down, and then instantly you are in a quiet space. You may find that the song you heard two hours ago, or the email your mother sent last night, or the big project you have at work, or the current credit card balance are all on your mind. You may even find that you are still having flashes of incidents that occurred twenty years ago, or are still thinking the same repetitious negative self-talk you had going through your head since you were ten years old.

What you are experiencing is the vast reservoir of the past that you have been storing in your attic all this time. When you sit to meditate, essentially, you are pulling down the steps that lead up the attic and are becoming aware of just how much junk you’ve been stowing away. As you meditate, you remove bits and pieces of this junk, one day at a time.

Some people store more than others, and so it takes different amounts of time for everyone to clean out their inner space. The thing you need to know, is that it’s never going to get cleaned up until you start taking the time to do it. Your time is 20 minutes a day of meditation, and if you can sit comfortably for longer, sit for longer.

As they say in the Yoga Sutras, “Spiritual progress is in accord with one’s level of intensity, and this can be mild, medium, or very intensive.” By intensity I am not encouraging you to be a fanatic, and thinking you have to meditate all the time. I am encouraging you to practice all three of the techniques listed in this lesson regularly, so you can move from cleaning up your mess, to being a clear vessel for the divine consciousness to flow through you.

Once you can leave your past behind, you can focus on what you can do in the present. This is what it means to be anchored in the divine. The divine is not in the past, it is only now.

The Intentional Conscious Thought Review

When we try to meditate or even when we are going to bed at night, the flurry of thoughts can be very annoying and persistent. The thoughts can prevent you from getting a good night’s sleep. They can prevent you from having a deep and powerful meditation.

This occurs because there is a part of you that thinks these thoughts are very important, and that you really should be thinking about them rather than wasting your time sleeping or trying to experience the divine presence within through meditation. If you have this problem, the best thing you can do is take some time to intentionally think about everything that’s on your mind, rather than letting the thoughts think you!

What does this look like? When you are going to bed, and you notice the flurry of thoughts, acknowledge that they are there. Then lay in bed and stare at the ceiling or close your eyes, and rather than letting the thoughts run wild, use your will power to actively think about what you’ve got running through your mind.

Here is an example to help show what I mean:

Chuck is lying in bed trying to sleep. Here are the thoughts that are running wild through his head…

“I hope Audrey doesn’t find that credit card bill…When was the last time I changed the oil in the car…I can’t believe Sally got fired…Maybe we can have crab legs tomorrow…I have to remember to cut the grass…That investment is doing really well…What’s that noise…We can go camping this weekend…That chicken didn’t sit well with me…It’s been five years, and I still haven’t heard from my uncle Bill…When I get back to the office I’m not going to take crap from anyone anymore…”

This is an example of passive thinking.  In this situation, the thoughts are thinking Chuck, and so Chuck suffers at their hands.

An alternative situation would be if, while lying in bed, Chuck became aware of all of this mental indigestion, and then decided he wanted to get a really good nights sleep.  He would then do the following…

“OK. Enough of all this useless chatter. Let’s think about this stuff and then let it go. All this stuff is going through my head, so a part of me thinks I need to think about it. So I’m going to think about it with intention.

“I will pay off the credit card and shred the bill first thing tomorrow morning.”

“Next.”

“Let’s see, there are 46,000 miles on the car. I got the oil changed at 45,000. So I’ve got 2,000 more miles to go.”

“Next thought.”

“Sally got fired. So what. She was lazy anyway.”

“Next.”

“No more fried chicken before bed. Crab legs will be good for dinner tomorrow.”

“Next.”

“Uncle Bill was crazy. Who cares that I haven’t seen him in five years.”

“Ok mind, what else do you want to think about?”

–No thoughts arise–

“Are you sure? It’s only been 45 seconds, and I’m not tired yet.”

“Did you order flowers for your anniversary?” Thinks the mind.

“Oh crap…oops…I mean, tomorrow at lunch I will order flowers for Audrey.”

–No thoughts arise–

“Ok. Now we’ve thought about everything you thought was important, I’m going to sleep.”

(Chuck then falls quickly to sleep.)

This activity moves one from the endless stream of consciousness thoughts, to actively, one by one, thinking about what is on one’s mind. Then when it has been thought about, the mind can relax and sleep can happen without all of that mental clutter.   If you are going to be thinking, do it actively. The more actively you think, the less unconscious baggage will you create. The mind will become sharper and a better tool for you. Rather than running like an old clunker, that hardly ever gets any attention, and makes all kinds of noise, it will run like a fancy sports car that is well cared for.

The same applies to meditation. If you find you have a stream of thoughts that never quit. Pay attention to what you are thinking about. Then say to your self, “Ok. I’m going to actively think about this stuff right now, so I don’t have to think about it during meditation.” Once you have, then move on to meditation practice.

A final point that might be helpful for you, is to have a note book beside your meditation spot, or beside your bed. I’ve often found that when I start to meditate, the thoughts that get in my way, are all the things I have to accomplish through out the day. Or sometimes I get lots of ideas about new projects in meditation. I then continue thinking about these things, as though I’m going to forget. So by having a notebook beside me, I can immediately write down what’s on my mind, and I know it’s there for when I’m done meditating or to review tomorrow morning. This way I don’t have to keep thinking about it. I can then meditate freely.

Life Review

Beyond the level of repetitious simple thoughts, one thing that can really hinder our movement into a state of tranquility is obsession with the past. This can come in the form of longing for the good times that have faded away, to still harboring confusion about something terrible that was done to you or that you did to someone else.

We have to remember, that we cannot do anything at all about the past. We cannot change what occurred. We cannot bring back what has been lost. No matter how hard we try, even if we could align the external environment to mimic something we remembered long ago, our internal states are different and so we would still lack fulfillment. Terrible deeds cannot be altered, nor can we change a person’s behavior toward us because it was unjust.

We can, however, make peace with reality. To think that something shouldn’t have happened, or to wish it hadn’t happened, does not change the fact that it did. Thinking things should’ve been different and wishing for a different past is one of the biggest wastes of time any of us can engage in. We do this, because on some level, we have a fantasy in our head that says, “Life should have happened this way, because that’s how all the fairy tales go…” What is missing in this process, is the acknowledgment that we don’t live in a fairy tale.

You made a mistake and hurt someone. You were young and stupid. That’s not an excuse, but it is a reality. If you regret it, and do it again, then you are still stupid. That’s a reality. If you reflect on the situation, realize you were young and stupid, admit that you learned from your mistake, and that you know better now, then all you can do is live with that wisdom. Living from this wisdom, your future is much better than the past. Besides, we are not walking into the past, we are walking into the future. So if you are going to focus on something, making a better future, is the way to go, and this is based on your present choices, not your past.

If someone has been terrible to us, we can forgive them, and then decide that we will not subject ourselves to that kind of treatment anymore. Most of the excessive thoughts that come from being mistreated, usually, seem to stem from a fear that it will happen again. If we have been mistreated, the best way to not waste anymore of your thought force is to decide with finality. “Yes, that was a bad situation. And I’m not going to repeat it. If someone starts to do that to me again, I will either stop them, or leave.” Now that you’ve made a decision, you don’t have to think about it anymore. Once again, your future is better because of the action you are taking in the present, that was based on a learning experience from the past.

Since we are focusing on being realistic, we do have to remember that certain thoughts or activities have been entertained for so long, that sometimes there is a delay between when we decide to start thinking and living differently in the present and the results of our new, useful, choices. If you have been eating a bag of chips every night and drinking four cans of soda a day for forty years, chances are that deciding to drink water and eat celery instead is going to take a little while to show its results. Similarly if you have been thinking thoughts of poverty, or dwelling on traumas for decades, you can decide to stop immediately, but it may take some time for the life to adjust to the new input of feeling “provided for” and that relationships can be fun and joyful. However, the other option is to continue doing what you’ve been doing and thereby prolonging the problems you may have.

You can use the following technique to help digest your past history. It can be used before a meditation session, or even two to three times a week before you go to sleep.

Step 1 – Bring your attention to your third eye center, the space between your eyebrows. With your eyes closed, slightly look up into your skull, as though you are looking into your mind.

Step 2 – Begin breathing steadily. Your breath can be a little deeper than usual, but you want to be breathing comfortably. The consistency and steadiness is the key.

Step 3 – You are now going to review your past 24-48 hours. Start with where you are right now. Right now you are sitting in your chair getting ready to meditate.

Step 4 – Actively think about the last thing you did. If it was brushing your teeth. Remember brushing your teeth, and mentally say, “I brushed my teeth”.

Step 5 – Rewind again, thinking about what you did before brushing your teeth. “I watched the news.” Now remember the images that stuck out in your brain from the news program. Just acknowledge them and then keep going.

Step 6 – Rewind again.  What did you do before that. State what you did, mentally. Then review the memories that come up for you around that activity.

Step 7 – Continue this process until you have thought about everything you can over the last 24-48 hours.  Then proceed with your meditation practice.

Every now and again, you may need to take some time to sit for even longer and then review your entire life, as much as you can remember. Start with where you are in this very moment, and begin rewinding the picture show of your day, reviewing each incident, until you lose the ability to remember little details, then start moving back in bigger chunks. Review weeks that stick out in your mind, certain days and experiences, etc, until you can’t remember anything else. Just do your best to move backwards in chronological order. Then let it go, and continue with your meditation.

The more often you do this, while objectively observing the process, admitting all the good and bad stuff that happened in your life, the wiser you will become. Your mental baggage will become lighter and lighter. Your meditations will become deeper. Your sleep will become easier. Your interactions with the world will become more pleasant, because on each review of your life, you will see what went well and what went wrong, and you will avoid the problematic components more readily.

Our history only defines us so much as we identify with it. Whatever we identify with, that is what we will become. If we identify with the past, we will repeat it, and we will become a relic. If we have a vision of how we’d like to be, and we identify with that in the present, our past can only hold us back so long, until the force of our present actions overcomes the force of choices we have left behind.

Being Present Without Judgment

One of the hardest things for people to do, is to exist in a situation while remaining internally quiet. Even if we are only going for a walk down the hill and back, we can’t help but to keep up the mental chatter. “Oh look, that’s a blue bird. How wonderful that flower smells. Who forgot to scoop their dog’s poop? I bet it was Jim from down the street. Isn’t the sun hot!” And so it goes. Put us in a situation that runs counter to our beliefs and just watch the mind jump into action! “Can you believe that person cut me off like that? It’s just not right that Paul makes more money than me even though we do the same amount of work! That mugger didn’t have to hit me in the face. I bet Michelle wears that perfume just to irritate me!” Here we are labeling everything.

The real beauty of the divine in every moment comes forth more readily when we are quiet and watching. Then we see the life that animates the blue bird. We feel the essence of the flower.  We watch the human drama unfold in its ever changing array of activities, some pleasant, others not so.

This is hard to do, because everything that happens, happens to us. If we stop labeling and judging everything, then there is nothing happening to us. We start to lose identification with our personality. This can be very scary, and hence why so few people ever try to be in the present moment. The wonderful thing is, that when you can be fully present, witnessing what happens around you, acting appropriately without attachment to the results of your actions, then you experience wholeness and the fullness of life. Gone is the feeling that you are a little insignificant person in an endless universe, and what washes over you is the feeling that you are completely attuned to the perfection of the divine drama.

Here is how you practice being present:

Step 1 – Choose a time period for your practice. It can be 15 minutes or an hour. Pick a time when you are interacting with the world in your usual ways. So don’t pick it at 6 AM in the morning when no one is awake. You want to make sure you are fully in the activity of the day.

Step 2 – Once your allotted time begins, become acutely aware of your environment and the thoughts your environment promotes.

Example 1: You are walking to the water cooler to get a drink. A coworker steps in front of you and fills her cup up first. In this situation you are aware of what is happening, and then you become aware of your assessment of this situation. “How rude. She saw me walking towards the cooler first.” Acknowledge your judgment. Then drop your judgment. Be aware of only what is really happening.

You walked to the water cooler.

Someone stepped out in front of you.

You get your drink after they do.

That’s it. Your judgment is useless, so don’t waste your time.

Example 2: You are walking down the street. You see a beautiful flower in a streak of sunlight, shining through the space between two buildings. Just see the colors and the light. Don’t say, “Oh my, isn’t that iris lovely!” If you can just see what is there, you will see more deeply into the experience, and begin to realize just how alive the present really is with divine consciousness!

Step 3 – Always acknowledge, and then drop the judgment. Assess whether your judgment adds anything to the situation. I bet it doesn’t. Then decide to stop wasting your energy on judgment.

Step 4 – Decide if it is appropriate to do anything about the situation. If action is appropriate, take it. If it’s not. Move on with your day. Decide at that moment if action is important, and don’t keep judging if you made the right decision. Your decision is in the past. See what happens. If your decision caused a problem, decide to make a different choice next time. Then move on.

Continue this practice for your allotted time. The purpose of this exercise isn’t to “stop your thoughts”, although that will occur. It is to point out the uselessness of these thoughts. Once you experience that your judgments don’t really change anything, it will be easier for you to let go of them.   Try this at least once a day for the next two weeks.

Sincerely, Ryan Kurczak 2010

Love and Relationships

A Course in Tranquility – Lesson 2 of 14 – Love and Relationships

Swami Sri Yukteswar, a towering spiritual figure from India, once said, “ordinary
love is selfish, darkly rooted in desires and satisfactions. Divine love is without condition,
without boundary, without change. The flux of the human heart is gone forever at the
transfixing touch of pure love.” How many of us can love like that? How many want to?
Only a handful.

To love in this way requires a strong and decisive act of will to ignore the
culturally ingrained ideas and adolescent attitudes most of us have about what love is
meant to be like. To love in this way requires total immersion in our divine presence that
is tranquil in all circumstances, and sees everyone equally as a unique expression of the
one infinite consciousness.

Think of all the stories of romance, of heroes overcoming great odds to be with
the beloved, of how a person’s life was perfected the moment they found that special
someone. Those are stories and fantasy, and we want to be in reality as much as possible,
right? If course we do. Only there will we find perfect peace and real love.
This leads to step one of this weeks lesson. Get it out of your head that there is a
special someone, or that your life would be different if only your family or friends would
change, or that things would be so much better if your lover finally became the person
you always expected him or her to be.

In my astrological practice I am often asked about relationships. When will it get
better? Should I leave my husband? Is there someone better out there for me? Why do
my friends always drag me down? How can I ever forgive her for cheating on me? It goes
on. Remember that your astrological chart (and we all have one) reflects your individual
karma. Unless you have exhausted a karma, if you leave or change a relationship, without
changing you, that pattern will continue to express in whatever new relationships you
find.

To exhaust your relationship karma a decision is made. Decide that you have had
enough of the relationship experiences you have been attracting. Really mean it! No
longer will you put your happiness in the hands of ‘other’ people, by having expectations
of what they should be like, and then being disappointed when they simply act how they
are. To exhaust your karma in relationships first requires that you take the time to pay
attention to how people really are, to love and bless them in all their actions, and then to
intentionally decide if you really want to be a part of all that a relationship with said
person entails.

Exercise #1
Step 1 – When going into an interaction with anyone, remember that most people
are on autopilot 95% of the time. There actions are based on conditioning, how they’ve
been raised, how they choose to see the world, and their motives in life, most of which
they are not even aware.
Step 2 – Practice bringing conscious awareness into your relationships,
specifically the ones you would like to change. To do this, remember your past
encounters with the person you are about to interact with. How did they make you feel?
Bad? Guilty? Shameful? Worthless? Stupid? Anxious? Fearful? What did they do or say
to make you feel that way? What language did they use? How did they catch you off
guard? What did they talk about? Etc.
Pay attention to their patterns of interaction. Remember those patterns before you
go into the interaction, either in person or on the phone. Then watch and wait for those
patterns to repeat, and how they make you feel the way you always do, like clockwork,
when you are interacting with this person.
Step 3 – Don’t judge these people. You do it too! The point of all this is to bring
you in line with reality, so you can see, that the way people act towards you is nothing
personal. They are on autopilot, and you happen to be receptive to their programming.
Your karma matches up. It’s as much your fault as it is theirs.
Step 4 – Don’t try to change them. You will only frustrate your self. Admit the
truth of their being and love them. Decide if you really want to continue playing this
game with them. If so, fine. If not, don’t engage the program. It’s up to you!
The more skillful you become with this exercise, the more comical it will become.

You will no longer be triggered, and it becomes a game. “How are they going to try and
trigger me this time,” you will ask. Most of the time you will catch it, before it happens,
before they do their usual spiel that will make you feel un-tranquil. As you continue the
relationship they will unconsciously learn that they no longer have an effect on you.
Then you will relax, thinking you have it mastered, and BAM, somehow they found
another way to nail you, out of left field. You won’t take it so personally, unless it’s
terribly cruel, and you will chuckle to your self. They got you that time!

But this is not about wasting your time playing games with people. It is about
seeing the truth of the quality of the relationship. It is about inspiring you to see
“realistically” where you are in life in regards to relationships. This creates the ground
work, the foundation, for you to begin the process of change, of attracting what you do
want out of your interactions with people.

In a book called, “The Cosmic Power Within” by Dr. Joseph Murphy, he speaks
of tapping into our Cosmic Power, our divine essence, to create the life we want. The
exercise below, based on Dr. Murphy’s work, if you used persistently, will give the
results you would like to see. The cosmic power within is based on your ability to ‘see’
and ‘feel’ a different result, and then to allow the infinite consciousness (the totality of
your being) to bring the opportunities into your life to allow the different state to express.

Remember, this is not about deserving, it is simply about deciding. If you have
“deserving” issues, it is only because you have decided to have an excuse not to live
freely in this world, or to access the creative power of your spirit. You are strong! You
are wonderful! You are able to generate any life experience you want with enough Self effort.

You may have just been listening to the wrong people. Tune in to those who
support this knowledge, and you will be supported.

Exercise #2
Step 1 – Choose a relationship you would like to see improved in some way.
Take out a sheet of paper and write down specifically the improvement you’d like to see
and why you’d like to see it. There needs to be a tangible reason to empower this process.
This reason is of your own choosing. Don’t base it on society or what others tell you is a
good reason. You are learning to become Self-directed.
Step 2 – Imagine how it would feel if that relationship were already perfect. What
kinds of emotions would you have around this person? What would the quality of your
interactions be like? Write down your ideal feeling state. Put your piece of paper
somewhere safe, for you to review or edit as necessary.
Step 3 – Once or twice a day, spend five minutes feeling the state you decided on
in step 2. Even if it is hard, or you have a hard time getting in touch with feelings, do it
anyway. It will be good practice.
Step 4 – Since this will have to do with a particular relationships, you need to
associate those feelings with the relationship. Let’s take a wife for example. When you
are feeling that state, say to your self, “I feel [Insert Emotional State] when I am around
my wife.” And then do what ever it takes to make your self feel this deeply. Do not see
your wife specifically. Think of ‘wife’ almost like a general term or an archetype.
Now why are we using the archetype for wife? Because we are not black
magicians and we are not trying to manipulate a specific person. What we are doing is
changing the “wife” pattern within us. Once that pattern changes, the external world will
follow. Either you will see that the wife ‘out there’ was that way all along, or she will feel
inspired to change, or she will like who she is, and move on to someone who appreciates
her particular patterns of being. Either way, you will get what you want.
Step 5 – Repeat this process every day, until you have sculpted your inner reality
as perfectly as you like. Also, note, you are only doing this for five minutes once or twice
a day. Once it is done for the day, stop. Quit thinking about it. Don’t dwell. Just move on
with your day. There is no need to get your conscious mind obsessed with this practice.
This process can be applied to spouses, friends, brothers, sisters, coworkers,
bosses, mothers, fathers, etc.

Now back to divine love…

When you look back on your life I am sure it is filled with a mixture of pleasant
and unpleasant memories. There were times when you felt great love, anger, peace,
hatred, laughter, resentment, joy and grief. There were times when people treated you in
ways that exceeded your expectations and other times when you wished people treated
you better. You may have often wondered at why people did what they did, what their
motivation was to be so kind or so despicable.

As I was meditating a ways back a flood of memories pushed up from my
subconscious. I remembered all kinds of interactions with people and the corresponding
feelings from those moments past. A whirl of emotions ran through me. After they passed
a realization dawned. Every experience I have had, no matter if I labeled it good or bad,
was an act of love.

How can this be?! You might ask your self. I understand that all the good things
I’ve experienced are an act of love, but how can the bad be love too? You might say. If
you take the time to observe the interactions you have with people you might notice one
familiar component. Almost everyone you interact with is gaining your attention or
giving you attention.

How they do that is an individual preference based on how they were raised,
taught to behave, and a little of their own experimentation in the process. Maybe they
buy you flowers, clean the house before you get home, hit you, call you names, flatter
you, give you a massage, cook you dinner, or undermine your confidence. Some are
easier to digest, and some are perverted actions of the initial impulse. Many people are
unconscious and do the nice things out of compulsion or fear because they don’t want to
lose you. Others act in menacing ways because they don’t know any better. The point is,
in any interaction there is an exchange of attention. It is attention that is love.

Many years ago I discovered that no matter what healing protocol I chose from,
the force that empowered all healing was attention (consciousness, God). The clearer my attention (Clarity of God’s Presence), the less of
an agenda I had to disrupt my attention, the more authentic was the healing experience.
The same holds true in all human interactions. The clearer and less distracted your
attention is on the person in which you are interacting, the greater the love that is
generated.

When you decide to give someone attention with conditions, you are giving
conditional love, which may be helpful when certain conditions are met. You say, “I will
give you love when you stop nagging me, or when you learn to appreciate how I’m
different than you!” Then you wait for the love to be returned and they do the same,
providing the same conditions. Really, if you are nagging a person to stop nagging you so
that you can give them love, its the same thing.

They nag you because they want you to be different, because their mind impels
them to think your life would be better if you were different. That’s love. Why? Because
the motivation behind it is your highest in best (as they see it). You hope they will be
different because you really would like to spend some “quality time” (by your standards)
with them without all the stress. That’s love too.

Now back to my point. It may not be that people will give you love the way you
want it, but they will give you love the way they know how. It may not be pleasant, but it
is still love nonetheless. In unpleasant situations you don’t always have to accept the
conditional love you are being given. You can remove your self from the situation, and
that is sometimes necessary and beneficial. However, if you decide to love without
condition, which also means without expectations, you may catch a glimpse of real love
at work within your relationships. (However, be sure not subject your self to abuse in the name of Love. You have to Love your self to.)

By expectations I mean that you do not expect the people in your life to be any
different than they have proven to be in the past. When you can love them as they are,
you in turn will set the example to be loved as you are. You will bring into the
relationship a dynamic they have never experienced before: peace, acceptance, and no
standards (unspoken or not) to live up to.

All of this begins with you and no one else. It is your responsibility, whether you
want it or not. When you claim it for your self, you will find the strength of love in your
life that you have been looking for all this time.

Love and Tranquility – The Holy Life

“The Virture of Love, the Heart’s natural love, is the principal requisite to attain
a holy life. When this love, the heavenly gift of nature, appears in the heart, it removes
all causes of excitation from the system and cools it down to a perfectly normal state; and,
invigorating the vital powers, expels all foreign matters- the germs of diseases-by natural
ways (perspiration and so forth). It thereby makes man perfectly healthy in body and
mind, and enables him to understand properly the guidance of nature. When this love becomes developed in man it makes him able to understand the real position of his own Self as well as of others surrounding him.” –Sri Yukteswar

Being in a state of love, bliss and ease, was not easy for me. Students that attend
my classes are often amazed to hear that during the first portion of life, I was irritable,
pessimistic, often unpleasant, unhappy, angry, and had a cruel streak. Smiling genuinely
and being pleasant was a foreign state for me to experience. Why, because I didn’t have
much practice in existing in a state of love and peace. Much of how I interacted with the
world was either out of fear or domination.

It took me a number of years to learn to feel love and be in a state of love.
Meditation made it much easier, because it allowed me to see the patterns and choices I
had made which contributed to this state of affairs. By an act of will and conscious effort
I had to make my self feel love and be love.

I had no reason to make this choice. Being trapped in the mind, and my little
sense of self that was created out of unconscious desires and cravings, it was insane to
even think it was safe to love and be loved. It made no sense. I did it anyway, because an
urge within me indicated that it was possible to be different, and that if I could be
different, reality would change accordingly.

Slowly, as the years rolled by, my persona changed. I learned to be at ease. For
the most part, I learned not to sweat all the fearful ideas the normal human condition likes
to entertain. I learned to trust in the goodness of the world, and the wholeness of life. The
more I surrendered into the process the easier it became to smile from a place of real
warmth. I learned that if I wanted to be in a state of love, I had to cut out relationships
that were fear/domination based, and seek out relationships that were easy and supportive.

Twelve years after I graduated from high school and ten years into my practice of
meditation and the techniques taught in these lessons, I met with a girl I went to school
with. We hadn’t seen each other in that time. As we sat having tea at a bookstore, half
way through the conversation, she asked if there was something wrong with me. She said,
she had never seen me smile so much, and that I appeared totally different than the angst
ridden person she had known previously. I didn’t really notice how major the change was
until she pointed it out.

Sometimes changes can occur and we are not aware of it, because we are always
with our selves. It is just like aging. One day you look in the mirror after seeing a picture
of your self twenty years earlier and you notice the difference. Since you see your self in
the mirror every day, you don’t notice how age has progressed until you have a point of
reference to compare it to. I’m telling you this, because I want you to take time with your
self. Unless you have a spontaneous enlightenment experience, your changes will be
gradual. If you are not used to feeling love or being love, it will take time. Be patient and
let it unfold. Stay steady with the intention, and it will occur.

Here is an exercise I use daily. It has contributed greatly to expanding my mind
and consciousness to encourage the experience of personal, divine and cosmic love in my
life.

Exercise #3
Step 1 – After your regular meditation practice, remember a time you felt
completely content, when all was good and right in the world. Remember a time you felt
fulfilled and in perfect love. You can use a past memory to bring up this state.
Step 2 – Imagine that you are feeling that state for no reason at all. That is just the
current state of the Universe that you happen to be in. Intensify the feeling if you can. If
you are not used to feeling, practice will increase your skill.
Step 3 – With your eyes closed, imagine that feeling of love radiating beyond
your body and through the universe to every person, place, animal, and thing in existence.
Feel as though you are a beacon of light and this feeling is permeating all aspects of
creation. Hold that feeling and imagination for as long as possible.
Step 4 – When you can no longer maintain this visualization/feeling, let it go. Just
drop it. Say a prayer of thanks for the opportunity to be in love. Then go about your day.
Do this every day, and treat it like exercise. The radiance of your love is to be
unconditional. Send it to all beings, whether you feel they are deserving or not. Do not try
to change anyone or anything through this love. Just radiate it freely, as freely as the sun
shines on all people without concern of their personality or deeds.
You may find you have a hard time doing this, or that you can only maintain this
state for only a second. Remember, it is exercise. You will get stronger in love every day
you do it. Soon you will be able to sit for five, ten, twenty minutes, or even an hour in a
state of love. Then you will know real service to the world, and your life will change
accordingly.

This simple exercise is not to be overlooked. I have meditated many times,
contemplating, “What is the source of life?” “What is the meaning of all of this?” “What
is the point?” Every single time, as my mind became silent and I was open to hear the
answer, it was always this, “Love.” I then knew through direct experience, that the words
written earlier in this lesson from Swami Sri Yukteswar were absolutely correct.

Lesson 2 Homework
#1) Practice Exercise #1 every day for two weeks. Pick one person in your life to focus
on each day, and do your best to practice exercise #1 in this lesson. Don’t tell them what
you are doing. Just do it and watch what happens.
#2) Practice Exercise #3 every day for two weeks, after your regular meditation routine.
Take note of any resistance to the practice, journal about it if possible. See the resistance
as an opportunity to be aware of the changes that are occurring within you. Muscles get
sore after working out if they haven’t been used very much. Your consciousness may get
a little sore by flexing your “love” muscles. Don’t stop! Keep going until it feels
good, all the time.

Sincerely, Ryan Kurczak 2010