Sometimes my heart beats faster...

And my left eye flutters...

On Laughter

"I remember being so glad to be with a fellow yogi who wasn't afraid to laugh at the precariousness of being a yoga teacher and a human being.  We sat in the grass and we laughed."

-someone smarter than me

On Being Lost

There are times when I feel like all is lost.  There are times when I feel like nothing is worth it.  There comes a time when I feel lonely, even in the midst of people.

Right now is not one of those times.

The whirlwind of change that is rushing through my life is exhilarating.  It is invigorating.  It is inspiring.  It is overwhelming.

But that is what change is all about.  How the dust is going to settle I don't know.  How the whole picture will look after the pieces come together I don't know.  How I'll handle the blinding yet energizing sunshine now that my blindfold has been lifted I'm not sure.

But finding out is what makes it all so exciting.

On Being Never Not Broken

Akhilandeshvari: Goddess of Never Not Broken, or The Always Broken Goddess

The brokenness of Akhilanda isn't a brokenness of weakness, fear, or terror.  It is the brokenness that tears us apart, disrupting the ruts, routines, and rituals of our everyday life.  Those things that so often stunt our personal growth and can prove to be toxic to the development and pursuit of personal goals and achievements.  Repeating the same relationships (friendly or intimate) over and over; maintaining the same habits for years upon years; not performing some sort of introspection on a regular and routine basis to identify whether we are on the right path for our lives to achieve those goals and become the best people we can become.

The story of Akhilanda is that when we experience a devastating loss, are torn apart by some experience in our life, or we witness our envisioned future dissolve before our very eyes, we have the opportunity to choose the manner in which we will put ourselves together.  We can learn from our past that has brought us to this heaped up pile of broken pieces.  We can look forward to what had been our visions of the future.  But really, we are in a state of flux.  We are changing.  We are learning to flow through life like a river runs its course, over and around the obstacles of life; learning from the confusion of life.  For how can we ever learn and grow if we already have everything figured out.

But it is also important to recognize that this newly pieced together person is only an illusion.  This new being we create for ourselves is only temporary.  For we will break again.  We will fall apart.  We will in some way see our future dissolve and develop a new one in its wake.  For we are never not broken.  And that is the beauty and the power of Akhilanda.  We have the strength and the power to reinvent ourselves as often as we need to in order to make the course corrections in life to find the path that is right for us.

On Dostoyevsky

“Above all, don't lie to yourself. The man who lies to himself and listens to his own lie comes to a point that he cannot distinguish the truth within him, or around him, and so loses all respect for himself and for others. And having no respect he ceases to love.” 

-Fyodor Dostoyevsky, The Brothers Karamazov

On Finding Stillness

"The challenge for you is to find that still point, that clarity inside that knows this trauma is just another layer of what's not real.  You can boil inside, you can rage, cry, feel hurt and be perfectly justified.  Or you can recognize that you are not this body, this mind, this relationship, this drama, this pain, this anger, this hurt.  The whole point of knowing about karma and having a tool like yoga is to dig out the roots of what spurs us to action and creating more karma."

-Someome smarter than me

On Creating a Life You Love

When you're reassessing life, it's tempting to spend a lot of time focusing on yourself. But it can be transformative to connect with the world around you, to meet your neighbors, to enjoy the changing of the seasons, to take an interest in what's happening in your community. Simply being aware of your environment creates a sense of interconnectedness — and suddenly you can't not care about how your actions affect people and your environment.

On Friendship

"Genuine friendship depends on genuine affection and taking a sense of responsibility for each other." - His Holiness the Dalai Lama XIV

An Unexamined Life

Socrates stated so many year ago that "an unexamined life is not worth living."

I fully and completely agree with this.  For how can one even attempt to integrate one's life into the life of another if one has no clear idea of who you are.  To even attempt such a fete is immoral, inconscionable, and just wrong.

Are We All Just Fooling Ourselves?

 

"The quality of everything we do: our physical actions, our verbal actions, and even our mental actions, depends on our motivation." - His Holiness the Dalai Lama XIV

The actions we take when we interact with others... The things we say to one another, both verbal and non-verbal... And yes, even the mental thoughts we have but don't say or act upon when dealing with others...  It all depends on our point of view, the orientation we choose when we look at this thing called life, and how we are motivated to implement that point of view and orientation.  We can choose the positive, compassionate, and loving path - what some might call the implementation of good karma - or we can find ourselves on a negative, perhaps self-destructive and hopeless path - what is often referred to as bad karma.  It is all about the choices we make in those all-important moments of truth.  Do we hide away and introduce lies and deceit into the world, into our relationships, and into our lives?  Or do we make the tough decisions and dig deep into ourselves to be honest, forthcoming, and respectful to the universe, to those around us, and to ourselves?

Karma is simply defined in the Yoga Sutras as action.  It states that these actions can be good or bad, based on what some might call universal morality.  And it is these actions, when repeated over and over again, that define the path upon which we find ourselves.  The challenge is that the mind is easily fooled into thinking we are on a particular path when in reality we are not.  For often we don't want to admit, even to ourselves, even in our most honest moments of introspection, that our actions... our thoughts... our motivation are less than moral.  Are less than ethical.  Are less than honest and truthful.

But sometimes, be it by the actions of another that can jolt your world view of the honesty and trustworthiness of others, or the simple statements of a good friend that recognizes the hurt residing within you, you can recognize that the path you thought you were traveling, be it by yourself or with your beloved, was nothing more than a fantasy.  And you realize the discordance of your own honest and respectful actions with the negative and dishonest actions of your traveling companion and this makes you recognize that you can only find the answers... the truth... the love... within yourself.  For at the end of the day, we are all alone on a planet of billions.

Letting Go

Nobody likes letting go.  From our earliest moments, our instinct is to grab, grip, cling, or hold on to anything we can.  To a finger.  To a blanket.  To a toy.  To a best friend.  To a love that has obviously already let you go by their actions.  Or their inactions.  Sometimes we hold on for dear life to the very things that inhibit us from actually living life.

But there is an upside.  The feeling we get when we do finally let go.  The trick is not to find a way around the obstacles and challenges thrown at us by life, but to live with them.  Live through them.  Learn from them.  In a halfway happy, uneasy alliance until the universe throws something new our way.  And around and around we go until the time comes finally to say goodbye.  And like it or not, ready or not, we all have to accept one universal truth - life is messy. M Always and for all of us.

But... maybe messy is what one needs.

Ever After

"Happily Ever After" is a crock.  It's a sham.  It's a shell game on the street for every passing sucker that walks past.  They're just words.  Pretty words, but words just the same.

Our lives are determined by dumb luck, the actions we take, and the courage we summon during those all-important moments of truth.  Real life doesn't come with "The End."  Our stories never end as "Happily Ever After," is really only the beginning.  There are a million ever afters in everyone's lives.  For just when you think you've reached the finish line and found a nice little place to call home and someone with whom to curl up, the gun goes off again.

And the race begins anew.