Would you like enlightenment with that?

Instant coffee came first.  Then instant noodles and instant messaging.  And it seems that somewhere along the line we found instant spirituality.  Or at least we hoped we had.  Because it seems from that horrid moment when the alarm clock goes off and it's get breakfast for the kids/clean up/get dressed/rush to work/go crazy at work/rush home/sort the house and kids/make dinner/fall asleep watching the news..........we don't have time for anything requiring effort and practice and boring stuff like that.

Makes me think of the Mainland cheese ads  -  remember them?  Two salt-of-the-earth blokes ruminating about how 'Good things take time'.  Well guys, I don't know who your ad agency is, but I hope they didn't lose the contract!

So what is instant spirituality?

I guess it comes in many different packages.  But every package offers pretty much the same thing  -  the ability for me to be able to manifest anything and everything my (greedy?) little mind can desire. (Uh hello.........wasn't the central teaching of the Buddha something about desire being the root of all suffering?)

So what wrong with this?  Well I don't like to be the harbinger of bad news, but it seems to me that this fashionable trend does little more than satisfy insecurity and neediness.  It would have us believe that if we could only focus hard enough on what we want  -  wham bang  -  it would appear.  Like the genie out of the bottle.  Wonderful.  But then what?  If we did get the magic formula  wouldn't we be like kids in a candy shop - I want this one, and this one, and this one, and these ones...................

The mind is never satisfied.  As the Buddha says  -  desire is the root of all suffering.

True spirituality is a ripening process.  Like fruit on a tree.  We don't try to rush the fruit, or walk away from it forever because it is still green......

If we want our own spirituality to ripen slowly and naturally what can we do to help the process?  We must walk, every day, in that direction.  We must first become clear about what we want.  Focus on the possible.  Do not allow ourselves to be overwhelmed by the enormity of the task before us  -  that will muddy the waters  -  as we all know, overwhelm creates anxiety.

There may well be those very rare individuals who, by a stroke of pure grace, stumble into the light in one mind-exploding moment.  Perhaps Eckhard Tolle is one? (The Power of Now  - a 'must-read' for anyone looking to understand what life's all about).  But for the vast majority of us it is a life-long quest.  I view the raising of my consciousness as the primary reason for my being on this earth  -  and this journey is one that I need to steadfastly and doggedly attempt to be aware of every moment of every day.

So it's every time I think a 'bad' thought I need to catch myself and re-direct my attention in the opposite direction.  Every time I feel myself being pulled into the rip tide of uncontrolled emotion I need to pay attention.  Nothing wrong with feeling our emotions  -  lots wrong actually with NOT feeling them  -  but that doesn't mean I have to react blindly.  Before I speak I need to think about what I'm going to say and why.  Likewise with my actions.

So a life of ripening spirituality is a life lived consciously.  And more than that.  Much more.  It's a life lived as one on-going yoga practice.   But that is a subject for another day.

Life in a fish bowl

When my kids were small one of the most exciting things we could do was go to Kelly Tarltons. As an aquarium-lover myself I found this a very pleasant way to celebrate a child's birthday or entertain an overseas visitor.  We would spend a relaxing morning strolling through what in those days seemed like an endless tunnel, surrounded by an apparently infinite number of exciting fish of many varieties.

Can't say I'm much of a fan any more  -  don't know if it's me that's changed or the fish.  But the excitement has gone out of our relationship  -  it just doesn't do it for me any longer.

But that's not what this is about.  I'm not here to discuss the merits of Kelly Tarltons.  But it got me thinking.  Those fish swim around and around and around................thinking about whatever fish think about I guess........... I have no idea what that may be.........but one thing I am pretty sure of. Those fish see their tank as their universe.  It's all they know.  For them that tank is IT. Assuming they were raised in captivity, they have no concept  of anything like the ocean.  How could they?

And yet  -  I just cannot help believing that somewhere deep in their 'fishness' they DO know the ocean. Somehow they know that the tank is not where they really belong  -  and they yearn for the ocean.  They long to be free.  They pine for their true home.

And what about us?

Every day we swim around and around and around, being the people we have designed ourselves to be. We go about our daily lives always busy, always involved, always working away to feather our little nests (oops now we're birds!) and create a more comfortable corner for ourselves in our little world.  We think this is IT.

And yet  -  I cannot help believing that somewhere deep in our 'humanness' we DO know our ocean. Somehow we know that this world is not where we really belong  - and we yearn for that place.  We long to be free.  We pine for our true home.

The stuff that weighs us down....

Last weekend I went to see my beloved George Clooney give a superb performance in his new movie Up in the Air.  Cool movie  -  go see it!  Without giving away anything important I can tell you that George's job entails constantly flying around the world firing people from their jobs.  Apparently there are companies that do this  -  if the boss is too scared or timid or whatever himself he hires some one else to do his dirty work.

Anyway, as a side gig, George is a public speaker.  You know the type  -  a motivational speaker who works the various conferences that are so popular these days.  And George's little twist comes in the form of a backpack.  His talk is called "What's in your backpack?"  Basically he suggests the audience imagines themselves wearing a backpack and slowly filling it with all their 'stuff'  -  from clothes and ornaments and books to furniture, cars, houses. He asks them to add all the people in their lives.  He implores them to feel the weight that they are lugging around, day after day.  And suggests that they throw everything out.  Empty the backpack.

And then last night  -  in that strange serendipidous fashion in which a specific message is repeated from a completely unrelated source  -  I happened to catch a talk given on TV by a truly lovely spiritual teacher by the name of Prem Rawat (also known as Maharaji).  He began by saying that we are all on a voyage  - that our body is our vehicle for this voyage  -  and he asked what was the point of this voyage.  What is the point of this life we are all so busy living?  The point, he says, is to experience 'the ulitimate'.  What is the ulitmate?  That, he says, cannot be described  -  but suffice to say that the same force that moves the universe exists inside of ourselves  -  right here in our vehicle  -  and the point of the voyage is to discover and experience that force.

And he spoke of how we all carry so many things with us on our voyage.  So much heavy stuff that weighs us down.  We carry our anger and our sadness.  We carry resentment and envy.  All heavy stuff.  And confusion.  He said confusion is SO heavy it pretty much prevents us from going anywhere.  Why carry all this on our voyage?

Now that we know that the purpose of the voyage is to discover and experience the universal force, we can put our confusion down and pick up clarity.  Feel clarity - how little it weighs he says.  And pick up joy.  Feel the weight of joy.  It is so light that it makes YOU feel light.

So let us all continue on our voyage of discovery accompanied by clarity and joy, and let's see how light we feel.

And not forgetting George  -  poor George who, having emptied his backpack, was left with nothing  - perhaps some one can tell him what he should be putting  into his backpack once everything else has been emptied out?

(You can visit Maharaji's website by clicking here)

Be Happy  -  don't worry!  :)

You know what I really like about yoga philosophy?  Well in fact I like it all.  What's not to like with a philosophy that tells you  you're actually perfect.  Nothing to change, nothing to add, nothing to attract (thank heavens  -  all these laws of attraction are quite exhausting!)  All I need to do is peel away everything extraneous and voila`-  blissful magnificence.

But here's the best part.  The really amazing bit.  Yoga philosophy tells us that in the end, no matter who we are or what we achieve it doesn't amount to anything.  It doesn't matter.  It's all just an illusion, from which we will awaken when we die.  Like we don't realize we are dreaming while we are dreaming, but upon awakening we realize in an instant that it was all just a dream.  In the same way we will 'awaken' and see how our life has been a dream.

How cool is that??

So whew!  -  we can stop taking ourselves so seriously.  We can stop blowing up every little 'situation' into a major production, every tiny set-back into failure of monumental importance, every thoughtless snappy remark into relationship-threatening drama.  Like the actor on the stage we can play our role to the best of our ability but realize at the same time that we are not in truth the character we play.  It is simply our ego that plays the part.

When we start to realize that it is just our ego that gets hurt by a snide comment, our ego that is afraid of ridicule or rejection, our ego that puffs up with pride when we are praised or rewarded  -  when we begin to understand that it is our ego that stands in the way of our ever discovering who we REALLY are - I think that maybe that's when we start to wake up, just a little bit.  That's when our consciousness begins to lift, little by little, day by day, until we often begin to catch ourselves indulging our fantasy life as though it were reality.  We start to gradually, occasionally, penetrate that fog of forgetfulness, and glimpse for a brief instant a self apart from the ego.  A witness.

Now don't get me wrong please.  This is not to say that you can do whatever you like and that's all fine and dandy.  Far from it.  Just because this life is not the ultimate reality doesn't mean we live in a laissez-faire universe with no one counting how many biscuits you ate late last night when no one was around.  Oh no.  You were free to enjoy your guilty delight, quite so, but the price is going to be high. Those new jeans you bought.......?  This 'fantasy reality' that we live is governed by immutable laws  -  we reap what we sow.  Perhaps not in this lifetime, but we have an infinite amount of time..........

Yoga teachings are there to help us negotiate these jungles of time and space we find ourselves living in. They point the way.  They require us to climb to the highest paths.  They are in fact the  shortest route to that higher consciousness that enables us to recognize the ever-so-clever workings of our ego.  And at that moment of first 'awakening'  -  that first awareness of the silent self beyond the ego  -  at that moment we can laugh for the first time about ourselves and gain our first moment of a new perspective. What busy little ants we are in our cosy little anthills!

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A fresh perspective?

With Christmas behind us we're now steaming full speed ahead towards a new year.  As students left class for the last time this year so many of them seemed highly relieved that 2009 is finally coming to a close  -  and they all expressed a single hope.  That 2010 will be better.

Hmmm.....

You may remember a few years ago a market analyst got a trained chimpanzee to throw darts at a dart board that contained random names of stocks in the American stock exchange.  Apparently the chimp's portfolio out-performed the S & P (Standard and Poor) Index as well as most of the Mutual Funds.

So for 2010, rather than look to economic experts, soothsayers, fortune tellers or politicians for a glimpse into my year-to-come I am turning to my 3 cats.  And here is what I am learning from my furry friends.

My oldest cat, a beautiful Siamese with the now somewhat inappropriate name of Baby (she's going on 16) has always viewed the world with a very neurotic attitude.  In 'the world according to Baby' everyone and everything (myself excluded) is out to GET YOU!  She cringes and quivers when my husband reaches out to stroke her (after 16 years you'd think she'd get over herself).  A dropped fork or loud laugh from the other end of the house send her diving under the bed.  A leaf blowing across the deck has her racing inside.  Not a relaxing lifestyle.

Then there's Tigger.  At around 10 she's the youngest.  Bit of a mistake actually.  She had a very traumatic infancy it appears, having been found abandoned and starving.  So in 'the world according to Tigger' it's every cat for himself.  It's grab what you can and to hell with the rest.  It's gobble it down as quickly as possible so no one else gets to eat it first.  Unfortunately this approach leads not only to a little tension among the troops but also to obesity.

And then there's Sugar.  She's the middle one (no issues there however) and she's pure white. This fact may be the one that dominates her life and crafts her 'world according to Sugar'.  For 2 reasons.  Firstly I suspect that she believes herself to be the 'great white hope' of the cat world so she is CONSTANTLY cleaning herself  -  demonstrating thereby that she understands the need to lead by example.  And secondly her poor little pink ears were so assaulted by the sun that she had a little dance with death and had to have her ears chopped off.  So she now understands better than most her own fragile mortality.

So Sugar seems to have manifested her true Buddha nature.  She sits in the garden contemplating.  She is sweet and loving and a very calm presence.  She may well be the reincarnation of a very old (cat) soul  - pity my other two just don't seem to get it!

But what does this tell us about 2010?  What will the year hold for us?

It tells us that 2010 will be another year.  Like all the rest.  And what we make of it is up to us.  We can have the neurotic approach where we hunker down and hope nothing bad finds us.  Or we can bulldoze our way through, grabbing what we can on the way.

Or we can stop.  Sit.  Be quiet and let the noise in our heads settle down.  And then, even if we don't know which direction to take or which decisions may be the right ones, we can tune into our own Buddha nature where we can stop resisting what is, start accepting where we are and move forward in the spirit of leading by example.

Have a fantastic New Year!