The Call to do Good

Why should one ‘do good’?  What does that look like?  The meaning of goodness will be different for different people based on their cultural/social experience.  However, for the sake of this discussion, I am defining goodness as it pertains to positive impact on oneself and others as a result of ones behavior and/or actions.  I am aware of the infinite possibilities of relative goodness.  For example, 2 warring parties practically wiping out one another including civilians is considered good within their ‘relative’ cultural/social imperatives.  As strange as that may sound, it seems to be a shared opinion among some ‘political pundits’ the world over.  Nonetheless, for this discussion we are speaking of goodness as it pertains to virtuous living.

It is often suggested that one do good for the sake of doing good and the rest will take care of itself.  There are those who come this world bent towards goodness for whatever reason and grow up in an environment that nurtures it.  There are also those who cultivated goodness and who now do it out of natural proclivity.  However, many of us have grown up in psychologically and physically challenging environments that strained our notion of goodness.  We therefore need to be reminded of why it is recommended.   We are in need of incentives.   Incentives are our friends as we navigate through this life journey.  Even those saints who reached the pinnacle of goodness were motivated/inspired by what goodness offers.  So, what is it that goodness offers?  What are the incentives?

Many religious/spiritual traditions suggest doing good in order to attain peace, in order to reach heaven or because this holy book says so.  For some this is a sufficient answer.  However, in my own conditioned experience, I found that I needed a little more detail.  The world appeared to be filled with so much pain and suffering.  I was disillusioned with the dog eat dog world.  Therefore, I often forwent goodness for the sake of instant gratification and preservation of the ego.   In my culture there was more of an incentive to participate in things that gave pleasure at the expense of virtuous behavior.  In threatening situations there was more of an incentive to protect and preserve the fragile personality.  When I take a close look at the overwhelming condition of the human experiment, I often cringe at the suffering. I have found that preservation and gratification of the person looms underneath most of our undertakings.  Though we have been suggested by religious traditions to do good, we ‘cultured’ humans tend to indulge in ‘not so good’ behaviors for a simple reason; they gratify the ‘person’ within a cultural/social context.

I do not refute the recommendation from our wisdom traditions.  However, I do feel that a little more elaboration is warranted.  So, what is the treasure at the end of the rainbow?  Let’s look at what we have been told; to reach heaven, to attain peace and so says the saints and holy ones.  Heaven?  I suggest that heaven is not some distant far away place. Heaven is not a place to get to per say.  It appears that way because we are so engrossed in our mental stories about ourselves and others as well as the past and the future. Heaven is available right here in this very moment.  Peace?  Peace is moment to moment stillness and equanimity.  This stillness is dynamic.  It is a ‘letting it be’ as events arise.  It is being it self.  The holy ones and saints?  These are those women and men who abide in heaven.  They live in peace.  So, in them you may find inspiration by their example.  In any case, one must engage ones faith.   That is faith in this notion that heaven and peace is available to one in this present moment.

There is an important connection between goodness and the present moment. When one does good there tends to be a certain kind of release or letting go sensation.  This is not necessarily the same as the release that one gets from an adrenaline rush.  Though an adrenalin rush may ensue under certain circumstances of enacting a good deed, ie jumping to save a child on the street from an on coming car or truck.  Excessive adrenaline can incur significant stress damage to the body and mind that lends one to unnecessary suffering, ie anxiety, neurosis, poor digestion, ulcers, heart damage, blood vessel damage etc.   To the contrary, this letting go that I am speaking of is associated with abiding in presence.  It connects one with what is transpiring in the present moment.  It connects one with other than the individual self.  This connection is love.  The truth of love brings us out of imaginary stories of the past and future, me and other and brings us to the present moment.  Therefore, doing good becomes a practice which facilitates love in ones life.  It is a practice of cultivating present moment consciousness.  It ultimately leads one to freedom from suffering.  Suffering transpires when one is engaged in mentation removed from presence.

So, the ultimate incentive to do good is to be free from suffering.  Goodness and virtuous living is like paving the way to self-realization.  That is realizing our true nature, which is this moment.  A life of goodness is like clearing a mirror in order to see who we truly are, and that is pure being, moment to moment.  By doing good we clean our mirror in order to see our innate beautiful.  Doing good facilitates the realization of love.  It is a means to realize the truth of our interconnectedness with the world.  We are connected in the natural web of life and we are only separated by the stories we tell ourselves.  Therefore, let us all do good!!! Let us come to know ourselves as the everything and everyone of this very moment.

Hari Om

Facing Death

In the previous posting i informed you that an uncle 'gave up the ghost'.  Death is such an interesting and often times challenging subject to discuss, particularly in American culture where robust youthfulness is highly praised.  Not only is it challenging to talk about, it is dreadfully feared as though it were some rare freak accident waiting to happen.  Life in this phenomenal world is ever changing and the human experience is not an exception to this 'way of nature'.  Change is a birth and death process.  We are born into this world with only one guarantee and that is we will die.  This is the only certainty in this life that i know of.  This coming and going of life appears to be the trend in the natural world 'internal' and 'external' to the human experience.  It is also true to every moment.  Each moment of experience comes to life and dissolves over to the next moment.  If the natural world around and within us reflects this coming and going of life and our very experience of life is a coming and going, then why is death and dying so challenging to talk about?  Why is the only guaranteed thing in this life feared?  Does it have anything to do with our perspective of death? 

Let's entertain a perspective of death.  To die is to expire from physical life.  It can also mean to end, to let go of, to decease, to depart etc.  When a leaf on a tree dies it falls to the ground.  It's life as a leaf ends and departs from this world of experience.  What happens to it?  It falls to the ground and decays to become sustenance for other life.  Even cells and/or organelles in our own bodies die and give over their essence to the subsequent birth of other cells/organelles to support our existence.  Each moment comes to life and dies/departs as another moment comes into existence.  Each moment becomes sustenance for subsequent moments.  This is the story of life in this phenomenal world.  There is something remarkable about this process.  When something dies it is transformed into something else that lives.  So what really dies?  The experience of being a green leaf departs.  The experience of a cell or organelle dies.  The experience of each moment departs.  The experience dies.

I suggest that death is a gift.  There is no point in fighting it.  It can inspire one to live fully.  Without death we could not live.  Life is this beautiful dance of birth and death.  The union of birth and death is in the experience of life.  Peace, love, happiness, heaven, Yoga is found in the very moment of experience...the union of Shiva and Shakti.  The moment of experience is the only thing that is happening.  When we are not experiencing the present moment, the union of life and death, we are clinging to a partially projected and remembered past and to a projected future with a relative past. 

What about that which is having the experience?  Does that which has the experience die?  It is a question that does not have an easy answer.  Though the answer to this question should be contemplated and reasoned, the answer lies in the experience itself.  It is a knowing that can be supported with the intellect but can only be known fully by way of experience.  The only way to find out is to face death.  To face death is to enter the forever burning fire of change.  Change is inescapable.  Death is inescapable.  Life is inescapable.  If you are interested in being truly happy, i invite you embark on the path of embracing change, embracing life and death.  There are many spiritual/wisdom traditions that encourage this self-liberating and self-empowering journey.  It is a journey!  It is challenging and it is liberating.  Seek and ye shall find.  Ask questions and you will get answers.  Be diligent and steadfast and you shall realize peace.  Meditative and contemplative practices are highly recommended.

A suggested exercise to cultivate the experiencer consciousness:

Take a moment to observe your breath.  Close your eyes and observe 5 complete inhales and exhales.  Do you experience a myriad of thoughts in the process?  Who is doing the observing?  Who is witnessing this process.  Are you the thoughts?  Who is experiencing this exercise of watching the breath?  Are you the experiencer/observer or the experience/observed.

Om Shanti

An Invitation to Investigate

Recently, i had an uncle depart from this world.  He was suffering from severe COPD.  He had a life of struggles with moments of ease, pain with moments of painlessness, suffering with moments of satisfaction and loneliness with moments of love.  For many of us this is the experiential norm on this life adventure.  This life is an adventure in deed.  We are born and we are guaranteed to die.  Throughout the adventure we acquire a character role that is ever changing.  We acquire ideas about the nature of the world and ourselves.  Then we live by those ideas.  We create an idea of ourselves…a persona.  That persona is created under tension from the environment from which we are exposed…family, culture, social structure, land etc.  The whole of our since of self is shaped by this environment.  Many of us live our entire lives like puppets on a string dangling from the forces of our environment.  We live our lives thinking that is who we truly are…puppets.(not consciously of course but puppets nonetheless.) 

My uncle did his share of smoking which no doubt was the major cause of his terminal illness.  What about the reason for which he was smoking?  What ideas about himself and the world led him to smoking?  i recall a conversation i had with him years earlier where i asked him why smoking.  He responded with something like “it calms me…”.  He was a ‘farm hand’ for the most part of his life working for various relatively small farmers in rural SC.  With conventional farming techniques, there is no telling what impact that had on his health.  How he came to be a ‘farm hand’?  What led him to smoking?  My uncle was an interesting man.  Though he was in his sixties at the time of his death, he had a ‘mind of a child’.  In many ways he was stuck at a preteen/teen phase of his development.  How did that play into this painful illness at the end of his life?  How did that play into so much suffering throughout his life?  What were the forces in his environment?  What are the ends and outs of a society that molded this family that molded him? 

Who are we and what are we reflections of?  Are we merely puppets?  Or, is there more to who we truly are?  Yes, my uncle had habits that predisposed him to his physical state at the end of his life.  Yes, he chose to live that life based on the ideas he gathered from his environment.  This does not make him good or bad.  His life is not for petty gossip.  That is an utter waste of time and a reflection of our own inner drama.  He was a beautiful soul just playing a role.  He was just doing what most of do…being unconscious puppets.  Again, this is not an indictment of my uncle.  To the contrary, it is invitation to look at our lives.  His life is a teaching?  The life he lived is a blessing?  It is an inspiration to investigate our own.

What roles are we choosing to live?  What forces are pulling our strings?  Can we be free from these strings?  Yes, we can!!!  Investigate ourselves and the world.  We can come to the truth of our being through a diligent investigation into our being.  Ask yourself, who am i?  Ask yourself, am i just a puppet on a string.  Be quiet, listen closely and cultivate patience and you will realize something beyond this wild dream. 

OM Shanti

What is Health?

What is health?  What is being healthy?  How does wellness relates to being healthy?  Where do disease and/or illness fit in? These are indeed interesting questions, and they are a challenge to answer.  The answers to these questions are personal and it is impossible to establish a specific answer that is applicable to everyone.  Nonetheless, the question remains…is there a universal reference position to look from when evaluating ones state of health?  i think there is…

Being healthy is usually associated with a cessation of illness or disease.  Is it true that one is healthy when there is no apparent illness?  What about those situations when we feel ‘healthy’, unaware of a subtle diagnosable ‘dis-ease’?  Does this mean one is not healthy?  Is one not healthy when they go to the doctor for a routine check up and a slew of laboratory test to discover they have some rare heart condition?  And, is it proper to define health as a negation of illness?  Maybe so, we are at liberty to define things as we deem necessary.  Nonetheless, I think it would behoove us to reevaluate our definition of health. 

Let’s look at the factors that impact our health.  The environment in which we live is a major factor in determining our state of health.  This environment is composed of the internal and external.  The internal is that which is within the physical body.  The external is that which is outside of the body.  The internal includes not only the flow of fluids and the interaction of bio-chemicals, but also the state of mind.  The mind influences the interactions of bio-chemicals via hormones and other messenger molecules.  The external includes not only the physical conditions of the environment, but also the social and cultural dynamics that impact them.  Social and cultural structures are expressions of ideas generated by thinking minds.  Members of these societies are enculturated by the thoughts that maintain these structures.  As can be seen, the cultural and social structures impact both the internal and external environment of the body. 

The next question is who is experiencing the body, the internal and the external.  Who am I?  Are we merely the physical body and the mind that impacts it?  When i speak of mind,

I am not referring to only the brain.  To think that the mind is merely the brain, the central control system of the body, is inadequate in my opinion.  The brain is apart of the physical body.  The body is an expression of ‘Mind’.  At any rate, I think it is important to look at the nature of the mind when evaluating ones state of health because, that which is using the mind for the evaluation of experiences is the one who determines ones state of health.  It is not society and its standards that determine our state of health.  It isn’t the doctor nor the mind itself.  It is you, the one that witnesses life, the one who is truly experiencing life.

Health is determined by how the experiencer relates to the experiences in life.  Some experiences are unpleasant, but that does not mean that the experiencer is unpleasant.   If one is diagnosed with cancer, it does not mean one is automatically deemed unhealthy.  Can one approach the cancer in a ‘healthy’ way?  Can one not suffer in this situation?  I think so.  This doesn’t mean it is easy.  Illness, dis-ease, and pain are a part of life.  I don’t think we can escape it.  We may be able to mitigate it tremendously by way of lifestyle management.  We can modify how we relate to illness.  Ultimately, how we relate to illness and pain determines our state of health.

To sum it up…

So, ones state of health does not suggest that one is without illness.  Yes, illness is a reality!  Yet, we can be healthy!  We don’t have to be defined by illness or disease.  An unhealthy approach to disease would be, “I have been diagnosed with cancer and my life is over.  I am screwed.  My life is ruined.  I give my life over to the medical establishment.  I allow people outside of me to determine and define my well-being.”  A healthy approach would be, “I have been diagnosed with diabetes and I am doing what I can to make peace with it by mitigating harm to myself and by not judging myself or surrendering the life I have to the illness.  I am doing my best with the situation.  I will make the best of it.  I will listen to my body and mind and make peace with life. I will live life to the fullest.  I will take this as an opportunity to dig deep within to become much more aware of who I am and my desires within this life.  I will use whatever health care modalities to support a healthy state of mind in the time of pain and discomfort.  I choose to make the best of my life.  I choose to be healthy in the storm.”

Healthiness is a state of mind.  A healthy being relates to life with equanimity and peace in her heart.   Health is about how we relate to what is transpiring in our lives.  We may ask ourselves: how do I respond to what is going on in my life?  Do I have a healthy relationship with what is happening in my internal and external environment?  Can I be at peace with what is occurring in my life?

OM Shanti

OM Shanti

The Purpose of this Blog

The purpose of this blog is to share what little i have come to know about living a peaceful existence.  i suggest that peace, stillness, love, freedom and unity is our true nature.  These ideas will be expounded on from time to time.  i do not profess to know it all.  i do not profess to be an enlightened being.  i am merely a simple man who is on the path of peace and love.  i am open to suggestions.  i am open to alternative ways of thinking.  So let's play.  Let's discuss!  Let's learn from each other.  Let's share.  More importantly let's have fun in the process of self discovery.

Om Shanti