There is no time better than now to remember that in your heart lies the immense potential of all the unconditional love that is possible.  And the wisdom to use it.

Imagine that!

You have a Buddha inside of you.

The second coming of Christ can take place—where else?—in your heart!

What could you do with that love, that higher awareness, if you knew how?

You could heal your own life.

• You could find peace in that busy, stressed-out mind of yours.
• You could end all the fear, sadness and guilt.
• You could help your body be healthy, strong and beautiful.
• You could actually become happy.
• You could enlighten yourself!

And it wouldn’t stop there. It would radiate from you into your relationships, into your world.

You would be the light that everyone is looking for.

Imagine that!

But you’re caught inside you. You’re caught in your negative emotions and thoughts.

You’re the sun imagining you’re a fire fly.

You’re the vast ocean, constantly worried about a little wave.

You are boxed in by your stressful thoughts and emotions. They are the prison that keeps your heart constrained until you deal with them and resolve them.

Break down that jail of your heart!

How is it done? Dissolve the obstacles at their source and don’t get caught up in why it’s the way it is. That long story of your suffering is no longer necessary.

It’s not the “why” but the “how” that matters now. How do you change what you feel, who you are, now?

Back to the tremendous healing potential of your heart, the most powerful medicine of all. How can you tap into that?

1. Take some time. Become still.
2. Go to a troubling emotion. Feel what’s going on inside you. Notice the strongest body sensation.

Do it now. Be gentle.

If you don’t go to them, how will your emotions ever heal? By talking about them, you say? You’ve tried that.

Ready to go on?

1. Be present with that sensation. Realize that it’s not a threat, ever. So what is it? It’s a part of you that needs help.
2. So go to it, OPEN up to it, and pay ATTENTION. Feel it. Be with it. That is the opposite of what you have been doing so far.
3. When you open to it and pay attention, then what happens? Notice that.

You may notice that it weakens.

Take your time, be gentle, do a little bit of it at a time. In small steps, this is the application of love to what hurts you. This is the best medicine—and you are the doctor.

The feeling may move from place to place in your body. Go with it. Be still. Give yourself this powerful but gentle healing.

So now there are two parts of you, two poles:

The first one is this stressful sensation, this complex of negative thoughts, emotions and behavior. That’s your “stuff.” Everyone has stuff.

The other pole is the depth of your heart, with its amazing healing power, its deep peace, its profound presence of unconditional love. That’s who you really are.

So can you sense your heart of hearts, the Source of healing?

And can you feel that knot in the stomach (or wherever it is), that source of pain.

Now connect the two in your mind. Imagine the immense light in your heart shining into that knot, the place of darkness, the pain.

Let the light dissolve the darkness. It will.

Stay with it, become still. Give yourself this essence of the heart, this nectar. And become totally receptive to that love, open up to it in the place of your pain.

This is true yoga, true union.

This is the holy grail of all healing. You are the cosmic lover and the human beloved. In that inner embrace you are one.

Darkness (and pain) cannot stand up for long to the light. When the light penetrates, the darkness is gone.

Love yourself enough to give you this revolutionary medicine. Be among those who know how to use the great healing power that slumbers inside you.

Merry Christmas!

With love,

Ram Giri
and the Skills for Awakening team

…

For further instruction and help, including free HeartSourcing videos and much more, go to www.SkillsforAwakening.com. Spend some time on this site and explore. And let us know how you are doing!

Share with a friend if you have found this meaningful to you!

An Alternative View of an Epidemic…

by Ram Giri

Over 120 million people suffer from serious depression worldwide. Most of them live in the richest countries in the world, where, one would think, people have less reason to be depressed. What’s going on?

What the statistics don’t tell us is that many of these people are not depressed even though they have the symptoms of depression, possibly all the way to suicidal ideas. They suffer from a completely different experience: disillusionment with the world. They sense, in some vague manner, that what they have counted on to give happiness and meaning to their lives is unable to do so, and will always betray them. Materialistic values are too small for them. They have unmasked them as hopeless, and therefore they have become hopeless.

Far from being an illness, such disillusionment is the root of the aspiration for spiritual emancipation. It is a difficult but necessary phase; it is the Dark Night of the Soul, the ‘eye of the needle,’ through which every spiritual seeker has to go pass. After all ‘dis-illusioned’ means to become free of illusion. In order to live in the next paradigm you first have to be dis-illusioned by the old one.

Most physicians and psychologists are unable to recognize this condition. They are unfamiliar with the spiritual dimension and therefore unable to lead people to an effective spiritual practice, which alone is able to resolve this state. “When all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail.” They hit their patients with a label of ‘illness’ and medicate them. This can terminate the beginning of a meaningful transformation and turn it into a very challenging illness. The well-meant effort of the psychologist actually creates the depression because it teaches that a true solution to an existential crisis is unavailable.

When the flame of a higher aspiration is kindled in the heart, dis-illusionment is the dawning of wisdom. It is difficult, essential and precious. It shows us the truth, that all things in this world are fleeting and transient, and that what we have hoped will make us happy and give meaning to our lives can never fulfill us.  It robs us of the illusion that gratifying the ego works.  Everything we have put stake in turns out to be useless.

In the midst of this pain a subtle intellect begins to emerge which is capable of grasping the truth: no amount of temporary pleasures, power, money, sex and experiences can bring us what we really want. And in this critical moment, as we begin to sense how shallow or misguided some aspects of our life have been, we need guidance to a way of life that can make sense to us, that can actually fill our emptiness. But instead we are told that our brains aren’t functioning and that the only hope for us is to take pills to become compliant once more.  And if we submit, we are again locked in the old paradigm of despair, the jail in our head.

But those in whom the spiritual flame has been kindled more strongly will be able to break this unintended conspiracy.  They recognize that this world is filled with sorrows and does not keep what it appears to promise. They will not submit, but out of hopelessness their hearts will become alive.  They may turn to the examples of those who have traveled the path to spiritual emancipation before us.  They will seek a liberation that is indestructible. They will seek the bliss of the Self.

Going through the symptoms of disillusionment is not a distraction on this path. It is the path. The journey goes through this crisis to freedom, and as we get dis-illusioned many times we come to experience progressively higher states of grace.

The great scripture of India, the Yoga Vasistha, begins with the aspirant brooding over the vanity of all things.  He is tormented by worries and anxieties. He is dejected and has become very thin.  He is indifferent to sense pleasures.  The whole world has become painful to him and he contemplates ending his life.  Many pages describe the multiple aspects of disillusionment, how the world of the senses is unfulfilling and empty.  A paradigm shift is desperately needed.  In the end of this chapter the sages, who see the true and positive significance of this state of mind, praise him:

“He alone is called a ‘human’ who has the light of spiritual aspiration burning in his heart. Others are not fit to be called ‘human.’  They are nothing but animals revolving in the wheel of birth and death, driven by attachment, infatuation, and ignorance… They are blessed who aspire to realize the essential Self through their existence in this world of illusory objects and perishable pleasures.”

If you feel down, hopeless, or disoriented, and if you identify with what I am saying in some way, you most likely do not suffer from depression but are in the midst of disillusionment.  This is the development of a new state of mind that carries in it vast promise.  It is the first step to true freedom and the profound happiness of enlightenment.  Congratulations to you!

The most important first step is to realize the difference between disillusionment and depression.  Cease to think of yourself as ill, but realize you are in a positive process of spiritual awakening. Next begin to seek out the most effective ways you can further this awakening.  Be sure you look for more than fleeting comfort, but rather define the ultimate, timeless goal you seek, such as liberation from suffering, unconditional love, peace, Self-realization, etc.  Then let your entire being strive for that goal.

In this context, whatever spiritual path attracts you deeply, that is the one for you. I have my personal bias here: I feel the Skills for Awakening are particularly capable of dissolving suffering at the root and enable you to move into a new paradigm of being: freedom.  But more than recommend one path over another, I trust that the awakening consciousness in your heart will guide your way perfectly.

~ You are the architect of your destiny ~

Everyone knows someone who is down or depressed.  Why don’t you share this article with them?  You’ll never know, you might save a life.

with love and gratitude,

Ram Giri

We don’t want to suffer. So what do we need to do when it comes, small or big? Grin and bear it? Hope for a better world after we die? All that has been tried. I prefer to end suffering.

Many voices that will tell you it’s impossible, that suffering is part of life. But not so fast! There are after all people who are free of it. These accomplished beings among us are showing us the way. The fact is, if just one person can do it, we all have that same potential. It may take us awhile to get there (or not), but what’s the alternative? Continue to suffer. (Not good.)

And if the Buddhists are right, we have done it since beginningless time. (Not good at all!)

So if we look closely at suffering we see that it arises in us. We need to fix it there, rather than trying to change the world so it won’t offend us. We’ve tried that for thousands of years and it hasn’t worked so well.

Let’s do it together, day by day. I will give you tips in these blog posts. Please let me know how it goes for you, give me your questions and problems and I will try to answer and respond as best I can. We’re in this together. Let’s walk this amazing road to the end of pain!

For more go to: http://skillsforawakening.com/challenges/3-causes-of-suffering-and-their-remedies/

Most of us cannot even relate to this language – ‘Self-Love,’ it sounds like narcissism, like self-indulgence, somehow over the top and too much. And yet, when we look at its pure manifestation, it is the most important quality we can develop.

In truth most of us are rather removed from loving ourselves much of the time. We are in too much tension. We are burdened by conflicts and stress and there is an inner dialogue going on that does not let us relax. We are our worst critics and we rarely give ourselves a break.

If this describes you at least some of the time, ask your self, “How is it working for me?”

It’s a revealing question because it is not judgmental. It just invites an observation, a greater awareness of what works and what doesn’t. And if the way you have been conducting some of your life doesn’t work – change it.

That is where Self-Love comes in. Do you deserve to be happy? Please don’t answer this question so quickly. I know you want to say Yes, but look at your behavior, look at the way you have been treating yourself in those parts of life that are not easy for you: has it been an expression of Self-Love?

Are there areas in your life where you could be kinder to you? Where you could open yourself to a greater love than you have known? Go there. Pay attention to these aspects of your existence. These parts of you are like children starving for love.

You can use this imagery: is there a little boy or girl self in you that has his or her needs not met? This is true for most everyone and usually we try to ignore this inner need. It’s unpleasant to deal with and so we choose to lose ourselves in distractions.

But have you noticed, this inner voice will persist. And it’s better to listen to it now, before it grows a cancer or manifests in some other great conflict that cannot be overlooked.

You have the choice – make it now. There are so many ways to love. But how can you love if your heart is not open to you? Only as much as you love yourself can you love others and allow yourself to be loved.

It starts with a decision we have to repeat often at deeper and deeper levels of our being. A decision to do whatever it takes to gain freedom from the conditioning of old pain. This decision opens the door so we can remove what stands in the way of love, our stressful thoughts and emotions. And as we clear them, this inner well of infinite goodness, the Heart, opens and we can drink from it and its life-giving nectar can flow from us into the world.

We will become a light in this world, an increasingly awakened being, no longer conditioned by the inheritance of fear. Being love leads to giving love and giving love leads to receiving love. And the cycles of stress and fear are transformed into the ability to live and express what we truly are in the core of our being: pure love.

It is beckoning you. Will you listen? Will you do the work of clearing the conditioning of fear that keeps you in stress? Take a step today and another tomorrow and gradually but inevitably you will come to know the infinite source of love in your heart. It is the heart of God, your heart, the pulsing, alive core of your universe. It is calling to you to come to know your true Self.

And how can you do it? Associate with those in whom this flame of love burns brightly. Love and devotion are passed on this way, person to person, in a deep and fulfilling relationship where trust can build and the kind of friendship that can last for life times.

There are teachers like that. Seek them out, for that is the fastest way to get to know you. Love and let yourself be loved and all other things will fall into place. As the sun in your heart rises, all the shadows will dissipate. This sun is already rising.

The first and last and most important of all questions you can ask is “Who am I?”

The answer to this question will put enlightenment in the palm of your hand.

But it’s a trick question. It doesn’t have an answer that can be told. You have to BE the answer to know. And you already are that answer.

Here is one way to look at it:

The core of your being is the spiritual Heart. It is where the above and the below, the left and right, the male and female in you meet and are one. It is the point of balance and harmony.

The experience of the Heart is unconditional love, profound peace, unlimited energy (shakti) and the supreme intelligence that can heal mind, body and soul.

To live with an open Heart is happiness itself and although we are confused a lot of the time, everyone seeks this elusive state of a deep happiness that can last.

We seek it everywhere where it cannot be found. We look everywhere but where it actually already is: in our Heart.

There, in the very core of your being, it waits patiently until you notice.

So why is it so hard to find?

Because the Heart is obstructed by the ‘10,000 things’ of the world, by constant distractions, desires and aversions and by confusion.

This is perplexing, but if you look closely, you can see that the 10,000 things you stress over are really just two things.

The true cause of stress and confusion are your stressful thoughts and emotions.

So when you know how to free yourself of these two things, you have the key to a masterful life. You have the key to true happiness

It actually is this simple! The wisdom of the ages boils down to this: If you have the skills to

• Free yourself of stressful thoughts,
• Release negative emotions, and
• Nurture yourself deeply from the Source in the Heart…

… then you know the secret of true health and happiness.

Using the Skills allows you to enjoy real and rapid improvement. This is not a temporary state of comfort that ends in pain again, but lasting and true freedom.

Still, awakening (or enlightenment) is an experience of grace. We cannot ‘engineer’ it, no matter how hard we try or how skillful we are. Grace comes from surrender and not from an act of will. Awakening comes when we stop fighting against reality as it is, when we find peace in the here and now.

In that surrender to your reality you increasingly become who you really are. You become clear and in that clarity you will find the best path.

The best path leads to you. It leads to your ability to find in your Heart the grace of this moment, the wholeness that is in you, waiting for you to notice.

Because we are asleep to it, it is when we are shaken by hardship that we have a great chance to awaken. When we make it a habit to awaken ourselves, we do no longer have to wait for hardship to shake us. This can help us avoid hardship.

I wish you the peace of knowing that you do live in a universe that is above all a loving place, where even hardship can lead you to grace.

]]> http://blog.skillsforawakening.com/blog/spiritual-anatomy-the-secret-of-your-happiness/feed 0 http://blog.skillsforawakening.com/blog/can-the-body-heal-itself-of-cancer-2 http://blog.skillsforawakening.com/blog/can-the-body-heal-itself-of-cancer-2#comments Fri, 09 Apr 2010 21:52:37 +0000 Ram Giri http://blog.skillsforawakening.com/?p=192

This is a question many are debating, but it’s not a question for me. I have experienced it. I know. There is no doubt in my mind and the more I speak to other cancer survivors, the more stories I hear: Yes, definitely the body has the ability to free itself of cancer. It’s abilities are amazing.

When I was 23 I was diagnosed with Hodgkins disease, a deadly cancer that was untreatable at the time. I got a second opinion, and a third, and everyone said the same. I walked around under a death sentence. If you’ve been there yourself, you know how I felt… It was a very dark moment.

And then, suddenly one day, standing in the middle of a city, I had a deep internal spiritual experience. It gave me not hope, but the unshakable certainty that I was not going to die from this cancer. A great wave of profound unconditional love flooded my heart, which had been burdened almost to breaking by this threat to my life. And my heart opened again. And at that instant all the fear and stress and terror left and never came back.

I was at ease. The mind became peaceful again, and my emotions came into balance and harmony.

And right after that moment of freedom a prayer arose in me. I prayed from the bottom of my heart that one day I would be able to share with others this love, this life-giving, exhilarating, all-embracing love. It arose from within me. It was all around me. I was bathed in it and it didn’t depend on anyone, so no one could take it away.

That is the pure divine love every single one of us carries our hearts. It is the fundamental essence of who we are, and it is available at all times in the very core of our being, the ‘Heart cave’ in the middle of our chest.

This pure universal love in us is the most healing force in creation.

I knew it, I had experienced it, and my cancer melted away. It was an experience of grace which to this day I do not understand completely, but I know it was real. I am here after all, am I not? That’s quite real to me.

I knew then that I had work to do. It was a long journey to find the answer to my prayer. After 35 years of study and practice I began to share what I had found: the best and quickest ways we can discover this gift of healing and love in us.

No, I am not promising miracles. I am promising that you can free yourself of what burdens you, what shuts down your heart and what obstructs the healing in you.

And it is clear to me now that we can do it. We can open to this love in us. It is here. It is not out there as we have always assumed. It is here in the depth of our hearts from where it can heal us. And we can remove the stressful thoughts and emotions that obstruct it! And no, you don’t have to have cancer to do this.

This amazing way of freeing yourself of stress, fear and pain and of opening to universal love, is now at your finger tips in a wonderful online course. For 6 weeks you will get daily HeartSourcing meditations that train you systematically to live more and more out of your heart. And you will learn to unburden your heart with skills, that for me are nothing less than miraculous.

I sat in a cave in the Himalayas, meditating. And I noticed I couldn’t escape from myself. I brought all my ‘stuff’ with me into that cave, my stressful thoughts and emotions, and they just kept recycling. Meditation is great, I still do it every day, but I found it is slow compared to the new skills that we are gifted with now.

So if you want to clear your mind, live happily with your emotions and create the best internal environment to heal whatever is wrong with your body, this is as good as it gets. I know my prayer was heard. And I know there is a way we can live in love, in a solid way, as a lasting state, not a momentary glimpse that vanishes again all too soon.

This, and life itself, is the blessing I received and I would love to share with you as much of it as I possibly can.

……………..

To sign up for a FREE 10 day trial of the Course: “Complete Wellness and Deep Healing”…

….please go to BecomingWhole.com -  I’ll see you there!

This is a question many are debating, but it’s not a question for me. I have experienced it. I know. There is no doubt in my mind and the more I speak to other cancer survivors, the more stories I hear: Yes, definitely the body has the ability to free itself of cancer. It’s abilities are amazing.

When I was 23 I was diagnosed with Hodgkins disease, a deadly cancer that was untreatable at the time. I got a second opinion, and a third, and everyone said the same. I walked around under a death sentence. If you’ve been there yourself, you know how I felt… It was a very dark moment.

And then, suddenly one day, standing in the middle of a city, I had a deep internal spiritual experience. It gave me not hope, but the unshakable certainty that I was not going to die from this cancer. A great wave of profound unconditional love flooded my heart, which had been burdened almost to breaking by this threat to my life. And my heart opened again. And at that instant all the fear and stress and terror left and never came back.

I was at ease. The mind became peaceful again, and my emotions came into balance and harmony.

And right after that moment of freedom a prayer arose in me. I prayed from the bottom of my heart that one day I would be able to share with others this love, this life-giving, exhilarating, all-embracing love. It arose from within me. It was all around me. I was bathed in it and it didn’t depend on anyone, so no one could take it away.

That is the pure divine love every single one of us carries our hearts. It is the fundamental essence of who we are, and it is available at all times in the very core of our being, the ‘Heart cave’ in the middle of our chest.

This pure universal love in us is the most healing force in creation.

I knew it, I had experienced it, and my cancer melted away. It was an experience of grace which to this day I do not understand completely, but I know it was real. I am here after all, am I not? That’s quite real to me.

I knew then that I had work to do. It was a long journey to find the answer to my prayer. After 35 years of study and practice I began to share what I had found: the best and quickest ways we can discover this gift of healing and love in us.

No, I am not promising miracles. I am promising that you can free yourself of what burdens you, what shuts down your heart and what obstructs the healing in you.

And it is clear to me now that we can do it. We can open to this love in us. It is here. It is not out there as we have always assumed. It is here in the depth of our hearts from where it can heal us. And we can remove the stressful thoughts and emotions that obstruct it! And no, you don’t have to have cancer to do this.

This amazing way of freeing yourself of stress, fear and pain and of opening to universal love, is now at your finger tips in a wonderful online course. For 6 weeks you will get daily HeartSourcing meditations that train you systematically to live more and more out of your heart. And you will learn to unburden your heart with skills, that for me are nothing less than miraculous.

I sat in a cave in the Himalayas, meditating. And I noticed I couldn’t escape from myself. I brought all my ‘stuff’ with me into that cave, my stressful thoughts and emotions, and they just kept recycling. Meditation is great, I still do it every day, but I found it is slow compared to the new skills that we are gifted with now.

So if you want to clear your mind, live happily with your emotions and create the best internal environment to heal whatever is wrong with your body, this is as good as it gets. I know my prayer was heard. And I know there is a way we can live in love, in a solid way, as a lasting state, not a momentary glimpse that vanishes again all too soon.

This, and life itself, is the blessing I received and I would love to share with you as much of it as I possibly can.

….

PS: If you want to find out more about the Course: “Complete Wellness and Deep Healing; How to heal your life through the power of love” please go to BecomingWhole.com.