You are the architect of your destiny.

There are parts of your life that are working, and others that aren’t. It is in dealing with your challenges differently, that you can find your true potential to make this new year a time of real transformation and victory!

Never mind the hype about 2012: this coming year will be exactly identical to all others in that it will give you plenty of opportunity to stay trapped in your conditioned ways of unhappiness—or not!

I can make one unfailing prediction: if your desire to change is not great enough to spur you to action, you will stay exactly the same. Your desire will remain a desire, not more. An unfulfilled hope, like you’ve had many over the years. Surface change will not work.

The reality that surrounds you is just that: a chain of opportunities, perfectly designed to help you realize your inherent freedom and bliss, your enlightened nature, your great heart.

Your challenges are not bad luck, personal failure, or a sign that the universe doesn’t care. Far from it! They come to help you realize the deeper truth: that you can be incredibly happy in life, not despite, but because of it all.

See what doesn’t work in your life for what it is: Something you have yet to master. Something that is designed to bring out the best in you, to show you the missing pieces, to awaken you. Even discouragement and hopelessness are like that: they are the beginning of courage and mastery.

You need to brace yourself therefore not against challenging events, but against your habit of staying asleep, of reacting to life’s challenges in the same old negative ways that have perpetuated your suffering in the past.

And you have insisted on staying asleep even as a profoundly caring universe has tried time and again to shake you awake.

“A profoundly caring universe?” you may say, with a rather incredulous look on your face.

Imagine a loving mother who notices her child suffering from a nightmare. She comes to wake up the child, but he resists, and, still in the grip of the nightmare, blames her for disrupting his sleep.

This mother-universe is going to try to prod you to awake this year. How will it happen? Will it be through a new love, an unforeseen good fortune, or greatly renewed strength? Or will it be a financial meltdown, a sudden loss, an illness, an accident, a moment of deep despair?

Probably some of both.

How will you use these events? How you react to them—and therefore, the result you get—is up to you.

There is a simple law in effect here. If you do nothing now to change old unconscious patterns of reacting with anger, or fear, or desire, dependency, worry, and so on, then you will react as always before, and your old patterns of suffering will be reinforced. This means you will suffer more in the future.

That’s the default mode. But by engaging in a regular high-level awakening practice now, you will avoid future suffering. Such efforts are the wisest way of investing your time and effort.

Then, when the inevitable events of life happen, you are not helpless. Instead, whatever comes will help you become more skilled, more aware, more kind, more awake. This is a masterful way to live. It is based in wisdom and love.

You can only be a victim to your own unconscious tendencies, your blindness, fear and confusion—but they can be explored and removed now.

Your old patterns of suffering are what keep you asleep. They are what can turn life into a nightmare. But, let me say it again: you are not a victim!

At your core, deeper than the troubles of life, are undisturbed peace and vast awareness, waiting to be discovered by you. You are the unconditional love in your deepest heart, which creates this dance of a world. Now make a deeper resolve than ever before to discover that and shed your pain like the worn-out skin of a snake!

Whether by default, or by aspiration, you are the architect of your own destiny. The events of this world are nothing more than the raw materials out of which you build your character and through which you either rise to freedom, or entangle yourself further in pain.

So here’s to 2012, a year, which will offer you challenges and support, exactly like any other.

And here is to you, the hero in the quest for the awakening out of the slumber of eons into the clarity of your mind and the depth of your heart.

You, the one who can make this year an epiphany, the beginning of a new world!

Happy new year!

Ram Giri
and the Skills for Awakening team

………

To assist a few committed individuals to make the best of the challenges and the grace of this new year, Ram Giri offers a 20% sale on his personal or group coaching program for 2012. Please call (305) 567-1406 or visit http://skillsforawakening.com/coach/ for more information.

This offer is valid through January 31, 2012.

Life will always have its ups and downs. This is inevitable. And in this continuous change, in this unpredictability, life meets beauty in its entire dimension. Here is where I ask myself and I invite you to do the same: How am I dancing with life?

Am I meeting life with a balanced and peaceful mind and an open heart, no matter what? Am I seeing that on my side of the fence the grass is pretty green too? Am I treating my fears, self-doubt, self-judgment and shame with kindness and compassion? Do I love myself just the way I am? Or am I constantly comparing myself with others who seem ‘more successful’, ‘more attractive’ or ‘more spiritual’ than me? Am I indulging in the 10 million distractions of the world in order to hide and run away from what’s going on inside? Am I pretending to be someone quite different than who I really am…?

I find that it’s easy to love yourself when everything is going your way, when life fulfills your desires, when you find yourself at the peak of the mountain.  But it doesn’t last; life constantly and kindly shows us where we have yet some growing to do. What about when you get embarrassed, feel criticized, vulnerable or exposed? When you find yourself in that dark tunnel feeling that there is no light at the other end? How do you deal with that conversation in your head that keeps putting you down?

If you are seeking for a deeper truth, ask yourself these questions; you can do that now, even if it means to stop reading this article for few minutes. This process of self-inquiry opens up a new understanding of yourself. It can give you a road map to deal with the conditioned mind that constantly falls into the cycles of self-doubt and self-judgment. This sheds light into the dark shadow.

Constantly we hide our most sacred ideas, our most sacred secrets, because it’s easier to shelter them than exposing ourselves. To bring them out, whether that means opening a conversation, looking for help, or finding practices to undo our own cobweb, means to make yourself vulnerable. And this can be scary at first. So we wear masks and pretend not to be ashamed, but we’re always scared to be found out… If they knew what I‘m really like, they would never speak to me again. This is the tragedy of this world: we have lost access to our brilliant hearts and live dominated by fear. That’s why we suffer so much.

Loving yourself the way you are is like being on the peak of a mountain and knowing that you can merge with the vastness of the sky and the nature around you. It is being at peace with reality, however reality shows up. It is being kind, so kind with yourself even in those moments when you can’t stop the self-punishment for what you have or haven’t done. It is dissolving the voice that says: “it is embarrassing to be me”, or “men don’t cry”, or “I’m not good enough”, and so on.

The truth is that it is not embarrassing to be you. It is quite the opposite. It is freedom to expose your true self, it is liberating to feel vulnerable and allowing what is. It is an act of honesty, with you and with the world, to show your sensitivity, your happiness or sadness, and your compassion. It is courageous to show what is hidden behind that mask. It is an act of love to be authentic. Keep this sentence in your mind: The most attractive thing about a person is his or her authenticity!

To get to the peak of that mountain (which ultimately is the realization that you are what you seek to become) you need to start climbing, step by step. Stop when you need to take a deep breath, perhaps look back to see how much you have advanced… and continue climbing, with that deepest driving desire in your mind, with one-pointed focus. Allow yourself to be like water and move with the flow of life. And it’s ok if you slip down a few meters. No need to panic. There is always a new opportunity to begin again.

Be aware and listen when the ego is telling you that you are going too slowly, or that you should climb faster. Stillness, even while moving, can help you to distinguish the voice of the ego from the voice of love. It is wise to acquire what you need for your quest: the companionship of fellow climbers, the necessary tools to make your climbing easier, the skills that make you stronger. Listen to the guidance and experience of those who have gone before you and check in to see if they work for you. And most importantly, know that in this quest you are completely supported by a caring universe.

All minds are the same until they get educated for happiness. That is your task. If you are conscious enough to understand this, then you are capable of doing it.  You are capable of turning your life around, so completely that not long from now you will have a laughing fit when you remember how miserable you used to make yourself today.

Unhappiness is optional, but only for those who get serious about happiness. And when I say happiness I don’t mean the meaningless chase after distractions that serve to keep the ego fast asleep. I mean the complete wakefulness of the spirit. I mean the full realization of the immense brilliance of what you are. I mean the full miracle of you!

You must discover your heart if you want to enjoy the kind of relationship you dream about and deserve. The tensions created by insecurity and self-doubt will inevitably spoil the greatest experience. They must create conflicts in all your relationships and they will cause you to sabotage yourself every step of the way.

But when you feel bad you push your heart away, you try to bury it, and it always comes back. You live in escape mode from what you believe, from your truth, but you can’t get away from yourself. These are the moments when you need that open and authentic heart the most.

Remember: The most attractive thing about you is your authenticity. When you can be who you are, you are naturally fulfilled and others will notice. There will be a shine around you, but you won’t care. It is just the natural way you are.

You are already what you seek to become, only you are unconscious of it. Your bliss and your love are already fully present in you; you just haven’t discovered them yet. In you lies hidden the totality of all the love that is possible in this world. It is the true nature of the heart.

But in you lies also the enemy of forgetfulness. You have fallen asleep. You do not remember you. And there is another factor alive in you: your ability to awaken from the trance of your unhappiness, from your distraction of mind and your closed heart. That spark in you is reading this article right now. It can go to sleep again, or not. It is up to you.

If you decide to act on the impulse to awaken yourself, be prepared to see your life change. With the knife of self-love you will cut out the decay, you will stop in its track the tendency to indulge in what makes you suffer. You will realize that you—and no one else—create all your suffering. And that will set you free.

Your view of life will change rapidly as you discover nothing but kindness around you. You will want to dissipate the habits of sadness and fear and learn healthy habits. You will want to love yourself in the places where you now hate yourself. You will want to embrace yourself with only pure love

It’s too late to promise yourself you’ll do better when all hell breaks loose. It’s hard to find peace in emergency mode. The time is now, or when will it be? Your higher potential is staring you in the face, when will you look? Find out what happens when you give yourself the support you have wanted. Let yourself be around people who dare to assume that they have the courage for freedom.

Take a jump and you will notice the ground rise up to meet you.

With Love,

Ram Giri and Julia

Skills for Awakening

For Jane it’s her weight. George thinks he is not a good enough provider for his family. Since the kids teased her in school, Carol believes she is not pretty.

This is how we carry our hidden pain with us like a snail carries its house. And every so often we withdraw right into it, into our most private terror.

It’s like we are saying to God, “Love me—but not in this place. In this place in my mind leave me my shame, leave me my lack of self-love.” And we think it cannot be another way, and we believe our lies.

And God, in that innermost place in the Heart, listens, and is powerless because love does not force itself. This infinite love in us waits, and waits some more, with infinite patience, until we are ready to open.

Until we trust enough, like a flower gives itself entirely to the sun. Until we open to the power in us to love, to trust, to know with absolute certainty that we are powerful enough to free us from any pain we carry in us.

Imagine the flower, basking fully exposed in the midday sun. How glorious! It absorbs every last ray, every magnificent bit of warmth. It is fully alive.

It doesn’t say, “Not this. Not this love. It is too strong. I have to hold on to the darkness in me. I am not ready for love.”

No. It surrenders to the splendor of life. You can be like that.

In you lies this type of openness, this kind of surrender to the light and the love in you. It is the absolute and unconditional love of the Self. And it never forces itself. It waits. It waits for you to respond to its many calls.

This love, this courage, will never betray you. It is your very own. It flows from your heart and only you can evoke it—or shut it down.

Call on that love to set you free of all you don’t need. Let it shine into the concealed crevices of the mind where darkness still hides.

Light and love are a higher reality than darkness and fear. When you invite them to flow from your heart to free the rest of your being, miracles happen.

Light dispels darkness instantly, leaving not a single trace. Love dissolves fear and reveals it as a bad dream of a past that is over and gone and a future that can be much more kind than you imagine.

If you’re still, you can feel it right now, right here in the very core of your chest. It is the infinite Source, the strongest power of healing.

You are equipped like that, imagine! As someone who knew once said, “If you had faith, you could move mountains.” This faith has its roots in your Heart and you can discover it there.

But because no one ever showed you that you have divine inner capacities, they have remained unused until now. But you can learn to use them until all the pain is dissolved and you are free.

with love,

Ram Giri

Skills for Awakening

If you want to engage in a highly effective practice to end the pain in your life, call us between 10am and 6pm (ET) for a free consultation.

Skills for Awakening +1 (305) 567-1406

In the light of 9-11 and the killing of Osama bin Laden we understand the reactions of revenge and of hatred. Their expression was easy enough to see in the outburst of joy at his death in many parts of the US. It made some of us rather uncomfortable.

That we are staging the equivalent of the mob scenes we see on TV that burn American flags, is pathetic and not a reason for pride.

What are the implications of a state-sponsored killing from a spiritual perspective? Are there karmic repercussions for us since it was done by our government in our name? How do we best react to that?

We participate in the collective karma of our nation and will harvest its outcome. But what we contribute to our collective fate depends on the level of our awareness.

As we can see time and again, hatred creates more hatred, violence more violence. Is that what we want? When we act from anger in an attempt to make the world a more peaceful place, we simply pour fuel on the flames of aggression. An eye for an eye makes both people blind.

We are only too familiar with primitive feelings like hatred, but perhaps a bit confused about the dynamic of the higher principle of compassion.

Superficially we tend to see compassion as weak. But is it true that turning the other cheek is for wimps who can’t help themselves, and that compassion is a completely unrealistic approach in the world of ‘real facts and real dangers?’

In my view, compassion is as powerful as it is all-embracing. And, contrary to acts of aggression, its effects last.

Consider this: The works of all the great bullies in human history are now (or will be soon) nothing more than footnotes in history book, their empires destroyed, their memories discredited, their names in disgrace. Ashes to ashes.

The great teachers of compassion on the other hand continue to shine. Buddha and Jesus and so many others changed the world in a way that uplifts us. This is because they acted from love and compassion which became an integral part of their being and of their message. This takes extraordinary courage and strength.

Compassion is Jesus’ message of turning the other cheek—and it is also the fierceness with which he threw the money changers out of the temple with such power that no one dared to obstruct his actions. In the Eastern religions, the ‘wrathful’ deities are known to be the compassionate expressions of the enlightened mind. How so?

True compassion acts on all levels against what creates suffering. It eliminates the causes of pain, ignorance and confusion. It shakes us awake.

Can we then deal from compassion with highly disturbed individuals like an Osama bin Laden, a Gaddafi, a Hitler? How can we stop the creation of suffering by such individuals?

Compassion demands that we do not respond to hatred with hatred or fear, that we do not participate in the creation of suffering, but eliminate it. This can sometimes require fierce action.

What may such fierce compassion look like in today’s world?

Imagine you are a soldier guarding people in a crowded square. You stand here watching the traffic and you see on the far side of the square a man with a bomb belt approaching a school bus full of children.

It is clear what the man intends to do. It is a matter of seconds and life and death.

You recognize the only means you have to stop him from blowing up the school bus and you raise your rifle and shoot to kill.

What karma will that action create? What repercussions will it have? It depends on your motivation.

- If you were filled with anger or hate your delusion of separateness is reinforced, hatred is strengthened, and the view of this world as a brutal eye-for-eye place, a ‘valley of tears’ is further cemented in your awareness.

- When you do it out of compassion for the children on the bus, that karma is softened, but still you live in a world filled with danger and enemies.

- Here is a third option: How would you act if you had complete compassion for the terrorist?

I don’t think you would act differently, the moment is too compelling. But you would act from a very different intention, a very different state of mind.

True compassion is rooted in the highest awareness, the recognition of the oneness of all life. This realization opens the intuitive mind.

Realizing that you and the terrorist are one, the eye of compassion would clearly show you the enormous disturbance in a mind that considers it right to kill children in the name of Allah.

What is then the most compassionate action you can take for the terrorist? Would it not be to stop him with any available means to protect him from the horrendous consequences of his own actions?

If you were a terrorist, would you not—on the soul level—want someone to stop you?

I will leave it to you to transfer this scenario to the killing of Osama bin Laden.

And it doesn’t stop there. How do we now relate to this soul, this part of us, which just ended an extremely difficult incarnation? Would it not be by enfolding him in the great compassion we carry in our hearts?

Who needs our compassion more than a soul who is so disturbed? And because the reality of the soul is non-local, which means it is not obstructed by the limits of time and space, we can be sure that our compassionate impulse will be received.

Yes, whether we like it or not, Osama is part of us. He is part of the oneness of life, as are all beings, high and low.

In the way we deal with terrorists—or with anyone for that matter —can we afford to continue to reinforce the illusion of ‘us against them?’

If we stay in this mode of ‘us against them’ will we have a world to live in, in a few generations?

It is time to use compassion to solve the problems of life. It is a much more powerful approach than hate.

Ram Giri

Skills for Awakening

For more information visit our website: www.SkillsforAwakening.com

Question: “Sometimes it is hard for me to feel my Heart. What can I do?”

Ram Giri: The mind has a tendency to run after distractions. This is caused by the subtle desires of the unconscious mind. It is an addiction that keeps the mind agitated and focused outward, away from the Heart. It is the greatest obstacle on the spiritual path and a source of tremendous suffering. Because of this unconscious and powerful mental addiction the soul is unable to know its true nature and freedom.

There are two answers to your question of what you can do. The first answer is consistent and patient practice, to discipline the mind by the use of HeartSourcing or other meditative techniques. Although you will not have a great experience every time you practice, the effort is cumulative. You cover a distance of 10,000 miles one step at a time.

The second answer is that inside your Heart is the presence of the Divine. Some people imagine it as a spark of the great light of God. This divine presence has a masculine and a feminine aspect. The masculine aspect is absolute Truth. The feminine aspect is absolute unconditional Love and Compassion. This feminine aspect is known as the Divine Mother, the Goddess. She dwells in all beings.

To free yourself from the addiction of the mind to the unending distractions of the world, you can turn toward this all-compassionate inner presence. In the sublime psychology of the higher mind that we know as the ancient wisdom of India, this tendency toward distraction is known as the (inner) demon Mahisha. The (inner) Goddess is known as Mahishamardini, “She who kills the demon of distraction” and so sets you free. This means that it is the very function of your inner Divinity to set you free. She exists for that purpose.

This tendency to distraction, ignorance and subtle desires is a knot in the Heart (kama granthi). When the inner Goddess frees us of this powerful ‘demon’ this knot is destroyed and the Heart opened by the ascending power of kundalini. This awakens in us great spiritual and material prosperity and good fortune.

But there is a quality to love we have to remember: love never forces itself. So if you want that presence of powerful divine Love to come to your aid, you have to activate it by asking the Goddess to set you free of the distracted mind. This should be particularly easy for women who are the manifestation of Her form in the world. But men as well have within themselves this great power of self-liberation. So whether we are in a male or female body, we can turn to our own nature in the form of this absolute motherly love.

If but for a moment we can put pride aside, we can find in the depth of us a place of childlike surrender. It’s been there ever since we were very small children. Later we may have developed a litany of problems with our mothers, but let’s just leave all this aside for a moment. Deep in us is the pattern of this trusting surrender, and now we activate it not toward another being (who may leave us) but toward the presence of absolute motherly care in us. This makes this surrender completely safe.

This asking to be freed of the demon of distractedness is surrender. Instead of years of psychotherapy or austerity, instead of pounding on heaven’s doors, try to simply turn to that motherly presence in your own Heart and ask to be set free. Instead of being a hero in your quest for peace, try to be a child for now. Be simple and egoless, just for a moment. Find that place of trust in the divine in you that will be fulfilled.

This place of primal trust exists in the depth of your Heart. Evoke it there. It is just a simple and honest asking. You can do it now. You do not have to wait until many years of accumulated pain give you enough despair so you finally discover this place of surrender. No, surrender is easy. It’s child’s play. For a moment be that child of the Divine Mother in you and ask Her for help, and She will unfailingly give you that help. She will give it to you in Her way and in Her time, but it will unfailingly come and you will be free to live out of the unobstructed purity of the unlimited Love in your Heart.

“One can’t believe impossible things,” Alice said. “I daresay you haven’t had much practice,” said the Queen. “When I was your age, I always did it for half an hour a day. Why, sometimes I’ve believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast.”[1]

We’re all Alice. We can’t believe what we cannot yet believe. But that can change. So here are six impossible things you can imagine before breakfast:

1. You can be happy today. And every day.
2. You don’t have to be aggravated, worried or sad.
3. Instead you can you can question your beliefs and realize that you are aggravating and worrying yourself, and stop.
4. Instead of feeling bad, you can treat negative emotions are not as a threat but ‘a part of you that needs help.’
5. You can give that part of you some love and attention and watch the emotions melt away.
6. You can be free!

Now if you’ve practiced the Skills for awakening for a while, you know all that—but at times we forget. Then it’s good to believe at least these six impossible things every day before breakfast.

]]> http://blog.skillsforawakening.com/blog/six-impossible-things-before-breakfast/feed 0 http://blog.skillsforawakening.com/blog/are-you-ready-for-the-future http://blog.skillsforawakening.com/blog/are-you-ready-for-the-future#comments Mon, 13 Dec 2010 22:51:01 +0000 Ram Giri http://blog.skillsforawakening.com/?p=334

The prominent futurist Ray Kurzweil says that in 2045 computers will be one billion times more powerful than all human intelligence today!

So what will the most important functions for human beings be if thinking is so much more effectively done by machines, knowledge is readily available and we have come to the end of the quest for knowledge?

Perhaps the most important role of humans will be to provide wisdom and the power of the Heart. Get ready for the future today by clearing your mind and Heart of the interference of stress, confusion and fear. This will free you of suffering now and reveal wisdom and openheartedness as your true nature.

“Your task is not to seek for love, but merely to seek and find all the barriers within yourself that you have built against it.” ~ Jalal ad-Din Rumi ~ Was born on September 30, 1207 (Persian poet and mystic, 1207-1273)

Omraam Mikhael Aivanhov

“We are here to receive peace and happiness in our mind by avoiding suffering, but first we have to recognize the cause of happiness. We have to understand what brings us happiness and what brings us suffering. This is extremely important to understand, or there is no way to prevent suffering and receive happiness in our mind.

In our dreams, happiness and small pleasures are created by our mind, and suffering and unhappiness are also produced by our mind.”

(– one of my treasured teachers, Lama Thubten Yeshe, Nepal 1970′s)

Life is not different. Mind is the key and the unconditional love of the Heart gives strength to our efforts to solve the riddles of the mind and eventually the thinking mind dissolves into the Heart

“Remember that there is only one important time and that is now. The present moment is the only time over which we have dominion. The most important person is always the person you are with, who is right before you, for who knows if you will have dealings with any other person in the future? The most important pursuit is making the person standing at your side happy, for that alone is the pursuit of life.”

Tolstoy, from his story The Emperor’s Three Questions

– Venerable Thich Nhat Hanh quotes this in his famous seminal classic book The Miracle of Mindfulness (1975)

Angry and petulant is the best way I can describe it. There it sits in my inbox. How am I going to deal with it?

Of course I could react now, but I can just see the repercussions. Hopeless and completely unnecessary.

So: Can I see the writer as part of God? How can I appreciate that he is here to give me a teaching I obviously need (because here it is, black on white on my screen)?

I go slow. My gut churns a little and I pay gentle attention to that. Soon it calms down. I craft a careful reply, being polite and expressing my truth as clearly as possible.

I turn his accusation around and look if he could be true. I see it and I tell him in ways he can understand.

When I’m done I feel good. I am grateful to the writer because he gave me an opportunity to grow beyond that old reactiveness I know so well.

He is teaching me to be peaceful while standing up for my truth.

I look forward to as many other teachers like that I might need until there is no longer even a slight urge to react. He is teaching me the reality of love.

Obviously it was God writing to me.

Amazing!

“What do you do?” I dread that question. It seems I fail at it every time. So then why do some people love working with me?

That must be it, the love, the ‘stuff’ that’s between the lines of what can be said. It’s what you can’t put in a bio or on the screen.

Alex is such a case. I’ve been coaching him for a few months and he rarely responds to my emails – too busy. By all accounts he should be a failure.

And then we meet and the next day he writes: “It’s always a fantastic experience for me, every time we meet. I never know what the outcome is going to be, and I always leave amazed of what happens.”

I swear I’m not doing it. I just let go and open to the moment. And it’s always there. It rises up from somewhere to meet us, this inexpressible thing, love, in some form or another.

And because I can’t claim ownership, I find that everyone I meet brings it to me, if I’m just open enough to receive it. So you must have it, it must be there. And you probably don’t need me to find it.

Another morning. But before I open my eyes, I lie still and deeply feel inside. And a recognition arises.

There is in us a presence of which we are often unaware. You have your own name for it, the presence of God, or reality, of the soul. For me it has the feeling of Maharajji, my guru.

And I lie there almost still asleep and very still, and it is there. This presence (His presence for me) is the deepest and most real way we can experience ourselves. And it is so far beyond all the identification with ego, our history and planning and pain. It is the pure essence of Self.

There it was, so pure and complete. And at that moment I knew that all life is nothing more or less than the process of this essence awakening us from the inside.

Can we let go enough of our self-effort to allow it to do its work?

Can we be open to this unspeakable grace?