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

I’m in the prime spot for Flamenco here in Miami, in a restaurant on Calle Ocho (that’s ‘8th Street’ for you gringos), right in the heart of Little Havana. The place is bubbling with excitement. Tonight there is a performance by Miami’s First Lady of Flamenco Clarita Filgueiras, and Natalia Merino, a famous dancer from Spain. The place is going to be on fire!

We have the best table in the place, right up to the stage and our group of 15 friends is in a great mood. The waiter comes to take our order and apologizes because they are overbooked. There is not a single seat free and everyone wants their food at the same time. I assure him that everything is all right and just do the best he can. Then we enjoy the superb show. We’re in heaven.

But not all is well on our table. As I later hear, two of our friends—let’s call them Sue and Mike—are hungry and are getting increasingly upset. I don’t know any of this because I am watching the beauty and artistry of the dancers. Only after I notice that Sue and Mike have left during the intermission I am told the story. It’s a classic tale of the painbody.

The painbody is the way we are unconsciously programmed for pain. Impulsively and blindly we choose pain and cling to pain, simply because its’ been an ingrained part of our experience of life and, while fearing the unknown, we cling to the known. So we sabotage our chances for happiness and for peace out of this primal addiction. It begins with the way we think.

When we believe our stressful thoughts we don’t experience reality as it is. We experience reality through what is going on in our mind. Our stressful thoughts shape our reality, make it stressful. We’re not our true selves; we are possessed by the painbody.

Here is what might have gone on in the thoughts of Sue and Mike: “This service is terrible! I’m hungry. I can’t stand it. I wish I didn’t come here. I’m miserable!” Talking to each other only confirms how terrible everything is. They’re in hell. And what’s worse: they paid for it! – Haven’t we all been there!

Hell—and heaven for that matter—are states of mind, pure and simple. And hell hooks us when we blame our miserable (or angry, depressed, anxious…) state of mind on something else. We volunteer to become prisoners in hell by believing that anything other than our state of mind is to blame. It never is.

Hell is what happens in our thoughts and emotions. As long as we don’t see that, we’ll be frequent visitors there. But once we do, once we turn inside to find the road to heaven, a miracle happens. Suddenly we understand that the world we have been blaming is in fact exceedingly kind to us. It is kind in that it will push all our buttons until we have seen them all and have freed ourselves from them. This is how the amazing kindness of the world guides us to enlightenment.

Now many of us understand that to some extent. To some extent. But very often we get caught once more in negativity and we grumble “Damn, here comes another f#*%#!! growth experience!”

We just love the drama of our unhappiness! How we love to hate it! It gives us something to feel, someone to be: the miserable one we’ve been for so long and so often. And the ego once more gets its way and the painbody its pain. How is all that working for you?

And then comes the moment of grace, when we the whole paradigm shifts and we awaken once more. Self-awareness is the key to freedom and you have that potential. In particular it is the awareness of the painbody that dissolves it. For that you have to look directly at what you cannot see.

I know that sounds impossible. It’s not. Here is how you can do it. After you become aware that you experience an emotional reaction to something, do the following:

1. Stop and notice your reaction: your behavior, your words and your thoughts
2. Come into the present moment and realize what you feel in your body
3. See the painbody reaction as a reaction, not as ‘reality’

As you become aware of the painbody reaction you shed the light of awareness into what was unconscious and hidden in darkness. When you shed light into darkness, what happens to darkness? It’s already gone. Becoming aware of the mechanisms of how you have unwittingly created pain for yourself dissolves the painbody.

Repeated practice and effort will lock the door to hell permanently and open the gates of heaven. This happiness is what you wanted all along, isn’t it? It’s what we all want because it is our destiny.

If you’re ready to take your higher evolution into your own hands, you can stop your old ways of suffering from interfering with your life. The painbody will cease to sabotage your experience of happiness, peace and the attainment of freedom. With the right determination, guidance, skills and support you can soar to your goal on eagle’s wings.

If you’re ready for that, I invite you to devote yourself to the study and practice of the Skills for Awakening. They are the highly developed essence of the means to your freedom. I put them in your hands along with the guidance and support for this path. Now it’s your turn to act. Can you love yourself enough to practice your freedom?

with love and gratitude,

Ram Giri

Skills for Awakening

I am riding my bike through the Miami traffic to get some movement into these old bones, and I can’t help but notice how aggressive people are. They honk and curse at the little old lady in front of them, then pass her in a cloud of exhaust fumes to enjoy the great victory of stopping at the next light right in front of her. Sad, destructive, and so very unnecessary.

Of course it IS necessary for them to be just the way they are so they can eventually come to the point where they can see their own folly. Sadly it may be after a heart attack at 52 brought on by hostility. All is as it is supposed to be in this world, and I think I’ll bike the back roads from now on.

This brings up the question: where am I still like them, aggravating myself for no reason, out of self-involved blindness?

It gets tricky here because it’s so easy to see someone else’s faults. It’s easy to get aggravated and frustrated, to blame, to ‘know better,’ to be defensive. We love to do it because it strengthens the ego. And we have a powerful unconscious commitment to continue this madness.

Or we can wake up from these many layers of self-induced suffering. We do it by becoming still, by questioning our stressful beliefs and dissolving the negative emotional patterns that keep us prisoners of our own blindness. And most of all we do it by the repeated practice of turning inside to nurture ourselves from the unlimited inner Source of Self-Love.

HeartSourcing is the direct tapping into this inner Source. As you proceed in the practice of this powerful meditation you will be able to feel the Heart Essence more and more deeply. You will recognize that all the happiness you have ever felt has come from here, and all the happiness you will ever feel will come from here, from the blissful Self which you can access in the spiritual Heart.

This inner Source of fulfillment, of unconditional love, of all-embracing kindness is never-ending. It is absolute generosity, the nature of your true Being. And as you taste the unlimited abundance of what you are, you are freed from dependence on what the world can give or take away. You become free of desire and aversion, the twin poisons of human life.

Becoming free of desire and aversion you shake off the ignorance of the Self, the inner Source. Becoming independent of your external circumstances, you enjoy inner balance and harmony. This brings to you a great deal of energy, as your inner vitality is no longer blocked by emotional tensions.

And of course this inner love you feel wants to share itself. It spontaneously communicates itself to the people around you, for that is the nature of love. Peace teaches peace, just like aggression teaches aggression. The question that remains with me at every moment is this: What am I teaching?

So the next time I am on my bike, how will I meet the driver who honks at me and cuts me off while yelling into his cell phone? Can I stay in my peace? Will I keep feeling my Heart, breathing in the amazing luxury that arises undisturbed from within? Or will I fall into tension, which I create by my own negative emotions, and then blame it on him?

How aware can I be? Can I see that all circumstances and all encounters are perfectly designed to help me wake up from my own negativity? Some people’s job is to nurture and love me. Other people serve me by challenging me. The love of God is everywhere. Can I stay open to it?

I look forward to the next person whom my mind wants to blame. He will be my next teacher of peace.

with love and gratitude,

Ram Giri

Skills for Awakening

* You can get free instruction in HeartSourcing Meditation here or enjoy it along with music by Krishna Das by ordering our CD Living with an Open Heart: here, or by downloading it instantly via iTunes here.

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: Today I woke up confused and with many doubts. I am confused because since there is not an absolute truth, how do we know that our behaviors are correct?

Ram Giri: There is YOUR truth. Your being will know it because it is free of stress. Stress is the measurement you can use. What is stressful, whether it’s a thought, emotion or action, is not true to you. That’s why it is stressful.

Q: Are my stressful beliefs completely wrong?

RG: I don’t know.  That’s for you to explore, one by one.

Q: Is the purpose of The Work of Byron Katie to inquire reality?

RG: No, reality is what it is. Inquiry is for your thoughts about reality

Q: How will The Work free me?

RG: Inquire into a stressful thought. Find out the truth about it. That truth can set you free. That truth leads to the end of suffering.

Q: So, is there no right or wrong?

RG: In relative reality there is a very clear understanding of right and wrong. In the unified mind such distinctions do not apply. The unified mind contains and transcends the conventional mind and the way it deals with relative reality (duality).

Q: Do I need to accept the reality as it is, and not argue with it?

RG: How is arguing with reality working for you? What happens? How does it feel? How does it influence your behavior? What is the outcome? We say reality is always kinder than your story (and you war) about it. And please don’t believe anything I say. Find out for yourself if it is true for you or not.

Dear friends,

I want to share with you this interview I was invited to attend couple of days ago. I’m very grateful to ‘Wisdom’s Soft Whisper’ radio show team, for your kindness and love.

Please click on: RamGiri09272010.mp3
If the above link does not work, you can paste the following address into your browser:

https://rcpt.yousendit.com/958760073/0bd75d0021a3e4694841c73b9cd35874

Size: 20.54 MB. Time: 51.32min.
Content will be available for download until October 07, 2010 15:50 PDT.

Excerpt:

* HeartSourcing Meditation
* Satsang (spiritual community)
* Conversations about my personal spiritual path
* Conversations about divine love
* The Skills to help you find your own freedom from suffering and your way to the core of your being

with love,
Ram Giri Braun

Skills for Awakening

Everyone is our teacher, everyone is part of God, the only question is: are we listening?

Of course at times I am far too busy with my self-importance to listen to anyone. The chatter of my thoughts is more ‘interesting’ then paying attention to God. (Oh, when am I going to be sufficiently tired of myself?)

So I was blessed by a return email (from God) that spelled out in detail how I had treated the writer with a sense of entitlement, something I’ve been working on lately. (see: The Angry Email from God!  http://blog.skillsforawakening.com/blog.- August 30.) Wow, there it was, black on white on my screen. I couldn’t deny it, he was right. I was grateful and distressed at the same time. Here my pain body was again, clear to see. It had tricked me again.

And so the screen of my self-deception was punctured. Thank God I know enough to take the bitter medicine and to appreciate what it does for me. So I wrote a letter back, admitting, apologizing and mending fences. And sure enough, immediately I received a pleasant reply, ending the whole drama. Thanks!

We have no choice in the way we act as long as we are in the grip of our blindness. Of course, once we find out the mind may want to break into self-recrimination, but I was able to stop this old impulse. It’s such a waste of time. I rather learn instead. So I looked at my past behavior with the intention to see it clearly for what it was. This way I can become more aware and free not to repeat it.

This is the price of wisdom: to look deeply at what keeps us unconscious, at what we want to deny.

What’s left is gratitude. Everyone is my teacher. How wonderful. Even – and especially – the people who are difficult to deal with are offering me precious gifts. I am truly blessed!

One of the greatest books of the wisdom literature of this planet is the yet little known “Vasistha’s Yoga.” The following is a quote from it regarding self-inquiry and the Heart:

If one has achieved even a little bit of control over the mind by self-enquiry, such a person has attained the fruit of his life. For that self-enquiry will expand his heart.

This of course is exactly what we are doing with the Skills for Awakening. Vasistha continues:

When such enquiry is preceded by dispassion [or: detachment] and has attained stability by practice, all the noble qualities resort to it naturally. Ignorance and its retinue do not bother one who is fully established in self-enquiry and who sees what is, without distortion. When he has found his foothold in the spiritual ground, he is not overcome by the robbers known as sense-pleasures.

Practicing self-inquiry with The Work gives you that stability. You can first observe it by noticing how you react less to situations and people that used to upset you. You become calmer, more peaceful and in control of yourself. This is a control without force, a natural peacefulness and mastery. This is true knowledge. It frees us from the constant distractedness of the undisciplined mind that is craving for and running after sense pleasures. Notice that there is nothing wrong with pleasures; it is the desire for them that throws you off balance. In true peace you can enjoy whatever comes, may it be labeled ‘good’ or ‘bad’. This is dispassion, the foundation of lasting peace. In that peace the Heart can be wide open.

I hope you enjoy this, please let me know.

Ram Giri