In my job, you discover many people and points-of-view. I get to research many things I wouldn't otherwise pursue. I get to read blogs and checkout websites and get paid for it, which is cool. Most of what I see is fluffy or overplayed garbage. (Just being honest.) Occasionally, I like something I see and know I can put a similar idea or thought into use for a project. I get inspired by the design, the concept, the image. If the site is really good, and is not only well designed but has original and fantastic CONTENT inside it....well, then... I give it a little gold star and I bookmark it. My bookmarked list is surprisingly short.
Today I added one to the list after having to explore it for a work related project. It is the site for a L.A. based Yogi "Master" named Guru Singh, who teaches yoga and gives lectures on improving your holistic well-being. Mainly, I just liked the fun, youthful design of his site, but a phrase on his blog gave me my bumper-sticker motto of the day: "Happiness is your birthright. Keep up and you will be kept up!" This came from his yogi master teacher, the 80 year old Yogi Bhajan who was actually the subject of the very first yoga book I ever read about when studying the yoga movement of the 1960's when I was a freshman in college. My interest was peeked, so I kept reading and clicking. Listen, if a message inspires you to grow and live a better, more graceful, thoughtful or divinely fulfilled life, (no matter the source,) ....then perhaps you stumbled upon it for a reason. (At least that is what I tend to think!)
I wanted to republish a posting from his blog that I thought was worthy of consideration. It reminded me of a practice I had as a kid of charting my "growth" every year through school. I would right down a list in my journal of what I had done to "grow" any particular year. (How Stuart Smalley of me, right?!) It's true though, I did it every year through school. At the age 16, this list included things like: "joined ________ club at school this year, taught 7 CCD classes to elementary kids at church, had regular talks with my boss about applying to college, learned patience with grandma (practicing daily,) let my heart get broken by a boy in my drivers ed class", etc. It was pretty unprofound stuff, but the idea was to check in and make sure I was challenging myself to something....what exactly, I wasn't too sure of at the time.
Welp, (speaking of looking into a mirror and repeating affirmations like a Stuart Smalley...) Guru Singh wrote a posting about growth that suggests re-evaluating how you gage your spiritual growth and actively addressing your evoloution as a person without filtering it through any modern day image you have associated with yourself. Hmmmm?? Judge for yourself.
I usually have little patience for motivational affirmations and nonsense, but I do like the idea of taking action to live everyday with the challenge of "growing". Life is an experiential gift. Get your butt out of the safe zone, asap!
READ HIS POSTING:
To be consistently growing in the midst of life's changes, charges and challenges,
we must constantly check with ourselves:
"am I committed to feeling good, or am I committed to growing?"
Then remember, growth does not always feel good,
and feeling good does not always provide growth.
There must always be a balanced conscious coordination between
the sensations of your emotional and physical worlds,
and the sensibilities of your evolutionary progress through this world.
The physical and emotional bodies speak in a temporal language of selfishness . . .
a drive to comfort and pleasure . . . a primitive means of survival.
This is not a bad thing, if it is not the only thing,
but it should never be more than one third of your life's focus.
The mind's conscious expansion and your spiritual fulfillment
are to make up the other two thirds.
A baby is completely body centric, but as we grow, we are supposed to balance this out.
Are you growing? There is an old saying in yoga about this:
"Everybody grows old, but very few grow up."
Without releasing the shackles of this body centric need —
which honors feelings over growth — you will be forever dancing to the
uncommitted beat that progresses only part way toward your goals.
We call this the "halfway-dance" and it takes place in the
"comfort lounge" on the "first floor" of your "halfway house."
It is in fact, a sub-primitive human nature — it arrived with the conceptual mind
around one hundred thousand years ago and has been developing ever since.
Without engaging the primitive drive to survive, or the exalted drive to grow, commitment cannot be engaged and the pain from lacking fulfillment becomes life's entire focus.
Everything 'halfway' becomes the theme . . . the perfected obsessions of life.
Civilization supports this theme in order to maintain the illusion of
'concept replacing experience'. it is why today's youth are into extremes
(sports, clothes, tattoos, piercing, video games, etc.);
they are in search of experience in a world obsessed and driven by image and concept.
The halfway dance has been mastered and marketed over the centuries.
It dances for all who will pay attention and anyone who will pay the fee.
Life has become about earning a living,
rather than living and experiencing the life already earned.
Image has become more important than connection and with this —concept out-plays content.
The halfway "market" fills with participants who are making a killer living on this halfway dance, but never really living (as alive, holy, ecstatic and conscious beings who share their love to do good in the world and by others.)
Fear has become the feeling of guidance because separation always requires feeling.
This "safe-zone" has become the most dangerous place to live . . . especially if you die in it.
It is time to turn over the leaf . . . live in the risk of total commitment to your personal growth and growth of others you love.
It is not about the mirror's reflection being right (the image);
it is about the projection being the divine you (the reality).
Make it your routine on a daily basis —
look into a mirror and challenge yourself to be YOU and nothing less.
Smile and be vocal in this exercise.
This may start out very serious, but it will soon turn joyful.
You will find yourself in front of your SELF, standing at the mirror on the edge of each morning, grateful for a relationship that has become extremely REAL . . .
from one that was superficial, assumed and granted.
Then take this real-time relationship out into the field of the life you are living . . .
into the risk of commitment . . . to love yourself and actively love others around you whom you are sharing your life with.
Reproduce this action with enthusiasm for the greatest possibilities of your life. ~
Guru Singh's website: http://www.gurusingh.com/
At a minimum, the photos and the expressions on his face on his website amuse you.
Have a great week my little enlightened ones! P.S. Don't tell my grandmother I was interneting with Guru-types. She would not think that was cool, no matter how well designed the website was... :)
Looking for an amazing yoga connection in the DETROIT area? My friend Jason, from Detroit Yoga will hook you up!
