Gabriel's Blog

I decided to drop you guys a vid instead of the written word this time about my transformative experience in my new class this block; check it out!

Gabriel in Creative Process Course

Greetings all in web-land. Gabriel back again with a another spiritual admonishing for the un-spiritual. Just kidding–there’s no one un-spiritual. Anyway I wanted to talk to you about energy, and our experience of it.

In today’s secular society, we humans make the mistake of putting too much psychological responsibility on others. Yes, I said it. We give away our state of mind to another who can never experience what it is like to be us.

What do I mean by this? Well, put simply, we, in the majority or secular/western society, don’t take responsiblity for our thoughts or emotions, particularly our emotions. Evidence? It’s in our speech. “He made me sad”, “She won’t let me be happy”, or “They make me so angry!” Those are negative examples, but positive ones are included as well, like ”You make me so happy, baby”, “You bring me such joy”, or my personal fave, “You complete me”.

Now of course it depends on the context and intent of what’s behind the words, but let’s for a moment look at them from the perspective of giving up personal emotional responsibility–these words put the emotions that We feel and We experience into the hands of someone who could never experience our emotions!

I’m not talking about the general understanding of emotion. Everyone feels sadness, anger, happiness, joy, elation, etc. Howevermore important than this is the subjective way each person experiences the range of emotions. When we realize this, we come to value our personal experience much more.

In other words, no matter what is happening, you’re the one feeling the feelings! It’s Your Energy! How could it be anyone else’s? It is your job to be responsible for it. That may sound harsh, but it is real and true.

When someone smiles at you, and you feel great, it is Your Energy you’re feeling, not the other person’s. That same person could smile at somebody else and that person might respond differently. The X-Factor is You.

Once you realize this in particular, and own it, you will feel so spectacular and in charge of your experience, and not in just how you interact with people, but with situations. Nothing has a definite stamp of what particular quality it is–the one experiencing the thing stamps it.

What about those who do evil you say? They only do evil because they have imprisoned themselves in giving everything a definite value, and psychologically making themselves the ultimate victim of the very mental construct they created! Yet due to their lack of awareness, in their mind, the only option is to do harm to the person or thing of which they subconsciously see themselves as the victim. You see? They have made themselves a victim? By projecting negativity onto them, you are only perpetuating that victimhood!

Okay, back on track. If you choose to take full responsibility for your state of being, and you have not before, this may be hard for you. Some things that may help you expand beyond your current level of thinking are Yoga, Meditation, Qigong. Those are just a few I know. They help to calm the body and expand the mind so your growth into empowerment is smoother. On that note, remember, the Energy is always yours–take responsibility, develop spiritual agility.

Jai Guru Dev.

Hello all, it’s March and Spring is finally on its way! (Finally…) How are you all? Good? Good. I’m good too, thanks for asking.

Anyway, I wanted to briefly discuss with you the power of human creativity through a personal story I just experienced today. Okay, here goes…

I have committed to a new diet within the past month that I have seen is highly beneficial for my body. Though I have tried this diet before, I never made a strong commitment to it, and would end up bingeing on junk food later on. Though the junk food has gotten better (it’s all organic) my body still wanted something better for it. However, it can be hard to listen to your body when you value your addictions much more. With a conscious and serious commitment to the diet I know is right for me, I told myself on a deep level that I truly value and love my body, and that I always want to treat it well..

With this new diet have come some new challenges. I’m not the best complete shopper; I have been a snacker for quite a while now, since eating heavy foods has gone the way of the dinosaur for me. However, as we all know this is not a complete diet, no matter how healthy the food may be. The challenge for me is to not only choose new things to snack on, but to buy ingredients that will together make a complete meal and provide all the nutrients I need.

When I made the conscious transition to this new diet, I already knew from all the other times I tried it that their would be a psycho-physiological (body-mind) transition. My body would change and rid itself of old toxins, while on the mind level I would be releasing toxic patterns of thought. One of the symptoms of detoxification is craving. Out of nowhere, I would want potato chips or Taco Bell or McDonald’s, but knowing how highly processed and downright awful these foods are for my body, I knew to resist.

Today I had another craving for potato chips. I went to the school store and just stared at them for five minutes. I really didn’t want to buy them–my body just wanted something savoury (salty). I said ‘no’  to the potato chips, which I thought were my only option for savoury flavor, and went to the grocery store.

Starving, it was kind of hard to think. I grabbed a bag of organic shaved coconut, and then just wandered around the store for a while. I had wanted to make something for desert, but then got the idea for dinner. Olives! I grabbed them, then suddenly I got an idea to visit produce adjacent from it. I got some Kale, salad mix, and mushrooms, then thought “Hey! This needs seasoning!” I got some Cajun seasoning, and for desert I got cashews, blueberries, cinnamon, and coconut nectar in addition to the shaved coconut to make an awesome smoothie. For dinner I would make a beautiful satisfying salad with self-made dressing. Awesome!

I was proud of myself today. Why? Usually I’d just buy the potato chips, gorge them down, burp, be done with it. Immediately afterward I would feel horrible. Physically. But this time I resisted and put my intention on trying something different. When I was patient, ideas started coming to me! Now I am eating my delicious dinner and I am preparing to make my desert. Never underestimate the power of human creativity, folks. When you invest in yourself with the proper attitude, it will lift your energy to a new level of awareness. It feels good.

Thanks for taking your time to read this,

Gabriel

Peace!

And Jai Guru Dev.

Here’s a story I found from a website  about the mantra “Om Mani Padme Hum”

http://www.dharma-haven.org/tibetan/meaning-of-om-mani-padme-hung.htm:

The True Sound of Truth

An old story speaks about a similar problem. A devoted meditator, after years concentrating on a particular mantra, had attained enough insight to begin teaching. The student’s humility was far from perfect, but the teachers at the monastery were not worried.

A few years of successful teaching left the meditator with no thoughts about learning from anyone; but upon hearing about a famous hermit living nearby, the opportunity was too exciting to be passed up.

The hermit lived alone on an island at the middle of a lake, so the meditator hired a man with a boat to row across to the island. The meditator was very respectful of the old hermit. As they shared some tea made with herbs the meditator asked him about his spiritual practice. The old man said he had no spiritual practice, except for a mantra which he repeated all the time to himself. The meditator was pleased: the hermit was using the same mantra he used himself — but when the hermit spoke the mantra aloud, the meditator was horrified!

“What’s wrong?” asked the hermit.

“I don’t know what to say. I’m afraid you’ve wasted your whole life! You are pronouncing the mantra incorrectly!”

“Oh, Dear! That is terrible. How should I say it?”

The meditator gave the correct pronunciation, and the old hermit was very grateful, asking to be left alone so he could get started right away. On the way back across the lake the meditator, now confirmed as an accomplished teacher, was pondering the sad fate of the hermit.

“It’s so fortunate that I came along. At least he will have a little time to practice correctly before he dies.” Just then, the meditator noticed that the boatman was looking quite shocked, and turned to see the hermit standing respectfully on the water, next to the boat.

“Excuse me, please. I hate to bother you, but I’ve forgotten the correct pronunciation again. Would you please repeat it for me?”

“You obviously don’t need it,” stammered the meditator; but the old man persisted in his polite request until the meditator relented and told him again the way he thought the mantra should be pronounced.

The old hermit was saying the mantra very carefully, slowly, over and over, as he walked across the surface of the water back to the island.

A beautiful story. ‘Til next time, folks.

Hello all in web-land, I’ve come across an insightful article on how yoga asanas help to detox the mind and body. Tell me what you think.

http://life.gaiam.com/article/yoga-detox

Awareness

Here at MUM, there is obviously a more open atmosphere with regards to the subject of spirituality. And what is the most popular topic to discuss? In my eyes, Enlightenment!!! Every talks about it one way or another. Whether it be about Unconditional Love, detachment from circumstances, being in the moment, or allowing and accepting what occurs in life, these are all topics that allude to enlightenment.

Illuminated being

An enlightened being knows everything. S/he is always true, always pure. Every action, thought, and behavior is appropriate in response to his/her surroundings, and s/he always radiates pure Unconditional Love. This is life experience everyone strives to have, whether consciously spiritual or not. All beings want to experience Supreme Peace, Supreme Knowledge, on autopilot, 24/7/365(6). The question is, how to become enlightened, how to gain supreme knowledge. In order to do this, one must first be able to identify and define what Enlightenment and Supreme Knowledge is.

Groundedness

Enlightenment is the state of having woken up from a dream once thought of as real. It is complete freedom from illusion, knowing–living–Absolute Truth. This means that Enlightenment is the natural state of all beings. If our daily experience is not Absolute Truth, it is thusly illusion and proper awareness must be established. This involves literally obliterating all that keeps us believing in the dream. In knowing Enlightenment is our true nature, all the qualities mentioned in the previous paragraph are expressed naturally.

Knowledge is information that is known in terms of oneself–information that can be applied to yourself. If it is not applicable, one may retain the information, but that person can’t truly know it. If it can’t be applied to you, then who knows the information? How is it knowledge? It is not.

Now that we have some working definitions of knowledge and enlightenment– particularly knowledge–if we want to be enlightened, we must discover how to have everything in existence apply to us so it is knowledge.

Surrender to Truth

The first thing is to be aware of what we identify as “I” or “me”. If it is our bodies, our names, our occupations, or other ideas of who we think we are that make up our dream identity, we are not able to apply everything in existence to ourselves because these
things are inherently limited, not Absolute Truth, and therefore illusion. There is no way identification with a human experience could contain all of existence and the Infinity beyond. We must know truly who we are.

As mentioned earlier, Enlightenment is our true state. If this is the case, the only work we need do is to decimate all illusions that blind our sight to our true nature. Here, at MUM, Transcendental Meditation and the Sidhis program are ways elected to almost take a snapshot of Nirvana, and bring it into our daily experience. In doing these things one can identify with their Infinite Being more and more, instead being caught up in drama that identifying with a human experience will inevitably bring to some degree or another. TM and the Sidhis are techniques to wipe away illusion.

Ajuna and Krsna riding to destroy illusion (evil)

The more illusion we erase, the more we can see the center of the onion, the nothingness that is Us. The more we identify with that Infinity, the more things we can apply to ourselves, thusly creating knowledge. Once we can completely identify with Infinity, the Nature of Enlightenment, we know everything and more.

At this school there is a state of consciousness referred to as Unity Consciousness, or Brahman Consciousness. This is what Maharishi describes as a state in which everything is known in terms of oneself.

Infinity is the set of eyes we must see through in order that we may know all other things. Existence is merely a dream–how can it be truth? Enlightenment is not in it. Whether or not the dream is experienced, Infinity always is.

I will leave you with this scripture from the Upanishads: “Brahman satya jagan mithya”. Brahman (Absolute, Infinity) is real; the world is unreal.

Peace,

Gabriel

Jai Guru Dev.

COLLECTION: A friend of mine said ‘I overhear people talking, saying “like attracts like”, as if the basis of the universe’s operations rests on this principle. If like attracts like, then why is that magnets so clearly demonstrate the concept of “opposites attract”?’

The universe always brings to beings what they are vibrating. Because all is from the unknowable infinite source, then all things are infinite. This may appear to be a paradox, and it is. When speaking of infinity all rules, boundaries, and logic go out the window. There is no such thing as an amount, a size, a distance, a time, etc. It is all these things together—thusly pure infinity is only unity, it is only ONE. It may appear that all things are finite, but that is the most superficial level one perceives. All things are complete and perfect, but the only way there can be the appearance of separate things is for the unknowable (Infinity) to dream itself as separate things. These infinite things can only exist if an aspect of its infinite glory remains unexpressed.

How does this answer the question? When the south pole of a magnet attracts the north pole of another magnet, it appears that these poles are not alike, therefore they are opposites. (Opposites are truly oppo-sames; they wouldn’t be opposites if they did have some fundamental component in common.) In my opinion, a more appropriate word to use would be ‘complementary’. This means that the south pole has a relationship with the north pole, which in turn means that–with respect to infinity– the south pole has built within its structure the unexpressed north pole, or the north pole is part of the south pole. Why would a south pole be attracted to another south pole? The south pole is already being expressed! Thusly it attracts its ‘opposite’ which remains unexpressed in the south pole alone. The Law of attraction is always happening, and in the case of humans we can only bring things to us that are within us, but not yet expressed.

One day, I was depressed. In the midst of my depression, I realized that I had felt this way many times in life, as if it were an old friend that came to visit every so often. Then I remembered that in many circles depression is considered to be a form of repressed anger or frustration. I will go further. Depression is a form of anything unexpressed in one’s life, whether it be anger, happiness, taking advantage of an opportunity, anything. And these unexpressed emotions or situations do not have to be taking place in the present moment. Your life carries memories of everything that has happened within it, and if these things are not released, they will express themselves eventually, whether they be increased by years of repression or made into another form by the same means.

Depression occurs when one gives up feeling anything else. It can be painful to feel the thing that we have repressed, even if it is happiness. And when one feels depressed, there is something in that person’s life that is coming up to the surface. Depression literally presses the emotion/memory back down—but this does not destroy the existence of the emotion/memory, and all one is left with is sorrow, feeling stuck, and hopelessness. Little do these people know that if they knew what depression actually is, and that the emotion/memory coming to the surface, no matter how painful it is, does not mean the end of the world, that they will live on, and even become stronger for it, they wouldn’t feel so stuck or hopeless. The repressed emotion/memory is that which kept you stuck. Now it is expressing itself so it can be released and changed into that which fuels a beautiful life.

The previous paragraph is of paramount importance because many people highly desire to escape their bodies through suicide, and this is greatly saddening for me. Rock bottom is the most opportune moment to remember your true nature, your own power! You have fallen, but you fell to see something deeper about yourself. Now rise up! Discover that hidden expression! But be patient!

Whattup y’all. It’s been a while but I’m back, not to chat, but to gift you with some vid of a party we threw for a good friend that left Fairfield. His name is Yahya (pronounced Yah-yah) and he was a light on this campus. We will miss him greatly, but we all know we will cross paths with him again. Love to all you blog-heads as well!

Yahya\’s going away party