Too True

“In our life, our noncommittal commitment gives us a kind of fake idea that there’s something better that we can grab tomorrow. It’s a grabbing attitude; not a building attitude. Commitment will build you slowly, surely, gracefully and wonderfully; but grabbing will never guarantee anything.” -YB

yeah….I used to think like this. I always wanted to keep my options open, not necessarily because I thought there was something better out there but because I was insecure, afraid to commit, afraid of unexpected changes in the future. I think also, there was some part of me that was afraid of being really happy. Sometimes I think I sabotage myself, I’m doing well, and then I get scared that if I commit to something, it might not work out, or I make a mistake and let myself down which makes me feel pretty shitty. So, in order to avoid the possibility of these things, better to just not commit at all, better to not even try. Better to quite while you’re ahead, right?

I learned how to snowboard last season. Now, I’m at the point where I can get down the hill without falling, and have fun. This is the point where I need to challenge myself to go for it. I almost always stop myself before I get going over a speed I’m not comfortable with, but then I am also not challenging myself to learn how to handle the speed. I’m at the point where I need to be able to handle the speed. I need to be able to point my board straight down the mountain and just ride. It’s a gut instinct that kicks in and goes, ahhh you are going to loose control and fall down and hurt yourself. Not necessarily. I will never know unless I try, and I will fail, but at some point I must succeed.

Gosh, I just don’t wanna be a looser anymore who doesn’t even try. Wtf is up with that. You’ve already failed if you don’t even try. I want to commit to things, good things in my life. I want to be strong enough to claim my happiness. I want to be able to make some sacrifices in order to be true to my Self. Ok, ok, so I think what I gotta say to myself is this. I can handle the speed, I can do this. I can be strong, I can make sacrifices, I can commit.

To wake up for Sadhana

you can use this link

http://www.onlinevideoclock.com/

and this video

perfect.

 

and wow. we are all one.

Ok this is for realz now

ok peoples….I’ve been procrastinating writing this post, if you read that Gandhi quote below, well that’s why…been just not able to commit. Ok here goes my daily sadhana that I am committing to right NOW!

1.) I will take a cold shower every morning (It really is physically impossible to feel depressed in a cold shower, really helps to get you out of a funk, then again as I’m writing this I’m like oh god what are you thinking just stop, delete now, but no, I really gotta do this) This video is just great, see how vibrant she is?!

Wearing kacheras fixes the problem of trying to keep your thighs out of the cold water

http://www.sikhiwiki.org/index.php/Kachera

2.) I will read Jaapji every morning!

3.) I will do the Smiling Buddha meditation everyday (link to how to do the meditation is in a earlier post)

4.) I will refer to a list of positive affirmations and quotes when I am sad and also make a list of things I can do to makes myself feel better (need to still make this, but definitely going to include The Rebel tarot card)

oh yeah, I can do this. Ok, This is happening!

There is no sweetness like the soul

These last few days have been slightly excruciating. It is finals week so I’ve had the stress of doing well on my exams and final papers to deal with as well as being just emotional. I’ve been studying a lot, but I can’t help feeling anxious all the time.

Last night I went for a run around 11pm at school. It was a warm night. I climbed over the fence to the racing track at school and started running laps to calm myself down. I was feeling very emotional and could have gone and hid in a corner and cried. I don’t want to wallow anymore. I will not wallow anymore. I didn’t feel motivated to do much, but I could run. I kept running until I didn’t have the energy to be upset anymore. I collapsed on the damp grass and stared at the stars and reminded myself that I am just a small being in the universe. My emotions are insignificant in this grand play of life.

I sat up and listened to Ardas Bhaee and felt myself merge into the flow of life. Simrit Kaur’s voice is so etheric, and

beautiful.

Listen: http://www.reverbnation.com/artist/song_details/3002160

It was quite a beautiful experience, I can’t quite describe it. Lately, my life has been so emotional and all over the place, I get such sweet comfort from meditation and bani, I wish all of life could be like that! I get into a beautiful meditative state, I experience such bliss, and then the timer goes off and it’s time for real life to start again. It’s like a drug. I’m getting better at incorporating simran (recitation of mantra) into my life, and catching myself when I start going down a depressive, emotional spiral, but I am nowhere near perfect. Every few days it seems, my emotions find a crack in my resolve and burst through. Sometimes I can last a week or so. I just pray pray pray for the strength to keep up through this. I want to feel whole and loved by myself.

For the most part, I have had a very easy, cozy, pain-free life. It is only this year that I have recognized what real pain feels like. I now know what the purpose of living a spiritual life is, to be able to withstand the pressure of life. This time is very painful, but it is also very beautiful, it is transformational. I am changing, finally, growing in ways that I have wanted to for a long time, but never had the motivation.

I am finally an active participant in my life.

Thank god. It’s about fucking time. Sheesh. Where have I been all my life? I’ve just been coastin’.

I just need to work on forgiving myself for my mistakes. I don’t like that word, mistakes, it implys that there is regret there, and well, I do have some now, but I also believe in karma and that everything happens for a reason. If I hadn’t made these “mistakes” I wouldn’t be the person I am today.

I feel that I am being put through the fire. I am being purified. I have been asking for this for a few years. I have been challenging life to give me all it’s got. I want to be challenged. I want to be put through the fire. I asked for this. So, I need to forgive myself, because it was out of my hands. Everything is as it is meant to be. I have been burned, but nothing is lost.

Life is a rollercoaster these days. There is not much that I can rely on. Although, I do keep coming back to “Waheguru!”

Awesome: 

Just Do It

I leave for New Mexico next week!  😀

I can't wait for those big blue skies

This morning I was able to get up at a decent time and do Jaap Ji and my meditation. Awesome, big pat on the back for me! Not too much procrastination, I feel good.

I understand now the importance of having a daily spiritual practice, a sadhana. It really is what keeps you going! It is inevitable there are days that are going to be sad, hard, frustrating, stressful but a daily practice, I am finding, makes it easier to deal with those days. Making that daily connection with your Self, your soul, is comforting. It reminds me what life is all about and that there is hope.

The most important factor in being able to keep up with a spiritual practice, I feel is self-discipline. Yes, you can have the desire to do something everyday for yourself, a meditation, yoga set, take a walk through the woods, write in a journal, etc, but for me anyways, even though I know these things are good for me, and I want to have that good feeling afterwards, it can be really hard for me to literally just be able to do it. So, Nike has a point, Just Do It. So, one must be disciplined enough to be able to even sit down and meditate. This is a problem I have been struggling with since I graduated from Miri Piri Academy in 2008. (http://www.miripiriacademy.org/). Yes, I wanted to meditate everyday, do yoga, be active, do good things for myself, but there was something in me, laziness or lack of discipline that kept me from just doing it.

I feel like I’m overcoming that. I have been able to do this Buddha meditation consistently everyday for the past few weeks and I’m going to do at least 40 days. It is the first 40 days of anything I’ve done since MPA. It feels good to be taking control of my life! Taking that half an hr or so everyday snowballs into other part of my life. When I am mentally more sound, and secure, I am able to deal with the rest of my life more effectively.

I want to live my life this way, disciplined, spiritually-oriented and devoted. It is what is pulling me through right now. I just pray that when life gets easier I am still able to keep up despite the fact that I don’t have pain and lonliness to deal with on a daily basis.

This is a hukham I took at a time when I was questioning life and what the point is when it is just a constant struggle to keep up and keep focused. I’ve bookmarked it so I can remind myself of this.

slok mÚ 1 ]

salok ma 1 ||

Salok, First Mehla:

vyil ipM\wieAw kiq vuxwieAw ]

vael pi(n)n(j)aaeiaa kath vunaaeiaa ||

The cotton is ginned, woven and spun;

kit kuit kir KuMib cVwieAw ]

katt kutt kar khu(n)b charraaeiaa ||

the cloth is laid out, washed and bleached white.

lohw vFy drjI pwVy sUeI Dwgw sIvY ]

lohaa vadtae dharajee paarrae sooee dhhaagaa seevai ||

The tailor cuts it with his scissors, and sews it with his thread.

ieau piq pwtI isPqI sIpY nwnk jIvq jIvY ]

eio path paattee sifathee seepai naanak jeevath jeevai ||

Thus, the torn and tattered honor is sewn up again, through the Lord’s Praise, O Nanak, and one lives the true life.

hoie purwxw kpVu pwtY sUeI Dwgw gMFY ]

hoe puraanaa kaparr paattai sooee dhhaagaa ga(n)dtai ||

Becoming worn, the cloth is torn; with needle and thread it is sewn up again.

mwhu pKu ikhu clY nwhI GVI muhqu ikCu hMFY ]

maahu pakh kihu chalai naahee gharree muhath kishh ha(n)dtai ||

It will not last for a month, or even a week. It barely lasts for an hour, or even a moment.

scu purwxw hovY nwhI sIqw kdy n pwtY ]

sach puraanaa hovai naahee seethaa kadhae n paattai ||

But the Truth does not grow old; and when it is stitched, it is never torn again.

nwnk swihbu sco scw iqcru jwpI jwpY ]1]

naanak saahib sacho sachaa thichar jaapee jaapai ||1||

O Nanak, the Lord and Master is the Truest of the True. While we meditate on Him, we see Him. ||1||

…time to go study for finals.

Truth

There is something so beautiful about being transparent. I don’t want to hide anything anymore. I have a lot of bullshit in me that I don’t want to rule me anymore. By speaking about it, I feel….relieved. This is a side of a spiritual life that I feel a lot of people don’t want to put out there to the world because they are suppose to be past this, to be able to transcend it. Lately, I have been able to be more honest with my friends about what is going on with me and where I am trying to go in my life.

Sometimes, I feel like I was suppose to be born perfect. I was born into a loving Sikh family with a pretty conservative lifestyle compared to many other people in the US. I feel like people expect me to be able to keep up with the lifestyle because I was born into it, I shouldn’t question it. Well, I did question it, and I got burned. Now I really understand why many Sikhs rise in the early hours of the morning to recite prayers, do yoga and sing devotional songs, why many Sikhs wear a turban and bana and don’t put themselves out there “for sale”.

I’m going through a healing process now. I didn’t follow the lifestyle for a little while, I was doing things very contrary to it, but that phase is over now. Now I’m forgiving myself for all that, and trying to just keep up!

Keeping up is a daily struggle. Moment to moment. But, man, it is much better than not trying.

It is inspiring to learn about great teachers who have come before me, who did amazing things, but were not perfect and made mistakes in their lives. Gandhi was very consumed with lust in his marriage, and he also experimented with eating meat for a year. The Buddha left his wife and child to pursue an ascetic life! Albert Einstein was a horrible father, hardly saw his kids and at one point married his cousin!

It just makes me think, I have made mistakes, but so did they, and look at what they were able to do with their lives! What an impact they still made! I do not doubt that great things are in store for me

“Two things are infinite: the universe and human stupidity; and I’m not sure about the universe.”
— Albert Einstein

“There are only two ways to live your life. One is as though nothing is a miracle. The other is as though everything is a miracle.”
— Albert Einstein

“A man is but the product of his thoughts what he thinks, he becomes.”
Mohandas Gandhi

“All the religions of the world, while they may differ in other respects, unitedly proclaim that nothing lives in this world but Truth.”
Mohandas Gandhi

“Always aim at complete harmony of thought and word and deed. Always aim at purifying your thoughts and everything will be well.”
Mohandas Gandhi

“An ounce of practice is worth more than tons of preaching.”
Mohandas Gandhi

“However many holy words you read, however many you speak, what good will they do you if you do not act on upon them?”
Buddha

“It is better to conquer yourself than to win a thousand battles. Then the victory is yours. It cannot be taken from you, not by angels or by demons, heaven or hell.”
Buddha

This is hard

I keep thinking that I’m getting to a good place, that I’m doing it, I’m finally keeping up, I’m finally solid…and then something happens and I feel like I’m back to square one.

I get to a place where I feel happy, and I feel like that happiness is coming from within me. I’m taking care of my body and my mind. I’m doing my daily mental-cleansing of my mind…but then I slip up.

I am very hard on myself. I think it has something to do with the fact that I am an all-or-nothing type person. If I start slipping, it can lead to a landslide.

I am trying to control my surroundings, when what I really should be focusing all my energy on is controlling my self.

I have caused myself to feel so so so much pain because of my lack of self-control in this past year.

I  don’t want to be in pain anymore.

I know I have people who love me, who are there to support me, but I feel like I’m suppose to be able to do this for myself, like I shouldn’t need them. Everything I need is within me, why can’t I just do this? Why can’t I just be a beautiful, radiant, happy person all the time?

People tell me I put too much pressure on myself to be perfect. I guess I do. I want to be my best, and when I’m not I get down on myself and feel like, what’s the point of keeping up if I’ve already failed so many times? I think that is what the meaning of keeping up is. We are human, we make mistakes all the time, no one is perfect. We are perfect in our imperfection.

The purpose of living is to keep going, even through all the pain, setbacks, disappointments and losses. It’s easy to say, much harder to do. I’m struggling, but at least I’m still struggling, and not giving up. There was a point when I felt like I didn’t want to fight anymore. I felt like things were so bad, I was so bad, there was no point in trying because I was just going to fail again, I was just going to let myself down again, and maybe hurt some more people in the process. I felt that I was bad, I had already done so many bad things, there was no way I could ever be forgiven. That was definitely my darkest hour. I feel like I’ve been to hell and back. I know what it feels like to not want to live anymore.

I’m not there anymore. I have flashbacks sometimes, that is scary, but I’m not there anymore.

At least I’m at a point where I want to get better. I want to be happy. I want to be sustainably happy but this change is not going to happen overnight. I need to forgive myself more for not being this perfect person I’d like to be. I have this fantasy in my head of my life, if I were this awesome person, but I need to bring myself back to earth. It’s fun to dream, but when it gets in the way of you living your life that is a problem.

I’d like to live in the real world now thank you. I just pray pray pray that I have the strength to get through this. I just want to be able to keep up. I want to be dependable, not wishy-washy and emotional.

I want to surrender my EGO.

"wah"

just keep up

“The Guru’s way is very clear. It is the way of Cherdi Kala. It can be explained very simply: keep going. Keep up.”

-Yogi Bhajan

My "Happy Place", Amrit Vela at the Golden Temple, sitting in meditation

This Pain is an Illusion

Sometimes, pain seems to be all-consuming. It seems to take over. Dwelling on it certainly doesn’t help, there is some sick satisfaction in feeling sorry for yourself. Feeling pain will not change reality. Allowing myself to feel sad and depressed does not serve me or what I want to accomplish in my life. I think it is important to know what it feels like, to have perspective. It is a valuable experience to know what you don’t want.

It is important to understand what can happen if you do not keep up. It is necessary to know what can happen if you don’t stay true to your Self.

Although, it tends to not come without a price. This makes me angry.

It doesn’t mean that this knowing makes the pain any less painful. I can recognize it’s purpose, sources and significance. I can intellectually realize all these things, but it doesn’t mean that the pain goes away. I can only surrender to it.

I do wish that there was a reset button, that I could go back, with the knowledge I have now, and do things over. Life is a cruel joke sometimes. It’s ironic that I would not be who I am now if I had not gone through these things. People always say, life isn’t fair, now I get it. Lately, life seems to be laughing at me in the face.

I want to transcend this illusion of maya and live a beautiful life fed by my devotion to the infinite wisdom in all living beings. What a beautiful things! To be able to live in constant remembrance of this ironic experience. I do wonder, well, isn’t it good to live in the moment, have some fun? At this point…

I’d rather live a spiritual path, content and at times boring, than one of passion, excitement and painful emotional-ness

Parabol / Parabola

by Tool

So familiar and overwhelmingly warm
This one, this form I hold now
Embracing you, this reality here
This one, this form I hold now, so
Wide eyed and hopeful
Wide eyed and hopefully wild

We barely remember what came before this precious moment
Choosing to be here right now
Hold on, stay inside…
This body holding me, reminding me that I am not alone in…
This body makes me feel eternal
All this pain is an illusion

We barely remember who or what came before this precious moment
We are choosing to be here right now
Hold on, stay inside…

This holy reality, this holy experience
Choosing to be here in…
This body, this body holding me
Be my reminder here that I am not alone in…
This body, this body holding me, feeling eternal
All this pain is an illusion

Alive, I

In this holy reality, in this holy experience
Choosing to be here in…
This body, this body holding me
Be my reminder here that I am not alone in…
This body, this body holding me, feeling eternal
All this pain is an illusion

Twirling round with this familiar parable
Spinning, weaving round each new experience
Recognize this as a holy gift and celebrate this chance to be alive and breathing
A chance to be alive and breathing

This body holding me reminds me of my own mortality
Embrace this moment, remember, we are eternal
All this pain is an illusion

Memories can be haunting.

Keeping up is hard

Like I said, keeping up is hard to do. The things that make me feel sustainably good are pretty obvious to me, but for some reason sometimes I stubbornly refuse to do them. Most of the time, I use laziness as an excuse. Laziness is a socially acceptable excuse to not challenge yourself. It’s bullshit really. If you know what you need to do, you know what makes you YOU and you know what to do to create change in your life, just do it. If laziness is your excuse, man, that is just sad. What could people really do if they got off their butts and acted on their – oh I should do this, I should do that, but I can’t cause I’m too lazy.

I know I am working on this. It is a constant struggle to keep up, to even motivate myself to want to keep up. I could just slip back into a space where I don’t care to keep up, to challenge myself to be my best, where I just go with the flow. It is easy to be lazy, in the moment anyway. Over time it really catches up with you. It’s not very good for the self-esteem either. Lazy, is not a quality that I value. Yeah, it’s not an adjective I want to associate myself with.

There is definitely a difference between being lazy and not accomplishing anything and consciously deciding to do nothing. There are two very different things. One is still in control of one’s self, while the other is indifferent. When I have things to do and get lazy, electronic music usually helps me get going.

I ❤ Rusko