Articles from July 2010

Yesterday someone asked about being overwhelmed, having so many things to do and feeling like the concerns in life are taking over.  Interestingly she already knew her answer.  She knew that she had to focus more on the spiritual in order to not be overwhelmed by the material.  This reminded me of a time when I was just about to move to the other side.   I was standing on the shore of being overwhelmed.  I had so many things going on that were taking my attention away from what really counts in life.  I knew what was going on.  I knew I was letting material concerns take over.  I also knew from past experience that the more I concentated on fixing material concerns or wondered will I have enough time, or how can I get things to work out, the more unhappy I would be.  I was right there.  I could see what was happening but I could not see how to get to the other side where I was at peace and not affected.  No better yet, I knew what to do but did not have the strength to do it.  I was thinking about all this while eating a veggie burger at a bar with a my friend Aaron.

The next morning after sitting at the bar seeing my situation but not feeling enough strength to move on it, I woke up with a feeling I have had before.  It rarely comes but when it does I know it. I felt un enthused about life.  I felt like just staying in bed.  I felt like I would rather go back to a dream, or even back to sleep with no dream than to get up and deal with all that was before me in my life.  I opened up Wise Words, my second book to a page that reminded me that I must meditate more often to be able to handle a more complicated life.  I also opened up my first book What If My Soul Is Eternal And Heaven Is Everywhere.  The page I opened to spoke on Plato’s alegory and reminded me that this world is dreamlike and illosory, a projection from a deeper world that I have contact with through meditation.  I meditated a little also and a thought came to me.  It was the answer to a question that I had the night before.  It was telling me the next step for me as far as how to share my meditation and spiritual teachings.  This was an answer that I did not expect to come so easily, but it did.  It seemed to come after really getting into my early morning reflection and meditation time.  At this point I was very enthused very alive and reminded that as the problems get bigger and life becomes more hectic I must meditate and reflect more on the spiritual.  When I do answers come, strenghth to act arrives and I am enthused to move into my adventure.

This year has been the most difficult year for me in quite some time when it comes to scheduling work for my gutter and window cleaning business.  Using just the right guys on just the right days according to their capabilities and their availabilities and mine has been quite difficult at times.  My life has had more time challenges than usual and so has the lives of my guys, most of whom I alternate part time.  Last night I had the same thing going on, time constraints.  This time the problem was obligations I had versus specific times customers needed my help personally.  I could not figure out how to satisfy it all smoothly.  Finally I went to sleep and let it go.  I woke up with bigger things on my mind.  One was a problem I had been trying to solve for years.  I opened up Wise Words, my second book, to a page that reminded me that my cross is my problems and my karma.  If I meditate and get into my mystical state I could rise above the situation and get the lesson.  I thought “maybe I can do this with my early morning concerns in my personal life.”  I meditated a couple times and got no answer to my new more concerning situation.  My mind went back to thoughts about my business and the schedule.  Then, a fleeting thought came as to how to rearrange things.  It was almost perfect.  Actually it was perfect time wise but it meant I would have to call customers and reaarrange days for work, something I never look forward to doing.  I kept thinking, “should I do this, it works better than I could have ever thought of last night, but I have to change things”.  Then I remembered that the idea came right after meditating and clearing mind.  It came from the mystical state.  Then I thought about my other concerns and how I got answers already for them previously that also came during mystical states of being, and yet have not moved on some of these answers.  I decided to act accordingly and let go of my old ways concerning both my larger situation and my business work schedule.

No matter what the problem is I face in life.  No matter how difficult it seems to be.  It seems like my teacher Mr. Ambrister had already told me what to do and how to handle it.  There are stories my teacher told me that he seemed to tell no one else. Later I would find myself in situations where I would have to apply the very information he gave me.  When I look back I can see that these stories he gave me were no coincidence.  They were given to me in advance so I would know exactly how to handle things.  The biggest challenge is the things I was told to do often went against my normal way of doing things.  These are the times we have to trust enough to put it to the test.  Every time I have done this I have been shocked at the results.

Today I find myself faced with challenges.  They all came at me quite early this morning through phone calls at 6 am this morning.  The concerns were just added on to the challenges I already had waiting on me in my mind that needed to be addressed.  Some of those challenges I did not quite have all the answers as to exactly how I was going to handle the situation.  As I was walking through the house, I found myself thinking about something my teacher would always say.  The funny thing is this same saying also came to me last week when I was going through some challenges.

 I was at the gas station about to get some gas.   I was thinking about the situation at hand.  It was really big at the time, but now I don’t even remember what it was.  What I do remember is that I was saying to myself and God,  “This is way beyond me and I really have no idea what to do”.  Then I remembered how my teacher,  Mr. Ambrister, used to say “Do your best and leave the rest”.   I also thought about how many times God and the Universe have come to my aid when I saw no way of how things could work out.  Then I proceeded and walked into the station.  When I got in, I began to talk to the owner, who is always friendly.  He asked how I was doing, and began to talk about how lucky he was to be working during such tough times.  He then said that, “Although times are tough, all we can do is do our best”.  As he said this I could barely feel my body because I knew what was coming next.  He then proceeded to say, “The rest we have to leave to God”.  I said,  This so true my friend.”

In that moment it was as though my guru and God were talking to me through the gas station owner, and the whole thought process and scenario.  Now is my time to share this with you.  Whatever you have going on, all you can do is your best.  When you truly give your best, God and the higher power in you recognises this.  Then you have to trust in God and the Universal Plan and let go.  Also, I have to say that a big part of doing our best is taking the time to meditate and connecting with God within.  This process helps give us the strength and clarity to handle the situation in ways we often can not even imagine.

Am I the only one who love’s The Last Airbender Movie?  I have heard and read so many bad reviews.  In some of them it seems like M. Night is the director people love to hate.  My problem with their view point is all of the negative reviews I have read only scratch the surface.  Anyone who gets into M. Night movies knows it’s all about the messages.  Anyone who knows me also knows that that’s what I am all about messages and signs from the universe.  So with that being said let’s talk about the deeper meanings in the movie.

1.  Aang, the avatar, or the last air bender, upon realizing that he is to be the avatar runs away because he is told he will never have a normal life or the ideal life, with a wife and family if he assumes his position as the avatar.  Interestingly the story of Aang is the story of us because most of us spend our whole lives chasing what we believe to be the ideal life, whatever ideal means to us.  Even when we get it, it is not ideal or normal because the ideal life in our mind ususally does not include sickness ,unexpected  job loss, early death of love ones, marital problems etc.  We keep chasing normal, more money and all of our ducks lined up and in the process run away from our true calling and destiny.  Sometimes this is done knowingly sometimes quite unknowingly.  

2.  Aang learns to embrace who he is and his mission in life which is what we all must do.  And just like the mission came to him the same is true with us, the adventure is right here if we become open to it and embrace the challenges as they arrive in our lives.

3.  Over and over throughout the movie people kept talking about their destiny and why they were born in this world.  As usual M. Knight points out that we all have a reason we are here and a mission that we are meant to accomplish. Our job is to be open to it and face it when the time comes.

4.  The princess was afraid to move into her destiny but she did it all the same.  This is how we must be in life.  We must embrace it even if it is scary, which it often is.

5.  There was a great theme of responsibility throughout the movie.  The brother told his sister he would fight to protect her because she was his responsibility. She pointed out that Aang was sent to them and became their responsibility. After this he began to take on responsibility for Aang quite seriously.   In life were are often given people and situations we are responsible for and we must do whatever it takes to take care of our responsibilities.  Our responsibilities is part of our destiny.  Being true to our destiny makes us great.

6.  Time and time again the enemies would say there is no need in killing Aang for he would just be born again.  I love this reminder that we are souls beyond this one little life of 70n to 90 years.

7.   At the end there was a new foe and challenge on the horizon.  This is how it is in life, there is always a new test and adventure on the way.

8.  Of course, I could not forget to mention all of the meditation and visions in meditation that Aang was having.  He was shown meditating and having visions and getting information from within.  This is how us spiritual people must live our lives, meditating for sings and clarity while we move through our incredible adventure, our lives.

This is a true story.  I was having trouble breathing.  I don’t know why but I believe it had something to do with my allergies.  It was more than just through my nose that I was having trouble.  It was like I could not get in enough air even through my mouth.  It was like my lungs could not take in enough no matter what I did.  I was getting a little worried.  Once again I was reminded of reasons why I want to be on this earth, my primary concerns, and my mission in this life.  I was thinking “man I really want to be here”.   I tried breathing in air from the freezer by opening up the door and sticking my head in.  Believe it or not this actually helped some, but not enough.  Then I decided to meditate.  I have had times in the past when I could meditate when having a cold and somehow it seemed like I was able to breathe right through all the stuffiness.  I also reminded myself how meditation takes away stress, just in case the breathing problems were due to stress.  Some time ago I became convinced that there is a different breath for each mood of mind.  Anyway, I meditated and reminded myself that all is well.  Within a short time my breathing seemed to be a little better.  I kept meditating.  In time my breathing was back to normal, if not even smoother.  I was reminded once again just how powerful the meditation is.

This morning I got up a little later than I wanted and had more to take care of before I started work than ususal.  Among other things I had to go to Meijer a 24 hour store to get cereal for my youngest son Jordan.  I wanted to meditate but felt like I didn’t really have enough time to get a decent meditation in before I left the house. I wanted to meditate so bad that I decided to devote 10 minutes to meditating and then go pick up the cereal, even if it made me late.  I sat down and closed my eyes and within no time I was deep in meditation.  The inner sound, or Aum vibration, was so loud, it was unreal. I was also getting ideas and informationon on how to deal with different situations in my life.   I enjoyed the whole experience. 

After some time I decided to come out and get back to my busy life.  To my surprise the meditation that was so peaceful, informative and full of bliss only had lasted for five minutes.  And to think initially I was worried about having enough time.  Afterwards, I was thinking about it and I realized that my really wanting to connect and my thoughts prior to meditation prepared the ground work for this wonderful experience so much that when I sat down in the lotus position all other thoughts were pretty much gone.  I am sure this was also God and the Universe reminding me that the meditation starts long before I sit down, and if my mind is on God when I sit down in the lotus position I will go deep right away.  Ultimately there is always time to meditate, even if it is just for a minute.

Here is an important note.  If the same scenario happened but instead I did not go that deep when I meditated,  it would have still been much better to get the 5 or 10 minutes in.  Quite often we do not realize how much we are training the mind each time we go within.  It often shows later and we are most happily surprised at the results.  If you have forgotten how to meditate, listen to my How To Meditate download.  It is free for all to use.

Peace and Blessings

Craig