April 4th – Anchoring in Spirituality

There is no one word to describe our experiences during these times of great uncertainty and transformation. For many, this interruption is a much-needed pause to rest and to restore while for others it may be a big trigger for all that was left unresolved. On one hand we are all facing the looming financial crises and on the other hand feel relieved and grateful to be alive. We are in uncharted territory that’s teaching each one of us what we need to learn. So much of the choices that we took for granted have been taken away from us yet we are left with one choice that is still our own; it’s the choice of how to respond to this crisis.

As I write this, I realize that choosing is a privilege that won’t be enjoyed by those who have lost their lives.

When the bigger forces are at play, there is no other way to cope with this than to ask the bigger questions and see the bigger picture – that is Spirituality. In the bigger picture is how we may find solutions to our day to day challenges during these times. There is much to say, but I would like to share my top 5 insights that may stir something big inside each one of you and be of benefit to you.

1. Mindful Speech, Mindful Consumption, No Judgment

There is something so peculiar about this pandemic. Our biggest inspiration has been to find or make a mask and to cover our mouth and nose. Mouth represents consumption and nose represents judgment or discernment, perhaps. We have been in the consumer flow for decades – consuming material things, accumulating and filling our environments with stuff in an effort to make our lives more convenient and comfortable falsely believing that it will lead to happiness. Nature has a way to correct human error and to redirect. So, here we are! Same holds true for data consumption; hoarding knowledge, information again in the search for THAT miracle diet, pill or advice to take our pain away yet it moved us further and further away from our own inner wisdom. There had to be a climax to shake us out of our collective nonsense. And we are waking up, going inward and slowing down. We have no choice than to change our direction and speed.

We had become so divisive and so judgmental; holding tightly to our beliefs and opinions, this has been driving us further and further apart from one another. This virus has evened out the playing field, treating everyone the same way throughout the entire world. We are ONE from the same Source. No color, creed, race, financial or political status holds any meaning. Interestingly it spared the children as they are still so pure and innocent and not conditioned by society. May we keep them innocent and may we drop all judgments and see ourselves in others.

Our ears are left open; may we listen to the call of our soul deeply.

2. Creating Good Karma

Karma is the energy we set in motion with our thoughts, words and actions. To every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction. That’s karma. Interestingly handwashing has been drilled into each one of us and we now know how to adequately wash our hands. Hands are the organs of action; with our hands we make our world. Look how conscious we have become of what we are touching perhaps becoming conscious of what we are creating. Being mindful with our thoughts, words and actions and washing them away each time so we don’t “infect” others with our thoughts, words and actions. How about we forgive ourselves and others each time we wash our hands so as to wash away the past guilt, pain, anger and anything else that no longer holds a value in these times? We can let washing hands be a reminder to spread love around us.

3. Love our fears

The virus is gripping the throat area as if choking to the point of no breath and no speech. What else does that to us? Fear perhaps? Fear is the pseudo virus that is spreading far quicker than the virus. While a small percentage has become infected with the virus, every single person has become infected with the fear.

Fear is part of human life but we have been pretending it away. Drowning our fears in addictions, we remain fearful. The anxiety and depression phenomenon are a result of that.  How can we become brave and courageous if we don’t even acknowledge that we are fearful? Closing our hearts and being stuck in our minds we have been running away from fear with no place to hide. Fear has always been part of human existence; loving and accepting it is how we become brave and courageous. We are learning that; we are learning to love and to face our fears. Fear is part of love, it’s just the other side of it. Let’s merge it in the One Flow of Love and be free in spite of it.

4. Trust

We’ve been using this powerful word in smaller contexts of personal relationships and to shackle the ones we love with it. This word has a much bigger context than that. Our world has changed drastically and unimaginably in a matter of weeks. The big mysterious unknown has become a part of our awareness. This unknown has all the potentiality; if we believe it’s dark and scary then it will be. If we believe it is filled with possibilities, a planet or a life far more beautiful and magnificent than our limited minds can imagine then that’s what we will cultivate and experience. Herein lies the privilege of choice. How do we want to perceive this unknown and how do we play with it, co-create with it and allow our biggest aspirations to flower out of it? The unknown is our ally not our enemy. Trust has to do with the trust in THAT unknown which created this planet and all of us. Let’s free all of our relationships from this word; let’s trust humans to be humans; allowing them to falter and loving them anyways. Let’s save this powerful word to connect with the unknown and with the mystery of life.

5. Protect the weakest

“Survival of the Fittest” has become outdated now. “Protecting the Weakest” is our new slogan and should stay. This is what strengthens and sustains a society. Thinking of the whole world as a “family”; If I take more, someone else will get less. Our biggest insurance is each other – that’s what soothes our fears and our souls. None of us can be happy until everyone is happy. None of us can be healthy unless all of us are healthy.  Being sensitive and compassionate to others is what we are asked to do. Let’s hurt together for our planet; let our hearts be broken open for our people and our planet.

Nature is operating from a place of timelessness balancing the past and paving the path for a better future. There are no short cuts for the Big lessons. Let’s allow this crisis serve its purpose of transforming this planet and its people.

In the weeks ahead, allow yourself to feel exactly what you feel.  Be scared, be angry, and be vulnerable and be free.  Allowing will make it easier, resisting and pretending will make it harder.  Allow the resistance; don’t resist the resistance, it’s part of the process.  Feel what you feel, don’t make it right or wrong. The allowing may break us open and that’s how we will break thought to the brighter side.

We are resilient, adaptable and courageous more than we think. This pandemic has created the perfect storm within each one of us to break open and respond to our calling. In relinquishing all control is how we can come to our power and a new dawn can be borne out of this storm.

As I send this out to you, know that I am holding space in my heart for all of you and know that we will pull it together by breaking apart and then breaking through.

Mar 29th

There is something so curious and peculiar about this virus.

Masks to cover mouth and nose – Mindful speech and consumption of food, material things and news; Covering the nose is perhaps to refrain from all judgement.  When there is no judgment, there is only acceptance.

Washing hands:  Hands are the organs of action; through our actions we create reactions – this is Karma.  Washing hands perhaps to wash away our actions especially the ones that can create a negative reaction.

Social distancing – Go inward – this is a pretty severe measure.

Think less and feel more.  Do less and be more.  The external world has slowed down so perhaps we can speed up the inner healing and recovery. And anyone can get it and you can get it from anywhere – the great unknown.

I don’t know.  I don’t know where we are headed, I trust into a better place, but I don’t know.  But I think within this dark dreary place, we are finding some sunshine, rediscovering ourselves, becoming creative, tapping into our inner source, adapting day by day and finding joy just to be alive, to be safe, to have food – these gifts can’t be taken for granted.

Mar 28th

The heavy weather outside reflects the heavy inside.  Unclear and unknown.  I could talk forever and then become speechless.  Words may undermine my experience or distort it.  But we need words; words to see through the clouds, into the unknown. We need words to co-create out reality, I think.  One word that found a new meaning in my awareness is Collective.   What the heck does it mean?

Long  time ago, “Survival of the Fittest” was and needed to be the slogan.  It worked.  We each stepped up to make it in the world.  Once we made it in the world, we needed to stop and needed a new slogan.  But we didn’t stop – we kept going, we kept accumulating, we became greedy, we kept carry this old mental programming into the new times.  It worked until now; actually it has not been working for a long time, we have been sick for a long time, our society has not been working for a long time.  We didn’t want to see and now the veil is thinning.  Perhaps “protecting the weakest” should have been our new slogan.  This is exactly what we are forced to do now.  We are guaranteeing to keep our elderly and immunocompromised safe.  This is Collective – thinking as a whole, thinking for the whole; if I have more that means someone else will have less.  This is what sustains a society.  We are each other’s insurance.    None of us can be happy until everyone is happy. None of us can be healthy unless all of us are healthy.  What you can do?  Reach out to one person who may feel reassured to feel your presence on the other end of the phone.

The effect of this crises is very real and not less than horrific.  One of the video that was circulating was these people in India who were walking to get to their home towns – with a bag and children on their shoulder – it may take some 7-10 days to get there, they had no food, no money for food, no taxi in sight.  I thought about ordering some food on line and now it just does not seem important enough.  Being sensitive hurts and we are being asked to be sensitive.  Compassion will flow out of that; compassion is a collective concept.  Yes, have compassion for yourselves, take care of yourselves and let your heart bleed a little over the pain of the world.  At the core, that’s who we are.  Each one of us is hurting in different ways – whether it is that subtle worry or anxiety, or heaviness, or resisting what is – Let’s hurt together for our planet – let our hearts be broken open for our people and our planet.  This is collective.  We have masked our vulnerability long enough!  We have pretended long enough!

When we think Collective – Grace is what flows out.  Hard to define Grace – how do you define it.  To me it is like bowing my head to the mystery of Creation, yielding to the larger flow, listening and following and most of it, being awed!  Grace leaves me speechless and motionless.  Peeking through the windows of our homes, we are watching the world change before us.  We have been asked to go home and get out of the way so IT can heal the wounds we have created and we follow.   And also time to heal the collective guilt that we have been carrying for decades.  Enough for today!

Mar 27th

Random thoughts today.  For most, it will be about surviving the emotional and psychological storm that is being triggered in each one of us.  We can’t hide or run away.  We can’t escape.  It’s not an accident that we are all here together at this time.   Not knowing is perhaps our biggest knowing right now.  While we are asked to be in the NOW, Nature is operating from a place of timelessness – all the past and the future is NOW – IT’s perhaps balancing the past and paving a better path for tomorrow.  We can get curious about the mystery of it all and simply experience what we experience.  We are being asked to let go of the need to know and to be in the unknown

Tendency of the mind is to go spiraling down.  It will take energy to stay up and positive.  The energy right now is heavy, sad and depressed.  We will be affected by it.  We can open our heart to it and feel it deeply and be okay to feel what you feel.  This will begin to soften the sting or the intensity of what you are feeling.  This is how we expand, this is how we become whole.  Be gentle and be kind.  Allow you heart to let go of lifetime of holding, let it grieve for the lifetime of pain.

This is healing period.  This is what healing looks like and feel like.  Go through it mindfully and compassionately.

March 26th

Never before now, I have been so grateful for Ayurveda.  It’s knowledge can allow us to relax and be reassured in times of fear, disruption and uncertainty, something that’s not understood by Western Medicine.  Got on call with Dr. Paul Dugliss and grateful for the reminders.

1. Building immunity is Ayurveda’ s forte’ and the tools are practical and relevant.  The key factor in building immunity is raising our level of Consciousness.  All viruses have the negative thought structures and has low vibration.  In order for anyone to attract or get the virus, they have to resonate with the virus’s frequency.  By raising our vibration, we simply won’t resonate.  Yes, meditation!  If you don’t have a meditation practice, there are countless meditation apps.  This is the time to start using them.  Also, s….l….o…..w….down and pay attention.   What are you feeling?  Thinking?   What are you noticing around you?  Our consciousness is part of collective Consciousness – how do we want to contribute to the whole?  What are we called to be and do for the whole?
2. Immunity is everything.  Most people are strong enough to be unaffected or only have mild symptoms.
3. It’s about the host, not the virus.  When the host is strong, disease can’t set up shop.  Strengthen the host.
4. Sleep, meditation, cultivate heart qualities of Love, acceptance, generosity, compassion, forgiveness, affirmations and visualization,
5. Light diet to not overtax our immunity and keep our digestion strong.  Reducing animal products.
6. Herbs:  Amrit ( from Mapi.com), Shilajit, Tulsi, licorice, Turmeric, Ginger and many other – much depends on each individual and what they are experiencing.  Please note that these are general recommendations. If you have mild symptoms, you need to contact your holistic or Western Healthcare provider.

March 25th

Reading and listening to the messages from the all over the world, from the first responders made me realize its much serious than I thought. I cried. Is the world going to end?  I contacted everyone I could think of just to check in; a distant aunt who I speak to once a year on my son’s birthday, an old client or a Yoga student and the list goes on.  Then reading on how there is cure available and the big Pharma won’t release it or allow it, how this is a bio attack by the Chinese, and on and on.  My heart is swirling.  How can I digest that we can deliberately harm others for our personal gain?  Most of the morning spent in agitation and unease, naturally led me to the knowing that it was in the ACCEPTANCE of what is that we will find our peace.

Everything and everyone is Divinely guided.  Divinely guided does not mean we will all play fair.  We are not all Divinely guided to play fairly; we can play dirty or whichever way we are guided to play.  Either way, what we are guided to do is part of the Higher Order.  The whole world is Creation ( G.O.D. – Generating, Organizing, Destroying Force); one part of Creation can’t blame the other part of Creation.  Acceptance is then honoring ALL of Creation.  Not good or bad; just is!  I felt peace!  Thank GOD, I don’t have to set everyone straight.:)

So, this is why we suffer; we resist what is.  In this resistance,  we loose sight ( insight), our egoic mind wants to do something to “fix” it and our Truth and/or Human Potential remains untapped.  That’s where the juice is; that’s where I find my answers.

So this crisis is asking us to be different, to be more, to look beyond our ego for answers, to make room in our hearts for the suffering, the pain and the darkness.  Anger shields us from being vulnerable but it also shields us from experiencing the Bliss – which is our True Nature. It is asking us to ACCEPT and yield to the Almighty Nature.

This is Transformation in process.  It’s like learning the Course of Miracles via our experiences and not from the book.  This is unbelievable and awe-inspiring at the same time.  In Ayurveda, there are 6 stages of disease manifestation: 1. Accumulation of the elements 2. Aggravation of the elements 3. Migration of the elements 4. Relocation 5. Manifestation 6. Chronicity.  This is detected via the pulse of the patient.  Our global pulse had passed stage 6 and Nature is providing the cure for it.  With the tension and divisiveness building over the last few years, the darker energies building  – was our subconscious cry for help and our unspoken prayers are answered.  This is not to minimize the suffering but Nature rarely teaches for free.  Whether we are directly affected by this pandemic or not, let’s not forget the cost we have paid as a collective human race.

Don’t mistake the process for the end.  There are no short cuts for the Big lessons.  Let’s allow this crises to change us.  For the first time in a long time, we are given the opportunity to feel the pain of all humanity across the globe; for the first time we are given the opportunity to unite with all races, all cultures, all religions and all beliefs.  In the eyes of the Mother, all kids are the same.  Let this crises serve its purpose.  Let’s not be in a rush to return to business as usual; we can’t afford to do business as usual.  We can’t afford to be the same, what we can afford to do is to Love more.

When resistance no longer blocks the path, Love is what flows.

March 24th

A Silent War!  This is what comes to my mind today.  Nature vs. Humanity?  But humanity IS nature; until it goes against Nature, its own Nature.  It’s like a mother’s tough love – to discipline her children for their own good because She sees where they are headed if not stopped.

Although global, this is an internal individual war; a war against our own fears, insecurities and ego.  How so?  Our relentless drive to control, to plan, to undermine the natural flow, our greed for more, our limited personal agendas are all under fire silently but surely.

This inner war is going to turn us inside out and our biggest challenge is to have the courage to allow it. It may break away all that is not needed. What’s real will remain. Nature has Her ways to bring balance. The fear, anxiety and panic is the process, whispering to us to stay the course for it is getting us closer to our own Truth; that’s the only Truth we need to connect with.  All other truths are not ours to find.

Yes, a silent war indeed!  Between the Head and the Heart?  Between doing and being?  Between Fear and Love?  I feel a bigger trust emerging in the fact of the biggest uncertainty; I feel a certain freedom in not knowing tomorrow in spite of wanting to know what lies ahead.   I feel a certain peace with what is and perhaps this is how we will not only survive but thrive.

On my walk this morning, I experienced a certain peace; no battle between the gym or the walk.  We have no choice but to stay home. We have no choice except to follow the safety rules.  There is a certain kind of peace with that.  And what’s beautiful to witness is how we are all abiding, becoming creative, finding peace in surrendering to the Higher Order

Doing nothing is everything.  This is what’s difficult and this is what we are learning.

March 16th

Spoke with Cassandra in Hawaii – My teacher in the Energetics, Past lives, Consciousness and Healing.  Here is a briefing of our conversations.

1. Fear structures gain momentum quickly, much quicker than the virus.  All viruses have a fear structure, some more, some less. The effect of this fear is this:  we only hear the number of deaths and not the number that was saved, we keep harping on percentages but we are not looking within a population like the elderly and immunocompromised population.  Fear makes us see only what we want to see to validate the intensity of our fear, to make it real for ourselves.  When in fact, we get further and further away from reality.  Fear is the pseudo virus, that  infects more and more people but not necessarily kill them.
2. Accept the fear – or better put embrace the fear.  This is about honoring All the energy, All of it, without kicking anything out.
3. We are in dire need to coming full circle with this pandemic; meaning transform the darkness and fear into light and love.
4. Bigger changes are on the way; this is a wake up call.
5. Don’t amplify the fear; stop talking about it, stop passing news of fear.
6. We have an opportunity to choose how to respond.  For me, to choose is a privilege; those who lost their lives now won’t have this privilege.
7. We are asked to get out of mind fear flow.
8. We are asked to see the larger picture.
9. We have more Love available to us.  We are asked to let go of three dimensional Consciousness and move into fifth dimensional beings.
10. It does not mean we ignore the physical precautions, but not be fear based.
11. Expand the trust, Support the Heavens in this transformation, you are not alone.