My mom was right, I only do things when and if I want to do them. This is the precipice blocking my journey to conscious evolution. Not only that, but I have denied it for my whole life - hence a precipice and not a small brick wall. For years, I blamed it on her and her timing. ‘No mom, its jut that you always want me to do what you want when you want me to do it.” Read the complete Post.
Last night I manifested the answer to my question. What is the motivation for commitment to self discipline or to stay on a spiritual path. I realized after some contemplation, that many factors came together in this realization (of course!). Here is my understanding.
First of all, my name - well, both my names: Lisa, which means “God’s oath” and Siri Om Kaur which means “Princess of the great sound of Infinity”. It was receiving the second one - my spiritual name that caused me to think about the meaning of both of my names and what relevance the held in my life. As a kid, I never thought about what I was saying before it had left my mouth, which caused a lot of problems. I just thought that I had a lot to say, and that I better get it out there before I forgot. Hard as it may be to believe, this was not actually the case. Around the time I received my spiritual name I also began to receive lessons in communication. Through these lessons I often ended up with me hurting someone with my words and sometimes I would really serve someone with my words - I call this communication Karma.
I loved the feeling of being able to give insight or inspiration with my words - it was such a shift from how I felt as a child and teenager. The further along my path I have come, the more I have felt the need to work on my communication abilities. As of the past year, I have decided that writing is my favorite way and have since manifested a job in Communications and Marketing for Yoga West. This job provides me with the opportunity to inspire and give insight, as well as providing me with greater and greater lessons (God’s way of keeping me humble?)
Then, not long ago, I was studying with the Monk, and he said that purpose in life comes from giving. I had always felt that to be true, but really only related the idea to healing. I realized yesterday, however, giving is not only an excellent purpose in life, but an excellent motivation for my writing and inadvertently for getting up in the morning, so to speak. (Duh, seva….) To be truely effective in my communication, I need to be good. Which means I need a spiritual practice so my words are clear and coming from the right place. I need a physical discipline so that I have strength to give, and most importantly, I need to give so that I am motivated to keep giving. It’s a cycle that feeds itself.
Snatam Kaur is an excellent example of this (I’m writing an article for the common ground about her to promote the concert) In reading her blog to collect ideas, I realized that she doesn’t sing for her, she sings for everyone else - to give. I didn’t really understand how she could do that and not wear herself out, but I see now.
A gift is for giving. Committing to giving the gift is a commitment to receiving it.
To answer a question in the comments, yes, I will continue to update my blog as well as YW’s blog in regards to Hilary, and this evening I will post what sevas would help the Sullivans the most.
Why is committing so difficult? Whether committing to a marriage, a spiritual path, or myself there always seems to be an unbelievable amount of resistance to sticking with it. I find that the motivation I had in the beginning to do it, fades and I am just left hanging by a string at some point, battling with my ego on some stupid technicality. (I’m going to exclude the marriage question in this one, just because it involves someone else, which seems to be easier for my mind to wrap itself around.)
This morning I woke up to my alarm, after having committed to waking up at 5:30am. I laid there for a little while, my cat came in to say hello, I toyed with the idea of resetting the alarm, my cat left and I fell back asleep, music blasting. The next thing I knew, my cat was leaping around the room after a bird that had presumably been carried in by her mouth. HOLY CRAP. I was definitely awake. I jumped out of bed, hissing at my cat to stop, opening all the doors and window, when finally the bird landed on my dresser, safely above my cats reach. Shortly after, the bird catches its breath, and following a few near escapes, finally makes it out the window.
What does this have to do with commitment?
I immediately connected it to the karma lecture that the monk gave last week.
We were talking about karma and how it works. He explained the different kinds, which gratefully cleared up my bad / good karma assumption. To make it short, for those who may be thinking, “oh do share!” There are four types: Experience - tit for tat type thing, do something nice and something nice returns (but not quite so simple as that); Environment which the reality around you, be mean to everyone and one day you rely on those you were mean to; maturation which is emotional, act in a negative way, and eventually your world actually becomes negative - your karma is living it; action which is behavioral Karma. Basically when it comes down to it, all karma is a positive experience, because it creates the classroom you are meant to be in.
The connection with commitment lies within committing consciously to personal growth. When one wavers, or goes back on the commitment, the karma is much more intense than it would have been if they hadn’t committed consciously. I understand this not to be related to fear and sin, but to be an understanding between the universal energies and me. I want to be a conscious person on a spiritual path, and so when I commit, I am asking to be taken seriously. This means bigger karma - larger consequences but also larger rewards (if we are still in the “good karma / bad karma” understanding of everything).
Last night I committed to getting up at 5:30am because that has proven to be the best time for my body to wake up (obviously my ego doesn’t agree!) And by deciding to let my ego win by going back to sleep, I was awakened in a more painful gross manner. Neat. Its nice to know that karma even works at 5:30am. Lesson learned.
Now to remember this motivation when I am diddling around on the Internet at 10:30pm, or lying in bed, passively allowing the strength of my ego to beat me down. Perhaps the question is: Is the karma enough of a motivation to stay committed?
I was just about to leave the Yoga Center today when I got to talking with one of the regulars who had just finished a class. It was an excellent conversation spanning such topics as why cooking makes people not want to go home, all the way to what doing and being truely mean, what God is, and what really happeneds when you die. Basically the kind of interaction that is the meat and potatoes (s’cuse the expression) which nourish my soul.
What I really discovered through our conversation was the relationship between “getting God”, Lokiya and societal norms. You know, regular tea-after-class kind of talk. People seriously wonder where I work to be having these peculiar revelations, but the space totally invokes depth. I love it
So the relationship. Most humans have this “longing to belong” experience. Some people end up in a tight knit workplace atmosphere, some hang with an activist group they identify with, or maybe join a gang, some become fanatically religious… all to find a home for their soul. I am more on the religious side of things.
I did not, however, get fully into any particular religion, basically because I was only looking for what I call “the God feeling” and no religion / spiritual group satified it for long. To make a very long story short (as my yogi tea buddy can attest to), I found god in a church when I was a kid, and from that point on I thought I would have to go somewhere similar to get the god feeling again. When it came down to it, many years later, I realized that I didn’t need any one particular religions dogma to give me God, God was inside me.
Moving on, that’s what Lokiya is all about, and from what I have learned so far, is one of the differences between Lokiya and Abilokiya (tanslated as worldly and above worldly) - thinking that some external thing can give you a feeling. (Wow! The more I think about this, the more it makes sense) So I traveled around from religion to religion looking for God. I would find it, and then something adverse would freak me out and the god feeling would go away. Abilokiya says that if something could really give you a feeling then it would continue doing so whether in adverse or pleasantly distracting circumstances. Yup, sure enough: adverse circumstances = no god feeling .: place not= to god feeling. So then I find out, after many iterations of the same story, that the god feeling comes from inside me and I can create it anywhere. Therefor thinking something can give me God is a very worldly way of experiencing life (check, right on track.)
Now how does this relate to societal norms? WELL. Society says that if you want something, you can buy it, or get it from somewhere. People want a home, they buy one. Pre-made. They don’t have to build it or anything. People want food, they can live in a 29 story condominium with no balcony and get food from Isreal at the supermarket down the street - organic! With all this buying and getting, we have perhaps been lead to believe that we can get God too. So we got to some place, pay our dues and think that we’ve got God. In my experience, that’s the kind of feeling that dissapears in adverse situations, or when life is going really well.
Abilokiya is about process, not product. Its not about the getting, its about the how. I realize that I get my God feeling when I am serving my soul. NO one can take that away, because no one else gives it to me.
I suppose this is why it is hard to remember where the God feeling comes from in a society where everything else seems to come from somewhere else.
Wow, I haven’t written a blog post in a month and a day, well, two days if you count February 29th. I think it is time to step it up a little bit. No wonder no one comments!
Today I had the realization that I have been on the verge of for a couple of weeks. Are you ready? My highest purpose has to be bigger than me. I know this sounds simple, and theoretically it is, but in practice… no, it is not simple.
Having a purpose that is bigger than you means that you answer to that purpose, not to you and your ego. For example, my marriage. Justin and I are happily married, everything is going fine and then wamo, month 10 into our first year and we are looking at the baby idea. Now, if the baby thing was about me, or about Justin, we would have had an argument that went something like this:
“Justin, I want a baby.”
“Wow hon, I don’t think I am quite ready for that yet. I have just started my masters, last week I retired from the company and I am feeling like I finally have some time to really explore who I am.”
“Well ya, but I really want one. I feel ready. How come you get to have the final word?”
“It does take two to be parents hon, and I don’t feel like I am prepared to fully take on that role.”
“Alright, well, I am not interested in watching my cycle anymore, so if you don’t want to have a baby, you will just have to go without sex.”
Ouch. Ego’s clashing, claws out we might have just gotten one step closer to a divorce. If we have a purpose, or third thing, in our marriage that is bigger than us, then we can avoid hurting eachother in discussions like this. For Justin and I, we are still discovering and defining exactly what our third thing is, but we have decided that to make any decision we must first ask the question: will this bring us closer in our marriage. This is how the conversation really went.
“Hon, I think we need to have a conscious discussion about weather we want to start trying or not. I feel like we have been careless in watching my cycle, and I don’t want to get pregnant out of carelessness, even if we are ready.”
“I have been feeling the same way. Since we have started working with Don (a buddhist monk) and I have quit work, I feel like I have a pretty full plate with school and my own spiritual work. I don’t think I am quite ready, maybe in a couple of years?”
“A couple of years? Ack! I am soooo ready now. I feel like we could manage… I don’t want to be old when we have kids” (looking back on that now… this is me whining a bit - understandably.)
“Remember what Don said? (He mentioned that he had never seen two enlightened people have children together) I want that. I want to be those parents”
*I’m thinking - enlightened? But that could take years!
“I agree… I want you to feel like you have had the time to do what you need to do, but I don’t really think we need to wait two years. ”
“We are quick learners. But I want to finish my degree.”
“Okay. I agree that having a baby right now would be hard on us with the current circumstances. Can we revisit this conversation in a year?”
“Yes. A year would be great.”
I have a tendancy to think about me, and my needs, where Justin has a tendancy to be a little bit more global. He wants to provide a secure home with parents that are as karma free as possible for a child. Where thought I normally think along the same lines, I am feeling the maternal instinct, which makes me impulsive. I recognized when he mentioned Don’s comment that I was not thinking about our well being as a couple, nor was I thinking about the well being of a child coming into a stressfull home, no matter how maternal I am feeling. So I shut up and answered to our purpose as a couple: What is best for the marriage?
As I mentioned, today I realized that my highest purpose is bigger than me. Along with our purpose as a couple, I have my own purpose - to serve the earth and to serve the people on it by contributing to an elevated state of consciousness. This morning I had to get up really early and go downtown for a tv spot about our green wedding. I was being really victimy about how long it was taking, and how late we were in the schedule. As I tried to express my feelings about it to Justin I realized that I was being asked to go on TV so that people will be inspired to serve the earth. This opportunity was directly aligned with my purpose and I was whining about having to sit and enjoy my book for an extra hour! VICTIM!
After this realization, I felt torn between the way I had been carrying on - and the need to maintain it to try and justify my irritiation, and relaxing my grip on what I wanted to be completely humbled by what I really wanted. Eventually, (thank god before we went on tv) I dropped my ego trip and was truely humbled by the idea that our little wedding was something that inspires people to go green.
I get it. It’s not about me.