Karmic Seeds Body Mind & Spirit

I am not afraid of storms for I am learning how to sail my own ship. ~Louisa May Alcott How are you doing now that we’re several weeks into the new year? Are you feeling brave, balanced, and bright with the positive energy of new beginnings? Or do you secretly feel a little scared and intimidated by the big responsibility of a fresh start? You won’t be alone if you are looking around for excuses right now. Look for a new job? Tell my partner I want to make some changes? Devote time, energy, and resources to my own personal well-being and spiritual growth? Who, me? If this sounds familiar, the time has come to reclaim your vital feeling of personal power. Over time, there are many reasons why you may have let go of your personal power, your ownership of the real, authentic you. Your parents knew better about how you should live. Your teachers insisted that you think and act according to their views. You didn’t want to challenge or confront someone else’s ove...

Waves of Beauty and Bliss: Deciphering Imagery From the Saundarya Lahari JUNE 17, 2014       BY  LINDA JOHNSEN           Here in the West we tend to think of philosophers as stodgy eggheads holed up in university offices, engaging each other in tedious pedantic disputes. In India the picture could hardly be more different. There the greatest philosophers were often advanced yogis who weren’t so much interested in arguing about their views as in describing their experience of reality based on their meditation practice. One of the most influential of these Indian philosophers was Shankaracharya, an incisive thinker who was also known for his yogic abilities (such as the power to transfer his awareness from his own body into another). Western scholars have long debated Shankara’s actual dates; today they usually suggest somewhere around 800 c.e. According to the Indian tradition, however, this great master lived mu...

David Hawkins Letting Go: The Pathway of Surrender First , picture a big chain around your ankles that prevents you from moving toward the life you desire.  Second , think of the similarity between a peanut butter sandwich, a satellite signal, and a thought. They are all forms of energy. They only differ by the wavelengths at which they vibrate. Negative thoughts and emotions are aligned with low, slow-moving energies. Positive thoughts and emotions are aligned with high, fast-moving energies. Third , put it all together by using the energy of thoughts and emotions to eliminate attachments. . Stress is our reaction to a stimulus, and our reaction depends on our belief system . This means that instead of trying to “treat” stress by focusing on its aftereffects (e.g. muscle relaxation) we need to remove the source of the underlying tension, which is repressed and suppressed negative feelings. Healing from an unpleasant event or loss will be a lot easier if we focus o...

By Sarah Harvey  http://www.elephantjournal.com/2016/01/she-is-not-poem/ She is not here to make you smile. She does not exist for the sole purpose of making your life easier or making your pain feel less painful. She does not wake each day to make you gasp or groan with pleasure. And she sure as hell is not destined to hold your broken pieces politely together. She is here to inhale her pain and exhale Fire. She is not a pretty plaything Or a sweet little pet She is a living, breathing, booming woman With curiosity flowing through her veins like hot pink lightning, With thorns on her skin And colliding particles of electric, mystical mystery in her eyes. She might look cute, she might look delicate and sweet But she’s got a fierce beast inside her— Her wild heart. But that’s no secret. Because she knows what she’s not—- And she is not here to people please until she dies. She is not here to say pre...

Even a single day Of a life lived virtuously and meditatively,  Is worth more than a hundred years Lived carelessly and without discipline. A single day’s life Of one who makes great effort, Is better than a life of a hundred years Lived in idleness and sluggishness.  Like a River A single day’s life Of one who sees the Truth, Is worth more than a life of a hundred years Where the Truth is never seen.  Dhammapada 110, 112 &115  What this means is that if we are wholehearted about what we are doing, if we act and speak from a place of kindness and if we pay complete attention to the present, then to our surprise our life has indeed been fulfilled — the number of years we might have been alive is of secondary concern. 

bY  BRITT B. STEELE You practice your yoga and drink your greens. You’ve memorized your mantra and you know the true meaning of “namaste." You’ve even made ghee once or twice. Yet each day you still find yourself seeking—looking for answers, but not just any answers. You want those answers that will nourish you, sustain you, and bring you peace during tough times. There comes a moment on the yogic path when the thirst for depth becomes insatiable and the poses we take on the mat are no longer enough. Instead, the desire to carry the “yoga high” off the mat and into all of life’s varied experiences becomes the primary motive for practice. How do we access and sustain that “yoga high” off the mat? There are no shortcuts to embodying all that yoga can offer. However, there is a simple, clear path that does not require the mastery of Sanskrit or of any particular pose. A desire to move one's yoga practice beyond asana, the third of the eight limbs of yoga, may signal...

Do you have any idea how beautiful you are, my darling friend?  I don’t mean the superficial beauty that we see on magazine covers, or artificial beauty that can be bought and sold. I mean real beauty—the beauty that lives inside the divine and miraculous creation you are. Have you lost your way? Has the cruelty of life left you feeling abandoned and abused? Have you buried your brilliance under shame and regret? Did you believe the lies they told you, when they said you weren’t good enough? Have you continued beating the drum of your inadequacy, even after their song was finished? Please remember that you always have been, and ever will be, perfect. Can you see your worth? Your unique contributions to this world are more valuable than anything that glitters—more than the most precious of metals or stones. Your worth is inherent. It’s isn’t something you must earn, or prove, or beg for. You were born already deserving of the best life has to offer. When you have forgotten your magn...