Ram Dass Now

Sometimes I feel that what is going on in my life is decided by the pages I am reading in Be Here Now for the week. This week is one of those weeks.

I have been feeling completely inadequate as a mother. Having two little balls of love is so much different than just one. When I had only one baby, I could devote all of my time and energy to him. Now, I must split it. This leaves me with feelings of never giving each one the love that I want to, or the attention they deserve. My mind is constantly going in a million directions to try and meet the needs of the both of them.

That’s the paradox. By thinking so hard and worrying so much about how to give enough to each child, I am neglecting what it is that they really need. The only thing my children need from me is my “here and now-ness”. When my mind is too busy rushing about, I am in no state be a good mother.

After putting my 2 year old down for a nap, I plopped myself on our couch with my 2 month old. I leaned him up on the couch so we could see each other. As he was gazing with his deep blue eyes into mine, I was contemplating what to do about this weeks post, and worrying about not getting time to write. How was I supposed to write anything? I am so exhausted I can’t even think of what to do for dinner, let alone think of something to write. I can’t write while Canyon is awake, I need to spend some eye gazing time with him while his brother is sleeping. This is special time.

Then, I woke up for a moment.

Special? How special can it be if all I am doing is thinking about other things? So I stopped, and looked deep into the windows of Canyon’s soul.  When it clicked, my eyes filled with tears. Canyon was all smiles. This is all he wants. This is all Clavey (my 2 year old) wants, too. For me to be with them, in the moment. They are always in the moment. Surrendering to the flow. I need to meet them there. They are here to show me the way, I just need to follow them to that special place. That’s the place where the magic happens. Or is it this place? Either way, I want to be there, or here.

When I am able to fully be here now with my children, the feelings of inadequacy completely dissolve. The moment becomes perfect. Sure, my baby may be crying as I am patiently trying to let Clavey put his own shoes on (which he cannot do, but if he thinks I help him in any way, all hell breaks loose, so this ends up taking a while). But if I am helping Clavey while stressing about Canyon, I really am not helping Clavey, or Canyon, or anyone for that matter. I am outside the moment. So when I am with Clavey, I am with Clavey. And when I am with Canyon, I am not worrying about ignoring Clavey. I am fully with him. And boy does it feel amazing!

This week, I wrote on the little whiteboard we have on our refrigerator “WORK ON YOURSELF”.

It has been a rough week with my husband gone on a fire, and it shows in my parenting. So now, every time I get my stuff hit, I treat the situation like a mirror in which all the things that I need to work on are being reflected back to me. Clavey smears butter all over the counter : I need to work on patience. That, and my sense of humor. I get uptight when Clavey wakes up for the 6^th time at night to nurse : I need to get my calm center going. Once I can treat each situation like this, I can feel so much within me shift. I also realize how much I need to work on!

Sitting here now, Canyon asleep in my arms (yes, I have to type with one hand), I feel a surge of energy rush through my body. I know that right now, this moment is enough. In that knowing, my energy centers open, the blockages cleared. It may be a fleeting moment, sucked up by some worry or another, but it will be back. The more I work on it, the more often it will return. Until some day, it will stay.  And when it stays, I will be gone.

Namaste’

(refer to p 26-27)

Ok. You mean to tell me I can’t hide? I am a full statement of my being in every moment–every interaction? My partner or my enemy senses all of me whether they know it or not? Do you mean to tell me, that the part of me I keep from almost anybody is being picked up on by everybody…. even the dog??? Wait, I thought I was guarded? Safe? Because everyone’s picking up on my vibrations and I can’t just switch my vibrations on and off at will, you mean I am completely exposed and vulnerable right now!!?? Oh no! Holy shit, what’ll I do… what’ll I do… wait…

….Hhheeeeyyyy, it’s not so bad. I am naked. Transparent. I am who I am. I can’t control how other people perceive me. Wow, I don’t have to do so much. Wait… can I relllaaax? Oh wow. How liberating… I don’t have to keep building and repairing the levy to hold the floodwaters back, because I can swim.

—-

My Yoga teacher and one of my heroes Ti Harmony (openheartyogaschool.com) said something (among many things) that truly changed my life. He said, “Don’t teach yoga. Just share your energy.” Another good yoga teacher/mentor/friend of mine Bryan Carey (patanjalisplace.com) told me “your energy is very disarming for people”. …Whoa… guys… just my energy? You mean, I don’t have to do anything? Just be around people and they do what I had been trying to make them do, relax and open up???

Entertaining these ideas paired with a new practice of loving myself more, I started receiving statements like these more and more….and they began to make sense to me at a cellular level. I was getting really in tune with my energy and others’, and it definitely made me want to clean up my act. If they pick up on my energy, I’d better come clean so I can be real with people. And when I’d get anxious, I would trust for once that I don’t have to do anything except BE my incarnation. I have really great karma. I’m a loving being. I’m being guided. It’s all energy. Trust. Trust. And I began to realize there was truly less and less to do.

I began to realize that people actually wanted to be around my energy. I have pushed people away or manipulated them to me for so long, because I haven’t once believed in my own greatness and potential. I have had a big heart since I was a kid, though like many, I was conditioned out of developing its potential. This and having gone through intense trauma (a plane crash, burns, PTSD) and near-death-experiences, really allows people to open up to me and share their own struggles.

When I give up all the planning and hiding of the parts I don’t want people to see (eg my skin, my tears, my loving) or only showing the parts that are palatable for my audience (eg my guitar, my compliments, my humor), naturally I am not lost in my head trying to be a future-better-me or a puffed-up-version-of-now-me. Whether it’s as a yoga teacher, blogger, radio show host, lover, child, friend, or stranger, if I trust that my heart’s energy is all I need to concern myself with and that at the deepest level in my heart resides the Infinite, how could it not be easy and so good? I am that I am. There’s nothing to do but be here now. I can finally relax.

And that vibration is contagious.

- bt

I am sitting on the couch with my 4-week-old baby, Canyon, asleep in my arms. As I close my eyes in this moment, I can just feel the Love of God, the Love of the Universe, pouring through me. “I am the bliss of the Universe, Everything am I”. I am here, now, and isn’t life just beautiful…

My 2 year old, Clavey, wakes up, crying for mommy. All of a sudden it feels like I had been floating on a cloud of bliss in the sky and then catapulted at an amazing speed back into “reality”.

I go in to get my son out of bed, and he is not in a state of harmony. I try to help him regroup, but he pushes me away. He is 2. He can do everything by himself. How did I forget this? Meanwhile, my 4 week old is crying to nurse. I try to nurse him, but my 2 year old throws a fit because he wants me to play with HIM. I feel lost. Where did God go? Why am I not floating in the clouds anymore? All I can think about is how to make it through the rest of the day, and then I remember page one…

SURRENDER

I realize that is why I feel no God-presence in moments like these. Instead of opening up, letting the energy come in, I go in lock-down mode. But once I throw up my arms and rip open my heart, ahhhh. The fussing continues, but ahhhh. I can handle this now.  I ask Clavey if he wants to have “mommy milk” with Canyon. Problem solved. Once again I find myself on the couch, one child in each arm, nursing both of them back into harmony…and finding my own harmony at the same time.

This is how it is with my children. One moment is up, then the next down. I know that it is not this way simply to test my patience. It is this way because they live so intensely in the moment. For them, this moment is all there is. As I see both of them so absorbed in the Now, I can’t help but go back to page one…

“Except ye be converted and become as little children, ye shall not enter the kingdom of Heaven”

It comes so naturally for them. Me, I have to really work on it. But as I sit with them, becoming as they are, seeing the Universe through their eyes, my whole being feels full of light. My heart is open, and God comes in. Residing in my heart cave, my hridayam, the next tantrum doesn’t make me want to run. Instead of the feeling of frustration running through my veins, I am able to look at Clavey and Canyon with…

UNBEARABLE COMPASSION

…and say “this is hard sometimes, isn’t it?” This whole life thing is tricky at times. But the great thing is, we are all here together, just figuring it out.  Sometimes, this whole surrendering business is easy. Other times, my ego takes over and the idea of surrender is off in some far away land. But the more I work on it, the more natural in becomes. And with these two beautiful boys, I get PLENTY of time to work on it. My children. My little guru’s.

The last paragraph of the “transformation” portion of Be Here Now says “Now, though I am a beginner on the path, I have returned to the West for a time to work out karma or unfulfilled commitment….Each of us finds his unique vehicle for sharing with others his bit of wisdom.”

My thoughts exactly.

The importance of “Be Here Now” can be told by many. It can and has been told many many times. Without question it is one of the true iconic manifestos from the 1960’s. Above all, however, it is a manual for being that is just as relevant today as it was in 1970. It is a guide for students and teachers alike.

As a student on the path, I would like to share my own experiences and how this grace of “knowing” has illuminated a path from my mind to heart and from my heart outwards.

While I’m still finding my vehicle for sharing my wisdom with others, I am profoundly awakened in this moment. It’s a beautiful and auspicious day to be sharing with this tribe. 15 years ago today the great American musical yogi Jerry Garcia left his body. Without going off on too much of a tangent, I am so beautifully reminded that he shared his gift of song and sorcery with us on such a moment by moment basis. Sometimes, it was other worldly and sometimes it was inextricably human – nonetheless, Jerry was a great teacher for nurturing ones god given gift.

As I fully awaken right now, my “heart cave” is open and full of the oneness of cosmic energy. The trick it seems is to string a bunch of these moments together to form a day to day conscious approach to life on this planet. Dancing through our lila and not separating it from the divine that it is here and now. It’s too easy to just have a good random moment here and there and not make the connection. I get so caught up in the drama of my life – the being of my ego personality or the being that is required to perform a certain role. The heart cave turns into a mind cave so fast that I often end up being nowhere near now. I call it “suffering in advance.”

I love to panic about what’s gonna happen later – what’s gonna happen when I take that call at 1100 am, or when I have to balance the budget for the month, or when I have to confront the person I don’t get along with? It’s all gonna go really badly, right? I’m going to get angry and freaked out. I suffer in advance. The trip of being alive and human takes on many windy roads all of which are accompanied by our stuff unless we…

“Start again. Become that trusting open surrendered being” (Page 1 from “The Core Book”)

When has God ever let me down? When has the universe and it’s energy ever done me wrong? Never if I choose to look at it all as it exactly is, separating my ego the bigger unfolding.

So, as we get into the first pages of “The Core Book” and leave the “Transformation” it’s hard to not be attached to method. The methods outlined here are groovy and I love being on that trip. It works for me. I am becoming a pretty good student of many forms of Yoga, starting to sing the sweet names of the beloved and have a mala around my neck all the time. It’s far out and a lot of fun!

But the attachment to those methods is also just attachment. Many great teachers of late have pointed out that the true awakening is when you are free from the method itself and are bonded with the places they take you.

Page 2 clearly says “consciousness = energy = love = awareness = light = wisdom = beauty = truth = purity. It’s all the same trip.”

Maharaji-ji was the pure embodiment of light and energy. There was no separation and there were no boundaries. He was finely tuned. As I venture out on this weeks course in the college of life, I’d do best to remember that.

With that, until my next post. For now, I look forward to reading what my cyber soul brothers and sisters write!