Brad Yates and the Dalai Lama

In the coming months I have seemingly endless possibilities to look forward to. The Dalai Lama will be in town and if I can afford to, I'll see him speak in Radio City Music Hall. There are no tickets on the official site, but I've checked stubhub and other scalper (for lack of a better word) sites, and now it's just a matter of affording the cost.

Another VIP, hypnotherapist Brad Yates, will be in NYC in June. I came in contact with his work in California when I volunteered for Ananda Marga. My dear friend, Rebecca, has met him (I think) and followed his work, so I checked him out and found his work rewarding (and free!).

I just came back from a retreat in Plainsfield, MS, and I feel really inspired. I met with my meditation teacher, Acarya' Cirasmita' (that's ah-CHAR-YAH cheer-as-mee-TAH), or just "Didi." She helps me steer my boat straight, as it were. I am aware of a pattern I've created, which is to eat heavy, static foods starting in the dead of winter (stuff like garlic and eggs, maybe fish, but never meat) and by Spring when I meet with Didi I quit it and return to my practices. I also tend to get more and more lax with my practices (e.g. meditation, yoga, mantra chanting and dancing). Now is the time to remember, that I am here for a purpose. Sometimes that vision is clouded but to make it clear: I am here to raise my brethren from the darkness of themselves and to rise with them, into the light of Life, The Truth.

I send my Love and Light to all my brothers and sisters around the world, first, to my friends whom I love the most, next, my family, and then to all people I know, and finally, to all citizens of this universe. We are all Brahma. Let light shed in the darkness, let ego be restrained and harnessed, and let all beings find balance and spiritual victory. Parampitababaki, Jai!

Amanda

The inspiration for my blog: Amanda. I sort of unconsciously decided, based on public opinion, that blogs were selfish, narcissistic. I now see how important a tool they are! My friend is traveling and moving about A LOT and it's wonderful to read her blog and be able to keep up with her comings and goings.

I want to immerse myself in a foreign culture, specifically a Latin American one, like she is. Maybe Mexico, just ONE. I NEED to learn Spanish fluently and it won't happen reading Spanish for Dummies.

But, for now, I am moving to my girlfriend's apartment in the town of my Alma Mater to work on our life together. It's not perminent, but, at the expense of sounding like a politician, it's a step towards our future.

I just spoke to Amanda from her research base in Costa Rica. She does not feel the pull towards family life I do, nor does she "believe." She is quite skeptical and nomadic and I applaud, no, laud her stamina. I want life simple. She wants life chaotic, unpredictable. One of the many reasons I love her. She is truly my soul-sister, a friend I have known for many generations.

We are karmic family. It's a deep relationship that I wish all people can be blessed with because our day to day lives are so filled with polite, empty banter with people we know nothing about. We absolutely thrive on those deep interdependent relationships. We need to share, as a species, and in today's world, we can't share. Our (western) society is so individualistic that we are without supports. We desperately need Love and Respect. I thank the Will of All Things for my soul-friends, my soul-family, my girlfriend, and for the new people in my life(s).

Long Time Long Time

It's been over a year since I posted, and since last I posted I have been to Missouri and now California, spending the next year as a volunteer for Ananda Marga, A Spiritual/Social Service Organization. My direct superior is a monk named Dada Nabhaniilananda. Say that three times fast. He is a "kiwi" or New Zealander with a british accent. You would think a man wearing orange monk's robes would be very calm and say very mystical things, but Dada is very down-to-earth normal and likes the culture he comes from very much, constantly fighting away American culture.

This past summer I was in Missouri, being trained for my current position. I am called a Local Full Timer (LFT). The training involved the inculcation of the following daily routine:

4:45am - Wake up
5am - morning chants and group meditation
5:30 - 7am - bath and personal meditation
7 - 8am - yoga asanas
8-9am - chanting and group meditation
9-10am - breakfast
10-12pm - philosophy courses
12-1pm - noon meditation (sometimes group, sometimes individual)
1-2pm - lunch
2-3pm - hour of silence
3-5pm - philosophy courses
5-6pm - free time/labor work
6-7pm - chanting and group meditation
7-8pm - yoga asanas
8-9pm - dinner
9-10pm - free time/study hour
10 - 10:30pm - group chanting and meditation
10:30-4:45am - SLEEP

Wow, looking back, we busted our asses! I've since relaxed a little, sometimes waking up as late as 8 or 9 am. But things are starting to solidify here now that I've REALLY accepted my position for the next year. Tomorrow, I start working for the organizations sister business, Nirvana Beads, a wholesale bead selling business. It seems a lot of monastic orders have some business on the side to keep the monks afloat. Back at school, this order of monks outside of town made this really good bread called Monk's Bread. It came in cinammon raisin, maple & brown sugar, etc. So, we sell beads. Yes, hippie shit.

Through all of this, my girlfriend has really been a saint. Sometimes she wines and tells me how much she misses me, but she has become so strong over the past few months. She's opened up in the most magnificent ways. I'm really proud of her. When this is all over, her and I have a house on a lake lined up. I need to find a job while she finishes up her last year of school, and then after that who knows! My hopes is by June 2010 the economy rolls back over and lifts me up to $15-30/hr. I'll need the money; we will need the money.

In any case, I am fighting inner demons and ego trips left and right. My mind has become a battle ground, casualties abound. With the help of Dada, many of those casualties are the enemy.
Fear, lust, jealousy, mistrust, attachment, greed, gluttony, dying helplessly on the field of war. The only problem is they are taking me down with them, for you see, the person I am fighting is none other than myself. The good news is though, that even though fighting the evil within hurts DEARLY at the moment of battle, the result is freedom and a purity that does not compare. Submission to ones selfish desires only perpetuates the pain, for when one eats too much, doesn't the stomach ache. It gets "worse" with meditation, or more to the point, the more you meditate, the more you become aware of the bull shit you put yourself through everyday. Complaining, resenting others, eating too much, watching too many movies, masterbation. Worst of all, if you ignore that very small "voice" within, it's harder to find later. On the flip side, the more you listen to your intuition and control EVERYTHING about yourself, the more REAL happiness you begin to feel. Of course, personally, if my mind starts spewing poetry, I NEVER attempt to control it, just let it flow.

Let the flow go from the mind. I spill endlessly generously a mixture of love and selfishness into the material world which is not the true form. It is not the true form but I'm sure that we are the center of attention, like the newborn in the room full of elderly. Everyone is watching us sentient beings from on high: the angels, the saints, the sages, our forefathers, Jesus, Sophia, Shiva, Buddha, et al. They ascend but only to look back and encourage us to do the same. We swim and swill in the muddy water, so can we ever be truly friends? Truly free?

Can I free myself from my mind? Can I free you from the same? Nothing I write here could ever possibly save you. Save? From what? Listen, there is a small, quiet voice that I've heard about that is deep inside everyone of us. If we listen, we can be free. If we don't then we stay here. We die, and we do it again, making either small amounts of progress, or falling just a little more.

Amanda

Listen to "Two points for honesty" by Guster followed by "Can't Complain" by Nickel Creek. Those of you who understand this allusion, the whole one of you...let our paths move parallel, friend. I am always here for you. You are a true lover of life, may you live a life of service for all time. May the people forever know your presence, Bodhisattva. ^_^

Landed

I'm listening to Ben Folds and drinking a Pepsi while typing in the library on a computer at a terminal in a large room of terminals. The room is large, open, and closed off by the library's main stairwell heading up to the top floor. It is decorated by Picasso prints and faux plants. From my seat, I can look to my right out a window through open vertical blinds into the darkness which reveals only dim orange lights, however, I know what the scene looks like in the daytime and can picture it.

Now George Harrison is playing randomized on my iPod. I feel absolved. Who wouldn't listening to him? He is this beautiful mix of Christian and Hindu ideals through music. Both religions are very inclusive and expansive. When it comes down to it, they're all saying the same thing. Peace, love, and compassion, right people? Open your heart!

A Clarification of The Invisible Culture

The Invisible Culture, a book by Susan Urmston Philips is a microethnography (which means it's about classrooms) of the Warm Spring Indians experience of the "Anglo" classroom. Without going into too much detail, it sucks. They spent the first six years of their lives learning to be calm and controlled in a group learning setting and are suddenly, by federal government requirement, thrown into the mix with loud, finicky, impulsive, white American children.

I felt a supreme kinship with these children as I related to them on a personal level in my undergraduate experience thus far. I spent the greater part of my educational experience in life procrastinating and half-assing left and right and COMPLETELY getting away with it. I even dragged my feet through my first year at college. I'm a junior now and having been through the proverbial shit-on-fan experience I can say that everyday I wake up and wonder how I became such a...student. Actually, that's a lie. It was sheer will power and determination, and it still is, every God-blessed day.

So now that I care and I want to participate, I'm almost certain I look like I have Asperger's Syndrome to most of my professors (or at least that's what I think they think of me). I'm the new guy everywhere I go. My only hope is that since everyone sees such "potential" in me and believe in me so much, that one day I will fulfill their love for me by following my bliss with gut-wrenching determination.