All That Exists is One

At the beginning of the class I taught this morning, I led the "Guru Chant." This is a chant I have sung many, many times over the last 5 years, and yet today I felt like I understood it for the first time. We have these experiences often. Things we do over and over again suddenly, and for some reason, take on a new meaning or become clear to us.

A guru is whoever or whatever brings us from darkness to light, from discontent to contentment. The Guru chant gives us different ways to acess whoever or whatever does this for us. We can visualize God, love, or the divine in different forms, because some work better for us or resonate differently at different times. (Even in the bible, God takes on many "personas." There is the angry God who floods the earth, or the parental God who leads his children out of Egypt, etc.) The Guru Chant begins with Brahma, the creator -- that which is beginningless and endless. It then acknowledges Vishnu, the preserver. (When I chant this, I think of my parents, who are always there for me, and whose presence makes me feel safe.) Guru Devo Maheshwarah is another name for Shiva, the destroyer. (I think of the difficult people and circumstances in my life that felt like they were tearing me down. In rising from and beyond them, I became stronger and more certain of my path.) Guru Sakshat Para-Brahma - is the teacher we can see (it might be a neighbor, colleague, or someone who inspires us) and the unseen teacher (the voice inside our heads). Tasmai Shri Gurave Namah: I bow down to all of my teachers who are all inside my heart.

As I chanted this today, I realized that they are all the same. They are all inside of me and each one of us. The love and wisdom that I receive from my teachers is something for which I reach out of myself. I think it is outside of me and that I receive it. This is my mind creating an illusion. The fact that I recognize it "out there," is because it is in my heart all along. It is like the breath: I inhale and exhale what I initially identify as "my breath," but it is part of a great ocean of breath. My inhale was a part of someone else's exhale. My exhale becomes someone else's exhale. There is no separate breath that is "mine." We are all giving to, and taking from, the same vast ocean of breath.

Shoveling snow yesterday, I thought that the snow I was moving might have once been rain in Guatemala, or fog somewhere else. My mind makes it look like a specific piece of precipitation that is sitting on my car, but it is part of the same body of water that exists and has existed always. There is one body of air. There is one body of water. There is one enormous sea of love that we feel inside and outside: we are all a part of it. The more we see breath or ourselves as separate, the more we look outside of ourselves for happiness, love and contentment, the more we miss it completely. We are joy. We are love. We are compassion. It is inside and outside and always.

All that exists is One. People only call this One by different names.~THE VEDAS.

God is love, and he that abideth in love abideth in God, and God abideth in him.~I JOHN iv. 16.

God is one whole; we are the parts.~EXPOSITION OF THE TEACHING OF THE VEDAS BY VIVEKANANDA.

Prosperity and Faith

Yesterday on WNYC, I listened to a program about the "Prosperity Gospel," a Pentacostal Christian movement that claims that the recession, and people's economic struggles, come from lack of faith in, or disobedience to, God. My immediate thought was, how mean-spirited and unfair. After all, Jesus and his followers were not wealthy people. Jesus was particularly kind and compassionate towards those who were disenfranchised from society, and critical of the wealthy and sometimes hypocritic members of the upper-class. How can these preachers chastise their followers and accuse them of causing their own economic woes by not believing or praying enough?

But then I thought about the question another way. Can you be poor from lack of faith? I believe the answer is yes. Think about this country. We have wealth and leisure time that are unimaginable to people like Flor and Thomas. And yet, Americans take anti-depressants in record numbers. We careen through relationships; we are continually dissatisfied or bored with our lives. Our secular lives, our emphasis on consumerism, have not brought us deep and lasting happiness. They can't. On the other hand, there are people in the world who have very little, and yet they are content and peaceful. Whether it is a belief in the dharma, Jesus, or secular humanism, we must have faith in something beyond ourselves. We must help others; that is what really makes us happy. We must measure our wealth in love and happiness, not possessions. Otherwise, no matter how much we have, we will be poor in spirit.

I believe that the very purpose of life is to be happy. From the very core of our being, we desire contentment. In my own limited experience I have found that the more we care for the happiness of others, the greater is our own sense of well-being. Cultivating a close, warmhearted feeling for others automatically puts the mind at ease. It helps remove whatever fears or insecurities we may have and gives us the strength to cope with any obstacles we encounter. It is the principal source of success in life. Since we are not solely material creatures, it is a mistake to place all our hopes for happiness on external development alone. The key is to develop inner peace. H.H.D.L.

From Houses to Homes

We are flying home from Guatemala, after building for a lovely family. They are Flore, the mother, Thomas, the father, and three children: Blanca, age 7, Thomas, age 5 and Jessica, age 2. Their home was a one-room, windowless shack, roughly the size of our dining room in New Jersey. The walls were made of dried cornstalks on the outside and sheets of black plastic on the inside. The floors were hardened dirt. In the shack were two beds – one for the parents and one for the three children. The only source of light was a circular, dim fluorescent bulb as the village got electricity a year ago.

They have a small kitchen adjacent to the one room. It has a stone oven, heated with wood, and a small counter. The bathroom is another little cornstalk shack, with a bottomless toilet seat that opens to a deep hole in the ground. The family collects rainwater in big barrels, and uses a bucket of water to occasionally “flush” the toilet. There is no running water. Children under four don’t use the outhouse; they urinate in the yard.

There were 6 adults on our team, all of whom were donating their time. There were also 3 young Guatemalan men, who I later learned all lived in houses built by From Houses to Homes. After seeing how FHTH changed the lives of their families, they each volunteered with FHTH to learn construction, and then became employees. Thomas, the father of the family we were building for, also helped.

It took 6 days of non-stop labor, but now the family lives in a much larger home, made of cinderblocks and cement. It has a window and a locking door, a proper cement floor and a tin roof that includes a plastic panel to let in natural light. On the last day, Flore and her two sister-in-laws cooked a delicious meal for the entire crew. They labored in the small kitchen for several hours. The kitchen was so smoke filled that I could only be in it for a moment or two before my eyes began to burn. However after Thomas served the crew outside, Flore, her relatives and all of their children ate inside the small smoky kitchen. This is their custom.

As the days progressed, more and more children from the neighborhood peeked in to see how the build was going. Most of the children in the village do not go to school. By the time children are 9, they are expected to help the family. The girls take care of their younger siblings and the boys work on farms. School costs money – approximately $5 a month, which is more than most of these families can afford. A day laborer can expect to earn at most $3 a day, and there isn’t work every day. However, Blanca and Thomas go to school. Flore walks them to and from each morning and afternoon, up a long steep hill and through the town of Santa Maria de Jesus. It is well over a mile, and Flore does it twice a day with baby Jessica tied to her back. This commitment to the education of their children is one of the reasons From Houses to Homes picked this family for a new house.

On the last day, we presented Flore and Thomas with the key to their new home, in a beautiful and emotional ceremony. So many people from the village came to see the house and witness their neighbor’s good fortune. It is hard to imagine that the lives of a family can be changed by the construction of a one-room house that is smaller than most New York studio apartments. And yet, for this family, in their world, it is a huge change. I felt so grateful to be able to participate in this build. To be able to reach out from my life and touch their lives; to make a connection and give a little of what I have to someone else, is a great gift. As always, the giver receives so much more than the recipient. It is important to be reminded that whatever we deem unsatisfactory in our lives is really nothing at all. To be around people whose hearts are so full despite having so little is quite a teaching. I look forward to returning to Guatemala soon.

Amazing Grace

Before our family eats, we hold hands and say a simple prayer. Samy leads us in the prayer she learned in pre-school and has been saying ever since: “Now we bow our heads to say, thank you for our food today.” And then I usually add: “May the food we eat give us strength to do good in the world, and may all who are hungry have all the food they need.”

It feels good to give thanks for our food. We aren’t thanking anyone in particular; we are simply expressing gratitude for what we have. This is an important practice. We all have so much. Even though I know this, I have been keenly aware of it as I have been preparing for my trip to Guatemala to help people who have so little in the way of material possessions. So many of us are caught in circles of longing. The media teaches us to want more than what we have. When we recently saw the movie “It’s Complicated” (very funny), it struck me that the plot of the movie was propelled by Meryl Streep’s character’s preoccupation with adding an addition and “dream kitchen” to her already huge house. Even though she had an enormous kitchen, it wasn’t what she had always wanted, and so she was changing it. This was supposed to symbolize her personal growth and growing self-esteem. But as Lama Marut says, “The desire for things to be different than they are is what is keeping us from seeing things as they are as perfect.” I think it would be a very good practice to periodically look at our lives and be grateful. To feel like we are complete without changing a thing. It would be good to remind ourselves that we don’t need anything outside of ourselves to be happy and whole.

The wish that by eating my food, all who are hungry have all the nourishment they need, comes from a prayer Jews say at the Passover service every spring: “Remember that it is we who were slaves in Egypt. May all who are in bondage be free.” To me, this is the most important aspect of Judaism: the reminder that we were once slaves in Egypt, the empathy with all who are currently enslaved, and the wish that all who are in servitude be free.” The Passover service reminds us never to turn our backs on the oppression of others, because we were once in that same position. Slavery can take many different forms. There is the slavery that is apparent, such as what blacks suffered at the hands of whites in the first centuries of our country. But there is also slavery that is disguised, such as the bondage to money, possessions, and believing that something other than what we have will make us happy. People who are enslaved to another can identify their oppressors; it is clear what must be done to achieve freedom. Because dissatisfied, unhappy people do not realize they are their own oppressors, it is hard to know how to achieve liberation.

It is also good to think: by my eating my food, may others be free from hunger. Imagine if this were true. Imagine that you could give your food and your act of eating it a higher purpose. Imagine that with every mouthful, somewhere in the world, a starving person’s hunger abated. Yesterday, I felt this very deeply as I ate my lunch. As I brought each forkful to my mouth, I felt that simultaneously a hungry child in Haiti was receiving aid. With each bite, another child was fed and was no longer hungry. It was a very powerful and beautiful feeling. I do wish it so.

A single person cannot, single-handedly, save every suffering soul in our big world. It is easy to give up, avert the eyes, and feel like we are each powerless. But we can each do what we can, and in fact infuse everything we do with the wish that somehow our thoughts, words and actions help to relieve the suffering of all beings. We can wish it so. If we all did, we would see change. This is what is meant by “Amazing Grace.”

I Am You and You Are Me

Just as an event does not stand alone and exist by itself, “I” do not stand alone and exist by myself. The “I” that is going to Guatemala to build homes with From Houses to Homes is but a link in a chain. It is easy to think that it is “me” who is going, but that “me” is made up of so many things: Parents and grandparents who not only gave me my DNA, but also instilled in me a belief that it is each person’s responsibility to help those in need. They taught me that the suffering of others is my own. “I” am also made from a husband who loves me unconditionally and supports my path, and children who are compassionate and caring about the world around them. “Me” is not separate from all of the experiences and people who have touched my life – the good and the bad. Each has shaped my idea of who I am. Take away one of these experiences, remove one person from my history, and who knows what, or how, I’d be. We are intertwined, beyond our wildest imaginings, knowingly or unwittingly planting the seeds for the future.

This Leads to That

Ceasing to do things will not make you "actionless." nor will you rise to perfection simply by renouncing actions. No one is free of actions even for a moment, because everyone is moved to do things by the quality of nature. In order to excel, mentally control the senses, let go of all attachments, and engage the body in Karma Yoga - selfless service. The Bhagavad Gita, Chapter 3, verses 4-7.

Everything we do or say, everything that happens to us, is a link in a chain of events. Often we look at the things that happen to us as happening in their own right -- isolated in time and space. But millions of tiny events lead up to them. Change one link in the chain, and everything changes.

On Monday, my husband, younger daughter and I are going to Guatemala to build houses with From Houses to Homes, an amazing organization that changes the lives of the poor in Guatemala - one house at a time. When we were thinking of what do to during the February break from school, my younger daughter Samy asked, "can't we go somewhere and do good in the world?" From that question, our trip took shape.

I heard about this organization through another yoga teacher, with whom I did my first yoga teacher training 3 years ago. My friend Stacy has traveled to Guatemala 4 times with From Houses to Homes, and each time returns glowing with the joy of helping these people. In the past, I have made donations to the group on her behalf, to help her to go and to help purchase supplies for her to build. But giving money, while admirable, is no substitute for going, and interacting with these people, and seeing how our lives are intertwined.

Our trip was almost derailed by the big snowstorm that closed airports and canceled flights last Wednesday. It took hours of searching airline schedules, and speaking to different operators, but despite a 4 day delay, we are going because a persistent operator at Delta was able to re-schedule our flights. Samy's question and her desire to do good in the world, the fact that I did a yoga teacher training and met Stacy, the persistent Delta operator, are all links in a chain leading to our trip. And the trip will be a link in a continuing chain that is always unfolding. Can't wait!

Tend Your Garden Well

The concept of karma is easy to embrace when things go well. It's quite another thing to embrace the concept of karma when things go badly. It's much easier to believe that good things happen to us because we did good in the past. It is much harder to believe that something bad is happening because we failed to take care of others.

A recent conversation I had with someone with whom I work went from bad to worse quickly. Within moments, a small difference of opinion blew so out of proportion that it was as if the conversation got swept up into a whirling sandstorm. At first I was bewildered by this. How did the conversation go so wrong? How did a simple issue become so complicated? But then, I realized that this was karma playing out. I was experiencing someone not really listening to me, over-reacting, being defensive and misinterpreting what I was saying. The worst thing I could do was get annoyed and harden my position. Although this was my natural reaction, it would have created a mental imprint to have a similar conversation in the future. Instead, the best thing to do was to listen carefully, validate my colleague's feelings, and soften. By doing so, I hope I sowed different seeds for the future.

This is the best we can do. We can't change what is happening or how we feel in the present moment. But we can control how we react, and try to plant better seeds for a better future. In the same moment that a karmic seed ripens, we are planting a new seed in our minds for the future. Don't plant weeds.

Just Think Lovely Thoughts

After years of studies, experts concluded that playing violent video games and being exposed to violence on TV promotes to aggressive behavior in children. Duh. Last week, on my way to the dermatologist, I was listening to BBC news and was treated to a story about two boys who brutally murdered two other boys in the woods outside of London. Then, I went into the doctor's office, and two t.v. screens at either end of the waiting room were broadcasting a story about Tiger Wood's sex addiction. This led to a talk show about a pizza delivery man who was cheating on his wife by having sex in his delivery van with his customers. It is as if we are LIVING in a violent video game. We are bombarded with sordid, bad news all day long. Why? Why do I, or anyone else, need to know about the two boys? Or Tiger Wood's troubles? Or the pizza guy's escapades? Hearing about people's basest acts is demoralizing and wearing. What if all you heard about was good news. What if the daily headlines looked like this? Or what if the media made a point to balance every report on violence with a report on people's heroic acts, and the millions of random acts of kindness that happen each day? Violence in the world will not end until our minds are free of violent thoughts. But this will never happen if we are surrounded by violent images on a daily basis. Ahimsa, the first of the yamas or restraints in the Yoga Sutras means "do no harm." Our lives are shaped by our minds. So watch what you put in there. As we think, so we become.

From Peter Pan: "Just think lovely, wonderful thoughts, and up you'll go!"