PranaBeing blog: Something You Do Every Day

Here is a practical, simple, and powerful experiment to support your health.

Notice how you eat. That’s right. I said “how.”

Become aware of whether you are wolfing, nibbling or shoveling.

Do you take time to see, smell, and taste your food? Do you ever give thanks for or bless your food?

Are you reading/listening/watching/getting up intermittently to do chores while you are eating?

Are you eating while driving or commuting?

Do you eat when you are hungry (or when you’re not really hungry)?

Do you wait until long after you have been hungry to finally eat?

Where are you eating? What kind of environment is it (loud or quiet, chaotic or serene)?

Are you having difficult or disturbing conversations or laughing a lot while you eat?

Are you eating to reward yourself? Or to punish yourself?

What is your emotional state and what are the thoughts in your mind?

What do you do right after you eat?

Become a curious observer and notice the qualities of your eating environment, temperament, methodology. Set aside for a moment the fixation on what you are eating and for the next week just focus on how you are eating.

The key here is acutely attentive self-observation without judgment. Be scientific, unbiased. Simply observe and see if you can discover habits and behaviors that you may not have been totally conscious of before. This is self-empowerment. If you jump right into making yourself wrong, you will never feel safe enough to become conscious of what you are doing.

Take five minutes over the course of the next week to jot down or voice record your observations. Self-study is made much more powerful by getting the insights out of your head where you can see or hear them.

What are the predominant qualities you notice in regards to how you eat?

Do you notice these same qualities in other things you do besides eating?

How are these qualities influencing the way you feel throughout the day?

These qualities are important clues that will help you to modulate your health. Leave a comment and share what you discover.

PranaBeing blog: Being Right

We emphasize fact-finding and pride ourselves on being right. We want to eradicate what is wrong. We are so annoyed when people with views totally opposed to our own share the same zeal for rightness as we do—and they have their own arsenal of facts to prove it!

We hustle to align ourselves with the right people/decisions as we distance ourselves from the wrong ones. And when we are made to look wrong or feel wrong, we despair.

We swim in a sea of human-generated facts and information that grows exponentially by the moment. We frantically scramble to gather more facts—to “educate” ourselves—as if to build an unequivocal shelter. Yet at any time, what was right can become wrong and our house of cards comes tumbling down. We become alienated and confused. We forget that all this is mind-made stuff.

The truth remains simple, timeless, and unfathomable.

So far as human history can tell, right never vanquishes wrong; they co-exist, bound together like day to night.

Out beyond ideas of wrongdoing and rightdoing, there is a field. I'll meet you there.

When the soul lies down in that grass, the world is too full to talk about. Ideas, language, even the phrase “each other” doesn't make any sense. - Jalaluddin Rumi

Consider that there is a way to BE right.

Consider that there is a part of you that is rooted in deep knowing of what is right, good, and true. Hint: it is not competing with the many other voices clamoring for attention. This is a vast, quiet presence. Like an ancient, giant tree, this part represents steady wisdom. It does not cower; it has no need to defend itself, justify, or prove. It is connected to truth just as the tree is connected through mycelium to the whole forest and beyond. It knows what is right by feel.

Instead of looking outward to make the determination, instead of contrasting right against wrong in search of clarity, the access to this way of being is through tapping into your roots, listening… going deeper…tapping in…listening…refining…

How do we tap in?

Start by learning how to turn your attention inward and relax. When we reconnect with ourselves, we find the path toward freedom. If you want to explore this, visit PranaBeing on InsightTimer (it’s free) and start practicing.

Would you rather be happy or would you rather be right?

Yes.

PranaBeing blog: No End in Mind

I studied avidly with Gurudev Shri Amritji for 17 years and worked closely with him on his writings for seven years. For me, the Integrative Amrit Method, a system unpacked from Gurudev’s pivotal awakening experience in 1970, is a vehicle for transmitting the experience of Yoga as well as understanding key principles that guide ever-deeper exploration. These teachings are foundational to my own approach to life.

One morning we were working on a piece of writing together. The desk his office looked out through floor-to-ceiling glass doors onto massive live oak trees and enchanting gardens in the Ocala National Forest. Suddenly, Gurudev paused and looked outside for several moments.

“Look at that squirrel,” he said finally. We watched the animal leap and scurry about high up in the oak canopy. “No end in mind.” Gurudev said, with delight in his voice. He promptly returned to dictating.

He was offering me a clue.

The squirrel was simply being. It did not have an agenda; it was not stressing to get done with leaping so that it could do something else. The squirrel was the embodiment of pure life expression, doing what it was doing “with no end in mind,” just for the pure joy of it.

Another dear teacher, friend, and colleague of mine, Hansa Knox of Prana Yoga and Ayurveda Mandala , says it this way:

In the being, the doing gets done. - Hansa Knox

One powerful hypothesis proffered by Yoga is that by learning to gather and focus attention in the present moment, fully experiencing what is unfolding from moment to moment and releasing concern for the end result, we can experience bliss even when we are engaged with an activity that we don’t especially like.

This is true freedom. Detrimental stress comes from comparison and anticipation, from being divided in the moment. To the extent we can be fully where we are, doing what we are doing, without concern for past or future…we are happy and we are free.

Try it. See what you discover.

When is the last time you attempted to do something solely for the sake of doing it, with “no end in mind?”