Some Things Will Happen Anyway

Something funny happened to me. This morning I read in Tosha's Silver's book It's Not Your Money that sometimes when we're angry we need to break something. She recommends plates but it could be anything – stuffed animals, coconuts, phone books. I felt the urge to break something but then talked myself out of it because I didn't want to deal with the clean up. Even if I broke plates in my garage I can't leave shards lying around. I mean, I suppose I could, but people park in there. What would happen to their tires? Therefore I dismissed breaking anything and considered buying a coconut later this week.

I grabbed my water glass and wouldn't you know it – it hit my counter in such a way that it shattered. Not into a million pieces thank goodness, but enough to mean I pulled out the vacuum cleaner. It was kind of satisfying to hear and see the glass smash AND it was also a pain in the butt to clean up the debris. Some people might think my experience just now was a coincidence but I'm not a butterfingers. I don't regularly break dishes. In fact, the last time I broke a water glass was more than four years ago, so we can't chalk it up to me being a klutz.

Not my glasses. Photo by Jana Sabeth on Unsplash 

I'm writing about this, I'm making meaning out of the broken glass, because I think it indicates what's in my best good will happen. I may try to prevent it, but it will happen. Also, sometimes what's best for me will hurt or be annoying. In this instance, I cut myself. I bled a little. And I had to clean up the broken glass. It wasn't fun, I didn't enjoy it, but the part of me that needed to break something feels satisfied. Emotionally I feel better.

I'm also thinking about samskaras here, or reactive momenta. Samskaras are related to the law of karma, or the law of action. As we know, for every action, there's an equal and opposite reaction. But what happens if the reaction takes a second? Or more than a second? That potential reaction, the seed of the reaction to an action, is called a samskara in Sanskrit. According to my spiritual tradition, we carry these samskaras with us from one lifetime to the next. When a samskara is expressed, we often attribute that to luck, both good and bad.

I spend a lot of time thinking about luck. I long for good luck and I worry about bad luck. “Worry” isn't quite the right word, it's more like obsess. Especially when it comes to safety. I'm scared to go to movie theaters because I'm worried about mass shootings. I'm nervous attending religious services for the same reason. The first thing I do when I enter a space is notice the exits in case I need to make a quick getaway. Some of this is warranted, I do live in the U.S. after all, but I worry about these things as if noticing them will prevent them from happening. If I'm hypervigilant, then nothing can happen to me, right? Weeeellllllllll.

Another way to think of samskaras is to equate them with a curriculum. There are certain things that are meant for us in this lifetime. We can't run away from them as much as we try. It's why the healthiest person you know gets cancer. Or your friend can't find a job despite applying all over creation. It would be easy to sink into defeatism here. To say, “Oh well. That's my fate. Can't do anything about it,” but that's both true and not true. We make new samskaras all the time. How we show up in the world still matters AND certain things are inevitable. I think what this comes down to is serenity, encapsulated by the serenity prayer: “God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference.”

Right now, I'm figuring out what I can change and what I can't. I'm working on accepting what's coming to me, both good and bad. How can I be more serene? That, my friends, is the work.

I dream of a world where we recognize what's needed in our lives will happen. A world where we understand what's necessary isn't always pleasant. A world where we realize someone else's life curriculum isn't necessarily ours and vice versa. A world where we live in serenity as best we can one day at a time.

Another world is not only possible, it's probable.

This Life Belongs to Love

Within the past couple of weeks I started reading a life-changing book. I don't use the phrase “life-changing” lightly. Very few books embed themselves so deeply into my psyche that I find myself irrevocably altered as a result. I'm not even finished with the book yet but already I'm behaving differently.

The book is Tosha Silver's It's Not Your Money. I mean, even the title tells you this is something different, right? Instead of the mindset “It's mine! What can I do to get more?” Tosha instead asks the reader to offer up money (and everything really) to the divine beloved. To recognize nothing on this planet is truly “ours” in a permanent way. We are merely caretakers for the time being. For instance, eventually the computer I'm typing this on will get donated or recycled.

Gorgeous, right? Photo by Brooke Lark on Unsplash

What Tosha invokes in her book is the reminder we aren't operating in the world alone. I'm not the one solely responsible for making money or finding a romantic partner or whatever. I listened to a podcast she appeared on and she said people often say, “You'll never find a parking spot in that area,” or “You'll never find an affordable place to live in that neighborhood,” etc. She recognizes the person is right – if they don't invoke the divine beloved. So in her mind she tacks on “without God.” So for instance, “You'll never find a parking spot in that area, without God.” It's not so much a trick to manifesting everything we desire, so much as recognizing with God/source/the universe anything and everything is possible. If something is in our best interest, if it's in our highest good, the Supreme will make it so.

I know that to be true in my own life. Many years ago a friend counseled me about finding a place to live and he said there are three factors to housing: cost, size, and location. And then he said, “Now pick two,” meaning, nobody gets all three. In the extremely expensive rental market of the Bay Area, I did get all three: an apartment in my price range, the size I wanted, and in a good location, which was truly an act of grace. I've seen miracles in my life, and now I'm consciously inviting love to take charge of all aspects, including finances.

This week after reading a line from Tosha's book I immediately burst into tears and then wrote it on a piece of masking tape by my doorknob so I see it every time I enter or exit my apartment. She talked about letting go of old stories and no matter what happened in the past, we can do things differently and live a new reality. She said, “This life now belongs to love and anything can happen.” Wow y'all. That line. I hope you can feel the power of it, the recognition that love is here and when we open up to the divine, anything can happen. Bills miraculously get paid. Our soulmate knocks on our door. Opportunities abound.

What Tosha is talking about here is surrendering to something greater than ourselves. It's about letting love into our lives to lead. It's about letting go of control and recognizing there is a divine presence here, in this moment, in every moment. That a loving force moves through me and through you. And furthermore, we can consciously invite that loving force into our lives. I've been on the spiritual path for a long time and I still need the reminder that surrender doesn't end the minute I leave my meditation cushion. Real surrender means saying, “Hey God/higher power/universe, I want you to take care of this. Please guide my actions. I trust where you are leading me,” and then we let go, knowing whatever needs to come, comes, and whatever needs to go, goes. Because truly, this life belongs to love.

I dream of a world where we recognize the power and the presence of a loving force in our lives. A world where we're able to surrender and let go of our micromanaging tendencies and fully trust all true needs will be met, and often in amazing and wonderful ways. A world where we realize we never walk alone because this life belongs to love.

Another world is not only possible, it's probable.

What's the Boundary of Your Identity?

On Friday, I came home and found my plants had been cut. My jasmine, lovingly tended to for the past three years, was reduced to a wisp. My long, woody-stemmed wildflower vanished. Shock, grief, betrayal – I felt all those things. I realize some people might be scratching their heads saying, “They're just plants. They'll grow back.” But like I wrote about last week, I operate under the belief all living beings have souls. My plants are like my pets – I talk to them, they have names. I care whether they live or die. I'm very attached to my plants.

The experience also has me contemplating what many black and brown people are undergoing right now. They come home from work or school and find their loved ones just gone, vanished. If I felt this way about my plants, how much worse must it be with a family member? How can we do this to one another? The answer? We have an identity problem, in my opinion.

When children are ripped from their parents, some people will say, “Well, they're not my children,” and leave it at that. Or they'll spout rationalizations for why inhumane treatment is justified: “They broke the law,” or something similar. It's a way of cutting themselves off from others. People who don't seem to mind children sitting in cages have a boundary to their identity.

Where does your identity stop? Photo by Amol Tyagi on Unsplash 

Let's talk about identity a bit more. When you ask someone, “Who are you?” They'll likely state their name and then other labels like gender, age, ethnicity, etc. If you ask them to go a little deeper, they might start talking about their family or nationality. Maybe they'll mention their political affiliation. All of that is fine – I'm not saying there's anything wrong with identifying in that way, but can identity go further than that? If we stop our identity at a certain point, when I talk about “my” children and “your” children, it's easier for me to put “your” children in cages.

My friend gave a talk about this last summer and he asked, “How is it we can celebrate and protect human diversity while seeking to transcend divisions so we can socially cohere into something deeper, truer, to who we are on the inside rather than how we project on the outside?” Meaning, how do we keep our labels but also go beyond them?

Because that's the truth, isn't it? I'm not just my name, age, and gender. If you took all of those things away, wouldn't I still be me? In various types of meditation, the point is to get in touch with the unchanging “you.” The “you” that's calm and ever present. The “you” that's unaffected by superficial trappings. And the more we touch that part, the more we realize everyone has that part. That Self exists universally. I see myself in others and others in myself. It's why I get upset about dying plants and children in cages.

Some people might say I feel that way because I'm so openhearted. That's true, I am, but I would also argue it's because of how I identify. I identify with plants, animals, children. My identity is one of inclusion rather than exclusion.

Everything I'm talking about is the philosophy of neohumanism. Truthfully, neohumanism is more than a philosophy, it's a worldview that guides every step. It allows me to sink into who I really am at the core. If we all practiced that more, I doubt we'd have children in cages or environmental atrocities because we'd recognize we are more than the bodies we inhabit.

I dream of a world where we recognize who we really are. A world where we identify with more than our limiting labels, not as a way of discarding them, but rather recognizing we are also much more than our labels. A world where we tap into an unchanging, eternal Self and see that Self in others. A world where we remember I am you, you are me, and we are one.

Another world is not only possible, it's probable.

Re-Souling

It's gusty where I am right now and outside my window I can see wisps of plant matter floating through the air. It feels like a metaphor for my life right now, and not just mine, but our society in general. Strong winds keep unsettling us, thrusting us in new situations. As I check social media, I see a lot of disbelief and dismay regarding the impeachment trial of Donald Trump. (And also some jokes.) Did any of us think we'd wind up here? I sure didn't.

As I ponder the “why” of it all, I think about a conversation I had with dear friends of mine. I told them I noticed there's a tendency for men who mistreat nature to also mistreat women. For instance, Trump continues to rollback environmental protections and he's on record saying he can grab women by, well, you know the quote. Unbeknownst to me until recently, my observation is the premise of ecofeminism – a movement that sees a connection between the exploitation and degradation of the natural world and the subordination and oppression of women.

A woman in nature. Seemed perfect for this post. Photo by Jackson David on Unsplash

It makes sense because both the mistreatment of women and the plundering of Earth start with objectification. I don't think Trump views women (or minorities for that matter) as people and instead reduces them to neatly packaged labels and harmful stereotypes. For instance, “Mexicans are rapists and drug dealers.” He and others like him view people and the environment in transactional terms: “What can I get?” They think about how they can benefit the most financially or in terms of acquiring power.

When Trump was first elected, I heard many people remark that they wanted a businessman at the helm of the United States. That aspect appealed to them. What people neglected to factor in is businessmen usually care first and foremost about profit, and when profit is the bottom line, people and the environment get reduced to objects. Soul is taken out of the equation. And “soul” is not limited to humans, in my opinion. I think even trees have souls or consciousness because more and more research emerges that trees talk to each other, support each other, and behave in ways that we never imagined. The same is likely true for other animate and inanimate objects.

To tie in my spiritual practice here, an ethical principle I live by is brahmacarya. It means “to remain attached to Brahma,” or Cosmic Consciousness, or Source, or whatever term you want to use. My spiritual teacher says, “Whenever people do some work or think of doing any work extroversially, they look upon the object, with which they come in contact, as a crude finite entity. Because of their constant aspiration for material achievement their mind is so engrossed in material objects that their very consciousness becomes crude. The meaning of practicing brahmacarya is to treat the object with which one comes in contact as different expressions of Brahma and not as crude forms.”

I know some traditions define brahmacarya as abstinence. I think that's a definition that evolved over time because if you think about it, a lack of brahmacarya means objectification, and that can lead to sexual misconduct. To avoid sexual misconduct and to simplify matters, people started equating brahmacarya with abstinence.

To go back to Donald Trump, there's nothing I can do to encourage him to “re-soul” the people and things in his life, but perhaps I can spur the people around me to engage in brahmacarya. It's hard to constantly think of something as an expression of an infinite loving consciousness, but it's more than a mental exercise. It's also our actions. When you see a moth fluttering inside your house, do you kill it without a second thought? Or do you try to trap it and put it outside? When something breaks do you try to fix it or do you immediately throw it away, thereby increasing the environmental impact? All of these actions matter because it's our way of saying plants, animals, people, our environment, are sacred, and it's our way of reintroducing soul into what often seems like a soul-less world. And I'm all for more soul.

I dream of a world where we treat everything as a different expression of Cosmic Consciousness. A world where we stop objectifying everything and everyone because we see there's more beneath the surface than we previously imagined. A world where we “re-soul” our planet by recognizing everything matters and we act accordingly.

Another world is not only possible, it's probable.