Chop Wood, Carry Water

by Jamie Shane

  Generally, the problem is one of grounding. Not unlike a complex electrical system, your body needs to be grounded in order to function properly. It must be rooted in the present. It must be connected to the earth in a manner that allows you to draw energy without shooting off into the stratosphere. Your creator has given you this ability by creating a channel that literally allows you to connect to the earth—to ground-- with every step you take. This connection provides stabilizing energy that is sent up the body and into the chakra distribution center, more commonly called the central nervous system, to be dispersed. This channel is the life nerve.

  If this channel is blocked, you are unable to draw upon this connection. You may feel out of sorts, confused, harried or stressed. You may feel like you have no support and are completely on your own. This is all untrue. You stand upon an endless supply of energy and support. If only you would allow yourself to access it as you were meant to do.

  This is one of the reasons that yoga is practiced barefoot. The feet are not an ugly afterthought. They are your stabilizing force, your balance point, your very strike point to the earth. So what do we do? We put them in high heels, loafers and boots. We insulate our feet from the earth as if they weren’t designed to carry us through life on their own. We cover our energy plug with rubber and then wonder why we feel so tired.

  Perhaps if we think backwards for a moment and believe that the sciatic nerve begins in the foot and ends at the spine, the importance of the bare foot would come more clear. See it now. The feet are like roots, from which we drink energy and feed the rest of the body. What do you think would happen to a tree if you covered their root system? Why do you believe we are so very much different? Just because our roots are mobile doesn’t change their function. Life comes from the earth and you have a natural means to access it. If you close off this life nerve channel then you really are on your own.

  Best of luck with that. I don’t envy you the task.

  So, for the love of Pete, take off your shoes. Get out of your car. Walk barefoot in the grass. Walk barefoot in the house. Slip off those shoes at the desk and wiggle your toes, stretch out those poor dogs. All the energy you could possibly need lies not at your fingertips, but at the tips of your toes.

  34

  I will confess to owning a pair of Gypsy Feet.

  Every time someone I admire moves, I want desperately to join them. I want to live all over the world, resting for brief increments at various sites of note. I want to live in London. I want to live in Charleston. I want to live in San Francisco or Rio de Janero. I want to let my feet have their freedom and move, move, move, never tied to one location, never staying long enough to root. I want it all so bad that my toes curl with envy and my tongue curdles with bitterness.

  Did you hear all of that? Does the depth of that desire startle you? Or does it resonate on some strange level?

  "I want, I want, I want." This is a litany that lives within all of us. Whether your desire is for change, like mine, or for stability, for money, for love, for anything, want is a deep-seated facet of our human nature. It is desire that drives us through our lives, causing us to seek out something other than what rests in our hands. And it is this very desire that is the root of all our unhappiness.

  This thought is not a yogic principle alone. It appears, in some way, shape or form in most faiths. Desire, or longing, takes us away from the present and shifts our hearts onto a distant something. We cease to exist within ourselves and begin to live externally. We seek things beyond our hearts to make us feel fulfilled. "I want this" creates an empty space within. "I have this" prevents that space from forming. No hole, no unhappiness.

  In grade school they taught us that you only need four things to survive. Food, water, shelter, clothing. Having lived a while, I will add to that: companionship, love, and understanding. Its pretty simple. So how did we get from there to a culture that thrives on desire alone? We are forever being told that we must want something in order to be something. That desire is the new American virtue. And I guess that makes unhappiness the new American standard.

  Please. Challenge me on this. Prove to me that the new Porsche that costs more than my house will truly make you happy. Because I can swear to you that in a year you will want something else. Prove to me that a new corporate job with a multi-zeroed salary will fill your heart with radiant love. Again, I will swear, in a year you will want a different one. Desire is not a virtue. Longing will not make you happy. There is nothing greater or more perfect than where you are at this moment in time. So be grateful. Don't shun what is for what could be.

  Even if you are busted broke, sitting on a park bench with a cup in your hand, you have something. You can find gratitude for something. Maybe you have a friend. Maybe you have comfortable shoes. Maybe you just have hope. Want whatever it is, however humble it may be, and you will find peace. Because you already have it and therefore you don't long for it. No hole, no unhappiness.

  Want is a powerful thing. It is a squirrely, snakey devil that will never quite die. There will always be something to desire. But identifying this for what it is can make life so much simpler. Wanting what you have allows one to exist within fulfillment. It is to quit chasing after something in the ethereal distance and to simply rest. Take a moment to think about that. Think about the blessings that you already own, be they material or spiritual. I think you may find that you already have everything that you need.

  So stop running, for goodness' sake. Live in the simple joys of a shared meal, a solid roof, comfortable shoes. Enjoy the people in your life — the ones that are already there. Love the job you are in. Adore the car you already drive. Be grateful for where you are because, for certain, somebody out there wants it. Just the way you have it.

  So what do I have? I have roots. And they are beautiful.

  35

  The following is from a lecture given by Yogi Bhajan, the father of Kundalini yoga in the West, from July 19, 1975.

  “This human body is the net earning of the entire spirituality, the longing of the individual soul towards this path of God. Now, we could say that through the grace of Guru, you have done bhakti (devotion), and the result was a human body. The human body is not just an ordinary state of consciousness. It is the ultimate state of consciousness, in gain. Gain! The total projected evolutionary system through which this soul can travel can only end up in gaining a human body. Human body gain is the ultimate stage of reality.”

  In other words, somewhere along the line, by being a good spirit, you have earned this body that you now walk around in. You earned it! I think that is a great spin of perspective. Why? Because I don’t think that many people think about their bodies as anything other than their bodies. I have a body, big deal. Everybody else I know has a body, too. Most people don’t make the distinction between the spirit as the guide and the body as the tool.

  Through this organic machine known as the body, we, the spirit, experience life. We the spirit have earned the right to walk the earth in a human body. If we don’t give thought to that, if we are not aware of the spirit within, we are simply flesh lumbering through life without a clue to our nature. If we do not care for our organic machines as if they are that divine gift, we are showing an immense disrespect to our Selves and our continued evolution.

  There is an order of Buddhist monks who dedicate their lives to this. Avatara yoga is a practice that seeks to fully care for the physical body out of reverence. All of their actions are dedicated to loving and caring for the body: oiling the skin, smoothing the soles of the feet, eating wholesomely, performing yoga asana, meditating, breathing, cleansing the glandular system, practicing mental techniques to preserve the beauty and health of their human body.

  Their belief is that “there is no flower, beast or star as beautiful as the human body”.

  Unlike the Western perception of beauty, this thinking is not steered towards a common ‘ideal’. Each person’s body is uniquely beautiful and their efforts to preserve
this individual beauty come not from vanity, or fear of aging and dying, but out of a genuine understanding and reverence. The body is the vessel. It is a gift of god—an earned gift. And caring for it is not a chore, but a welcome opportunity to come closer to their true nature and forge the link to the Universal Consciousness. No action goes against this understanding. My guess is that they are pretty darned content people.

  I am certainly not suggesting that you go whole hog into Avatara behaviour. But I do hope that knowing about this will help you decide to enjoy caring for yourself. Don’t complain when you go to the gym. Don’t wish you had French fries when you eat a salad. Realize that you earned this skin you wear and treat it’s care with joy. Things that are perceived as earned are of more value to us, it is part of our human nature. Things that come cheaply are often treated cheaply.

  So if your spirit put in all that work for this body, why would you treat it like a sofa lifted from the side of the road? You earned it. Now keep earning it, every single day.

  36

  It has been said that it is age that introduces you to your vanity. Hm. How embarrassingly true.

  This particular demon, vanity, is the one who looks back at you in the mirror and prompts your usually worthy hands to pick and prod at the inevitable evidence of your passing life. It pulls at your skin, sweeping it away from the lower reaches of your face to remind you just how you once used to look and how far from your youth you have come. Maybe, just maybe, you think, a good moisturizer, a good sunscreen, or a good peel will restore that lost glory. Maybe, just maybe, it is time to cave in and go visit the plastic surgeon.

  I catch myself doing this periodically. Then, thank god, I come to my senses and realize: I don’t want to be twenty again. I wouldn’t relive twenty-five if you paid me. Despite the loss of my once firm skin, belly, and breast, I really enjoy where I am right now. I earned every burgeoning line through laughter, sorrow and experience. I have tuned my face to the sun for the sheer joy of feeling it kiss me there. I have given of my beauty to my daughter, and if because of that my body has a new softness to it, well, at least I can say I bought something wonderful for the world with it. I like to think that this is what it means to age with grace. At least that is my hope.

  I know that I have much further to go. But I live amongst shining examples of aged beauty. One of the most stunning women I have ever met just passed at the ripe age of ninety. She wore her age with a joyful grace. Her beauty was of the self and it shone on her lined face. It rode the drapes of skin around her neck. The brightness of her eyes may have faded, and you could have played connect the dots on the back of her hands, but she was just the most beautiful person in her heart, both gracious and giving, and this translated to her face. She was a lady and a wise woman through and through and this is what kept her gorgeous.

  Many, many people will never give themselves the opportunity to express this type of beauty. The identification of self is completely externalized and it is only through physical efforts that beauty and youth will be maintained. This kind of thinking robs an individual of the chance to make the true self beautiful. To bring the true self closer to the beautiful radiance of god. If we always live just on the outside, chasing something that has long since passed, how can we enjoy the moment? How can we begin to understand what it means to really be ourselves? If all of our efforts are turned to making our physical form culturally appealing, will we ever have the time to make our real selves beautiful? This is the real work of the human soul and it has absolutely nothing to do with how we look.

  If you want to stay young and beautiful, forget the face lift and do something thoughtful for others. Sit down and meditate on one’s true nature, and on the beautiful possibility of the human spirit. Come to the realization that this physical form will age and pass—that is the point, after all—but your eternal nature is what makes you who you are. It is only this true self that knows beauty and can reflect beauty. It cannot ever be bought, and will never be found in any unguent or treatment. It can, however, be earned.

  With age. And how about that.

  37

  The term meditation is bandied about quite freely these days. As the link between the mind and body is more thoroughly explored, this ancient wisdom is deshrouded from the mystery of ages and brought into modern light. It has been examined and tested, and if our physicians aren’t giving it a resounding hoorah, they are at least dubbing it ‘can’t hurt’.

  But as meditation makes its transition into commonality, it is losing its truth. It is being interpreted. It is being molded. Meditation is being shaped into a pill that can easily be swallowed by ‘can’t hurt’, and is being slowly defanged.

  The process of meditation is quite simple. The act of meditation is remarkably difficult. And when we think we are meditating, most often we are not. Where do we go wrong? Honestly, most of us lose it from the start simply because we do not understand exactly what meditation is and why we do it.

  Meditation is not a series of guided images that lead you down a path of peaceful visualization. That is guided imagery, a wonderful tool to relax the body and mind, but not meditation. In guided imagery you are thinking; your earthly mind is present and distracted by the images you are feeding it.

  Meditation is not contemplation. Tools such as Zen koans (the posing of unanswerable questions, ie, What did your face look like before birth?) are used to prepare the self for mediation. But in contemplation, you are still thinking. The mind is active. Focused, which is a step in the right direction, but still active. This is not meditation.

  Meditation, contrary to popular belief, is not the act of making the mind blank. In meditation, one wants to void the mind of cluttered thought, yes. We do not want to be distracted by the grocery list or chequebook balance. We want to make the monkey mind still—but not blank. The mind, like everything else in life, is full of what you put into it. If you spend hours making yourself blank, what good does that do for you?

  How does nothing help you become a more focused and peaceful person?

  Quite simply, it does not. So what, then, is meditation?

  Meditation is the process of stilling and focusing the mind on higher vibration. Meditation is opening up to your Higher wisdom and allowing it to purge the mind of filth and fill it with purity. Meditation is turning on your Heavenly receiver and shutting down your Earthly transmitter. Meditation is learning to be with the Spirit in blissful silence.

  This practice requires a one-pointed focus. An absolute dedication to finding the highest within and being there completely. The process of deep, rhythmic breathing brings the body and mind into a state of receptive relaxation. The addition of a phrase, word or term keeps the mind focused on its pure goal, the receiving of Godforce. Your mantra can be anything, anything at all. I like “Sat Nam”, meaning “True Self”. I know people who use “Jesus, our Saviour”. I know people who prefer “Diana, Isis, Hecate”. It does not matter the words, as long as they are aligned with higher beings worthy of faith. Because this is the point.

  We meditate to bring ourselves out of the earthly muddle. We meditate to find our own personal path to the Higher source. Meditation is not a simple stress relief task. It is not something that can be prescribed for relaxation. Yes, it does these things, but to make it a psychological action is to miss the point.

  To meditate is to transcend. It is to trust in that which is greater than you. Done right, it is a true path to lasting peace.

  38

  I opened up my mouth the other day and my grandmother’s words flew out. Without thought or consideration, her tones and cadence marched from my tongue before I could consciously swallow them back. Imagine my surprise.

  Now, grandma is a wise woman in her own way, but these words were hardly original pearls. And never mind that I was speaking to a two-year old who’s grasp on this sort of wisdom is tenuous at best. But I said them, and, oddly enough, I meant them.

  I looked right down into his cranky, baby’s face and
said, “Henry, Patience is a Virtue.” Oh, jeez.

  But as I laughed at myself, and this communicative folly, I couldn’t help but to think that even though this phrase is older than dirt it still bears out. Patience is a virtue, whether we like to think of it in those terms, or not at all.

  Our society is, as a general rule, not a patient one. We are not accustomed to waiting for things to ripen, or taking the long view. In America we are encouraged to feed our desires immediately instead of waiting to see if what we want is really what we need. This is a continuing effort on the part of consumerism. It is an effort that is slowly beating Patience down with a stick.

  You know that a three minute meal is not necessarily a good one. And instant credit approval does not instantly improve your financial situation. There are a million things that we could have this instant that are simply no good. Yet somehow, we have chosen to forget that a quick fix is often a shoddy fix.

  Things that enrich and nourish life tend to take their own sweet time. There is a reason that there is not a drive-thru love window. Or an instant yoga mix. Or the ready-made baby delivery kit. Most true things in life are worth savouring. You have to, by their very nature, be patient and wait. You have to let them develop and find joy in the development.

  If you can manage to make this consciousness shift from “give it to me now” to “lets see how this turns out”, you will open up an entirely new perspective on living. Then it will not only be the big events in life that bring you joy, but all events in life. A patient stance often yields bigger rewards than immediate grasping. Because, think now, if you grab the first thing that conveniently comes along, what might you miss down the line? If you expect everything to happen right now, what happens to tomorrow?