Addendum: Intensity

 Someone emailed me saying they were disturbed by what I wrote about intensity, and I figured perhaps some other people might have been as well, so I thought I'd clarify what I meant by it and what I've learned about it (and some of the pitfalls I took while figuriguring out what worked for me.

In addition, I've stopped writing out this disclaimer, but I used to put it at the start or end of most of my blogs, and have certainly said in the past that it applies to all of them: what I write is just my own, failable opinion, listen to your own inner wisdom. And in addition, no two paths are the same. Different people need to hear and practice different things at different times, to do otherwise would be like a doctor prescribing the same medication to every patient that came into her office. And in this day and age, personal living guru's are scarce, so the only one you can really rely on is the inner guru, the high consciousness within us all, our higher Self, the voice of wisdom within. If you want my personal spiritual advice, it's just that: pray, introspect, and get in touch with that higher wisdom within you, and do what it says. (Though as your learning to discern it from the rest of your mental chatter you especially need to exercise common sense, first and foremost.)

In any case: Intensity

- Intensity is not hurry. Hurry is antithetical to the Journey. That same spiritual luminary who said the thing about intensity also said: "Start early, drive slowly, arrive safely." Just like a workout routine, if you push too hard to quickly, you'll injure yourself and have to rest for a long time when you could have been training. So also:

- Intensity is not straining. We all have limits and respecting those limits is part of the humility, awareness, and balance that needs to be cultivated. Laziness is to be avoided, so is overexertion. It's not spiritual, it's egoic to overreach yourself and burn out. Ego under the guise of spirituality.

Intensity is, at least for me in regards to the spiritual path: intensity of focus, willingness. How fixedly are you focused on your goal, not getting distracted by other lesser goals? For the Gopi's, Krishna was everything; every thought, every word, every action, everything they saw, all they wanted, was Krishna, Krishna, Krishna. That is intensity. 

And how willing you are to listen to and act on the dictates of your inner Guru. (Or external Guru, if Krishna happens to be around). That takes, faith, humility, and courage, as well as deep honesty, when it's not a literal verbal command from a physical sadguru, but a calling from your conscience. And that also requires a degree of subtlety, awareness, and surrender, to be able to listen and hear that quiet voice within. Like following the needle on a compass, you make be following North with all intensity, but that requires a gentle touch, keeping the compass level, not shaking it or moving it violently, taking frequent moments to still yourself and check in that your continuing to follow where it points.

Back to Krishna, when Arjuna was with him one time, Krishna said it was night, and Arjuna immediately agreed with him, then Krishna playfully changed his mind, saying actually it was day, and again Arjuna agreed, affirming it was day. I'm not sure how many changes Krishna made in this story, but eventually he gently teased Arjuna for being so flighty in what he was believing it to be, day or night, and Arjuna replied something to the effect that he trusted Krishna implicitly, above even his own senses. And Krishna gave him the figurative thumbs up, saying, yeah, that's how a devotee is. 

Taking that to a more figurative and applicable level, that is trusting the inner wisdom more than the external. That's part of that Faith and willingness. But I suppose I should make the caveat again that a lot of people put the cart before the horse, pretending to follow their conscience when really they are just following the vagaries of their mind. Arjuna was eminently practical and effective in life. He was not a woo woo new age type person. Another thing that spiritual luminary said that stuck in my mind was common sense needs to come before divine sense. "Follow your inner guru" is not license to do anything your mind tells you. Getting clarity on that inner voice is a serious challenge and journey, and the chance of your monkey mind getting in the way and polluting the communication is always a possibility, so you can't ever get complacent.

Ah, there's a good word. Complacent. That's an opposite of Intensity.

- Intensity does not mean discomfort. It's not about gritting your teeth and trying to force your way through things. That would be like trying to crush the compass with your bare hand to force it to show you the right way, while running full speed in whichever direction the crushed compass was pointing.

- But neither does it mean comfort. Getting up in front of people and talking may not be comfortable, but it may be what needs to be done. Comfort often is chosen instead of what the inner voice indicates. It's one of the most common ways we go astray, and it's one of the reasons intensity is necessary. It is very easy to convince yourself that it's ok to not listen to your conscience just this once, when the direction it's pointing is uncomfortable, and there is a comfortable alternative just a short rationalization away. In that way, comfort can sometimes be an enemy to the path, and it's why often spiritual breakthroughs (Like Arjuna's) are triggered by a situation of profound discomfort (being forced to fight a war against your relatives and teachers, where you may have to kill them, in Arjuna's case) When we are comfortable, there is often no impulse to change things, and so the status quo remains the same. When there is discomfort, there is intense desire to change things, and so intense activity is undertaken. This is why I mentioned the Ramakrishna thing about your hair on fire or being underwater. The Buddha was the same way: seeing death and suffering and no solution, make him take drastic action that eventually led to Buddha-hood. You shouldn't seek our suffering in some masochistic attempt to make yourself "be spiritual." No life is free of suffering. You don't need to seek out extra, you'll get as much as you need. But rather than running from it, accept the gift within it: the motivation to seek a joy that does not end. The Gopi's intensity was due to their intense love and devotion. There was suffering there as well, when they felt that Krishna wasn't near, but ultimately it was about love. The same could be said for Arjuna: the love he had for his relatives and for Dharma were causing suffering because of the situation he was in.

- Another important pitfall I fell into and then learned from: happiness is a spiritual gate. Meaning, if you're walking around with a 'caster oil face,' (or a 'vinegar face' for those not familiar with caster oil) then you're doing it wrong. No matter how much meditation or prayer or devotional singing or charity you do, if you are miserable, resentful, angry, etc, then that is not true spirituality, and you're not going to be making much progress, and your certainly not going to attain God Realization. You don't do stuff that makes you miserable until finally you've done enough miserable stuff and God flicks the light switch on the back of your head and suddenly you're happy all the time. No, you make happiness, love, peace, gratitude, into a habit, and that gives you the spiritual strength for the journey you have to make.

Being unhappy is useful spiritually as well though: it is an excellent reminder that you need to stop and re-evaluate what you are doing, your habits of thought and belief, and see what is making you miserable, so you can change it. A spirituality that leaves you dour cold and dry is not a real spirituality, it's not going to take you to the goal, so it's a true waste of life. Better at least to enjoy your life, even if you don't do so in a "spiritual" way, because at least you'll have a joyful life to show for it at the end.

You can acquire certain mental (or physical) skills, even if you acquire them in an unpleasant way that makes you unhappy. Some of those skills you could call 'spiritual', like the ability to sit without moving, or chant something a lot of times, or even focus your will and intention in a way to achieve your worldly goals. Just like you can acquire any skill, regardless of whether your happy or not. But true spirituality is about greater and greater light in your life, and happiness is part and parcel of that. Rightness feels good, not bad. And like the biblical quote says, to those who have more will be given, and to those who have not, what they have will be taken away.

Seems unfair, but it's just a statement of fact. That's how things work. When you are happy, more and more things happen to make you happier: the way you behave attracts them. Same for being miserable.

Another caveat, that I would hope would be common sense, but I'll say it anyways: this in no way is saying someone who's had a tragedy happen, is 'unspiritual.' If you lose someone important, and are grieving, that's ok. Those are external events. Things. you have little to no controle over. What I'm talking about is how we process things, internally something we have much control of (perhaps indirectly. discussion for another time). 

Let's say external events are a 5 out of 10, in the "how good/bad is my life" scale. From that 5, maybe you're habits of thought and action turn that 5 into a 3, because you always look at what is lacking, you have no sense that everything is ultimately working for your good. Maybe you have a belief that the universe is out to get you, and the 5 becomes a 1. Or, you have a habit of gratitude and appreciation for what you have, and faith in the grand design of things, and the 5 becomes an 8. That's the part we can control. 

If you lose someone, then maybe external circumstances are a 1 out of 10 for a bit, and the unhappy person is at -1, and the happy person is at 3. Not happy, but not as unhappy, and likely faster to process the loss, in a healthy way. They still find things to be grateful for, still find time to laugh and play, and it's more important to have that when times are rough than ever.

Aaaand that's the post for this week. No personal updates, so perhaps I should add some: one day from school starting up again, and I'm already thinking about Christmas break. Honestly, I'm already thinking about 3 years from now, how I want it to look. I've just kept going, taking on more and more, setting myself up for never having enough time, and I'm sick of it. I'll take a pay cut if I need to, but I want a lighter load than I've had these last several years. Perhaps I won't need to wait that long. If my other teaching job is any indication, the load gets easier even without changing anything, once you've gained the basic skills for the job. The problem is I just keep adding new things to learn and switching things up. And honestly, I don't know if that's going to change, since kids are in my future at some point.

Hmm. Welp, I've already said it, figuring out this time thing is my next big task. I'll keep at it until it's working to my satisfaction. I did some praying yesterday about it and my current practice I'm trying out is leaving it all to God and trusting. Seems to be working pretty well, especially in terms of how it feels on the inside, which is really the only serious problem.

That is certainly something I recommend unequivocally: prayer. Not mindless repetition of a pre-written script, but heartfelt conversation with God. If something is wrong, if you need clarity or help with your problems, or just really want something, I'm not sure I know of anything I do that's more universally useful. It's too bad more people don't make use of it. Maybe they're not doing it right? It's not complicated, but it does help a lot of you talk from the heart. The more emotion behind what your saying, the more intensity ;-)  ,  the more powerful it is. Surrender and silence also help, when you're listening for an answer.

OK, goodbye folks, take care. I wish you a habit of gratitude and happiness and prayer.

Intensity. Time. Imagination.

 I'm a week behind on posting and very intent on getting a lot of things done, so this will be a very short one. I've been questing a little to get some clarity on what the root of the issue is with always feeling short on time and overwhelmed with things to do, and the latest bit of insight I've gotten is help with prioritization. Whatever I'm deciding to do, I'm going to try using my imagination to project myself forward in time, to see the repercussions of doing that thing. If it turns out the repercussions are not good, then I won't do that thing. It's a simple idea really: us humans have the fairly unique ability among animals to imagine and simulate probable futures with some degree of accuracy. So, is my online shopping really going to enrich my life, if I look into the future? Maybe not. Hopefully with this approach, I'll be able to stop doing things which I later regret, wishing I'd "used my time better."

In any case, we'll give it a try. After all, to a great extent, time management is about priority management. We all get the same number of hours each day. We can't increase that, no matter what. So the only way to 'get more time' is to carefully garden where you're spending your time.

Another little tidbit that's on my mind. I recently listened to a talk, from a devotee of my favorite spiritual luminary, and they asked the Guru, "what is the main thing that keeps people from God realization (meaning enlightenment, Self realization, Moksha, whatever you want to call it.) and the teachers response was, "lack of intensity." That really struck me, and i wrote it on a sticky note and put it on my desk to keep reminding myself of that. I grew up in a spiritual movement were thousands of people were earnestly seeking enlightenment, but strangely none of them were achieving it, myself included. As I think back on it, I can confirm that just about all of them were seeking it without great intensity. It was a relaxed kind of seeking. Certainly nothing like Ramakrishna's declaration that you need to be seeking enlightenment like a man who is on fire is seeking a lake to jump into, or like that same person, who is drowning underwater in that lake would be seeking air.

If I look at myself honestly, I must admit I also do not have that level of intensity, and so I need to do something to change that. That's where the sticky note comes from. It's to remind me to keep praying, for that intensity, and have that intention, to cultivate it. It also reminds me, that the times I've had many of my greatest spiritual breakthroughs, were during periods of great intensity of my search, so I can at least give an initial confirmation that the advice seems sound, as far as my limited experience goes.

Thanksgiving break countdown. Antibiotics. Learning to teach journal.

 I am eagerly awating my week long thanksgiving break. I wonder if people feel jelouse of  teachers long breaks, but they should not. I think perhaps we need them so we don't burn out.

I have mixed feelings about letting the cats into my office: one the one hand, they often do tremendously cute things, like right now, exploring in my messy closet and squeezing into empty nooks in a bookcase. Or jumping up onto my lap to cuddle. They fill the space with love and sweetness.

On the other hand, they shed a bunch and are to some degree tracking what's outside, in. And occasionally they've got a dingle berry or vomit time. So far not in my office, but is that just a matter of time?

I think overall it's clearly worth it for the cuteness and love. Though I currently have a "only when I'm in the office" policy with the cats, mostly to prevent them using the space as a place to vomit or drop off a dead animal they've caught. These are the kinds of reasons you don't want carpet. So much easier to clean up messes on a hardwood floor.

I think perhaps the best of both worlds is a nice plush rug that comes in neat, machine washable segments, so you can have softness on the floor, insulation during cold winters, but also ease of cleaning.

I already have too much on my plates, but I'd really like to start keeping a to-the-point journal about my journey towards mastery of the teaching skillset. I think if I do eventually want to do research and/or designing a training program for teachers, documenting the process I'm going through will be invaluable. It's like how I wished I'd kept a journal of what it was like to be a little kid so I could read it and step back into that perspective, so it would be easier to get into the shoes of the kids I'm in charge of.

In any case, I'm super excited about the free week ahead of me. I'm going to spend some of it having fun, but I'm also going to try and be super productive and finally get myself well organized and no longer messy. I would love to have that, going forward.

Also, I've had a persistent upper respiratory infection, and after trying to just get lots of rest and take some natural remedies, caved and got the antibiotics I'd been prescribed. I'm kind of doing it as a science experiment: what is it like to take antibiotics for what seems like a fairly mild thing, something non-life threatening, non-intense. Are there bad side effects? how effective is it?

So far: no bad side effects, and it seems to be working more thoroughly than any of my natural remedies. Which makes sense. taking antibiotics for an infection is like taking tylenol/ibuprofen for a headache, it's what western medicin does best, it's a medicine made specifically to address an acute issue, that has been thoroughly tested. It is, in these instances where everything is aligned, massively more effective than the slew of herbal 'natural' remedies for such things. I doubt I will use antibiotics with abandon though, as I'm concerned about adding to the antibiotic resistant bacteria that modern medicine is so worried about. But for now, I feel like it is kind of my responsibility to take it, if I'm not getting better on my own. I own it to my kids, workmates, spouse, to do something to make myself non-infectious, and it would be say to be sick through my whole break. I need my energy back so I can get some major work in.

Outside the comfort zone. Thankful for Thanksgiving.

Pretty sure I missed last weekend. Had a sore throat, got a free Covid test along with Suzannah, negative. Had to go to a doctor to get a note saying it was ok for me to go back to work, which I didn't mind, since it meant I had a little more time for all the stuff I want to do. Cleaned up the house and my office a bit, which feels good.

Teaching is a hard job, ya know? It sounds kind of trite, but it doesn't feel that way to me. Every day is a challenge, some days a big one. It's pretty cool though, in how much potential you have to positively affect people's lives. The question is, can you do it? Thinking that's a swell idea, and actually having the skills to guide these young people towards their better selves... is a big jump.

Also, I was just thinking today how it's funny, ending up as a teacher, or perhaps more as a teachers assistant currently. I always hated trying to convince people of things. I thought people often did really dumb things, and should change, but I didn't want the hassle of trying to change them myself. I didn't feel comfortable in that kind of coercive role. I'd rather just go about my own business. Perhaps one of the reasons I'm in this position is for me to grow out of that personal limitation. I think it's one of the reasons I started off as such a lax disciplinarian. I really don't like having to discipline other people. Welp, here I am, doing it. I think some of my job is me being placed where my skills are most needed and useful, but some of it is pushing me right past my comfort zones, making me grow and stretch in ways I would never do, left to my own devices.

OK, that's all ya get for now. I am reaaaaly looking forward to Thanksgiving break. There are so so many things I want to do, that I think I will finally have time for. Love to you if your my family and close friends and warm wishes for health safety and peace to all.

-I

Clarity intention focus action surrender

 I've got a really good track record, setting an intention for what I want, going for it, and getting it. So I think I really need to apply that to my next big hurdle, which is... something along the lines of time. I need either more time, or energy, or efficiency in my work... basically, I need to get done all the things I need/want to get done, and have a balanced life, with time for my relationships, time to refresh myself via play, etc, and time/energy to put into my professional career. And spiritual growth, I suppose. I may be missing things. The first step in getting/creating what you want is getting really clear about what that is, and this lack of clarity is obviously the first thing that needs to get rectified, and is indicative of why it's a problem. 

I feel a little sheepish about doing this since last time I set out to do this, I was successful, but the extra time kind of came in the form of the global pandemic. I can't take responsibility for that I suppose, just one of those synchronicities, though the universe may have shaped itself to my wish, it also was already doing that for its own reasons, and the occurrence itself was a message of encouragement and a bit of a joke. Yes, you have incredible power to manifest your desires, if you do it in the right way. The whole world will change for you. But at the same time, it's also that I had that thought and decided to take that action, right before the pandemic was scheduled to take place. No clear chicken and egg, just all planned out perfectly, both in the minute individual details and the harmony of those with the overarching pattern and plan.

In any case, I need to do that, and it starts with stopping complaining about not having enough time. (but doesn't end there.) I'll use the same protocol, in general, that I have for all the other big wishes I've had. I'll let you know how it goes.

I hope you all stay healthy and sane during the election.

Love and Light,

-I

P.S. the title in this case is a bullet-point summary of what that protocol is, though I doubt you could just take it and make it work from that alone. But to describe it in actionable detail is a much longer series of posts. And probably not worthwhile because it would just be the knowledge without someone holding your hand and kicking you into the pool (to start trying it for yourself) I think one of the biggest problems with self-help advice is it often makes you feel better just reading it and you never get to the consistent application of the principals necessary for meaningful change. (though other problems include the advice itself being faulty.)