Integrating What You Learn Inside In Outer Life

This is a talk about Walking Your Talk. How to integrate and learn from what we learn in meditation into our life. We learn to use the insight and light we find and putting it to work in our life to be a better person. The Spiritual path is a long one. I've been on that path for over 55 years and reflect on the stages of the path and value of what you learn.

Transcript

Aloha,

I'm Reverend Cindy Palos and I wanted to talk today about walking our talk and how when we gain so much spiritual insight,

So much in our meditations and our awareness expansion,

How we take that and put it to work in our lives to help others.

I've been doing this journey for a long time since I've been 13 years old meditating every day and so that's a long,

Long,

Long,

Long,

Long time ago and I have in the beginning seen waves and stages that happen in the spiritual path and what you go through.

I think a lot of it can be compared to a love relationship and the thing is that you're in this thing for a lifetime if you're really in this thing.

I think in the beginning you find this extra energy and this insight and this wonderful truth and light and just like you feel in the beginning of a love relationship you just feel this ecstasy and this bliss and everything is beautiful and all the answers are there and it's just wonderful.

I remember when I started way back when I was reading every single book I could find on the spiritual subject.

I was involved in mysticism so I'd read some amazing books of course some of those have lasted a lifetime for me and others I can't even remember the names of them.

It's interesting how we find books that open the doors for us.

Alan Watts opened the doors of perception.

He was one of those,

Right?

Richard Buck,

Cosmic Consciousness,

Deep impression in my life.

The Alice Bailey Tibetan book series definitely made an impression in my life.

Of course I was impressed by the wonderful work that was done by Sajja Dananda and the yoga field.

I started doing that way back when and Yogananda as an influence in my life,

A teacher I've followed all my life and have loved walking at Self-Realization Fellowship.

So we go through that stage where we begin to find things that open the doors for us and at some point after a lot of that maybe a couple of years I had a spiritual enlightenment experience where I connected with God my inner self through meditation and once I had that experience I was getting information directly from the source and I began just writing what was coming to me firsthand in messages and I've continued to do that all my life.

But here's what happens and I don't hear a lot of people talking about this but I really believe what happens is you get this bliss,

You get this love,

You get this light and you get all this wonderful insight in meditation and it kind of is like having a unlimited credit limit on a God's credit card.

You get everything you think you need but at some point it occurs to you that this is stuff that you're learning to put to work in your life and you will not get more love,

More light,

More bliss,

More information,

More messages until you digest what you get and learn to walk your talk.

Now I think because I've been around long enough to remember the 60s I think a lot of people were taking acid and drugs and getting very very high at that time and some of them got addicted to just being high when perhaps maybe just one acid trip would have provided them with enough information to last them a lifetime if they were really going to use it and put it to work in their life to make them a better,

Make themselves a better person.

Let's just ponder this for a moment.

It's so fascinating to me that we get addicted to being high and without realizing it we can be doing our meditation to feel that bliss and that energy of that high we get when we're connected to the inner source.

I think Suzuki Roshi was the first person I read when he wrote it I believe in Beginner's Mind,

Zen Mind,

Beginner's Mind.

He mentioned that this is actually not supposed to be your goal and it's considered to be a major distraction off the path in your life and it made me stop and think am I meditating to feel good,

To feel God,

To feel that high and that light or am I meditating to be at that place where I can just be and completely engage and integrate all of myself and all of my mind,

My body,

My emotions,

All of my awareness to that place within where we can experience not only the bliss but all of ourselves and perhaps nothingness as well.

Perhaps that everything that is in nothing can clear away our illusions,

Our delusions,

Our addictions and after we have meditations like that it's coming back into our consciousness and I have to say when you are really on an accelerated spiritual path not a lot of people want to hear about your experiences.

They aren't at that place you know.

I found that when I was talking in high school about Alan Watts,

The Joyous Cosmology and my English teacher said what are you proposing here some kind of new religion and I was just trying to share what I had gotten from that but I realized it was a big gap between what people wanted to hear about and what I thought was important and I think all these years later some 50 years later I still am going through that to a degree.

I find these enlightenment and these messages that are so valuable and yet I find that it's also important to simplify them in a way that I can put it to work in my life and be relatable in my life without separating myself from others.

I have seen a lot of people in this metaphysical and spiritual field all my life and there's a stage a lot of people go through where they do believe that because they're meditating maybe because they're a vegan because they are dedicated to the spiritual path that they are more evolved and better than others.

Have you ever seen that?

Have you have you ever noticed that in your life?

And the problem with this is means that you are judging yourself and judging your others and separating yourself from others and in the spiritual field one of the basic things you learn is it's all one and if indeed you are more spiritually enlightened on the path all of that needs to come back those that credit card that spiritual credit card gets to a point where okay you've gotten all of this look at all of what you've gotten now go out in the world and see how it all works and there have been so many monks and so many nuns who have spent a lot of time and I have to say you know priests as well and in any field you know you'll find this in all spiritual fields where the people are really considered to be very high spiritually but how are they really putting it to work in their individual lives and I don't want to sound judgmental I've had the blessing of interviewing some of the top spiritual leaders of our time many of who have passed on now Satya Dandanda of course and many of the ons of course Wayne Dyer and Neil Donald Walsh and Marianne Williamson and so many I mean really the list goes on and on and on of course Alan Cohen and many others and and I have had a chance to know them and and some of them really do live with a lot of aspects of what they've learned and others don't and it's made me aware of how we can put people up on pedestals I know that I was reading a book by a woman who had done a lot of Zen training with her her teacher very famous a very famous Roshi teacher and then she found out he'd had all these affairs with various women that were there that would come to the the dojo and the temple and it got her very upset she wrote a book about it and I couldn't help but think of so many teachers that I have known many of which have many followers that have also done exactly the same thing who have been spiritual teachers and were adored by women because they seemed to have the answer and then there were affairs and things that happened most of which often were kept secret sometimes it came to light now does that mean what they were teaching was invalid no I don't think so I think these people were teaching what was the truth in all the cases I've heard about or known about personally but they couldn't really walk that talk because if you're talking about a teacher who's able to tap into that highest light and love then you have to have the consciousness of a Yogananda or a Buddha or a Christ or a Krishna and it's not easy to live that way now personally I did not know Krishna I did not know Buddha I didn't know Christ and I'm assuming that they were able to walk their talk partly because the truth will out in time and yes do I believe some of the stories have been changed and enhanced over years yes oh yes obviously some of the stories about Buddha and Christ and Krishna and Muhammad I don't want to leave Muhammad out have been enhanced because religions tend to wish to enhance the value of their teacher so that you will stay with them do that does that mean that was the actual words and beliefs of the teacher no not necessarily in most cases no it's the people who have made the religions out of it that make the rules with it that are not really in the line with the person who was the master behind it so again that is why in my personal lessons I go to the source within now this is the question you go to the source and you go to God within how do you know that you're getting the real truth that's valuable well I have found that you find out rather quickly on the spiritual path what's right and what's wrong the Native American Indians said you know the right red path it there is a way to find out whether you're following the right path or not pretty easily because if you're not you're gonna start seeing a lot of stuff coming back to you pretty quickly and that's good because you need to have revealed the things you need to have worked on now if you start ignoring those lessons and you can get it upside your head pretty quickly now you can fool some of the people some of the time and you can fool some of the people all the time but you can't fool all of the people all of the time sooner or later it's gonna be like well especially these days with all the people who have cameras and social media things out there just saying most people have become aware if someone's going off the track you can pretty easily see someone having a picture taken or something so so yes you will find out if you aren't walking your talk why do people build up their gurus and why do people want a guru in the first place I love Alan Cohen's description of guru and that's G you are you a girl is G you are you now I do not mean to offend anyone we certainly have teachers that can help us along the way there are so many wonderful teachers but I believe the best teachers the best teacher of all it's right there inside of you that you're connected to God and you know what all of the major teachers have similar stories and it all came from the same place yes there's variations obviously there's variations depending on the particular place and time and region in which the person lived you know I mean the people who follow Islamic teachings are gonna be different than the people who follow Christian teachings and we'll see that acted out in life a lot of ways Krishna's teachings could be different than Christ teachings but at the heart and soul of all these teachings it's all from the same source and that's why I love being a metaphysical minister I've been involved in metaphysics since I've been 13 or 14 in metaphysics we embrace all pathways now that doesn't mean we can't have our favorites I happen to love Christ and I love the Christ consciousness and I love the Christ light why because when I'm in that energy of the Christ energy it's like this wow this amazing love and understanding and compassion comes and the same with Mother Mary but I have also I actually I was with George Harrison and Ravi Shankar and we were all in a recording studio together I saw Krishna I saw Krishna I'm sure they did too and I know that's why George loved Krishna he was able to be definitely in tune with the energy of Krishna and being around that energy I saw the same thing he did and it was a wonderful energy a beautiful energy and I can understand why so many people love Krishna's teaching and I respect and love them too I am a Zen Buddhist I took my precepts in 1986 and I love Buddhism and Zen Buddhism wow what a wonderful way to learn how to walk your talk I had to say during that time it's very very clear when you're practicing Zen Buddhism of how you become aware of what's inside of you and how you have to carry that energy off your mat into your daily life everything you get from your mat and meditation should be put to work where there's no separation between your meditation and your life for me that's easy when I walk in nature because nature to me is walking with God it's hard for me it works sometimes many times it's like well this must be a good place to learn my lessons from because it becomes hard at work sometimes so it's an amazing ability that we have when we start to follow the spiritual path and many people leave that path because they don't seem to get what they want I was reading something the other day from someone who had been practicing and following ways to achieve abundance in their life by following that practices of abundance by manifesting and they were a little upset after trying for a year to have not manifesting exactly what they wanted or even close to what they wanted and it was so fascinating to me to think the person thought that they could put their time and energy and all of this work into learning how to manifest while they weren't taking any time to create the playing field to have the abundance that they wanted they were not doing anything in their lives that was actually going to bring in abundance they thought just practicing the principles behind manifestation would bring about what they want but no no no you can say affirmations all day long but if you don't put in the work and the energy to create what you wish to manifest it is not gonna happen now you might get lucky and something may happen you might have some doors open to you but it's taking that spiritual energy and putting it to work in our life so we can create what we need by our work and we can love that work if we learn karma and if we learn that there is no separation between what we do sitting in meditation versus sitting in our real world I have to say I work very very very hard and I'm still working and I'm past the age many people have retired at but I I realize I'm still learning and that's why I'm still doing this this life is about learning and as you learn then you hopefully become better and better and better in your life maybe a little more kind maybe a little more understanding maybe a little more helpful maybe a little more creative maybe a little more relatable are you relatable can you share who you are without having to say it without having to prove it to anyone but just by being a good person can you get what you need to get from your meditation and your mindfulness and you're sitting that makes you able to function without stressing out we are living in stressful times and there's such important things we can learn in meditation how we can put that to work in our lives to make our lives easier more peaceful more productive and better but one doesn't go without the other sooner or later what you're getting in meditation and the way you're living your life are gonna come face to face and you'll see you know it's like oh you know you sit on that mat long enough in silence all that stuff all that stuff that's in your shadow will emerge it will it'll come out so that you can see it if you can't see it and if you don't recognize it how can you deal with it so it's good to have revealed what's inside you it's good to sit in meditation it's good to be able to heal what we find in ourselves that needs to be healed we may have buried it because we want to be such a good person that we've not allowed ourselves to see that shadow self so this is a lifetime journey my friend and it's a lifetime of amazing wonders and learning and experiences brilliant light magnificent glorious love and also doing the hard work which is the work which makes all of that possible I wrote a poem about this about walking your dog just the other day and it was inspired after I was listening to an interview I did with Gary Zukav and Linda Harris his wife who had just passed away and they were talking about this they were talking about this importance of walking your talk the poem goes walking your talk may be hard to do especially if you talk a lot as you know I do all the broken parts will arise in time it's true so you will have a chance to do the work that you need to do yet this is all part of the life that you choose when you walk the path of becoming the better you so we act a little kinder and face the inner truth and integrate what we find inside it's what's outside us too so we meditate and see what's there inside and learn to face our fears with love and grace as our healing guide we find that place of peace inside may you always find that place of peace inside and take that inner peace that you find inside and let it be with you as you work move and live your life each day my deepest love and gratitude to each and every one of you on the path of life

Reviews

Thank you Reverend Sindy.
It’s true that I enjoy the meditations and then find that I am failing miserably by not being patient and many other human traits. I realise how hard it is to live in the moment but when I do… that peace and compassion is just so much easier. I feel I’m on the right ‘ path’ so I stumble but always find forgiveness in Our Spiritual God.

There is so much I love about this track! From the embellishments of storytelling to the origins of religions, to bliss vs work, it all resonated very deeply. I lost count how many times I exclaimed, "yes, exactly!" 😆 It's a common conversation I have with my best friend of 37 years, but it's not easy to find others who are like-minded or willing to discuss outside of their fixed ideas. On paper it looks like my best friend and I have always been on very different paths, yet spiritually we're very much in sync. It's a beautiful thing! I have so many thoughts about this track, I could go on and on. 🤗 It was a pleasure to listen to, as was your poem. Thank you so much! 💖

Thank you🙏🏻🙏🏻🙏🏻The integration of the learning: such an important step, really making it your own…🙏🏻🦋🙏🏻

Thank you Cindy for helping me and others not only connect to our greatest highest good but to walk the walk of love, light and truth ❤️

Just what I needed today 🙏🥰