Happy Sunday,
Everyone.
Sunday,
August 9th,
2020.
I've been in Vancouver since Tuesday evening,
And it's been just a really wonderful,
Welcoming change of energy,
And I hope wherever you are in the world at this moment that you're able to find a really nice,
Peaceful,
Calm energy for yourself,
Wherever that is,
Within your normal,
Ideal space,
Or wherever you are that may not be your usual place.
And I invite you,
As always,
To find stillness if you can by either sitting or laying down,
Maybe even looking at a gentle space out in front of you,
Maybe an object,
Or maybe allowing your eyes to softly close.
With your eyes settled,
Let them truly soften.
Let your hands rest,
One on your belly and one on your heart.
Feel your inhale coming through your nose,
Your nostrils.
Feel and notice how the air is a little cooler as you breathe in,
And then noticing as you exhale how the air feels a little warmer,
As you breathe in,
You take in fresh oxygen,
New energy,
Vitality,
Prana,
Life force.
As you breathe out,
You let go.
You let go of old energy,
Old thoughts,
Old patterns,
Staleness.
Toxicity.
And it is meant to leave so that new can come.
The more you exhale,
The more you empty,
The more you can fill and take in.
A person who identifies only with things outside of themselves,
Their possessions,
Their opinions,
Their thoughts,
Their jobs,
Their relationships,
Their physical appearance,
Sees you then only through an image they have created for you in their minds.
They have created an image of you,
And therefore they cannot relate to you as who you truly are.
They relate to their own mental image they have created for you.
This is then imposing an identity on you,
And they see you through this friction of the identity they have created for you.
If we are doing this,
We are never actually meeting that person at all.
We are only meeting the images of our mind.
So that creates a complete separation with the other person.
When we are trapped in the self that identifies with these outwardly things,
Then qualities that make us truly human beings,
Qualities like empathy,
Compassion,
And love,
Cannot arise because the ego can't survive these things.
This is a false sense of self,
As we are not our thoughts or things or what we do.
And underneath it all,
There is a vast realm of conscious presence,
Of awareness.
The ego,
That self that identifies outwardly,
Is always fearful,
And it hasn't discovered its vastness.
When we aren't thinking through these filters of the past or present,
Or even the future,
There is an alive presence of what and who is.
So I offer you this story to maybe allow you to remember or see clearly how simple and easy this can be.
A lady in a faded gingham dress and her husband dressed in a homespun threadbare suit walked timidly,
Without an appointment,
Into the Harvard president's outer office.
The secretary could tell in a moment that such backwoods country hicks had no business being there at Harvard.
We want to see the president,
The man said softly.
He'll be busy all day,
The secretary snapped.
We'll wait,
The lady replied.
And so,
For hours,
The secretary ignored them,
Hoping that the couple would finally become discouraged and go away.
They didn't.
The secretary grew frustrated and finally decided to disturb the president and said,
Maybe if you see them for a few minutes,
They'll just leave.
The president sighed in exasperation and then,
With a stern face,
Strutted toward the couple.
The ladies then said to him,
We had a son that attended Harvard for one year.
He loved it.
He was happy here.
But a year ago,
He was accidentally killed,
And my husband and I would like to erect a memorial to him somewhere on campus.
The president wasn't touched.
He was shocked.
Madam,
He said gruffly,
We can't put up a statue for every person who attended Harvard and died.
If we did,
This place would look like a cemetery.
Oh,
No,
The lady explained.
We don't want to erect a statue.
We thought we would like to give a building to Harvard.
The president rolled his eyes.
He glanced at the gingham dress and homespun suit and then exclaimed,
A building?
Do you have any idea how much a building costs?
We have over seven and a half million dollars in the physical buildings at Harvard.
For a moment,
The lady was silent.
The president was pleased.
He could get rid of them now.
The lady turned to her husband and said quietly,
Is that all it costs to start a university?
Why don't we just start our own?
Her husband nodded.
The president's face wilted in confusion and bewilderment.
Mr.
And Mrs.
Leland Stanford walked away,
Traveling to Palo Alto,
California,
Where,
In 1884,
They established the university that bears their name.
We have all probably heard the saying,
Don't judge a book by its cover.
Yet how often do we judge others by their covers?
By what we see,
Which is only filtered through our own personal past experiences,
Our thoughts,
And our beliefs.
The thought of anyone or anything or any situation is not who or what they are.
It is just our thought,
The image our ego has created.
The opposite is also true.
Sending you so much love and so much peace and wishing you that as you go into the day,
You'll find your way into compassion,
Into love,
And letting go of all that we see and judge through our ego,
Through the outwardly vision that we see and experience,
Through our thoughts and our beliefs.
Much love,
Always.
Namaste.
