Old Cherokee Story about Two Wolves

One evening an old Cherokee told his grandson about a battle that was going on inside himself. He said, "My son, it is between two wolves. One is evil: Anger, envy, sorrow, regret, greed, arrogance, self-pity, guilt, resentment, inferiority, lies, false pride, superiority and ego. The other is good: Joy, peace, love, hope, serenity, humility, kindness, benevolence, empathy, generosity, truth, compassion and faith". The grandson thought about it for a minute and then asked his grandfather: "Which wolf wins?" The old Cherokee simply replied: "The one I feed".

Live Webcast: Thirty-Seven Practices of a Bodhisattva on Nov. 29th at 10.30 pm EST

His Holiness the Dalai Lama will teach on Gyalsey Thokme Sangpo's "37 Practices of A Boddhisattva (laklen sodunma)" His Holiness will be teaching mainly in Tibetan with Russian, Chinese and English translations.

The teaching will be from the main Tibetan temple in Dharamsala on November 30th, 2010 from approximately 9-11:30 am Indian Standard Time. For timings in your region 9 am Indian Standard time on November 30th is the same as 10:30 pm November 29th Eastern Standard Time in New York, USA.

Watch English live webcast here.
Watch Russian live webcast here.
Watch Chinese live webcast here.
Watch Tibetan live webcast here.

Time to Create with Love

I had a wonderful Thanksgiving week-end filled with good food, movies, music, and conversations! Onur could come from Houston to spend a week here in Atlanta. The weather was perfect and we spend a great week together. Here I am enjoying seafood dinner at Carpe Diem. Our last night together has ended with some very nice blues music.

And the week-end is not finished yet. Today I spent some time thinking about my plans for the future. I need to focus on what I want to achieve. I have collected many tools that work for me. I think what has been so far missing is the direction towards one goal. And I believe I have determined this one goal that I am going to focus all my efforts on. The goal is simple, but at the same time challenging for me. Learning to love myself completely and unconditionally is going to be my new lesson.

I'm planning to discover gradually a way of life that I find myself most happy living. This should include tall aspects of life - the choice of food, exercise, spiritual practice, meaningful service, etc.  Most peaces of the puzzle are already in place, I just need to polish them, and focus towards my bigger goal.

To start with, I decided to read again Klaus Joehle’s books and start creating unconditional love for myself. I would like to learn to love myself fully and unconditionally, regardless of what I do, think, or say or regardless of what happens around me. I believe this is the key to creating the best possible life I can live. I have read his books on working with love about 4-5 years ago in Russian. I would like to read them again in English. I think I can reinterpret them for myself in a new way after I have read many other books and lived through different experiences. It might help me to complete the circle of looking for unconditional love to myself. So I downloaded all his books today from here: http://k.livingonlove.com/books.shtml  . I have also downloaded Klaus’ meditations on the same web-sites. I’m excited to start and will post my reflections here.

Here is Klaus Joehle’s blog on sending love, where he answers questions and provides additional instructions on sending love: http://klausjoehle.blogspot.com

Peace Pilgrim

What an amazing woman!!! She said: "I am a pilgrim, a wanderer. I will remain a wanderer until manking has learned the way of peace, walking until I am given shelter, fasting until I am given food." Her words are full of energy, enthusiasm, and wisdom. Everyone could learn the most important lessons of life from just listening to her talk over and over. So much experience is in her words, so much kindness and pure intentions. Enjoy! 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qJ2vqPqknfs&feature=related

You can download an e-book about her titled "Peace Pilgrim : Her Life and Path in Her Own Words" here: http://books.google.com/books?printsec=frontcover&id=1T6u5l3Xi1YC#v=onepage&q&f=false 

I was just thinking yesterday that it would be helpful to have a few role models whose way of life feels inspirational to me. She is a wonderful role model! In a 20-minute interview, she talked about everything I spent years trying to understand and still couldn't fully integrate into my life, like the power of positive thoughts, the importance of controlling thoughts and living in the moment, creating our life with these thoughts and many more. And she didn't have the benefit of reading Eckhart Tolle and didn't know anything about the Law of Attraction and "The Secret". She "just" walked for 25 years or more around the country...

Eat, Pray, Love

This week I watched a great movie "Eat, Pray, Love". After being told about the book by many people, I went for an easier option first. I will still read the book soon... I think the movie is good, but have heard that the book is much better. I can understand how the book may have the benefit of learning from first hands the story of self exploration through visiting different places and meeting different people. There is a beautiful analogy between the story of the main character and the life-long search for truth that everyone is going through. Of course, in the movie it is taken to extremes, when the main character feels completely lost and leaves her job, family, and friends for a year to go to Italy, India, and Bali. We all go through period of inner crises or conflicts, and how well we transcend these difficult situations determines how much we can learn from them. Overall, I found the main message of the movie very powerful. We need to appreciate balance in our lives much more, and be easier on ourselves, love and cherish our inner drives and desires.   

13 Indigeous Grandmothers

Today I found out about a group of spiritual women from around the world, who met back in October of, 2004, with a purpose to form International Council of 13 Indigenous Grandmothers. These women are from the mountains of Tibet, the Arctic Circle, the mountains of Oaxaca, Mexico, Brazil, South Dakota, the Americas, Amazon rainforest Africa and Asia. These wise women have formed a global alliance, committed to working together for common global goal of bringing balance back into the world, respecting the ancestors, whose traditions served us all for thousands of years.

 A few of their current Projects include a documentary entitled "For the Next 7 Generations" about their work which was in the Amazon rainforest, the mountains of Mexico, North America, and at a private meeting with the Dalai Lama in India. They have  developed an innovative philanthropic model “Flow Fund Circle” www.flowfunding.org. The Center for Sacred Studies, www.sacredstudies.org (CSS), a non-profit school, dedicated to educating people about indigenous ways of life and cross-cultural spiritual practices. The book entitled "Grandmothers Counsel the World: Women Elders Offer Their Vision for Our Planet" by Carol Schafer provides more information about each of these wonderful women and their teachings. To find out more go to www.grandmotherscouncil.com

You can also watch these videos about them: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ASE0Ri_0F8g

Compassion Meditation Conference - I Was There!!!

This was such a surreal experience - seeing His Holiness the Dalai Lama so close. I was sitting quite close to the stage, and could see him well.  He is an inspiration to all of us!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uyvo-G2G_YM

Gateway Experience Journal - Wave 1 - Discovery 1-Orientation-2

Today, I have listened to the 1st exercise for the 4th time. I fel much more than in the previous three times. I felt movement of energy, saw colors or just "clouds" of different energies going through my mind. For a few minutes I felt the pulsation in my third eye, and the feeling in the throat chakra that can be described as too much energy. And I felt that my heart is opening. I take it as a signal that my system is adjusting to the new energies. I wanted to continue meditate a little longer, but decided to stop when Robert Monroe said that the "Exercise is complete". 

I did something different today and I enjoyed it more. Instead of waiting for a change or an effect, I just relaxed and stayed open as much as I can. Also I decided to think about these meditations as my spiritual practice, a sa form of prayer and connecting with the Source/Creator/Universal Mind. It helps me to think this way. My motivation is to free myself in order to be of great benefit to others, which is also the motivation in Buddhist meditations or in any prayer practice. I'm sure that whatever meditation technique you are using you will achieve the results with the right motivation. So far Gateway Experience meditations combined for me devotional/traditional meditation/prayer approach with an esoteric approach.

Today, I had a greater appreciation for the "energy conversion box" idea. It does create an idea of how many unnecessary thoughts we have that are eventually so irrelevant.

How to be Yourself All theTime

After watching Lincoln's video on "Removing Addictions and Addictive Behaviors"http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VdgRQOWOFmE&feature=channel , I had only one question: "How to practically come back to your true self?" So posted this question on Youtube. 

I wrote: "Another great video! Thank you, Lincoln. The big question is how to be yourself all the time and how to find this strength. I guess recognizing that it's important to find is the first step. But I feel optimistic that we will all find how to be always present with our feelings and emotions and how to love ourselves instead of trying to run away. The fact that videos like this are available now means we are ready for this change."

Lincoln has kindly recommended to watch these three videos of his that clarified it for me.They reminded me what I have forgotten. I know the way to my true self. I just need to go inside my heart, allow the reality to be as it is, and keep my main goal firmly in my mind.

He wrote: "Watch my video: 3 Step Path to Authentic Spirituality

3 Step Path to Authentic Spirituality. This video will explain very clearly the simple process.

Then these videos will help you to integrate it into the world:

1) How to spiritually surrender while living in this world?

2) Staying in Love, Peace, and Presence within this world humanity"

All these videos are available on Youtube. After watching the videos, I have responded: "Thanks, Lincoln! These videos helped me to remember what I forgot. They are so charged with love and eternal wisdom!" Just watching these videos is enough to get back in alignment with the source of Love and Light. I'm going to watch more of Lincoln's revelations. I believe 100% that this messages are from the Higher Self, because otherwise they could not be so full of love and compassion to everybody and everything.

Gateway Experience Journal - Wave 1 - Discovery 1-Orientation

After chanting 108 mantras last night, I was inspired so much that I have started to listen to the Gateway Experience CD. I don't know for how long I should stay on the first exercise. I also would like to try listening to it with headphones, which may have a different effect than the speakers.

Overall, I like the structure of the meditations. I also like that there is breathing exercises and chanting part of meditation. I'm not sure the analogy of a box where you put all your attachments is useful for me. It sounds too childish to me. Maybe I'll get to appreciate it more later.

I felt very relaxed. It feels like the time is flowing differently when I listen to the tapes I can't describe how different without contradicting myself. When in the meditation, I feel that the time passes quickly, I'm not bored an dnot waiting for it to be over. But when I wake up or come back to the world I feel that a lot of time has passed, much more than 35 minutes because I feel that some things have changed, can't say which ones though.

I don't know how I'm supposed to feel in focus 3, and I'm not sure I felt very different. I think I need some time to see these differences.

I did the first exercise one time last night and two times today. Today I feel sleepy, which probably means something is happening inside. Also, my head is heavy, I can feel energy or something else circulating inside.

I will stick to the experience to see where it takes me. Probably, I will do this exercise for a week and then move to the next one.