New Manifestations and An Important Lesson

It seems that my life is taking many new turns recently. Things that I have been thinking about for a long time and dreaming about have started to manifest very fast. It shows to me that I have become more focused and more efficient in deliberate creation and in focusing my thoughts.

My social life has become more active and enjoyable recently. I found new friends, visited new places and experienced new activities that I enjoyed. Overall, I feel that my life is becoming fuller and I am at the right place in the right time more often. Here are a few examples of what has been forming recently in my life.

1. I went to a karaoke for the first time and enjoyed it a lot. 
2. I attended the Conference on Compassion Meditation Research with His Holiness the Dalai Lama at Emory. Here is a Youtube playlist with videos from His Holiness visit to Atlanta, GA last week: http://www.youtube.com/user/EmoryUniversity#p/c/D0BCB68C74412346. 
3. I tried German food at the new German pub Der Biergarten and was pleasant y surprised by how similar it is to Ukrainian food. It was a very good night with good food, drinks, and a good company.
4. I'm taking "World Religions and Why They Matter" course with Laurie Patton and Shalom Goldman and loved it so far. The first two weeks covered Hinduism and Judaism. We are reading the book "Introduction to World Religions" edited by Jacob Neusner. Both professors are great and complement each other's prospectively perfectly. Laurie Patton specializes in early Indian religions. Here is a link to her bio: http://religion.emory.edu/faculty/patton.html  I'm looking forward to next two weeks, because we are going to discuss Buddhism and Islam. two religions I have been most interested in recently.
5. I started learning the sacred Mandala dance of the Twenty-One Praises to Tara. This is an 11-week program that involves Tara teachings, mantras and learning the Mandala Dance of the Twenty-One Praises of Tara. The course will complete on January 23rd with a public dance offering. Between now and January we need to learn the dance, shop for costumes and get to now new Tara sisters and teachers. Tara is a Buddhist Goddess, which also exist in many other religions, she is the Essence of the Enlightened Feminine. http://www.taradanceatlanta.com/who-is-tara.php I have a really miraculous story that I'm going to tell you in the next post that confirmed for me that I have planned this event for myself long time ago, maybe before I was even born. 
6. Next week, I'm going to participate in a Book club based on Orhan Pamuk's book "My name is Red" I had this book for a long time but didn't have time to read. 
7. Also, I have found a discount for belly dance classes at Atlanta Fusion Belly Dance. I've been thinking about taking belly dance classes for a long time. Today I saw this deal that let me buy two 6-week classes for $25 each, when the regular price $60. I read the reviews for this studio and loved everything about it - the class selection, location, the availability of different levels of classes. So I'm excited to start in the next few weeks. 
8. Also I think it would be nice to start visiting Drepung Loseling Monastery in Atlanta. It's a Center for Tibetan Buddhist Studies that has regular weekly activities. Since I would like to seriously concentrate on learning the Mandala Dance, it's a good opportunity to connect it to studying Tibetan Buddhism in general. Other medium-term plans include meeting with the teacher of Tara Dance in Sydney during my visit there in December and participating in a workshop with Prema Dasara in January. I also have a longer term plan to participate in the annual retreat of the Divine Feminine on Kauai, Hawaii in August 12-22.

Overall, I feel that I am so blessed and loved, that I'm flowing in this love and enjoying it. Not everything has been going so smooth though. I had a powerful lesson that I needed to become more responsible and I shouldn't close my eyes to reality. What happened is I hit the curb when I was driving because I didn't see that my lane was about to end. Everything is okay with my car. Luckily, my insurance is paying for repairs and replacing the tire. However, I see it as a call for becoming more responsible. I could have avoided it by wearing contact lenses or glasses, which I didn't do on that day. I rarely wear  my contacts, because I can see well during the day, but my vision is less clear at night. I need to just accept it as a fact, and wear glasses or contact, instead of hoping for the best. So, I'm scheduling an eye exam next week and ordering new glasses. It seems that my vision has become poorer since my last exam two years ago. I don't want to risk and drive without glasses anymore.  

In the past, I had this attitude that I don't like to do things that are required by law or that other people tell me to do. This is related to my refusal to face reality and accept it as is. It seems to be quite easy for most people, but not for me. I should consider potential consequences of my every action to avoid unwise choices. I often rely on an illusion that everything should be okay by itself without me looking carefully at the situation and being present in this moment of material reality.  I don't just avoid considering the situation, I'm changing  it by creating a delusional story that everything will be okay regardless of my irresponsible behavior.  This is a very childish behavior, or just being irresponsible. Yes, some question require following mundane rules and satisfying some pre-specified requirements. Following them is like packing a bag for next day or preparing food. It may not be very exciting to do and we may not necessarily enjoy doing it at the moment, but these simple things can simplify out life in the future. So this lesson was about two things: first, the importance of facing the reality and acknowledging your limitations and second, the importance of taking necessary steps to prepare yourself to work with these human imperfections to achieve what is desired. Things are not going to disappear magically, if I choose to close my eyes on them.