Enjoying What Is

I realized that in addition to finding balance in my life, I’m currently working on my organization skills, setting my priorities, and removing the attachments and limiting beliefs that stop me from moving forward. Also, I’m learning to take responsibility for everything in my life and enjoying what is. 

For example, I had a great day in Charlotte by myself. I enjoyed peace and calm of the hotel room and the energy of my yoga practice. Then, we went out to eat and I suddenly lost my peace, because I started to control what happens around. I became grumpy and not so pleasant to be around only because something was not matching my peaceful state before. The true peace doesn’t require anyone else to act or think in a certain way. I know that behind this grumpiness and desire to control is a desire for perfect harmony, but this is not a skillful way to get to this harmony and peace. I need to control my thoughts better.  “Control” – this word again. I guess controlling my thoughts is much easier than controlling what happens around me. So why not try fine tuning my thoughts or removing any expectations about how the world should be?

What happened next both surprised me and made me think. Onur told me: “Where is your happy and positive Tanya?” He noticed that my mood has changed obviously, and reminded me in a powerful way that this is not me. I made an effort, changed my thought pattern, and started to enjoy the night again. I think this is what true spiritual partners do – reminding us who we truly are. To finish up, here is a nice video about relationship from Abraham. 

New Year Resolutions for 2011 - Part 2

In my previous post , I talked about 4 general directions that I would like to expand in the next year. My general resolutions for the new year include:

1. Taking action,
2. Finding sources of inspiration,
3. Cultivating harmony in my life, and
4. Taking responsibility for everything that happens.

Today, I took the time to organize my more specific goals and think about steps I need to take in order to achieve them. These goals are focused on a few related areas of my life and can be broadly divided into 3 categories: 

1. Personal Development Goals. Here, I have listed qualities that I would like to cultivate in myself. The steps that I’m planning to take to do that are preliminary and are likely to change during the process. I will probably add more qualities as I move along.

1)      Achieve balance between life and work.
 - Follow my passion. Focus on what I love doing, like writing, translation, photography, painting, graphic design, dancing, hiking, and trail running.
Specific steps: write every day for at least 30 minutes, post 2-3 blog posts per week, translate at least one video per day, take at least one picture per day, go to a dancing class at least once per week, learn Photoshop, take a painting/drawing class, go for at least one hike per month, run at least one race per month. 

- Improve my social life. Surround myself with positive like-minded friends. Think about what I can offer them, such as time, advice, experience, support and what we can share.
Specific steps: communicate with people on social networks like YouTube, Facebook, and my blog readers, talk with people I meet every day, and notice what we share in common and what makes each person unique and interesting. 

- Deepen my spiritual practice. Develop compassion and piece within that I can share with everyone I meet.
Specific steps: meditate at least once a day, spend time outside at least 2 times a week (walking or running), pray in the morning and at night, sungaze in the morning or at night, practice yoga at least 2 times a week, declaration my general goal and intentions for each  day, imagine how I feel when the goal is accomplished. 

2)      Learn to love myself fully and unconditionally. This is a big spiritual goal that will bring to anyone to enlightenment and continuous state of happiness and joy. I consider knowing myself and learning to love myself the purpose and the biggest adventure of my life.
      Specific steps: devote one day a week (Sunday) for enjoying myself, reflecting on the past week and preparing for the week ahead, listen to Abraham-Hicks recording, Klaus Joehle meditations, Lilou Mace's videos, and Lincoln Gergar’s videos and practice their teachings.

3)       Develop self-confidence, responsibility, efficiency, and productivity.
      Specific steps: Start every day by identifying the most important intentions/goals for this day and document my progress at the end of the day in a journal that includes both personal and career achievements, use calendar for work-related and other events and deadlines, read Leo Babauta's ZenHabits blog, create incentives to achieve short- and long-term goals (enroll in contests, social games, celebrate successes, share them with friends and blog readers), learn from mistakes instead of feeling bad about them, follow Napoleon Hill's guidelines to develop self-confidence.

4)      Provide meaningful service that benefits others.

Specific steps: establish a non-profit organization, contact orphanages in Ukraine and find local partners (AIESEC) who can help to identify their needs and collect and distribute resources, find donors in U.S. and Ukraine, recruit students who would like to teach English in Ukraine in summer, “run for a cause”, translate at least one spiritual video form English into Russian per day, participate in group mediation, chanting, and dance offerings at least once a week, write.

2. Professional Goals.

                  1). Improve my Economic Forecasting and International Finance courses

Specific steps: including interesting examples and assignments, invite interesting speakers, order evaluation copies of useful books and organize the material, update slides and assignments, use examples from my own research, create discussion groups for students.

2). Encourage students to participate in undergraduate research

Specific steps: collect information about undergraduate research conferences and journals, announce deadlines on Facebook and other websites.

3). Recruit and manage a team of research assistants on different projects.
Specific steps:  prepare assignments, post announcements, apply for grants to pay for their service, meet with each member twice a week to discuss progress and set goals.

4). Identify and prioritize projects to work on and set deadlines.

5). Identify journals and other publications I want to read regularly and publish my work in, subscribe to these journals and read articles published in the last 5 years, write a summary for each article I read for future reference.

6). Update my web-site: include recent papers, updated resume, teaching section, and links.

7). Identify professional organizations and conferences I want to participate in, keep track of conference deadlines, renew memberships, and save online passwords and usernames.

8). Identify University events I would like to participate in the Spring and Summer 2011.

9). Start my new Economics blog that connects academic research and general public interested in economics.

10). Write op-ed articles and contribute to blogs.

11). Improve my writing skills and learn about economic journalism and blogging.
Specific steps: audit an undergraduate course on journalism, write every day for at least 30 minutes, read book that I bought.

12). Receive at least one grant in 2011.

           

3. Fitness/Diet Goals.

1)      Eat healthy and organic/locally grown food.

Specific steps: observe the reaction of my body to different types of food and choose the ones that make me feel good and energized, read the book “The Tao of Healthy Eating”.

2) Exercise regularly.

Specific steps: enroll in a belly dance class, register to participate in a race as a motivation to train regularly, practice yoga at least 2 times a week.

I will report regularly about my progress towards these goals and would appreciate any input from you! Some of these goals will take just a few days and some are long-term projects. I'm excited to start this year and looking forward to see how it unfolds. I can already see that it's going to be very good and eventful! 

Conflicting Thoughts as a Cause of Inactivity

I have been thinking for a while now about the question why I generate many of ideas, set many intentions and goals, but somehow most of them remain only at the level of thoughts. They never realize in real life. Until today, I couldn’t see a clear answer of why it might be happening.

The answer revealed itself to be in its full beauty today. It appeared to be very simple, as it always is with important liberating ideas. What I need to do in order to manifest all of my mental creations successfully is to stop sending out mixed signals or conflicting thoughts on a particular subject of interest. Once I set an objective that I would like to learn photography, for example, I need to stop thinking negative thoughts about this future experience.

Let me illustrate how this work with an example. Let’s say, I realized one day that I could be quite good at photographic art. I can feel that I would enjoy doing it - spending time with my subjects, studying them, becoming one with each subject and highlighting its most beautiful aspects through the skillful use of equipment and my own intuition. I can sense that having this skill can compliment my career too. I can see the potential in pursuing the interest. So my thoughts may look like: “I wish I could learn photography and share the beauty of the world with others through my works”. The next day, when I think about photography again, I remember that I wanted to start learning it, but still couldn’t find time or money to do this, and I think: “I never will start learning how to shoot pictures. I don’t have time and money for a good camera and lessons. Do I really need it in my life? My career is great without it.” The next day my longing for creative expression returns and I think: “I wish I learn photography. I really should get to it very soon.” Then, the next day I think: “Who am I, a photographer? I’m an economist and a professor. Should I even invest time that is very scarce in my life into learning this new skill of photography? I might not be able to use it in the future. It is a risky investment. I probably shouldn’t do it.” This cycle of contradicting opinions continues indefinitely and on many subjects in my life.

How can any desire come to fruition, if it is constantly being neutralized with a contradictory thought? So the solution is to remove these doubtful thoughts on topics that are important to me. I will never find out if I need or have room for photography in my life, if I never give it this room and try embracing it. I have trained myself to use this push-pull dynamics with many other topics in my life, like writing, painting and drawing, work, friends and other things that I would like to have more in my life.

I feel that if I practice joyful feelings a specific object of my desire, say mastering photography, can bring into my life, it will be allowed to be manifested easily and naturally. It also feels that practicing this new approach with just one desire is enough to set the new pattern of thoughts on other topics too. This is so exciting!

I gained this insight from watching Abraham-Hicks video on Youtube that Dave has kindly posted. Thank you, Dave and thank you, Abraham. I’ll start by noticing and eliminating my contradictory thoughts one by one and I know that once I remove all of them, then sky is the limit! The videos are below if you would like to watch them too.

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

New Themes Emerging in My Life

I love observing new themes emerging in my life. I don't take enough time sometimes to think about why they form and which questions they answer. Maybe I should do it this time. I do take it more serious right now an dtry to respond to every opportunity from my heart. Sometimes (in the past, I hope) these common themes used disappear if I don't pursue them. But it's definitely true for me that a theme, ususally something I have thought about before in one way or the other, expresses itself in different forms repeatedly, until it captures my attention. New themes that has recently emerged in my life are all connected with my old passions, some of which are coming back from my childhood.

1.  One of them is literature and poetry. I enjoy reading a good book of a writer who can feels the world, who lives in his characters and expresses their feeling with powerful honesty that changes the reality for the better. I found Emory Book club, which reintroduced me to Orhan Pamuk. I an discovering the world of sacred poetry, starting with sufi poets, such as Rumi. It brings me so much joy to see profound truths expressed in words. 
2. I started writing again myself, reflecting on these poems. Right now I am writing an article about "The Sun in Sacred Poetry", which can turn into a book easily. It is so fascinating to see many sacred texts mentioning the Sun and often trying to convey the same meaning. I'm going to post my article here when I am done. Another topics that I found fascinating and would like to explore in more details include the divine feminine in sacred texts, rituals, initiations, and sacred dance. As a continuation of this theme, I found interesting web-site Abbey of the Arts (http://abbeyofthearts.com/) that offers transformational classes that connect creativity, arts (writing and photography)  and spiritual growth through contemplative practice and meditations/prayers. So far I loved what I'm learning there. 
3. The second new-found passion is photography. Here, I am a complete beginner. Photography is a new medium of expression for me, which hopefully will become my friend. I intend to use photography as a tool for seeing the world through my heart, noticing new things, being present and reflecting on the mundane things that are sometimes the most powerful. Extracting hidden energy everywhere is an art of life. And photograpgy is a useful tool in this process. Again photography is showing up in my life partly as my own interest through the course that I'm taking, and partly as something I would like to contribute to the place I work at by creating a video that will feature Emory as a place to work and study. This is a new project that I'm very excited about.
4. The last theme that shows through several activities that I recently started to engage in is sacred dance and celebrating the Divine Feminine. I'm taking the class on sacred dance. Also, I have started learning belly dancing. I'm only making the first steps here too and am very excited about it. I bought a DVD to practice at home that has both yoga and belly dance routines. And I will attend regular classes too. For me learning to belly dance is a way to connect with my femininity and I feel that I can show deep reverence and praise towards the feminine force in everything.      
5. The theme that emerges vividly right now, and is still in the process of forming  is dream interpretation. I see many videos about interpreting dream and one of them is actually so good that I would like to share it with you: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pCKEJTgzRCU&feature=player_embedded Another great video gift from Lilou Mace. She is a great visionary, author of the book "I Lost My Job and I Liked It", and a web-TV host who interviews many interesting people and posts her video on Youtube and on her web-site (http://liloumace.com/) free of charge. I have also received an email from somebody organizing a group on dream interpretation. There must be something I can learn from the "science and art" of dream interpretation, which I think is very much related to psychoanalysis of Carl Jung. So I'm going to observe how this unfolds.

All this could manifest in my life only because I think I became more open and allowed it to happen. I didn't do anything special except just saying "yes" to possibilities when they offered themselves. I didn't spend almost any time searching for any of this opportunities. Also all of these things I deeply enjoy manifested only because there was a subtle change in the way I think.

I still have a few things to work on. First, I need to keep my vibrations steady at this high level to see a sustainable change in my life for the better. To do this, I need to feel appreciation for every day and every moment I enjoy, so that more enjoyable moments could manifest easily attracted by my gratitude. I also feel that I need to be more focused and committed to a practice or a goal that I choose to pursue.

In addition to keeping up with the current flow, there are some areas in my life that I still need to make improvements in. And it would be boring if there weren't any. I need to completely release my fear of being judged and stop judging myseld. I have made the first step by acknowledging that I do it sometimes and it happens more often than I would like. Second area I intend to change is lack of trust. I don't trust people and the world in general. I don't believe the Universe will take care of me and will bring everything I need easily without me struggling and working hard. I don't trust that I can have open intimate relationship with other people, because I have this belief that people don't understand me in general. I avoid getting too close to people. Probably this is because I'm afraid of commitment. This is exactly what Gay Hendrick is talking with Lilou Mace about: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pgA-km8ySMI Listening to it is really transformational experience. I'm watching it for the second time and plan to do more work on this segment.

I am going to make a few resolutions:

• I intend to feel joyful and content all the time.

• I intend to release all judgment and allow the world to be as it is.

• I intend to replace lack of trust and fear of commitment with expectations of intimacy and joy of sharing

Gay Hendricks recommends to playfully ask yourself the following questions, he calls "wonder" questions while breathing deeply and paying attention to feelings and sensation in your body:

• Can I learn how to feel great all the time? Am I willing to feel great all the time?

• Can I allow things to go well in my life all the time?

• In my relationships, can I live in harmony and intimacy all the time?

He explains that this questions are "wonder" questions because they are so big that they can only be answered by your life. Willingness and commitment are the keys because willingness is open up the heart to a new way of thinking and commitment helps us to get there.

Talking Makes Us Happier

The New York Times has published an interesting article: "Why Sisterly Chats Make People Happier?" on October 25, 2010. http://www.nytimes.com/2010/10/26/health/26essay.html?_r=1&WT.mc_id=HL-SM-E-FB-SM-LIN-SAH-102610-NYT-NA&WT.mc_ev=click#

The article compares men and women ways of communication with family members and concludes that "the key to why having sisters makes people happier — men as well as women — may lie not in the kind of talk they exchange but in the fact of talk." I think that when you talk to family members or friends who love you and are interested in your thoughts, you share support and love for each other. This is an important part of being human, so I'm not surprised to see it confirmed by scientific studies.

Tara Miracles

I would like to share with you two "miracles" that has a direct connection to my decision to participate in Tara Dance Program. I found the web-site about the program very easily and at the right time. The moment I  decided that I wanted to express my spirituality through sacred dance, I found the web-site with an announcement about the classes.

1) Only a few days after I have been accepted to the program, I received an email with the word "Tara" in the subject line. I was convinced that it's an email from organizers with additional information about the classes. I was surprised to find out that the email was from a Buddhist Foundation (http://www.fpmt.org/), where I am taking online "Discovering Buddhism" classes for the last year. This special email was devoted to the importance of relying on Tara in daily practice. It had links to useful resources and books.

2) I thought this was very surprising. First, I have never received email from this Foundation before. Second, I have not heard about Tara before. But it's nothing compared to what happened next. When I scrolled down, I saw a few statues of Green and White Tara at the end of the email. I was shocked to discover that I had a similar statue of Tara on my desk for the last two years and didn't know it was Tara. This statue was a present from my grandmother, who also didn't know anything about the existence of this deity. She gave it to me two years ago a symbol of love. This interesting synchronicity had a deep message for me, it showed me that I am on the right path!

Usually, when I see the same topic reappearing in my life, I know it must be important. So I pay more attention to it. This is too much of a coincidence, so I will treat this new sacred practice I introduce into my life very seriously.

Tara is the Divine Mother, Buddha Essence of the Enlightened Feminine?

"Shrouded in mystery, revealed in wonder, the Great Goddess has been adored for millennia. Sculptural evidence discovered in prehistoric caves of 30,000 years ago finds Her worship to be more ancient than humankind has memory.

Legends and myths of every culture praise She Who Brings Forth Life, She Who Is The Embodiment Of Wisdom, The Great Compassionate Mother, The Star Of Heaven. She has been called by many names, she has been revealed in many forms. Her worship continues to this day in ancient cultures of Asia, and in the 21st century‘s search for the lost feminine.

To the Tibetans, She is their Mother, closer than their heartbeat. She is known as Tara, a Sanskrit word meaning Star. We hear the echoes of Her name in the Latin Terra, Mother Earth.

The Druids called their Mother Goddess Tara. An ancient saga of Finland said to be 5 million years old speaks of Tar, the women of wisdom. An tribe of indigenous peoples in the South American jungles, the Tarahumara, worship the Goddess.

The Cheyenne people tell of Star Woman who fell from the heavens to the earth, and that out of Her body all essential food grew. She sent Her people to mate with the more primitive inhabitants of earth, thereby giving them the capacity for wisdom. This legend is echoed in the more modern research of Z. Sitchin who tells of IshTar who came to earth from another planetary system and instructed her people to intermarry with earthlings, making them capable of many things.

To the Tibetans, even higher than a god or goddess is a Buddha, a being who has gone beyond the rounds of birth and death. Such an enlightened one has attained the highest wisdom, compassion and capability. Tara is so highly thought of that she is said to be the Mother of all the Buddhas.

Buddhas integrate all aspects and possibilities. They are one with all that exists. They can manifest bodies of light and radiance and they can emanate bodies of form into the world in order to bring benefit to this world of challenges and confusion. Tara, Herself, is a Buddha.

Tara is known to the Tibetans as The Faithful One, The Fierce Protectoress, and to this day there are stories carried out of Tibet by refugees, fleeing from the horrors of Chinese occupation, that tell of Her intervention and assistance in their lives.

In the system of mind-training practices offered by the great masters of Tibetan wisdom, Tara is an archetype of our own inner wisdom. This wisdom speaks of a transformation of consciousness, a journey to freedom. In the teachings of Tara there are simple and direct means for each person to discover within themselves the wisdom, compassion and glory that is Tara.

More information about Tara Dhatu organization is here: http://www.taradhatu.org/about/what-is-tara-dhatu/ 

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.

Enjoying the Process

I understood an important point. Achieving something for the sake of achieving is not a very good motivation. It doesn’t bring much joy or happiness. From now on, I will make an effort to do everything just to enjoy the process and fully engage in it. This is very different than trying to achieve something because I think it would be nice to add one more achievement. I think this is the distinction between living in the moment and serving the ego. Ego just wants to achieve and conquer everything. It doesn’t care about enjoying the process. It doesn’t care about feelings at all. It cares about quantity, but not quality. It takes all your energy, or you give it all your energy voluntarily. 

It’s important to own your world and take responsibility for everything that happens in it. Feelings are a good indicator of whether you are in sync with Life or working against Life and, therefore, trying to satisfy your ego. It’s ok to notice it and switch the thinking process. There is no need to get irritated or angry at yourself.  It may take time to get used to take full responsibility for everything that happens and everyone you meet, because it’s like breaking your old habit.

Today, I was reminded about the importance of our emotions. They are important indicators of the directions of our thoughts. Negative emotions only show that we need to change our thoughts and start living in the moment, instead of fighting against Life.

Things I Want to Learn More about in the Near Future: 1-2 Years

Yesterday, I discovered that I have a lot in common with Carl Jung ). He believed that many religions have a lot in common, even in the areas where they could never influence each other, like African tribes and native American in Latin America. This led him to develop a theory of unified consciousness that we all can access and where the archetypes that we all share are stored. This was not his only discovery, he also talked about synchronicity, and was interested in paranormal events. Synchronicity is something that I've seen a lot in my own life, when you think or talk about something and see a physical manifestation of your idea in real life. It's like a confirmation that you are on the right track. Sometimes it can show the significance of your thoughts or lead you to some other direction. Besides this Jung was fascinated by astrology, the Book of Changes (the I Ching), and  numerology.
Here is a documentary on Carl Jung: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5drUNviakdk&feature=player_embedded
My list of things that I want to learn more about include:

1. The books by Carl Jung
2. The psychology of religion. Christianity, Islam, Judaism, Buddhism, Taoism and the connections between them. - That's a very long term goal. Right now I'm taking a course on Qu'ran at Emory and Buddhism online: http://onlinelearning.fpmt.org/course/category.php?id=2 I'm looking forward to the visit of His Holiness the Dalai Lama to Atlanta. I think next I can learn more about Taoism and the mysterious Book of Changes. This connects well with my interest in Feng Shui.
3. Astrology
4. The I Ching
5. Numerology
6. Painting
7. Feng Shui
8. Tantra Yoga and Yoga in general. Related to this also Qi Gong and Ti Chi.
9. A Course in Miracles and similar books.
10. Learn Turkish better and possibly some other language, not sure which one yet

I think a good question to ask is "Why do I want to learn this?" I think a simple answer is to live a more harmonious life and to be able to help others how to do the same. I think these old teachings complement each other nicely and if you try to take only what feels right to you from each of them, your life becomes more harmonious and joyful. After all, religions are only forms, and God or Creator is one for all. There are different ways to God or to Love, or to Happiness, Joy, and Piece, which is our ultimate goal in life.

Louise Hay's New Baby

Louise Hay, the author of the book I'm reading right now, an influential figure in the "spiritual community", and a wonderful human being, has announced the opening of her new Heal Your Life web-site: http://www.healyourlife.com/?utm_id=3198 The site is created as a one-stop shop for all your daily spiritual needs and is described as a "part of your daily routine" in this introductory 35-second video:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8ToyvjXq3jw&feature=player_embedded
The site currently features 7 blogs by Louise Hay, Wayne Dyer, Christine Northrup, Loretta LaRoche, Chris Prelitz, Hay House, and Marcelle Pick.
This post by Christine Northrup talks about the importance of accepting yourself as a prerequisite for achieving happiness. http://www.healyourlife.com/blogs/christiane-northrup-blog/happiness-now I liked a short poem Christine shared about self-acceptance:

Without self-acceptance, you are always hiding.
With self-acceptance, your spirit is gliding.

I'm learning to fully love and accept myself these days. It is not that easy as it may sound to really love yourself. Love means no judgment, no expectations, no fear, or control. How often do you wake up and admire your reflection in the mirror? Believe me you are beautiful, but you find little flaws that you don't like or would want to go away magically. There is no point in being overly critical with yourself. It doesn't serve any useful purpose. Will the little flaws go away if you think about them every morning? No. You will only practice thinking about them over and over, which eventually creates a habit of criticizing your look constantly. These "flaws" are what makes you unique and other people may find them attractive, which is often the case, or they don't care about them at all. We are our own only judges. And we often treat other people with more kindness, love, and acceptance then we do ourselves. Isn't it ironic?