Hi there

Have you ever had one of those moments where you find yourself staring back at this unknown entity in the mirror?  Questions are rushing through your head as you glare at yourself in wonderment, confusion and mystery.  Who am I? What am I doing here? Where did I come from? What's this thing called life? 

I had one of those moments the other day, while washing my hair in the bath.  By the time I realised that I'd pulled the plug out while still lathering the shampoo into a snowy mountain, it was too late.  I was sitting in a thimble of water, so swept away by the mysteries of life, that I totally lost the purpose of that moment.  I spent a good few hours laughing at my stupidity, which was soon silenced by a harsh realisation.  I don't need to be left in a thimble of water to know that I'm more concerned about making the most of my existence than truly just existing. 

The natural progression is always the same with me ... ask the question "why?" and get lost once again in anything but just existing ... while trying to work out why I am not just existing!!! 

Hence I have a confession to make ...

I have officially managed to exhaust myself. 

Not from a lack of sleep (although this has now developed into an interesting side effect), or from the grieving process I have been dealing with (quite the contrary, as honouring emotions is truly healing).  It's not a culmination of a strenuous year, as I've taken more holidays than ever before. It's certainly not from the disappointments that we usually endure on a daily basis, as I am finally living so much of my dream and wake up every day in complete contentment.  I've never been healthier, felt more alive or been more fulfilled and abundant.

So ... if I've achieved so much of what I am striving for, what is the physical, mental and emotional exhaustion all about? 

I wouldn't have had a clue, had my dearest Greg not been my voice of truth yet again.

"I'm not surprised" he said.  "Sometimes you exhaust me just listening to you".

Or how about my old school friend ... "You will need to find a very intense man" she said. "Because I have never met anyone more intense than you".

He said it's because everything has a purpose in my life; down to my body lotion.  She said it's because everything has been thought through to the finest detail.  Purpose, intention and focus - that's what I teach, so how could it possibly be doing any damage at all?

In 2004 I stumbled across a deck of tarot cards called "OSHO Zen Tarot".  They are nothing like the usual deck and are not read as the intuits intended.  Instead, this pack comes armed with one clear mission - to get us all to "just be".  I'd forgotten about these cards until a few months ago when Greg and I found them in an esoteric shop.  Never has the statement been truer - "when the student is ready, the teacher will appear."

One of the many cards in the pack shows a woman with a mind like the inside of a wrist watch.  She has an expression that screams of frustration and ... exhaustion.  That card depicted the image of me.  However, it was not the card or the description that finally gave me the understanding ... it was one word ... TENSE!!  Osho was describing the phases of the mind: past tense, present tense, future tense. 

Tense: "In a state of mental or nervous tension".

We're all teaching it ... me, Greg, The Power of Now's Eckhart Toll, The Secret.  However, as with everything, life teaches us the greatest lesson of all and mine is that staying in the present tense is just as exhausting as clinging onto the past or slipping into the future. 

Why???

Because it all requires thought and thought requires energy and energy needs to be replenished.

Have we all taught you wrong?  Should the tools I've worked so hard at defining be tossed away?  Is staying in the now more detrimental than good?  Are the critics right? 

CERTAINLY NOT ...

Now is the most vital concept of all.  Now is the way of manifesting anything for your tomorrows. Now is the sanest, safest and truest place to exist from.  Now is the only time that happiness can be experienced and life can truly be lived.

Now, however, is NOT a crutch that we lean on to deny the past or hide our fears about the future.  Now is too smart for that, because the only thing that accompanies it in its absolute presence is the Soul.  You remember that part of yourself:  the all knowing, fearless, unconditional part that would not need to worry about the past, focus on the future and certainly would not have to think about staying in the now?  That part that has one thing that the ego would never manage to possess ... courage!!!

Quotes from the "courage" card of the Osho Zen Tarot deck ...

"The seed cannot know what is going to happen, the seed has never known the flower.  And the seed cannot even believe that he has the potentiality to become a beautiful flower.  Long is the journey, and it is always safer not to go on that journey because unknown is the path, nothing is guaranteed.  Nothing can be guaranteed.  Thousand and one are the hazards of the journey, many are the pitfalls - and the seed is secure, hidden inside a hard core.  But the seed tries, it makes an effort, it drops the hard shell which is its security, it starts moving.  Immediately the fight starts; the struggle with the soil, with the stones, with the rocks. And the seed was very hard and the sprout will be very , very soft and dangers will be many.

There was no danger for the seed, the seed could have survived for millennia, but for the sprout many are the dangers.  But the sprout starts towards the unknown, towards the sun, towards the source of light, not knowing where, not knowing why.  Great is the cross to be carried, but a dream possesses the seed and the seed moves.

The same is the path for man.  It is arduous.  Much courage will be needed."

So I stopped it ... worrying!!!! And I started it ... believing!!!!!!

I stopped forcing my mind into the present for fear of not achieving the goals that are plastered all over my vision board.  I stopped belittling my Soul for its inability to achieve whatever my heart desires. I stopped worrying that what I wanted for myself was right, wrong or even necessary ... because with every thought, I sat submerged in a thimble of water instead of floating in a vast ocean of my existence.

 "As far as I am concerned, I have never planned anything; I have simply lived, wondering what is going to happen next." - Osho

Contemplate this ...

Yesterday... I am, Tomorrow ... I am, Today ... I am

Law of Attraction: Assistance with "Thanks to the Universe I'm all 'F'ed' up"

On being in the now...

The understanding I use to promote myself is that everything works, from the diet books to the numerous textbooks of life, finances and relationships.  Finding the common tool that assists all teachers across any spectrum of life ... that is my purpose.  My question, however, is this: if they all work, why are we not healing??

My answer ...

Because we are misunderstanding the fundamental concept of being in the moment.  I'm not here to give you the tools, as many teachers before and alongside me have given the most powerful of lessons and techniques.  I'm here to give you the gift of understanding the reason for being in the now.

The entire essence for living is truly one of feeling purposeful.  The question is the amount we weigh on the very life purpose we wish to achieve.  We are taught that without a vision, we would have no purpose and I strongly agree with that.  I disagree with the fact that achieving that vision would ever satisfy our very purpose for living.  I believe that this very pursuit of the dreams, goals and visions that are set before us are the very things that keep us stuck in ego and afraid of the future.  What if we were just unsure ... and that was our truth?  It would be more Soulful than living a lie and steering ourselves in a potentially unwanted direction.  What if we have failed numerous times in the past and no matter how we try, it always leaves a resonance of doubt in our minds?  Denying it by focusing on the now and lying to ourselves about our courage is never going to manifest anything but a repetitive pattern.  What if you are of the other extreme and you know exactly what you want for the future, no ifs and buts ... yet it just isn't manifesting itself yet?

Do you want to fix it as much as I do? ... good!!!

Then stop it ... stop it all ... shut up for a while!!!!  That's right ... stop wishing, hoping, dreaming, desiring, visualising, needing....

And do one thing ... get to know yourself!!!!!!!

How do you do that? By delving into the first sign of insanity ... talk to yourself.  Not aimless ramblings, but instead use one vital sentence with everything you do ...    

Try this for a week ...

Change your screensaver, make it your welcome message on your mobile phone, stick it on your fridge, put it in your sun visor ... just say this before you do anything ... "I WANT THIS".  Do you want to wear that outfit, attend that meeting, cook that meal, make that phone call, see that old friend, climb into that car, sleep in that bed, write that report, study for that test?

My friends ... of all the tasks I have ever given you, you are now faced with the hardest of them all.  What if so much of what you are doing is not what you want?  Well then staying in the now, no matter the meditations, focusing exercises, vision boards and affirmations ... is just an exercise of thought and not the purpose of being.

What kind of a teacher would I be if I left you without a solution to this frustrating realisation ... a brilliant one!!!  Because the whole purpose of this life is to understand that no teacher, no tool, no technique can give you more than doing only one thing ... whatever you want to!!!!!!!!

Go ... for goodness sake and do whatever you want because then you will find purpose.  You will diminish all fears and you will do the unimaginable ... BE!!!!!

A final word from Osho:

"Beyond mind, there is an awareness that is intrinsic, that is not given to you by the outside, and is not an idea - and there is no experiment up to now that has found any centre in the brain which corresponds to awareness. 

Now you can do an act on only that which makes you more joyous, fulfils you, gives you contentment, makes your life a work of art, a beauty.  But this is possible only if the master in you is awake.  Right now the master is fast asleep.  And the mind, the servant, is playing the role of master.  And the servant is not even your servant; the servant is created by the outside world, it follows the outside world and its laws.

Once your awareness becomes a flame, it burns up the whole slavery that the mind has created.  There is no blissfulness more precious than freedom, than being a master of your own destiny."

Greg's View on the World

Jo and I had just completed our usual Saturday morning breakfast together and she was telling me how frustrated she gets when she is asked how she made certain changes in her life and she is unable to answer. The changes happen and yet they only become apparent once they are done. And then to retrace the steps is almost impossible.

Could you relay to me exactly how you changed to become the person you are today from 10 years ago? I didn't think so.

That's because it isn't important. How you achieve something is never important; the achievement is in completing it. Sharing how you achieved it is equally unimportant as it was done in your own unique way that would not apply to anyone else. It is then irrelevant.

After all, what does it matter when there is nothing but the here and now and you are the centre of your universe? Enjoy your journey because it is uniquely yours.

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Be ...

Jodene & Greg