Finding love - ways shared by Rumi and Pema

Your task is not to seek for love,
but merely to seek  and

find
all the barriers within yourself
that you have built against it.”

~ Rumi

“The only reason we don’t open our hearts and minds to other people is that they trigger confusion in us that we don’t feel brave enough or sane enough to deal with. To the degree that we look clearly and compassionately at ourselves, we feel confident and fearless about looking into someone else’s eyes. ”

And…

“When you open yourself to the continually changing, impermanent, dynamic nature of your own being and of reality, you increase your capacity to love and care about other people and your capacity to not be afraid. You’re able to keep your eyes open, your heart open, and your mind open. And you notice when you get caught up in prejudice, bias, and aggression. You develop an enthusiasm for no longer watering those negative seeds, from now until the day you die. And, you begin to think of your life as offering endless opportunities to start to do things differently.”

Pema Chodron

 

 

I am more than my thoughts and emotions

I recently paid a visit to one of my favorite places in mumbai - The Yoga Institute, Santacruz E. This where i started my journey of understanding yoga and the process to a saner me.
Well, this was a long overdue visit, went after my 3 years stint in Pondy. So naturally things change, growth and offer a fresh perspective on our perspective. I joined in a group who was discussing Kleshas -  The basic 5 problem roots. The group was comfortable enough to discuss and address our most common but revealing behavior patterns. The talk was about how we want things to be done in a particular way - say our maid had prepared lunch and its not quite good, so we have a negative word for her and a certain negative thought towards her. This is just our ego acting up, refusing to be in the moment but identifying us with the role of employee, desire of particular taste. what really got me was the statement by the mediator - all actions or thoughts that create pain have a klesha active.

There is too much of I in our thoughts. It feeds the ego, creating just so much of pain, irritation and rift in relations. I want people to behave in one way, they behave in whats seems fine with them. even within our loved ones, major conflicts rise from strong opinion on how things are to be done. If we just let it be, relax and realise that trusting the person to do the best will make all our lives so much easier.

However, its so difficult to be this calm when we start getting angry and irritated. One way is to reduce all we are doing. As Jackie Chan says " Daily reduce rather than increase what we do", we can actually be present in whats going on in my mind and see how anger rises. Just this awareness will create distance and we can choose how to respond. Let anger reign, then feel guilty or see how anger begins but just breathe, acknowledge it and know that I am more than this emotion. Lets not even judge it as postitve , negative emotion, just another emotion. And then see what needs to be done.

Long standing habits and perceptions are strongly embedded in our mind. Only being detached w,hen emotions rise can we begin to see whats really happening, cause, and then letting the entire drama play out in our head so we can figure out why so in the first place. Our learning emerges and that is the real story. This the main act of our lives rather than all the other bussiness we indulge in.