Parinama

    How do we listen for the soul’s calling?   What do we hear when the soul speaks?   How will we know if it is the soul speaking to us and not the ego or the voice of an old wounded place?   In thinking about these questions, I made of list of things I have done in my life that felt like they came from the soul’s urging.   Here is what they had in common.   I felt moved to do something that I did not necessarily want to do.   The call came from a place deep in my heart and abdomen not from my thoughts or mind. There was little calculation about whether this was a good idea or a bad one, the choice was not made from such a calculation.   It didn’t feel like a choice. The movement of action was towards uncertainty.   In some cases, there was a big change made suddenly.   In others, small changes made over a long period of time.   In the end, it didn’t matter.   Any effort made in devoted and honest servi...

  At a certain time in our live, the ego is summoned to relinquish its identification with the values of others…Ego’s highest task is to go beyond itself into service to what is desired by the soul not the ego-complexes…This relinquishment will in the end be experienced as a newfound hitherto unknown abundance. John Hollis, Finding Meaning in the Second Half of Life   According to yoga philosophy, the ahamkara or ego is the necessary part of consciousness that gives us our sense of “I-am-ness”. When we point at the chest and say, “I am…” we are referring to our awareness of being separate from others, our mothers and fathers, family members, children, and friends. Without ahamkara , we would not be able to discern where we end and where others begin, would not be able to distinguish our needs from others, would not have the capacity to set up boundaries necessary to keep ourselves safe.   With a strong ahamkara we take self-care into our own han...

  Let everything happen to you: beauty and terror. Just keep going. No feeling is final. Don’t let yourself lose me. Rilke   I erupted in a rash of shame a few weeks ago.   Someone complained about me at work, about the quality of my work. It is hard to write this without feeling ashamed again.   In shame, I feel queasiness in my gut and pressure on my chest.   I scramble to figure out how to protect myself from this awful vulnerability.   On high alert, my brain tightens and perspective narrows as I focus incessantly on how to defend myself from this existential threat.   This all happens in a matter of minutes during the phone conversation where I am asked to explain myself, defend myself, when I don’t even know what I did wrong, who was offended and why.     This shame from criticism at work has accompanied me through life but passes more easily now than it did in the past.   Before, resonance from...