When we were living in India, there was not much about our life that was certain, safe and predictable. Life in that country is full of wild and spontaneous happenings that cannot be controlled. Floods, cholera and diphtheria, landslides, thieves, and terrorists were a regular part of our landscape. Not to mention daily power outages and water shortages.

I used to watch westerners who came to live and study in our community go through a whole process, just learning to live in India. Often they would get really angry, and burst out in wild rages when they experienced the lack of control they had over their day to day lives. Our whole conditioning in the West seems to be telling us that we can and should take control of our lives, and that if we can’t, there is something wrong with us. I’d like to look at that basic assumption right now, explore for a few minutes that underlying belief and some of its consequences.

Is it really true that you are the one that is in control of your life? This body-mind, this person with a name and form, who thinks they are a separate, concrete entity - is this really who is making things happen?

This person, this human being, lives in what Deepak Chopra calls the local or manifest domain. This is the world of the senses, of things we can grasp and understand with the body and mind. This is the world that most people call ‘real’ in our western culture.

In India it is very different. The manifest field there is not considered primary. What is primary is the un-manifest world, the non-local domain, which cannot be grasped by the mind or the senses. The ancient and traditional culture of India, and of many indigenous societies, was based on the primacy of the spiritual realm, the un-manifest, the source of being. Even the activities of daily life were engaged in so that the nature of this human conditioned attention could be drawn back into this source, recognizing it as the one life in every being, the unseen force that moves everything.

Anyone who has lived in a place like India has seen the results of such a focus. There is a very powerful sense of the transcendent reality in that place-a vastness, a heartfulness and a mystery that you can’t see, but you sense somehow, everywhere. And what of the relative, manifest field? It is a chaotic mess. It seems to have been sacrificed or neglected for the unmanifest realm.

Here in the West, we’ve chosen the other extreme. We’ve focused on the realm of form, and forgotten about what is invisible. The price we have paid for this is high and getting higher all the time. All of the security and control we’ve tried so hard to create are rapidly unraveling. There’s no job security anymore, no relationship security. We have less idea about the future than any people who have ever lived on this planet. We can’t even control our own email!

This changing, fragile, volatile world we live in is exposing us to more and more anxiety. There are a million schemes and teachings and workshops out there to help you take control, get where you want to be. Doesn’t it all start to sound a bit thin? Isn’t it exhausting, finally, to keep scrambling for a security and control that slip through our hands like water?

The simple truth of the matter is that money and things cannot make us safe. No house, no bank account, no plan, is going to bring me the happiness, safety and fulfillment I am looking for. It’s only the source of my being, my authentic core, that can give me that kind of freedom. Because when I’m connected to that, everything is okay. Things that derail and demolish me on my human level do not shake the essential ground of my being.

What to do? How to respond to this dilemma? I can join an ashram, renounce the world, move to a mountain top somewhere. Most of the time, these responses take me to a lop-sided way of life, like the life in India. The truth of who we are is not something that can be divided, or we lose our intrinsic wholeness. We are manifest and unmanifest, matter and spirit, human and divine. What a walking contradiction, what a living paradox it is to be a human being. On my human level I need food, shelter, clothes, rest, beauty, connection. On my spiritual level, none of this applies. Here as Rumi says, I am “a fountainhead, moving out.” My intentions and motivations are entirely different. They come from a place of fullness, of love, of deep generosity.

If all I know of myself is name and form, I have no way to meet change, transformation and death without terror. And if I run to a cave or monastery to find the truth, my human nature will chase me, and ask, “Why did you deny me, throw me away?”

What if you came here for all of it? What if none of it needs to be abandoned? What if the full embrace is the only thing that will ever fulfill you?

There is no book, no technique, no information that can tell us how to do that. It’s something we have to grow into, through a moment to moment willingness to love and respect it all. ‘The whole catastrophe,’ as Zorba called it, waits for us: prayer, taking out the garbage, contemplation, making money. Something flowers, comes alive in us, as we begin to open ourselves to every aspect of life.

with love,
Shayla

2) Three Half Day ‘Alchemy of Writing’ workshops

What is the source of our first suffering? It lies in the fact that we hesitated to speak. It was born in the moment when we accumulated silent things within us. (Gaston Bachelard)

The Alchemy of Writing process calls forth expression that comes naturally and spontaneously from our core, without attachment to the results. The truth about our ‘raw voice’ is that it is a healing and liberating force within us. To access this part of our being puts us in touch with the resources that live in the most authentic part of our being: gratitude, compassion, courage, integrity, presence, and joy.
No previous writing experience is necessary for these workshops.

There are 3 half day writing workshops coming up this winter:
Jan. 20, Feb. 10, and March 3. You can come to one, two or all of them.. They happen from 2-6pm at my home studio. Tuition is $40 per workshop.
They are on Saturdays so that you have the option to attend a morning Soma Yoga class at Shanti (10-11:30am), making it a full yoga/writing day.

3) The Heart of Communication 8 week course, and the 8 week ‘Alchemy of Writing’ course are listed on my website.

For a full description of courses and workshops, please email me at barefootjourneys@netidea.com, call me at 352.7908, or go to my website: www.barefootjourneys.net