Prayer

There is a reason prayer is incorporated into so many religions throughout the world. Prayer, meditation, mantras, chanting, etc. are all methods of getting you out of your mind and into the reality that is. Prayer is also a method to show you the truth that you are not alone in this universe, when you can see that there are no "others", you stop being the main character in your own story and become an intrinsic part of the whole of the universe, of which couldn't exist without everything that lies within it. The universe does not in fact revolve around you, it only appears that way. Every being in the universe is in fact in the center of the universe, that is the only way in which we are able to perceive it. We can only be where we are which is in the middle, it's works the same for everyone, we are all in middle, no matter where we are. Many of us believe that since we perceive the universe from the center, that we are the most important thing in the universe and therefore everyone and everything else is put there for us.

Prayer is the acknowledgement that we are not alone, that there is someone or something that is greater than us. It is the acknowledgement that you are only the center of the universe from your personal perspective and are not actually the center of the universe. We feel alone because we only look at life through our own perspective and believe our perspective to be the only one. Since we believe that our perspective is the only one, we believe that there is no one else, therefore we feel alone. When someone is painfully unaware of anyone around them, and how their actions can affect "others", we say they have "main character syndrome". The truth is we all have "main character syndrome", it just appears in different forms for us all. As long as you have the belief that there are "others" and that you are more important than ANYONE else, you believe yourself to be the main character in your life. 

Another thing we tend to do based on our denial of the truth which is predetermined from our personal beliefs is to project ourselves onto "others". Anything that you believe to be true of "everyone else" is just you projecting yourself onto "everyone else" as to not face the truth of who you are out of the fear of being "wrong". Therefore, since "everyone else" is the problem, you don't have to change anything about yourself, and you can keep living your life as the main character, where everyone else is just extras in the movie of your life.

Prayer helps us to see that we are not alone. There are other ways to do this. Empathy is defined as the ability to understand and share the feelings of another. When we step outside ourselves (metaphorically) and look at "another" and see that they have feelings too, we start to see that maybe we are not the main character in the universe and maybe our actions effect "others". We can also watch our thoughts/words/actions by becoming self-aware. When you become self-aware, you are able to see how your actions effect "others". Meditation is a proven method of helping us to become more self-aware. If you're hurting someone you Love due to your actions, wouldn't you like to become aware of those actions so you could stop doing them and stop hurting the person you Love?

Isn't it possible that you are hurting the people who Love you the most by your actions towards them, but you are unable to see it based on the fact that you are painfully unaware of yourself from the viewpoint of "others". When you believe that your viewpoint is all that exists or your viewpoint is all that matters, you hurt those around you. When you see that "everyone else's" viewpoint does exist and does matter, you see past the illusion of being separate from "others". We see in "others", what we believe in ourselves.

Prayer along with meditation, mantras, chanting, etc. are methods to bring you to the present moment. When you are focused on something in the present such as praying, it's harder to think about the past and the future where all of your "problems" are. Prayer has been twisted into a form of a magical wishing fountain for God. Drop a coin (prayer) into the wishing well (God) and get all your hearts desires. Except God isn't a wishing well, and that's that what prayer is about. God allows us to live our own lives and make our own mistakes while he sits closely by watching and keeping us safe. Why would God need us to pray to God to tell God what we "need" when God already knows everything?

Singing praise to God is the acknowledgment that you have all you need and that you want for nothing. Prayer is to get your mind out of your "problems". Love and Peace!

May we have joy!

May we have peace!

May we be free from suffering!

Mother Earth

How we long to be in your warm embrace. You never judge, you never condemn, and you never withhold. When we're hungry, you provide nourishment. When we're thirsty, you provide life source. When we're lonely, you send our siblings to comfort us. Your Love is never ending and unconditional. No matter how far from you we believe ourselves to be, we never leave each other. You are always there silently waiting for us to return. We came from you and shall return to you. 

In our ignorance we try to destroy you, claiming to be born solely of a spiritual nature, failing to see there could be no spirit if it weren't for the body that was provided by you as a home for the spirit. We feel your flesh as our bare feet walk upon you. We feel your gentle caress every time you blow your breath upon our bodies. We feel the intensity of your passion when standing within your fires. We feel you holding us up when we lay in your healing waters. We feel your spirit all around us and within us.

We are provided pollen from our birth father and seed from our birth mother. Everything our birth parents are, came from you. Our entire physical form is provided by you. As our bodies grow, you provide nourishment that transforms into us. Our entire body comes from you and when our spirit leaves our body, we shall transform back into you.

You teach us Love, patience, resilience, forgiveness, and kindness. We try to hide from you to no avail. We pretend to be separate from you, even though we live within you. We build cities and put-up walls as to not be reminded that we are one with you. We try to destroy your body, just as diseases and viruses try to destroy our bodies, not realizing that we are in fact only trying to destroy ourselves. We fail to see that if we were able to kill you, we would be killing ourselves. We fail to see how connected all things are within you.

You provide trees to give everything within you breathe and we use the life-giving tress to write our nonsensical words upon and to wipe the shit our of our back ends. You provide water as a life source for all within you and we throw our rubbish in it and use it for all sorts of nonsense. You provide an abundance of food for all within you, and we hoard it and use it to create divisions within us. You provide fire for rebirth, and we use it to melt your materials into different forms for our own gains. You provide your flesh for us, and we dig it up and crush it. Yet, you continue to provide unconditionally and without malice. We know that we do not need to ask for your forgiveness, as you give it willingly and without being asked, forever Loving. Thank you, Mom, for always taking care of us, even when we spit it your face. We Love you, even though we fail to show it. Love and Peace!

A Parable

A man goes to a guru to find enlightenment after years of dissatisfaction and unnecessary self-inflicted suffering.

The guru says to the man “don’t waste any of your vital energy spreading your semen all over the place, instead focus your energy on your spirit”.

The man does just so, he gives up sex right then and there on the spot. He thinks to himself that he finally found the answer to being an enlightened being and soon he will know all the wisdom of the universe.

Some time goes by, and nothing happens, the man starts to wonder why his enlightenment hasn’t happened yet.

The man hasn’t so much as thought about sex, let alone wasted any semen and yet he feels the same. He spends every waking hour devoting his energy to his spirit.

He doesn’t understand what he is doing wrong so he decides to go visit the guru again to see why he’s not enlightened yet.

When he gets to the guru’s home, he discovers the guru has moved on. With no indication of what direction, the guru went in, he felt hopeless.

Feeling completely lost and scared, he started running through town in search of someone who could help him.

He ran through the town screaming “someone, anyone, please help me, I can’t find my guru, I need to find him, I need to know when I’m going to be enlightened so I can have sex again”.

Your “Problems” Aren’t Real

Where are your problems? Can you see, taste, smell, hear, or touch them? Can you show me where your problems are? Can you describe what they look like? The only thing we can do is describe how our "problems" make us feel, what emotions they invoke. Our "problems" only exist in our mind where our imagination resides. Our imagination isn't real, but makes the world that we live in. Our imagination shows us what we want to see and hides reality under a veil of what we believe to be real.

While you are sitting here reading this post, I would like you to think about your "problems". What "problems" do you have right now? Is it how someone treated you in the past? Is it something someone said to you in the past? Is there something traumatic that happened to you in your past? Maybe you've had an entire life filled with trauma. As your sitting here reading this, none of those problems are here right now. All of your past "problems" reside in the past. The past is gone, you can never ever go back and change a single thing that happened in the past. So why do you live in the illusionary past?

Are your problems coming from the future? You just know your boss is going to yell at you tomorrow for that thing you screwed up. You just know that your abusive family will still be there when you get home. You just know that you are going to get sick or something bad is going to happen to you. Those problems are all in the future and despite what people like to believe and tell you, absolutely no one knows the future. Have you ever actually made it to tomorrow, as in lived your day out while calling it tomorrow? You can't ever live in tomorrow, tomorrow becomes today in the instant that you move into it. You will never, ever, ever live in tomorrow. Since you can never live in tomorrow, you can never know what "problems" may or may not come. All you can do is live in today and face your "problems" as they come to you.

Are you unhealthy or sick right now? If not, no "problem". If you are sick or unhealthy, it's still not a problem. You can choose to do something about it. You can work on improving your health or sickness. Or you can simply just accept it as what's happening and stop labeling it a "problem". Did someone close to you "die" and now you miss them. How is that a problem? You miss someone, you feel sadness and grief, possibly anger and resentment. Those aren't problems, those are just emotions passing through. Allow the emotions to just happen without fighting or suppressing them and they will heal you. 

There is absolutely no "problem" that can't be solved. A "problem" is only a problem if you are incapable of doing anything about it. We are always capable of overcoming any obstacle or "problem" that comes our way. Most of us choose to believe that we are too "lazy/broken/weak/tired/traumatized" to overcome our obstacles and find it easier to just live with our "problems" instead of changing them.

“Prison itself is a tremendous education in the need for patience and perseverance. It is above all a test of one’s commitment.” - Nelson Mandela

Nelson Mandela spent 27 years in prison. He didn't view prison as a "problem" he viewed it as a "test of one's commitment", if Nelson Mandela can spend 27 years in prison and have it not been a "problem", I think we could conclude that your "problems" no matter how "big" or "small" could also be viewed as a test. 

“There is no better than adversity. Every defeat, every heartbreak, every loss, contains its own seed, its own lesson on how to improve your performance the next time.”– Malcolm X

There are no "problems" there are only lessons which water the seeds within for growth. When we avoid our "problems" they become real and transform into a myriad of mental health issues. Peace and Love!

“Let go of today as it becomes yesterday. Move into tomorrow as it becomes today. Eternally present. All is well.” - Stephen Abdiel

Denial

In order for us to cling onto our beliefs we are forced to live in denial. Denial that we may in fact be wrong. We are so terrified of being wrong that most of us never once stop to ask whether or not we may actually be wrong. We use any beliefs that we hold strongly as "evidence" that we are correct and that everyone else is wrong. Why do so many of us feel that being wrong is so horrible? We think that being wrong will make us look ignorant, when in fact stubbornly holding onto a false belief is what makes you appear ignorant. Acknowledging that we were wrong about something allows us to learn the truth.

Religion is used more than anything else to hold on to our beliefs and never consider that we could be wrong. Religion is the be-all and end-all for a lot of us. If we have a belief about really anything imaginable, we can tie it to our religion and say, "you can't question my beliefs, haven't you heard of freedom of religion". We use religion to blindly accept whatever is easiest to believe and never question it. There isn't anything wrong with religion and it's clearly necessary in our current world. Religion can be beautiful and bring peace to those who are truly open to it. Our problems come when we believe that we hold the only truth in our religion and everyone else is "wrong". When preachers tell us what we should believe, instead of just being a guide and protector.

There is no right and wrong. If you believe that you are right, you are wrong. If you feel the need to defend your beliefs, you are wrong. The truth doesn't need to be defended; the truth just is. The truth doesn't need words to defend itself, since words aren't real. If you need words to explain or defend your truth, it's simply not the truth. That doesn't mean it's not true to you, whatever you believe to be true is true to you, it's just not the absolute truth.

Life is one big mistake. Not a mistake in the sense of life being wrong or that life shouldn't be. I'm simply referring to the fact that everything that we do and everything that happens are all mistakes. Life cannot exist without mistakes. Life and mistakes are one in the same, you literally cannot have one without the other.

Let's examine this by starting at the time of conception. If we could make conception happen naturally at any given time and have the ability to pick the exact time in which we will conceive, unplanned pregnancies wouldn't be a thing, neither would abortion or IVF. The truth is that no one can plan when a conception of life will take place, there are methods that are used to improve the odds, but ultimately it all comes down to chance or a mistake.

After we are born, we have to learn how to eat food. All children make plenty of mistakes learning how to eat, choking on occasion, just enough to convince the parents their child will never make past their youth. We learn how to crawl, then walk both of which are filled with a plethora of mistakes, which is why we all rejoice when a child finally does walk after many failed attempts. We learn how to speak while making all sorts of mistakes by mispronouncing.

Heading off to school we learn the curriculum which is nothing but mistakes. If there weren't any mistakes, wouldn't every kid just get all A's and leave grading utterly pointless? Moving on to the adult world we get jobs and have to learn those, making so many mistakes we feel like we're going to get fired our first day, after only a few days we start to get the hang of if and eventually the mistakes disappear when we become familiar with our duties. Relationships are just one failed attempt after another, trying to find the correct person and situation which works best for everyone.

Anyone who has ever learned a new skill knows just how many mistakes they have made in their life just trying to acquire that skill. People with great skills are worshipped and adored because a big portion of humanity believes those are superhuman abilities. The truth is we only see the skill that was acquired through millions of mistakes, we don't look behind the curtain to see the hundreds or thousands of hours put into that skill. 

Obviously for the sake of time, it's impossible to go through every scenario in life to show the evidence of its being nothing but mistakes, we went with just a few examples, and you can feel free to explore this topic on your own time. You may ask just what's the point that we are getting to? Let me tell you. Since life is nothing but mistakes, wouldn't it make sense that our mind or set of beliefs act in the same way in which the physical word does. Children make plenty of mistakes in their belief system, the adults correct them and guide them to the correct beliefs to the best of their ability.

We all tend to reach a point in our development when we start believing all of our beliefs to be the "truth" unconditionally. Some of us go so far as to try to get others to believe the same way, the more people that share your beliefs, the more those beliefs are enforced. For some of us, we will choose to live our entire life out in denial, never abandoning our beliefs and go to the grave never having made a mistake with our beliefs. For others, they choose to find those mistakes in their beliefs and grow.

The truth is that we will never get better at anything without making mistakes. We will never grow if we aren't willing to make mistakes. We will never learn the truth if we live in denial. This is not about changing your beliefs, I don't care what you believe, you can believe whatever you want. This is about allowing ourselves to grow and evolve and not living in denial. 

Take a moment to pick a belief that you have about something, it could be anything, it doesn't have to be a belief about anything huge like God or the universe. It could be what you believe a banana tastes like. Why do you believe that? Where did you learn that belief? Have you ever actually thought about what a banana tastes like to you or do you just assume that it has a universal taste? How do you know that a banana tastes the same to everyone else? For all we know a banana tastes completely different for everyone who eats them, maybe there isn't a universal taste for bananas, maybe the taste is different based on the individual. How else could you explain that we all like different foods? If all food tasted exactly the same way for every individual, couldn't we assume that all food would be either universally loved or hated by everyone? Just something to think about.

The point is that it's not about changing our beliefs but simply to examine the origin, the reasoning, the authenticity, the truth. When we stop being of afraid of mistakes and start learning from them that is when we soar to untethered heights. One of the single greatest things I ever learned to say was "I Was Wrong." That one simple phrase allows us to humble ourselves before others while simultaneously opening space for new growth. When I discover I was wrong about something it brings a sense of unimaginable excitement, by being wrong and acknowledging it, that means the truth is free to come in. Love and Peace!

Don’t believe a goddamn thing anybody says but don’t be foolish enough to disbelieve it either. All you have to do is experiment with it; does it work or doesn’t work? If it works, you keep it, otherwise rubbish it, what’s the problem? - Sadhguru