This Morning I Woke Up Thinking About Bills

This morning I woke up thinking about bills I have to pay. Not a good feeling. I checked my bank balances on line and discovered that they were less than I thought they were. A lot less.

Then I logged on to the New York Times web site and saw this article on the homepage about how all of the top bankers on Wall Street are receiving their yearly bonuses in upwards of $50+ million dollars, and how it's creating a surge in the purchases and marketing of super-luxury items such as penthouses, sports cars, private jets and vacation homes.

...And then I came back to my situation of having a couple of thousand less than what I thought I should have (after a little research, it turned out that my balances were accurate). This may sound strange coming from a yoga teacher, but I thought about how fantastic it would be to receive a $50 million dollar bonus for teaching yoga. Holy shit, I thought---the things I could do with $50 mil.

Then I walked out of my bedroom and greeted my friend Korrin, who was left over from the night before (I had a dinner party on Christmas night) and we sat in my quaint little living room to do our morning meditation. The meditation went by peacefully and after I asked Korrin, hypothetically, if a movement was created around her life, what would the theme of the movement be? She said, "Helping people feel better." I thougth that was brilliant. Korrin is just that kind of person as well: very nurturing and compassionate; she's the type that would stop to pick up litter while walking down the street. I could totally see her being the leader of a movement to help people feel better.

Then I thought about the theme of my life, and what sort of movement would spawn from it. And the first thing I thought of was my belief that "Anything is Possible." You know those t-shirts I make? I'm always saying it, and more often than not I truly believe it.

My movement, I figured, would be to help others realize that whatever they wanted for their lives, it was not only possible, but attainable. If I wanted to make $50 mil in a year, it's possible. If I want to live happily as a yoga teacher making much less than that yet having priceless amounts of freedom and flexibility in my life, it's possible. If I want to do a little of both, it's possible.

And then I thought back to the Happyness blog: it's not about how valuable you are that is ultimately important, it's how you are being valuable (to the world). In other words, what I got was that if the $50 mil is necessary to aid in my movement to help people realize anything is possible, I'll have it. And if it's not necessary, I won't.

We always have everything that we need precisely when we need it and not a moment before. No exceptions. And if that weren't the case, I wouldn't be sitting here typing this right now and you wouldn't be sitting there reading it. We've had everything we've needed, at least up until this point.

So I promised myself that there will be no more worries about bills and dreams about millions for now. I'll just keep doing what I'm doing---the best I can---to follow my heart, stay true to my vision, and let go of attachment to result or outcome---like I say in class.

Anyway, enough about me....

What would your movement be about???

Letter To A Young Poet

As many of us start contemplating New Year's resolutions, I thought I'd share an excerpt from one of my favorite FAVORITE books called Letters To A Young Poet. The following is a shortened version of Letter One:

Paris
February 17, 1903

Dear Sir,

Your letter arrived just a few days ago. I want to thank you for the great confidence you have placed in me. This is all I can do. I cannot discuss your verses; for any attempt at criticism would be foreign to me. Nothing touches a work of art so little as words of criticism: they always result in more or less fortunate misunderstandings. Things aren't all so tangible and sayable as people would have us believe; most experiences are unsayable, they happen in a space that no word has ever entered, and more unsayable than all other things are works of art, those mysterious existences, whose life endures beside our own small, transitory life.

You ask whether your verses are any good. You ask me. You have asked others before this. You send them to magazines. You compare them with other poems, and you are upset when certain editors reject your work. Now (since you have said you want my advice) I beg you to stop doing that sort of thing. You are looking outside, and this is what you should most avoid right now.

No one can advise or help you---no one. There is only one thing you should do. Go into yourself. Find out the reason that commands you to write; see whether it has spread its roots into the very depths of your heart; confess to yourself whether you would have to die if you were forbidden to write. This most of all: ask yourself in the most silent hour of your night: must I write?

Dig into yourself for a deep answer. And if this answer rings out in assent, if you meet this solemn question with a strong, simple "I must," then build your life in accordance with this necessity; your whole life, even into its humblest and most indifferent hour, must become a sign and witness to this impulse. Then come close to Nature. Then, as if no one had ever tried before, try to say what you see and feel and love and lose.

If your everyday life seems poor, don't blame it; blame yourself; admit to yourself that you are not enough of a poet to call forth its riches; because for the creator there is no poverty and no poor, indifferent place. And even if you found yourself in some prison, whose walls let in none of the world's sounds---wouldn't you still have your childhood, that jewel beyond all price, that treasure house of memories? Turn your attention to it. Try to raise up the sunken feelings of this enormous past; your personality will grow stronger, your solitude will expand and become a place where you can live in the twilight, where the noise of other people passes by, far in the distance.

And if out of this turning-within, out of this immersion in your own world, poems come, then you will not think of asking anyone whether they are good or not. Nor will you try to interest magazines in these works: for you will see them as your dear natural possession, a piece of your life, a voice from it. A work of art is good if it has arisen out of necessity.

I can't give you any advice but this: to go into yourself and see how deep the place is from which your life flows; at its source you will find the answer to the question of whether you must create. Accept that answer, just as it is given to you, without trying to interpret it. Perhaps you will discover that you are called to be an artist. Then take that destiny upon yourself, and bear it, its burden and its greatness, without ever asking what reward might come from outside. For the creator must be a world for himself and must find everything in himself and in Nature, to whom his whole life is devoted.

But after this descent into yourself and into your solitude, perhaps you will have to renounce becoming a poet (if, as I have said, one feels one could live without writing, then one shouldn't write at all). Nevertheless, even then, this self-searching that I ask of you will not have been for nothing. Your life will still find its own paths from there, and that they may be good, rich, and wide is what I wish for you, more than I can say.

What else can I tell you? It seems to me that everything has its proper emphasis; and finally I want to add just one more bit of advice: to keep growing, silently and earnestly, through your whole development; you couldn't disturb it any more vilolently than by looking outside and waiting for outside answers to questions that only your innermost feeling, in your quietest hour, can perhaps answer.

I thank you once more for your questions and sincere trust, of which, by answering as honestly as I can, I have tried to make myself a little worthier than I, as a stranger, really am.

Yours very truly,

Rainer Maria Rilke

Imagination

It's beautiful and sunny here in LA on Christmas Day. I woke up later than I wanted to and now I have to rush around a little. Still need to wash clothes. Nevertheless, I came across this excerpt from the life of Joan of Arc and I thought I would share:

When Joan of Arc stood before the bishops, they asked, "Do you not believe that what you call your voices from God are really nothing but your imagination?" To which the illiterate nineteen-year-old peasant replied with a wisdom worthy of the mystics: "Of course it is my imagination! How else does God speak to us except through our imagination?" This silenced the bishops for a while.

Happyness

I just saw the new Will Smith movie The Pursuit of Happyness and I must admit I was very much moved by the storyline and the performances. I'm going through my own version of financial "opportunities" right now and watching the main character meet demands with precision, while doing the best he could to raise his son was both encouraging and inspirational.

I recommend the movie. It's definitely a feel-good story and one that we can all learn from.

On the flipside of that, I'm reading a book called The Monk Who Sold His Ferrarri, about a rich lawyer who gave up his worldly possessions to work on his inner self. The theme of that book is that even if you own everything on the planet, without owning a sense of inner "well being," you're being is not well off.

I don't necessarily subscribe to the notion that money is the answer to problems. In fact, that statement reminds me of a story I once heard about how Carl Jung was once asked by a reporter whether---given a choice---would he prefer to treat the rich or the poor? And with little hesitation he answered "the rich".

Of course, this startled the reporter who then followed up with the obvious question: "why?" And Jung replied, "I get to spend more time treating them because rich people already know that having more money is not the answer to solving their problems." LOL

Now that I think about it, there are so many great stories about the meaning of money to different folks. I guess the idea is do decide for ourselves what money and success mean to us. How do we define it in our lives? Does it work with who we are or are we running some race that we'll never win? What happens if we no longer have what we thought we needed to be happy or to find peace, serenity or whatever we're looking for? Who are we ulitimately trying to please?

I think these are all great questions worth pondering. I know what my answers are. What are yours???

Education

I'm back. And this is what I find inspiring today:

"I have never let my schooling interfere with my education." - Mark Twain