The Silver Lining.

What is a good result?

Is it getting what you want in the short term? Or having a deeper understanding, a better perspective, “growing as a person” because you didn’t get what you wanted?

Have you ever lived through something that wasn’t pleasant at the time but now when you look back, you’re actually glad it did happen, simply because a lot of good came from it?

When my mum died, fairly young, of cancer - that wasn’t a good time. But it was the most amazing of times too, simply because I got to know her on such a deeper level. It was quality time, indeed. The same with my brother. I am so much closer to him now than ever before.

The silver lining, and one that may not have happened if mum hadn't gotten sick, is that I no longer have the mediocre relationships I used to have with my family.

The other thing that became so clear was that any future thoughts, with all the doctors’ prognoses (of which there were plenty) and lots of worry about mum, only led to suffering. I had to be very present otherwise I would instantly dissolve into a ball of worry and anxiety.

I got to see my mind clearly, and didn't go there. It was too painful.

So I was super present, and was able to be with mum as she was, not as I thought she would be in the future. We actually had a lot of fun.

The fact is you can frame any experience any way you want. It can be good, it can be bad. That label changes you.

I say always choose to see the good. If it’s a challenging situation you especially need to find a silver lining. Find a benefit to you and focus on that.

There is a story that my meditation teacher tells. He doesn’t tell it so often anymore, probably because he knows that his students steal all his best ideas quickly, so he has to constantly come up with new material.

But it’s about a villager who, to cut a long story short, has an amazing thing happen to him. He shrugs his shoulders and says “Good news? Bad news? Who knows?”. The next day the amazing thing has lead to something terrible. Again, he shrugs his shoulders and says “Good news? Bad news? Who knows?”. The next day the terrible thing turns out to be a blessing in disguise, and again, he simply shrugs, and says “Good news? Bad news? Who knows?”.

Who knows why things happen? Who knows what will happen next? I don’t.

Just assume all is good. In this moment focus on the silver lining. Make the most of what you have. Be wide open and see what happens next. You may be surprised.

Have a great weekend - enjoy each and every moment of it.

___________________________

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Make the most of your time here.

I’ve always wanted to live the best life possible.

The whole reason for learning and practicing Ascension meditation, to consciously and actively have a better attitude, to clearly see what limiting thoughts and attitudes I have, all of it is to make the most of my time here.

I realised early on that life is short. All because I had so many friends and acquaintances die in their late teens and early twenties.

One guy I worked with went to the doctor with a sore stomach and was dead 2 weeks later. One friend died on a kayaking trip. A friend was on a cycling trip and got hit by a car. Another, a brother of a friend, crashed a plane. So many more stories.

It’s not pleasant at all, but I’m glad it happened. Like all things, death has a silver lining.

Death has been the greatest lesson -  simply because the presence of death is an awesome reminder that we don’t have a whole lot of time.

See when you think you have a lot of time, you tend to waste it, you tend to postpone. You tend not to worry about squeezing the most out of life because you can do it, well... later.

But those who realise how precious this life is, that time indeed is running out, they really do get the most out of each and every moment. They don't wait until later.

Each person, each conversation has greater significance because you don’t take things for granted.

Each dream, each great ambition, you don’t let a doubt or a limiting thought get in the way of you making it happen.

You don’t have the time for a life that is not yours, living and doing the things you can’t stand and can’t accept.

Come to terms with the fact that life is short. Develop the ability to make the most of each and every moment, to make sure you live your dreams, to live the best possible life.

Don’t delay!

Resistance is futile - there is an easier way.

"You are the only problem you will ever have and you are the only solution." - Bob Proctor

Resistance is the thing that kills all enjoyment and effectiveness.

The cause of all your problems is resisting what is happening.

I get to talk to a lot of people so I get to have a good overall view on what causes people pain and suffering.

Every time any one ever has a problem - and I mean 100% of the time: not even most of the time but all of the time - the problem is caused by resisting what is happening.

I will talk to them and they will use words like “should” or “could”, some kind of idea that involves their ideal present moment.

I will nod, and politely agree, that actually this ideal would be nice, but what is happening right now is different.

Do you see the difference between what is happening and your idea of what should be happening?

The only time you have a problem is when you can’t give up the should.

When you come to terms with what is, when you fully accept it, all your pain goes away.

Then, and only then, you can work with what you have, rather than wishing for something else, or insisting that something else should be happening.

Non-resistance isn’t giving up your dreams or living a passive life, it simply is seeing the clearest way through. It’s full acceptance of the current situation yes, but it doesn't mean stop walking towards what you want. That's giving up.

You really are the source of all problems and all solutions. When you see how you create all peace or pain in your life you will learn true happiness.

It's all within you - which is cause for rejoicing. You are the one person in the whole world you can actually change.

The wisdom of choosing to be happy.

"Oh, I don't really think about that, because it's wasted energy, isn't it? What's done is done, we can't change that, but we can change the way we cope with it."

- Diane Piper, mother of Katie whose face was burnt in an acid attack, when asked how she felt about the attackers

Everyone has challenges. Everyone has troubles in their life.

But what amazes and inspires me is seeing people who have lived or are living through horrific things and yet who shine, full of gratitude and love for their life, as it is.

You might call them “glass half full” people.

Then there are those with comparatively event free lives who grumble and complain through every little inconvenience: “Glass half empty” people.

Why is that?

You constantly choose your response to life.

This choice defines how you live, regardless of the circumstances you find yourself in. This choice is total: You decide whether you live in peace or in suffering. No one and nothing can cause you to suffer; you decide to suffer.

I know it doesn’t feel like this. No one wants to suffer, everyone is looking for a way to avoid it. The trouble is we don’t know how.

Furthermore, suffering has become normal, it’s almost expected as “part of life”.

Being constantly happy is viewed with suspicion by some. If you decide not to suffer it’s almost like you’re not being “real”, whatever that is.

Once, a friend of mine who realised it was her choice to be totally at peace with the world was taken aside by a acquaintance in the street and asked if she was on drugs.

Bizarre isn't it? Happy lady, walking down the street = must be on drugs.

But definitely those, like Buddha and Jesus, who have transcended suffering are elevated to a mythical status, beyond humanity.

Actually, it’s your human birthright not to suffer.

Your birthright is to have absolute sovereignty over your responses to life. Complete freedom from suffering is simple.

It all begins with you deciding to take responsibility for how you feel, how you react to life.

Don’t take this decision lightly - it means you can never blame anyone else for anything. It’s all on you.

Then, decide that nothing will make you happy - you won’t delay your happiness for a future moment, you’ll find happiness right now, however your circumstances.

No longer will you wait for your partner or a new TV to make you happy. Now you’re going to choose to have happiness that is uncaused.

That is it. Take responsibility for your own happiness, and then choose it.

You will come to a point where you'll realise that to choose anything else is madness. And therein lies true wisdom.

Your life is your attitude.

"We who lived in concentration camps can remember the men who walked through the huts comforting others, giving away their last piece of bread. They may have been few in number, but they offer sufficient proof that everything can be taken from a man but one thing: the last of the human freedoms -- to choose one's attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one's own way." -Viktor Frankl

Sometimes I get accused of being unrealistic, harping on about the need for living life with the glass half full. People say that having a constant positive mental attitude is a nice idea, but sometimes life isn’t like that, that positivity is sometimes ignoring reality.

But what is real? What is reality?

Here’s what I see: You shape reality by *how* you see *what* you experience. It is all about your perception. Nothing is real, beyond your thinking about it.

Do you realise this?

Here is your life, and here are your mental processes about your life. They are the same thing. Your life isn’t different from the filters that you maintain – the judgements, the beliefs, the attitudes.

You, and you alone, define your own life. That’s what you get to choose, and no one can take that away from you. It is your internal attitude that shapes and makes everything. This choice is total – the experience of hell or heaven depends on you.

Your life isn’t about the circumstances, your life is always about your response to these circumstances.

You decide how you will respond to everything. Engage this choice, it is one of the most precious things you possess. Choose to see the good, to appreciate. Choose to be thankful. Choose to love.

Choose and choose again until it becomes a habit. And then choose once more. You will come to a place where nothing can make you suffer, unless you consciously allow it.

Heaven or hell? It all starts with your attitude.

The key to staying cool, calm and collected

The key to staying cool, calm and collected is to have little islands in your day, regular little points of detachment from the world where you completely come away from what you are involved in. Spreading these times throughout your day when you stop and reconnect is the key to not losing your peace and fully enjoying what you are doing - whatever that may be.

How you do this is up to you. When I first started The Bright Path Ascension meditation, what was recommended was time in the morning before work, some time in the afternoon - perhaps at lunch and/or on coming home, and last thing at night.

(This is eyes closed time - "power nap" or meditation/breathing time. Anything else is fine, but time closing your eyes is much more beneficial, just so you know.)

This way I had a little "oases" (plural for oasis) so I could start the day right, plug back in so the afternoon was easier, and/or in the evening so I could let go of the day and sleep well.

It quickly made such a difference to my attitude and energy levels.

Doing this means peace is a priority to you. If you commit to these times - not let them be flexible on a if and when basis, but a definite appointment, then you are saying to yourself that remaining clear, calm and content is the most important thing.

It sets a bench mark of calm so its easier to know when you're getting wound up and you need to back down.

Without this benchmark stress just creeps up on you. Sometimes you're not aware of how uptight you're getting simply because most stress comes in little by little, a death by a thousand cuts.

When a weight gets cranked up little by little it goes un-noticed until the straw comes that breaks your back, and you yell at the person who (usually) least deserves it.

With this benchmark you are more prone to take action to stay there. You are more conscious of your physical wellbeing, your internal attitude and mood, everything.

If you're regular with a practice of stopping it means this benchmark of calm is easier to come back to. If you fly off the handle, you can let go and reset quickly. You fly off less, need to apologise less, everyone is happy.

The bottom line is the ability to act - to have clarity of choice - as opposed to reacting, habitually.

There is nothing better than the ability to consciously steer your life in the direction you wish it to go. There is no need to be captive to the ups and downs of life. You want to be captain of your own ship, and you can be, it simply requires a little practice.

Freaking out about life

I just came back from three months at the Bright Path Ishaya retreat in Spain. Waking up this morning in my little cottage in the UK is different, but wonderful. There was a real sense of peace and serenity and aliveness on the mountain there in Spain.

But you know what? There is here in North Yorkshire too.

While waiting for our lift to the airport I read the last chapter of an autobiography of a guy who went to live besides a river in India to find his peace.

He returns back to the west after years and years of spiritual study and practice and instantly freaks out. The noise, the yelling, the traffic,the consumerism, the drunkenness, the sex.

He completely loses it, becomes a gibbering wreck until he manages to stumble upon a meditation centre - to him, an oasis of sacredness in the midst of a city of the profane.

How sad.

He's completely missed the point of all of his practice. He's created a mood, an idea that peace and clarity is only available when the world looks a certain way. When I'm by my river, then there is peace. When I'm on my mountain retreat, then there is peace.

Life is out there, continually knocking at your door. You cannot avoid it forever. You cannot make it look the way you want it to all the time.

But peace is everywhere, no matter what, if you know how to tap into it.

In reality there is nothing that is not worthy of love.

All this time you've been looking for peace, it has been within you - and it will be, forever more.

Life transforms when you realise this. The circumstances of life don't give you peace, you bring peace to life - regardless of the circumstances.

Permanent peace, freedom and happiness is an inside job.

It may take practice to realise this, but it is the only reality in town.

The hidden danger of indifference

“The opposite of love isn't hate; it's indifference” - Steven Pressfield

Indifference is a very subtle beast, yet once fallen into leads a long way down a grey and winding path indeed.

Like a sleepwalker wandering deeper and deeper into the forest, life becomes lost not through deliberate choice but through not paying attention.

Its a truism that you don’t know how good you have it until its gone.

What you have to do today becomes more important than what is here, already. The lack takes our attention instead - what is missing.

This focus, continued for long enough, means life becomes one constant question: “Why?”

“Why is this happening to me?”, “why doesn’t life go the way I want it to?”, “why isn’t this working?”, “why does she have all the good luck?”.

Indifference directly leads to living life with the perspective of a victim, one long grey, whiney, blame and stress filled existence.

The solution lies not in the past or in some future time, but here, is this exact moment.

Pay attention, for what you focus on grows. Be not indifferent, or take things for granted. Base your life in the appreciation and gratitude for what you do have, right now.

Through continued nurturing and choice, the automatic - the natural - response and reaction to life becomes not one of “why?” but one of “wow”.

Richness and blessings lie solely in perspective. And now you know.

You may not be able to control the circumstances of your life, but you can control how you react to it. It’s not about the what, its all about the how.

Don’t allow life to unconsciously slip away.

Regrets? Why not make a life so you don’t have any?

I saw an article the other day - it’s from a few years back, but it’s still really fresh.

The author interviewed elderly people on their death beds as to their regrets. Although its about people who are dying, it is really advice for people who are living.

Read it here:

http://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2012/feb/01/top-five-regrets-of-the-dying

It’s a quick read, but something you might want to come back to again.

What did you think?

What I see is that the basis of all those regrets is not having balance, of not seeing what is important or making time for it until it is too late.

Not surprisingly, at least to me, the list contains many of the things that the people who come to the Ishayas’ Ascension meditation classes say they want from life.

You see, the people that I meet already know what is important to them, its just that they don’t prioritise it, or they don’t know how to prioritise it.

Actually I think everyone already knows these things, we just don’t do them.

Don’t wait until its too late.

You have to live a life so that when you look back on your deathbed you are filled with joy. That you don’t have a single “I really wish…”

You deserve the fullest of lives, in every sense.

Part of that comes from an attitude of finding the good in everything, of being present and not looking back.

The other part comes from making choices that are fulfilling, of finding a way to prioritise what is really important to you.

Meditation - to me the Bright Path Ishayas' Ascension is the simplest and most powerful of all meditations (I could be biased) - is the thing that enables both. It really does. It changes your approach to life, it helps you be the very best version of yourself.

Take the time every day to stop and go within. Close your eyes, rest. Discover what is there and how when you nourish it, it nourishes you.

It is the secret to living life versus Life.

Just practice - five, ten, fifteen minutes every day. Set a time, sit and don’t come up until the time is done.

You won’t regret it.

Any questions, send them to me, I would love to help.

A guide to living the best life possible, part 2

How do you live your life? Here's part two of Arjuna's guide to a rich and fulfilled life:

Find ways to be of service

Give more, in all ways. This life isn’t about getting. Your peace and happiness stems from the ability to openly give.

Stop complaining

Don’t complain, whine, whinge, bitch or moan. Don’t blame anyone either. It is the fastest path to misery ever.

Appreciate and be grateful

Go out of your way to speak about your appreciation and gratitude for everything. Through this your experience of life will be that the glass is not only half-full, but continuously over-flowing.

Seek for contentment, always

Your path in this life will be different from every body else’s. Rest assured, all will turn out fine. Don’t compare, live your life as it comes to you. Set lofty goals, but live now content in what you have.

Your purpose is intertwined with your passions

Do as much of what you love as possible. It is closely related to your purpose for being here.

Be full-on

Don’t be half arsed. Don’t wait for life to be given to you. Take 100% responsibility and make this how you want it. Someone once said: “When you were born you cried and the world rejoiced. Live a life so that when you die, the world cries and you rejoice.” Sounds like good advice to me.

Your natural state is freedom

You are a limitless being. Your awareness is unbounded by time or space. You are more than just your body or your beliefs. You are perfect, exactly as you are. Rest in the heart of your infinite being, be well, live, be free.

Eat your greens

Sleep well, exercise and drink lots of water too…

Excellent. Don't take these seriously now. Enjoy!