David Deida remarked, “One of the biggest misunderstandings of all spiritual practices is that you have to do something to realize something. And if you think that, then indeed you do have to do something to realize something. But you don’t have to think that.
That’s the end of this evening. Any questions? (laughter)

It is always entertaining to me to find out what people think that they have to do, and it is twice as entertaining to hear what they think they are going to get from doing it.

I don’t know anyone who has gotten anything from any spiritual practice for sure, that I know of. I know a lot of people who have grown over time. Some of those people have done lots of spiritual practice, some have done none. I’m sure that you know that too.

I think that if you do spiritual practice correctly, it reflects and undoes your habits of closure so that when you stop doing those habits you are left in your natural state, which is wide open, loving, radiant, happy, sane.

But we tend not to do that. We tend to freeze up, and put barriers between us and other people, and barriers between us and ourselves in our mind. We might have 50 different parts of our minds speaking at the same time.“

The premise of this blog is to write about my personal experience. What’s working for me. I offer it as stories, a series of suggestions, things to play with. The idea is that some of it will be relevant enough for you that it will spark your own ideas that are useful for you in navigating your experience.

My personal experience goes something like this: at some point I stumbled onto the realization that neither running away from my problems (suppression, denial, distraction, etc, etc) nor the opposite extreme of wallowing in the drama of them was terribly useful for making them any better, for helping me end my habits of closure as Deida says.

What did and does help is first noticing that something is happening and then noticing from that objective part of me while I am also fully feeling it, accepting it and even being grateful for it. The exact results of this are variable, from the thought/feeling passing quickly to a lengthy succession of difficult experiences happening one after the other… pain, crying, etc. Some habits are easy to break. Others take more effort.

And it is not that these things go away and never come back. Indeed they are always available. The one thing that is consistent, though is that they get easier and easier to be with. I get more comfortable with them to the point that when they come I do not immediately react with running or wallowing, but have a choice about how to be in them… “Wow, I’m really frightened. My belly is a rock and my throat hurts. I can see an entire drama arising in my mind about this. I think that I will watch that drama like a movie playing in my mind and not act on it. I can see that it is not true, just what my mind is creating to make sense of this fear that I am feeling.”

This kind of liberation is an immense blessing. Not being ruled by fear, jealousy, greed, anger, pain, etc. is wonderful. And of course, sometimes I am able to notice and accept and sometimes I get swamped and run or wallow long before I ever realize that something worth noticing is even happening.

I’ve quit the idea that I will ever be able to achieve an enlightened, total awareness state using this method. That kind of spiritual state seems to happen on its own and in its own time regardless of what I do or don’t do. Grace, as Mooji says, just happens. So I do what I can to be as sane as possible.

And, in the mean time, I am reassured by the Buddha’s idea of The Middle Way, which contrary to its name is not, as I like to interpret it, about staying in the middle between extremes, but about allowing all of the extremes (including the middle). The Middle Way, as I live it, says that I should accept all parts of life, all ends of the spectrums; that sometimes I will need one extreme and sometimes another and sometimes I will need the places in between. The Middle Way, or Middle Path does not embrace one way, but all ways, it stays at the mid point of acceptance… accepting everything.

Finally, lately I’ve learned that enjoying this entire process of opening, indeed choosing to enjoy all of life, is REALLY helpful! And a lot more fun. Thus The Joy Lab was born. My life has become a laboratory for exploring joy, which I am happy to share with you in the hopes that it will help you on your journey as well.

We are rich resources for each other.

Enjoy,

Elena