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Photo of me

Today was a hard day for me. Emotionally. This coming back to “the real world” for a few days was harder than I thought. It’s not hard in the sense of commodities and living (here I have even more than I need, and maybe that’s the problem), but it opened my eyes once more to what we think a “normal life” is. How is it possible that the world revolves around so so many things, objects, material possessions that people think will make them happy? What hurts me deep inside is knowing that most of those things are tinted in blood and suffering. And in the end, it isn’t even going to be sold. Most things will end up being thrown away and forgotten. Forgotten the same way as we forget the unjust trade that is behind most of the things we buy. And our Mother Earth??? Is it really necessary to make her suffer this way? Cutting her open again and again, making her scream… and then, we will be the ones screaming and crying in terror asking why she fights back… I don’t know… Today I feel angry, but mostly sad. I feel like my 15 year old self crying all the time because I can’t hold the weight of the world on my shoulders. Sure you will tell me it mustn’t affect me so much, it mustn’t affect me that millions of people are refugees in one point of the world with nothing, not even a country!, while others are just filling their homes with things. I used to believe that too. I repeated for many years ‘don’t be too sensitive’. Now I understand that fighting it doesn’t serve ME personally. I cried today. But I also understood a deeper truth about myself: I NEED and WANT it to affect me. I don’t want to ignore the pain. I want it to be here by my side, suffering and pain, because they make me stronger and more able to fight to make myself, and whomever I can help, a better version of themselves. This pain only makes me want to do something more. And if that is the purpose of my suffering right now, it is more than welcome to stay.

 Photo by me in Vietnam

If I died right now, my life would have been worth living with all its ups and all its downs. You see, I used to be terrified of Death. My own death, but especially the death of people close to me. But now, I’m not afraid anymore. I understand that without Death, life wouldn’t exist. I understand that darkness is more necessary than light sometimes, because only Emptiness can contain Something, Everything. I’ve decided that I am done. I am done fighting to change things, done trying to do or be something for me or for anyone. Done. I am just going to flow and see where every moment takes me. Death is only another fancy word for change. Really, it doesn’t exist. Change is the only thing that I can trust forever. I guess this is what they mean when they say Surrender? I don’t even need tags or words anymore. Just being is enough now.

  
••• Photo by Hinton Faram •••

After yesterday’s powerful equinox, today we welcome officially Autumn in the Northern Hemisphere, and Spring in the Southern Hemisphere. Let us all feel this change in our environmental reality and let it produce the greatest change inside us making us realise and recognise the true nature of our minds, and therefore, of our very own existence. Like the leaves that will be falling off the trees in half of our beloved Gaia, Mother Earth, let us not grasp or cling to anything and learn to let go of every cause of suffering that we might be creating for ourselves. And like the rebirth of flowers and trees in the other half of the Earth, let love and compassion blossom in your heart towards all sentient beings. Nothing ever dies because everything, in the end, is only eternal change, action, movement, what we call Karma. Happy change of season for everyone! Shanti Om. 

 Photo by me in Vietnam

I am realising more and more how things just ARE. • I have been on this yogic journey to the self for 10 years or more, and I truly believe the practice is only opening up to me now. • I had a moment yesterday where I suddenly ‘understood’ something I was trying not to see for whatever reason. • Change happens, that we all know. • Change IS the only constant AND base of existence. • But change cannot be controlled. • Change cannot be trained to give you what you want. • We cannot change the world, or change people, or change situations. • We can only control our own minds, our own reactions, perspectives, beliefs and ways of seeing. • Change will always find a way to help us change our ways of being. • We don’t need to control it, guide it, or fear it. • This is the simplest and most complicated thing in the world for me: we just have to BE. • If we truly learn and practice just being, change will work its magic. • LIFE will always guide us. • We co-create reality with this. • By acceptance and practice of what is, we open the door to Eternity. •••

••• Photo by Hinton Faram •••

How could I explain that lately I’ve been feeling so many emotions, but at the same time I feel I cannot feel enough? • I can’t identify with them, and I fear I lose part of my…self? • These thoughts have been haunting me, because once again, I am trying to grasp with my mind something that is out of its reach. • Also, I’ve been practising for many months, maybe years now, I don’t know, how to detach myself from anything that is not permanent. So I’ve been observing… and falling into my own patterns again and again. But this time I was observing. • What they say is true, it’s all about learning at your own pace, your own process must unfold. It might take a day, years, lives… Now I get it. • I will just keep observing and learning and maybe one day, I won’t need to fall again to know.