30 Days + of Gratitude ~ Day 11

1. I'm grateful to Linda Casto for inviting me to my first performance of the Gay Men's Chorus.  They did this awesome and hilarious rendition of the Nutcracker (though I haven't ever seen the Nutcracker).  Got me in the Holiday spirit...
2. I'm grateful for the nectar still flowing through my Heart from chanting with Steve Ross at Maha Yoga tonight.
3. I'm grateful for this week of warm, sunny weather.  While I have a whole romantic relationship to colder weather, everything softens more in me in warmer weather.  
4. I'm grateful for friendships that weather time, storms, relationship changes, and so so many things...revealing the profound love and joy we share between us.  You all know who you are, thank you!  Some of you might not...yet ;)
5. I'm grateful for confidence.  Not that it's ever a done deal, always expanding, a deep expression of Trust itself....nonetheless, uber grateful for the palpable depth I keep seeing in my own.

Winter SOULstice Breathwork @ The Hub - This Friday 12/18 8-9:30pm

Winter SOULstice Breathwork ~ Excavating The Light

This Friday night, December 18th I’ll be leading the breathwork at The Hub in West LA.  This evening is for all levels of experience with the breath.

Winter Solstice is a time when the Sun is furthest from the Earth...it is a time great for connecting more deeply with the Light of your own Awareness within.  Take a break from the busy doing-ness of the holidays to recharge your batteries...to connect through the Power of breath and Awareness to the Truth that’s always inviting you deeper Within.

When:       FRIDAY night 12/18/09  8-9:30pm
                    ((Arrive early to avoid being late))

Exchange:       $25

Where:      The Hub (http://thehub-la.com)
                    2001 S Barrington Ave, Suite 150, Los Angeles, CA 90025-5363 US
                    { S Barrington Ave between LaGrange and Mississippi }
                    Entrance for the Hub is located on street level at the ground floor of the
                    parking structure located on South Barrington Avenue.
Bring:          Yoga mat and/or blanket-we'll be sitting on the floor at first then lying down
                     for the breathwork.

RSVP:        You can reserve your spot through The Hub  310-575-4200

Love,
Scott
http://trustthebreath.com
http://scottschwenk.blogspot.com

30 Days + of Gratitude ~ Day 5

1. I am grateful for Shri Surya, the Sun!  After several days of much needed rain here in LA, the Sun was out this morning.  Every morning I do about an hour or so of practices, and today, got to do them in the Sun once again.  Wow!  What an enormous unstoppable force of Grace that gives unconditionally to everything.  
2. I am grateful for the previous days of clouds that magnified the depth of my appreciation and gratitude for today's Sunshine.
3. I am grateful for my morning practices, consisting of chanting, breath, meditation, and writing and my dedication to them.  Chanting the ancient stanzas of the Guru Gita (a profound conversation between Shiva and his wife Parvati (or Shakti) about the True nature of the Teacher/Student relationship...exposing through direct experience, the Teacher within) clears my head, my body, my throat, and energizes my capacity for Awareness-in-action.
4. I am grateful that I like and love myself.  This was hard-won, and a commodity that cannot be priced and brings appreciation and value to everything I engage with.  I'm not always present to it consciously (hence my practices for remembering), but it's always there when I look within to see.
5. I am grateful for my Macbook Pro and the Internet.  The list of gifts from both these items to me is nearly endless ~ research, writing, connecting with amazing beings all over the planet.

Absolute Monarchy

"You must have Absolute Monarchy over your inner world," someone said to me recently.

When the King doesn't know he's the King, doesn't sit powerfully in the seat, the role, of the King, he won't be King for long. You and I are have been wandering through this life, mostly deluded into believing something is missing, wrong, not quite ready, almost there...about ourselves! And the Truth of the matter is we are Whole, Perfect, Complete...what in Sanskrit is referred to as Purna.

There is a beautiful prayer/mantra in the Upanishads that is said to encapusulate the whole of the Upanishads. (The Upanishads have exerted an important influence on the rest of Hindu philosophy and were collectively considered one of the 100 Most Influential Books Ever Written by the British poet Martin Seymour-Smith (Wikipedia, 11/09).) In this prayer it is said,

Om. That is Perfect. This is Perfect. From the
Perfect springs the Perfect. If the perfect is
taken from the Perfect, the Perfect remains.

Like that little boy in "The Matrix" in the scene just before Neo goes in to meet with the Oracle hoping to find out he is. This monk-ish little boy, wrapped in white, playing at bending spoons with just the power of his Awareness, tells Neo, "It is not the spoon that bends, it is your mind that bends" (giving the 'appearance' that the spoon has bent).

The ancient philosophy of Vedanta encourages us to see Truly. And that to cultivate the ability to see Reality as It is, we need the support of discrimination; the ability to know the difference between fantasy and Reality, between projection/illusion and things as they really are. If you're walking down a dirt road in the middle of the night in Costa Rica, and up ahead you see something long, thick, and curvy laying across the middle of the road, it may be a snake...or a rope. Whichever you believe it is in the moment will determine whether your heart nearly thumps out of your ribcage believing it to be a dangerous snake, or you go on enjoying a peaceful walk as you step over the rope.

How many situations have I walked through in my life, attempting to rearrange the situation rather than my own point of view? The Buddhists call this act rearranging the furniture in a burning house. And another teacher laughs when he calls this way of walking through life, rearranging the deck-chairs on the Titanic.

Swami Muktananda of Ganeshpuri would say often, "The world is as you see it. If you don't like the world you see, change the prescription of your glasses."

We live in a time when so many of the greatest and most potent of teachings once passed from teacher to student in secret after many years of preparation are now out strewn out in books and youtube videos for anyone to find. How will we recognize these Diamond-sharp tools? Will we, and do we, mistake them for blunt, useless instruments?

I can have the best vegetable seeds on the market, harvested from plants grown with great attention and love in idyllic conditions on the most Organic farm known to man (I'm salivating...ha ha ha!). I can plant those seeds in my roof garden today. But if the soil hasn't been nurtured, and if I don't water and care for those seeds consistently over time, it won't matter how amazing the promise of great plants might be, nothing is going to grow in those conditions.

I came across some of the most potent teachings of my life over twenty years ago, but didn't recognize them. I was too busy hunting for anything that would give me a big peak experience. In my book it was all about gathering enough of these peak experiences, out-of-body moments, and overwhelming energy encounters, and amassing a lot of them. Then if I could string them all together, I could live in one big extended peak experience for life. So tell me, how is that any different that any other kind of addict? Seeking a peak experience from a bottle, a pill, a whatever? The only difference being that my addiction was legal and encouraged widely in the spiritual marketplace.

After years of this cat and mouse game with myself, I'm now (mostly) at the place where I know that biggest focus of my path is inside of me, if not the only useful focus. What am I believing? Can I know it's the Truth for certain? What happens when I believe "x"? What's here when I let go of all beliefs and sit quietly in gratitude and appreciation of this Moment exactly as it is, without a story or narration going in the background...just this moment, this inhalation, exactly as it is...not a good inhalation, not a bad inhalation, just the breath circulating.

And in this moment of just simple awareness of my own breath, I am present. When I am present, this Presence burns off the image of dark threatening clouds, revealing the Sun always steadily shining within.

Do I really need one more book? One more lecture? One more technique? Or do I have everything I need right Here? Am I willing to cultivate this garden over time, protecting the little Oak Tree shoots until they're strong and tall with deep roots, and broad leaves that give shade to anyone who's ready to rest in the Oasis of Reality?

I Am.

Letting The Sun In

"I think I'm solar-powered."

If I had a dollar for every time I've said that in the last few months...

And I'm pretty sure it's closer to the truth than even I know. Every morning I go up to the roof to water my garden, and spend anywhere from half an hour to an hour in the Sun, consciously. Each day I thank it, and aim to connect past some of it's more obvious attributes, like light and heat, into what it is that makes the Sun such a central force through all of Life, through my life.

Along the way, I've gathered some intel -- like this little tidbit: apparently skipping sunglasses, while a fashion faux-pas in Los Angeles, is a crucial component for how the body deals with exposure to the Sun. The eyes have a role in working with the Sun that the body is exposed to in a good way.

And I've also gathered some Yankee Inginuity from the sweat of my own brow, literally. On the days when I spend time in the Sun, I need less sleep, have more energy, and find my mood more balanced and leaning in the direction of more general happiness and ease.

Recently when I was down with some version of the Flu, who knows if it was Flu 1.0 or 2.0, sick was sick...I needed more life-force, and getting it from my morning Yerba Mate brew wasn't cutting muster. My intution told me to get out in the Sun, and get out there with nothing between me and the Sun, for days in a row. I opened my imagination, and invited the Sun to fill every part of my body, mind, and Being. And fill it up it did! After each session I felt a dramatic spike in my energy levels. Turns out this is an ancient Taoist longevity practice for men. The one for women involves Moon bathing.

The moral to the story? Get out in the Sun....fall in Love with the Sun and all it offers, all it nurtures, all it supports, namely You :)