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hey say people who meditate are less stressed out, but I don't really feel that's the case with me. I'm a chronic worrier by nature, so I feel it would take a hurculean effort far greater than my normal meditation routine to change that situation. Lately, though, I've been catching myself unabashedly thinking about work in the middle of prayers. My fingers push the beads around on auto-pilot while one part of my brain repeats the correct phrase, and another part draws red exclamation marks all over my mental list of people I need to email and details I need to remember.

This has to stop. Not because I know that's not a great way to pray, because that's obvious. But because when I am immersed in prayer, there's a real rest that takes place. A burden is lifted and shared. Someone takes the other handle of the mental laundry basket, and walks in a way that's supportive and doesn't cause me to trip all over myself balancing out the load. When this doesn't happen I'm just spinning my wheels and denying that help. Which is, unfortunately, a habit of mine, but not one that I want to continue. It's nice to have some help sometimes.

Posted by Satya at 10:58 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

y prayer muscle must still be working, because last week we found and bought a house within three days. There are still a few things to be finalized, but it looks like I'm well on my way to Fairfax living, probably early in October. Of course receiving what I asked for isn't as straightforward as it might seem, and the excitement is tempered by the requisite doubt and fear of dream becoming reality. This move is going to be a major transition in my life, and having just turned twenty-nine the entire situation now represents a new era of adulthood. Whatever happened to just moving in with my boyfriend to some low-commitment city pad? It seems we've skipped a few steps, but I guess we never really were an of-the-mold couple.

It's a funny thing about prayer, to ask and then receive. Because in that transaction I realize I might actually enact some lofty ideal, and it feels forbidden to have a moment of just being that ideal person, the one who lives in Fairfax in a house with her dog and the love of her life. To have become too much, or even just enough, instead of being lacking. Just a moment, because if renunciation isn't the next step the object attained will consume one, or so I've read. But that moment....

Posted by Satya at 10:23 PM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

or the past couple weeks I've had the 'D' word hanging over my head, as in deadline. Several deadlines, in fact. Part of me thrives on this much work because I really like to hunker down and focus, and procrastination is completely out of the question. But it's very hard to keep a balance of activity and repose, as Murshid recommends. His own schedule was pretty amazing. He would rise early, and his whole day was a balance of meditation, intense work, and rest periods that he would usually spend playing with his children. It sounds great but in practice it takes a lot of concentration to be able to switch gears.

Mostly it's hard to truly relax when I'm all wound up from working. I take the dog out in the afternoons and the fresh air is like a revelation. Dreams at night have been anxiety-ridden - my anxiety dream standby is that I have to go back to finish high school or college, neither of which I finished in real life, and take the SAT, which I also skipped out on. My diet is a nightmare of caffeine, carbohydrates, and sugar, occasionally lubricated with alcohol. So obviously I have a lot yet to master in terms of balance, but still, the satisfaction of accomplishing so much gives a secretly sweet taste of success.

Posted by Satya at 9:36 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)