No matter who you are, some days are more challenging than others, but there’s nothing like a power nap to refresh the muses. And so we push on…

Thus far my intention in this blog has to been to establish the personal and spiritual foundation I’ve spent the last year building, allowing a new perspective on what journalists call the 5Ws (and one H); the Who What Where Why When and How I came to be me right now. In the rooms (a reference to 12-step meetings) there’s a great saying: “Just look down at your feet, and that’s where you are.” Venerable guru Ram Dass wrote “Be Here Now.” Buddhists and others stand on “mindful awareness.” All are correct and appropriate. It’s like that old joke, How many psychiatrists does it take to change a light bulb? Only one, but the light bulb really has to want to change.

I wear reading glasses and am quick to notice that when one of the lenses is smudged, I don’t see clearly. So I’m approaching this blog with a similar p.o.v., by framing my lessons and perspectives with some balance, like adjusting the right-left volume in stereo headphones. Yes, I read the Bible and at the same time find awareness in the Buddha’s words. Now, dear readers, we can really talk about the title of this post and its roots.

I’d be remiss if I didn’t “shout out” a personal guide who helped me through this puzzle. She was (still is) someone I found outside the realm of traditional therapy (to which I also defer.) This person, a neighbor actually, refers to herself as a Shaman (Shamaness?) and I won’t disagree; her approach to helping others combines varied disciplines, from Native American spirit work to Chakra guidance, sound therapy to everyday common sense. Early on she had me reading books from “popular” author Marianne Williamson (don’t knock her ’til you’ve tried her) to the well-regarded Don Miguel Ruiz’s modern classic The Four Agreements. (If you’re not familiar with his deeply simple guideposts, please take one minute and click here.)

After about a year conversing (“meeting” is the wrong term) with Mata-Ji, as she likes to be known, we finally hit on an epiphany, aka that enlightening “Aha” moment. In our sessions, we brought to the table certain truths that cut across religious, social and philosophical frontiers. (Eventually we also touched on quantum theory and the time space-continuum, but I’ll save that for a future post…or a past one?) Anyway…

If you’ve been reading along so far, you know that initially I established that my outlooks by searching for lessons of forgiveness, yet I didn’t, couldn’t really, stop there. Because one good turn leads to another, those verses brought me to other meaninful and related points on the spiritual compass; true attributes like compassion, kindness, charity, and so on.

Eventually I came to call these uplifiting aphorisms “universals“, because undeniably they make up the framework of any religion, doctrine or discipline (or should!) Call them what you will — I’ll borrow “truths that shall be self-evident” from our founding fathers — but anyone with a conscience would agree that the keys to a more humanistic and self-aware way of living surely make you a better person.

Since now we’re really deep in the heart (chakra) of why I began this thread, I’m going to keep things green and sign off for the moment, as I think we need one more post to adequately wrap this up. (A jr. high social studies teacher, Mr. Marshall, had this classic response ready when asked the expected length of an assigned essay; “It should be like a bikini; short enough to be interesting but long enough to cover the subject.”)

Speaking of “homework” (haha) I’ll just mention two books that can probably help better explain all this: guru/author Jack Kornfield’s Jesus and Buddha: The Parallel Lessons and two by our pal Thich Nhat Hanh; Going Home: Jesus and Buddha as Brothers, and Living Buddha, Living Christ. All three are still in print and easily found on the internet.

Namaste for now…