Monkey Bars

 

So much of life is like the monkey bars we used to travel across as children.  We loved the monkey bars – swinging from one bar to the next.  One of the first things we had to learn was to let go of the previous bar – or we could never fully get to the next bar – or the next – or the next.

Now I am considering this analogy of the monkey bars in relationship to emotions. 

On my living room wall there is a quip:

PEACE

To bring peace to

The Earth

Strive to make

Your own life peaceful

*****

Countless people talk about wanting more peace in their lives. 

 How many actually take the steps to create peace?

To have true and lasting peace here is the short list of what needs to be released as we travel the monkey bars of the inner landscape:

Wrath

Greed

Sloth

Pride

Lust

Envy

Gluttony

Fear

 

Looking at this list the releasing and letting go is a daunting task.  It would appear this crossing to peace has countless start points.  There is a sense of overwhelm with even this short list. 

Paramahansa Yogananda* has said, “Everything else can wait, but your search for God cannot wait.”  Yogananda recognized this turning in with prayer and meditation is the start point for changing and moving forward. This means prayer and meditation is a must if we want to free ourselves from the suffering inherent in the desires of this world.  The start to any real and lasting change, the kind that can bring lasting peace, the kind that can mean freedom from Wrath, Greed, Sloth, Pride, Lust, Envy, Gluttony, or Fear is prayer and meditation.  I cannot teach these things as I do not have these things fully.  Like you I am a work in progress.  Herein I just point the way to those who can help us out  . . .

I had thought that I had outgrown the need or desire to play on the monkey bars.  Guess not.  Seems I am still crossing the monkey bars.  I have just switched to the monkey bars of the inner landscape.  

Lahiri Mahasaya** often said - ‘BANAT BANAT BAN JAI’.   Literally it means “making, making, one day made”    … or in monkey bar lingo …. letting go of the past and making a life of peace moment by moment by moment through the act of “seek first the kingdom of God and all else will be added unto you.”

 

 

*  http://www.yogananda-srf.org/tmp/py_notitle.aspx?id=44&ekmensel=568fab5c_6_13_btnlink#.VCFr3t90zIU

**Lahiri Mahasaya was born on September 30, 1828, in the village of Ghurni in Bengal, India.  As Lahiri Mahasaya exemplified the highest ideals of Yoga, union of the little self with God, he is reverenced as a Yogavatar, or incarnation of Yoga. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

THE BREATH

The Breath may be a conduit for prayer.  Sometimes as a nurse standing at a patient bedside - in the midst of seeming chaos - for just a moment i find that quiet place.  I breath with or for the patient.  Some in prayer can move beyond the breath -  may use the breath as a jump off point to yet deeper prayer.  We do what we can offering ourselves in service to the people and to Creator.

I may not know what is needed.  

I may be helpless to create what I think or intuit the body needs at that moment. 

 However - even if i do not have the words it is possible to use the breath as a medium of transfer - 

sharing LIFE 

sharing LOVE  

sharing PEACE

 

... And then what some would call a miracle can happen....not FROM the small human at the bedside in prayer - but THROUGH that one who has merely stepped out of the way.