One of my students from Lithuania sent me this. What a great definition of true freedom. I love the idea of innocence.

“Let your life become a celebration”

“Life has the potential to become a song of bliss, but there is every possibility of missing it too. It is not a certainty, there is no inevitability about it. It depends: you can make it, you can destroy it. Out of one hundred, ninety-nine point nine percent of people destroy their song of bliss. Then their life is nothing but a cry, a scream of pain and agony. But they have chosen it that way; nobody else is ever responsible.

“This is the first truth to be learned in life: that you are always responsible, nobody else. With that comes great freedom, because with that all alternatives are open. If you think that somebody else is responsible then you are a slave; then nothing is open. Then you have to be what you are. If your life is a tragedy then it has to be a tragedy, because others are responsible; unless they change, nothing can be done about it. You don’t have any freedom.

“And that is the reason why millions of people live in misery: they think others are creating their misery. Nobody is creating your misery, nobody can create it; and nobody can create your bliss either. It is a totally individual phenomenon. It is just your work upon yourself. And the most strange thing is: to create misery is difficult and to create bliss is easy, but people always choose the difficult thing, because the difficult thing always gives them an ego-trip.

“The ego is not interested in easy things; the ego is interested only in difficult things. The more impossible a thing looks, the more attractive it feels for the ego, because the ego feels a challenge, and only through challenge can it conquer, can it prove to the world ’I am somebody special.’

Misery gives you challenge: bliss is very simple. Trees are blissful, birds are blissful. It needs no special talent to be blissful. To be miserable needs talents, one has to be really very very clever to be miserable. Bliss is innocent; you can be blissful without any education, but you cannot be miserable without any education, remember! It is very difficult. You need degrees, universities, mm? then only do you become skillful.

So the first truth has to sink deep in the heart: ’I am always responsible for whatsoever I am. Bliss or misery, this is my choice. If I have chosen to be miserable, then there is no need to be sad
about it; this is my choice and I am doing my thing.’ Feel happy that you have succeeded in being miserable! If this is not your choice, drop it immediately, drop all those patterns that create it and start creating new patterns, new doors from where bliss starts flowing.

“For example, the person who wants to be miserable has to think in terms of fighting with life; that is his gestalt. He is always fighting. The person who wants to be blissful has to be a non-fighter, surrendered to life, in a kind of let-go. The person who wants to be miserable has to create great ideals, has to make impossible demands upon himself. Then only can you be miserable; otherwise you will not be miserable. You have to be this, you have to be that, and when you cannot be, frustration settles in.

“The man who wants to be blissful has no ideals at all, he is a non-idealist; he is a realist. The miserable person is always an idealist. The happy person, the blissful person, is a realist: he lives moment to moment with no ideals. You cannot frustrate him because he has no expectations.

“The miserable person always condemns himself because he is not rising high enough to fulfill the demands. He is a constant condemner; he lives in self-condemnation.

“The blissful person is very accepting of himself. He makes no demands. He is relaxed, at ease with himself; he loves himself as he is. So you have to watch: that which creates misery, drop; and that which brings bliss like a flood, create that space in you. And my whole effort here is to make each of my sannyasins a song of bliss: not miserable saints, not long faces, but celebrants! I am interested in celebrants, not in saints at all. So let your life become a celebration; and it is up to you!”

Osho,
“Turn On, Tune In and Drop the Lot”

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We are constantly talking to ourselves. I call that conversation our inner dialog and beginning to make that dialog conscious is a huge step toward achieving personal freedom. The thoughts we have are often things we would never say out loud to another person.

I have a vivid imagination and can just picture a world in which, just for a day, everyone’s thoughts were broadcast from a tiny speaker affixed to each person head.  I imagine there would be lots of disagreements and surprise revelations. Some people might profess their love while others create huge rifts in most of their relationships. (more…)

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Comments(1)

Aloha,

What are you going to create this year? What is your intent? This time of year I like to look back, review last years intent and observe, gently and lovingly my results.

Many people in my life changed address (died) last year and my life is very different. It is amazing how death can give you such a profound sense of gratitude for life. I was able to hold my dads hand as he took his last breath.

I have been practicing using my breath a lot lately. Breathing in love and breathing out anything unlike love. Each breath is a gift of life from our spirit and I find acknowledging that and allowing myself to feel that at a profound level changes my experience of life as well as the way I ‘see’ life.

A connection with our spirit can only occur when we quiet our mind and step into the stillness of our spirit. The ability to that while immersed in the busyness of life is one of the greatest skills we can acquire.

So what is your intent for this year and what actions are you going to take on a daily basis to make it so?

With love and aloha,
Susan

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Aloha everyone,

When I first moved to Hawaii I held classes on healing the inner child. Interestingly enough 20 years later I was asked to speak at a The Center for Spiritual Living in Waikoloa on the month that the theme is the divine child. So I decided to speak about the divine inner child. Funny how things come full circle.

Whenever I am asked to speak I begin to meditate on the topic and I am often pleasantly surprised by what comes up. I may try to record the talk and post an MP3 on my web site.

I know most of my readers live all over the world, but for you lucky few that do live in Hawaii I invite you to join me on December 6th, at 9:30 AM. The service begins with a meditation. The Center for Spiritual Living meets at the Waikoloa Elementary School Library (at the end of Paniolo Avenue in Waikoloa Village). Meditation begins at 9:30 a.m. Regular services begin at 10:00 a.m.

• December 6, 2009 at 9:30 a.m
• Center for Spiritual Living
• Waikoloa Elementary School Library
• Waikoloa, HI on the Big Island

Hope to see some of you there. And by all means pass the message along.

With love and aloha,
Susan

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Aloha everyone,.

I just posted this on my beliefnet blog and decided to post it here too! Hope to see you on the 31st!

Halloween has long been one of my favorite holidays. When I was little I loved dressing up to go trick or treating and bringing home lots of candy. My mom always made my Halloween costumes. One year she made me look like a monkey from the Wizard of Oz. The tail had a wire in it and as soon as I stepped out of the front door the neighborhood’s dogs took off in pursuit. She said I grabbed my tail and ran as fast as I could while she laughed hysterically.

As do most holidays Halloween has its roots in several different traditions.  In the Celtic tradition it was called Samhain (pronounced sow-in) and it was the celebration of the harvest and the end of a year. Traditionally all the fires were extinguished and the hearths cleaned to honor the changing of the seasons. Then torches would be light from one great fire and all the hearths would be relight and kept burning until the next year.

It was believed that the veil between the worlds was at its thinnest and it became a time to honor the ancestors and the souls of loved ones that had died. Eventually fear crept in and people began to create rituals to protect themselves. Men would light a torch and run around the boundary of their fields to ward off fairies and other beings that might cause mischief. Since the spiritual boundary is thinner angels are also better able to reach out and touch our lives, so it can also be viewed as a time of love and healing.

Somewhere around the birth of Jesus the Romans conquered the Celtic people. Slowly their celebration of the goddess Pomona replaced or blended with the Celtic tradition. Pomona was often depicted as a nymph, a goddess of orchards, particularly apples and nut orchards. Later as Christianity overtook the land the Catholics added All Saint’s day and Soul Day or the Day of the Dead.

The word Halloween comes from middle English and refers to All Hallow Eves, or the holy evening before All Saints Day. Stories of witches and evil beings proliferated when the Catholic Church tried to stop the ancient practices of Samhain  and encourage people to celebrate Christian martyrs and saints instead.Stories of witches and black magic began to grow and the original sacred nature of the celebration faded into history.

Halloween is a mixture of many beliefs and many traditions. I prefer to believe that the only thing that is real is love. I believe that only the pure unconditional love of God is real and that fear is an illusion created by our belief that we are some how separate from God. From that perspective I see Halloween as a wonderful opportunity to let go of any limiting or fear based beliefs and renew our connection to our spirit.

Next Thursday I will be talking more about the mythology and symbolism of Halloween. On Halloween night I will be doing a beautiful ceremony/prayer/meditation designed to honor our ancestors, help our loved ones move on, assist us in letting go of any fear or limitations and deepen our connection with the angelic realms.  I invite you to attend.

With love and aloha,
Susan

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