Ahem, You’re Worth WAAAAY More Than THAT!

http://thedailylove.com/ahem-youre-worth-waaaay-more-than-that/
by Mastin Kipp on July 28, 2011

There is another common pattern I’ve been seeing within the #TDL community lately – settling for the first thing that comes along.

Settling is a symptom of a lack of consciousness. We are the co-creators of our lives, which means we, in concert with The Uni-verse, can consciously design what kind of life we want to live. Many of my mentoring clients this week have given into settling. It was a common theme yesterday.

If we consciously design our lives, then why take a job that makes you feel miserable? Why enter a relationship with someone who doesn’t value and cherish you? Why tolerate undesirable circumstances?

The Uni-verse doesn’t award points for martyrdom, unnecessary suffering or low self-esteem. We are Loved by The Uni-verse no matter what, but we were born to live a fulfilled life.

This cannot happen if we settle. If you need money and don’t have enough to live your own creative expression, then you may have to get a job you don’t love, but you have the choice to choose the circumstances. You can design your life to make money and express yourself. You can also choose to see challenging job circumstances as opportunities to grow and be grateful for the contrast of not getting what you want, so you can design what you do want.

Since you are the co-creator of your circumstances and how you respond to them, you get to actively choose what you do with your free time, how you interpret the events of your life and what your final goal is. A dead end job isn’t dead end if it’s helping pay your bills while you construct your masterpiece. Annoying coworkers aren’t annoying if you can see them as helping teach you love, self-love and acceptance.

Regarding dating, we all date at the level of our self-esteem. So if you’re not getting what you truly desire from your relationship, look into the true motives about why you choose who you choose.

Having high standards and not settling requires us to spend more time with and on ourselves, becoming the people it takes to create the life of our dreams. We don’t allow fearful or manipulative people, places and circumstances to dictate our outcome. We’d rather walk alone than with someone who drains us.

You have the same 24 hours in your day as everyone else. You have the same opportunity to apply an empowering and loving meaning to the events and circumstances of your life. You have the opportunity to raise your self-esteem and date at the level of love and vulnerability rather than fear and manipulation.

What are you going to do with this power of choice? Let me know: WhatImGoingThru@TheDailyLove.com

Love,
Mastin

Mastin Kipp is the CEO and Founder of The Daily Love.

More Quotes

µ Friendship
The glory of friendship is not the outstretched hand, nor the kindly smile, nor the joy of companionship. It is the spiritual inspiration that comes to one when he discovers that someone else believes in him, and is willing to trust him with his friendship.
~ Ralph Waldo Emerson 1803-1882

µ Why I Don't Believe in Failure
I don't believe in failure, because simply by saying you've failed, you've admitted you attempted. And anyone who attempts is not a failure. Those who truly fail in my eyes are the ones who never try at all. The ones who sit on the couch and whine and moan and wait for the world to change for them.
~ Sarah Dessen in Keeping the Moon

µ Innocence is what we allow to be gifted back to us once we've given ourselves away.
There is one world only, the one to which we gave ourselves
utterly, and to which one day we are blessed to return.
~ David Whyte

µ If you want to awaken all of humanity, then awaken all of yourself, if you want to eliminate the suffering in the world, then eliminate all that is dark and negative in yourself. Truly, the greatest gift you have to give is that of your own self-transformation.
~ Lao Tzu

µ Pema Chodron: Be Brave When Negativity Strikes
Rather than letting our negativity get the better of us, we could acknowledge that right now we feel like a piece of shit and not be squeamish about taking a good look. That's the compassionate thing to do. That's the brave thing to do.

~Pema Chodron in The Places that Scare You

µ We have to do our best and at the same time give up all hope of fruition.
~ Pema Chodron

µ The beginning of freedom is the realization that you are not the possessing entity — “the thinker”. Knowing this enables you to observe the entity. The moment you start watching the thinker, a higher level of consciousness becomes activated. You then begin to realize that there is a vast realm of intelligence beyond thought, that thought is only a tiny aspect of that intelligence. You also realize that all the things that truly matter — beauty, love, creativity, joy, inner peace — arise from beyond the mind. You begin to awaken.”


~Eckhart Tolle, Tolle is a German/ Canadian spiritual teacher, motivational speaker, and best-selling author of “The Power of Now” and “A New Earth”

Pranayama - Breath

The Universe is breathing us. One day we inhale, and are born. One day we will exhale, and will die. Pranayama is a dance with the breath. For this dance with the Divine, we bow in gratitude.

~ John Friend

* Let the breath be a bridge between body and spirit, a doorway to the present

* Prana or breath, is truly one of yogas greatest gifts, as focus on the breath brings a focus to the present moment and leads to a state of inner peace

*Turn down the volume of the chatter in your mind
Turn up the voice of your own song

* Unify the energies in the room with Pranayama, we all come in from such different environments. That’s so beautiful. We are like different threads weaving a tapestry right now. That’s so cool!

♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥
Breath is aligned with both body and mind
and it alone can bring them together.

~ Thich Nhat Hanh
♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥

* In any quiet moment when you are breathing,
The breath may flow out and pause of itself,
Or flow in and pause of itself.
Here experience opens into exquisite vastness
With no beginning and no end.
Embrace this infinity without reservation.
Dive into it,drink deeply, and emerge renewed

*Pour one breath into the other,
Out-breath into the in-breath
Into the out-breath
Be there, in the harmony of that fusion
Where one rythm turns into the other,
Awaken into equilibrium.
Tending to breath in this way,
Become capable
Of experiencing oneness with the Self

*Breath flows in filling, filling,
Then surrenders to flow out agian.
Breath flows out, emptying, emptying
Offering itself to infinity.
Mind dissolves into heart
Heart dissolves into space
Body becomes a shimmering field
Pulsating between fullness and emptiness

~ The above inspirations are sutras from The Radiance Sutras, Tantra Yoga Teachings For Opening To The Divine In Everyday Life.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

As you inhale, visualize recieving the elements of your life - experiences, people who have touched you, things you are capable of - with gratitude.

Pause after each reflection and take a moment to integrate and fully appreciate feeling fulfilled by these gifts.

As you exhale, imagine sharing that sense of fulfillment with others.

Pause again and imagine those others recieving your offering with a similar sense of gratitude.

The Secret about Tantra & Sex

An article from Elephant Journal, on Tantra
by Ramesh Bjonneson

Jul 24, 2011
http://www.elephantjournal.com/2011/07/the-secret-about-tantra-and-sex/

The spiritual practice of Tantra, this practical path of self-realization, has often been misunderstood and misrepresented. In ancient India, for example, Tantra was often practiced at night in secret by Vedic priests who were bound by dogma not to admit to its powerful transformative effects. In part because Tantra often was practiced in secret at night, it is often associated with black magic in India. In the West, however, we often equate Tantra with sex. But why?

According to noted yoga scholar Georg Feuerstein: In the West,Tantra has most commonly been reduced to “a mere discipline of ritualized or sacred sex. In the popular mind, Tantra has become the equivalent to sex. Nothing could be farther from the truth!”

People in the West sometimes flippantly equate the transcendental bliss achieved in Tantric samadhi (Oneness with Consciousness) with the physical pleasure of sex.

The reason for this misunderstanding has mainly arisen from a lopsided interpretation of the so-called Five M’s. “It is so called,” writes Feuerstein, “because the names of the five ‘ingredients’ or ‘substances’ (draya) in the ritual all start with the letter M: Madya (wine or liquor), Matsya (fish), Mamsa (meat), Mudra (parched grain) and Maithuna (sexual intercourse).

These Five Ms are also referred to as the ‘five principles’ (panca tattva).” Feuerstein decribes how the first four ingredients of these so-called ”left-handed path” practices of Tantra are “all thought to have an aphrodisiacal effect,” although “scholars have speculated a great deal” about the fourth ingredient.

“The final ritual ‘ingredient,’ Maithuna,” he writes, “epitomizes the entire Tantric program… The sexual union between male and female practitioner… the utterly blissful transcendental identity of Shiva and Shakti, God and Goddess.”

But that does not mean, as the mythmakers will want us to believe, that sex epitomizes the entire Tantric program!

In actuality, the spirit of Tantra implies that ordinary activities and enjoyments such as eating, playing, writing, and sex are seen as relative expressions of the Absolute. They are thus imbued with sacredness and spirituality.

In other words, eating large amounts of certain kinds of food or having excessive sexual activity will not automatically intensify one’s spiritual vision. Tantra sees nothing wrong with seeking pleasure as this indeed is the underlying reason for our quest for the ultimate spiritual pleasure, or ananda (bliss). But these mundane pleasures, according to Tantra, are not to be mistaken for the ultimate spiritual union with Brahma, which is the goal of yoga. Moreover, practiced in excess, sexual activity tend to turn us into compulsive slaves rather than liberated souls.

We humans desire and deserve endless pleasure, but pleasure derived solely from the senses, from material things, are limited. Why?

First, the source of pleasure, the physical world, is limited. You may only have so much money or so much sex, it’s not in endless, infinite supply. Thus these finite things cannot satisfy our infinite desires.

Secondly, the mind derives pleasure from objects as long as that object satisfies our karma (or samskaras), that is, our desires are based on unfulfilled fruits of our past actions. But once those past, unfulfilled needs have been fulfilled, we look for new enjoyments.

Thirdly, our sense organs, which enjoy sensual and physical pleasure are themselves limited. They will wear out, get old, used up. What used to feel or taste so good will, after a few dozen or a thousand repetitions, feel somewhat lackluster and boring.

We humans continually look for new stimuli, for new ways to get satisfaction (hence the advertising industry, right? But if you do your yoga right, sooner or later you will realize that nothing in this physical world can give us pleasure forever. The real spiritual pleasure, the real source of love and happiness comes from within, from the spirit world, not from the senses.

Thus the misconception in Western New Age circles that sexual Tantra represent some special pathway to sacred spirituality is contrary to the inner essence of this ancient and sublime practice. Because true, lasting pleasure comes, according to Tantra, not from physical objects and attachments, but from the inner heart of spirit, from the breath within the love-maker’s breath.

The left-handed path as described by Feuerstein above, was originally prescribed by Shiva as a path of moderation–not excess, as is often the case at expensive seminars promoting what Feuerstein calls Neo-Tantrism, and others humorously refer to as California Tantra. This latter from of Tantra is generally a mixture of sex positions from the Kama Sutra (which is not a Tantric text, by the way) mixed with breathing techniques and visualizations. In other words, a potpourri of methods having scant links to the path of Tantra.

The main idea behind the practice of the left-handed path is to practice spirituality (sadhana) while in the midst of enjoyments. It was both prescribed as a means of reducing one’s intake of wine and meat and, at the same time, to harbor Divine feelings while relishing their delights, and ultimately to rise above the transient nature of these earthly pleasures all together.

And for the more serious yogis, those who want more than material wealth and a great looking body, the Five M’s have a different, more subtle meaning. As Feuerstein writes: “In the right-hand schools [the Five M’s] are understood symbolically and are completely internalized.”

Here is a brief overview–based on ancient Tantric slokas (aphorisms)–of how to interpret the the Five Ms when they are internalized:

Madhya (wine)–to enjoy the sudha or somadhara, which, while in deep meditation, is a hormonal secretion from the pineal gland. A second meaning is that it refers to the spiritual aspirant’s ecstatic or intoxicated love of God.

Mamsa (meat)–one who has control over his or her speech, or one who surrenders all actions–good, bad, sinful, righteous, or wicked–to God, is said to be a practitioner of mamsa yoga.


Matsya (fish)–refers to the subtle science of pranayama (breathing exercises), and also to the feeling of deep compassion arising in a spiritual person’s heart.

Mudra (grain)–avoidance of bad company, as bad company leads to bondage and good company leads to liberation.

Maethuna (intercourse)–the purpose of maethuna yoga is to raise the Shakti (divine energy, also called kundalini ), located at the lowest vertebra of the spine, and unite it with Shiva in the spiritual energy center at the top of the head, near the pineal gland.

It is thus more exact to describe Tantra as a comprehensive spiritual science, which is what the word Tantra itself implies. The etymological meaning of Tantra is as follows: tan means to expand and tra means to liberate.

Thus Tantra is the spiritual science which liberates the spiritual practitioner or yogi from limitations, from the mind trapped in delusions, be they physical, mental or spiritual.

Tantra is thus a path, not about sexual indulgence, but a path which personify the very essence of yogic nondualism, of seeking the ultimate and infinite pleasure: oneness, or union with the Divine in everything we see and touch and love.

It is not surprising, then, that this path literally means the path of liberation!

According to Tantra, the omnipresent reality we call God, Spirit, or Brahma from which everything has been created and toward which everything longs to return, is always with us, is always only one breath away, one mantra away from our attention. So, if we pay attention, then anyone, says Tantra, with a human body and a human mind can transcend ordinary existence and realize life’s ultimate moment of pleasure–the cosmic effulgence of God, Spirit or Brahma. Realize it here and now. In this body, on this very earth. Not in heaven, not tomorrow, but Now!

Hips























YES





Summer Love

Sunshine, friends, vibrant colors, abundant scenery, bikes, elevation & gravity, long asana practices, melodic bass, dancing from the inside out, big smiles directed at me.....

What Knees Need

What Knees Need

~*Guru Purnima*~

Infinite gratitude and love to my great teachers, on this plane of existence and on others. Maha pranams.

May we honor our teachers today, those that walk on the planet igniting our inner fire, sharing wisdom, just being... those that exist elsewhere and still teach and love and whose extraordinary light pulses to charge the planet... and the Guru Tattva principle in the Universe, to which we are all aligned.

July 15, 2011

Tees Maar Khan - Sheila Ki Jawani *BluRay*

Thievery Corporation - Amerimacka

Nouvelle Vague - Dance With Me

Ananda Tandava

Ananda Tandava, the blissful dance. Life is a dance, a pulsation of all that is possible. If we choose to join in this dance we can direct the course of our lives and at the same time be open to the unexpected.

DJ Shadow - Live from the ShadowSphere

One of the best shows I've ever been too!






I love this track.....among others...

Goals and Priorities

Take a minute sometime today to sit down and write out your goals. Then write your priorities based on your goals. Before you begin answer the following questions:


What are the five things you value the most in life?
In 30 seconds write: what are the three most important goals in your life right now?
What would you do if you won a million dollars?
What would you do if you only had six months to live? What would your priorities be?
What have you always wanted to do but been afraid to attempt?
What gives you your greatest feeling of importance or purpose?
What one great thing would you dare to dream if you knew you couldn’t fail?


Goals:
Lifetime: When you look back from your deathbed, what will you be happy with?
Ten years:
One year:
One month:
Priorites:


List the above based upon importance.

Love

Love many things, for therein lies the true strength, and whosoever loves much perfoms much, and can accomplish much, and what is done in love is done well.
~Vincent Van Gogh



Love looks not with eyes, but with the mind.
~William Shakespeare



Love is a many splendid thing. Love lifts us up where we belong. All you need is love!
~From the movie 'Moulin Rouge'



The art of love... is largely the art of persistence.
~Albert Ellis


Love is space and time measured by the heart.
~Marcel Proust

Love is a meeting of two souls, fully accepting the dark & the light within each other bound by the courage to grow through struggle into bliss.

~ Jackson Kiddard


Quotes

"Know that Grace has the power to transform everything you aspire to. So aspire to the highest, and offer yourself to that Grace. Grace will hold you every step of the way. Anusara is a path of Grace." 
~John Friend




Adyashanti's Emptiness Dancing - A few passages, slightely edited...
"[Real love] is pre-existing... Possibly the only fear greater than death is love, real love. Finding out that you do love, that this is your nature, is the beginning of the end for everything in you that thinks it is separate... There is no such thing as loving once and then not loving...

True love has nothing to do with liking someone... It is a love of unity, a love of seeing God... This is a love that has no opposite...but is present in everything... When you realize this, it is a revolution because [this love] loves the unlovable, loves what you're not supposed to love or what you were not allowed to love culturally, and is not paying attention to the separating rules of ego...this is a different kind of love... This love is timeless. This love is uncontained...

The truly sacred love is the love of what is, not a love of what could be. This love liberates what is..."

Adyanshanti's book, Falling into Grace:

"Grace is something that comes to us when we somehow find ourselves completely available - when we become open-hearted and open-minded, and are willing to entertain the possibility that we may not know what we think we know. In this gap of not knowing, in the suspension of any conclusion, a whole other element of life and reality can rush in."





"Open Up to Life as It Is":

"When you open yourself to the continually changing, impermanent, dying nature of your being and of reality, you increase your capacity to love and care about other people and your capacity to not be afraid. You're able to keep your eyes open, your heart open, and your mind open. And you notice when you get caught up in prejudice, bias, and aggression. You develop an enthusiasm for no longer watering those negative seeds, from now until the day you die. And you begin to think of your life as offering endless opportunities to start doing things differently."
 ~Pema Chodron


"You can find the Divine in your longing."
~Kabir




"Awakening is a shift in perspective.
And if you shift your perspective,
it can help you awaken."
~Sally Kempton

"On the path of love, we are always beginners."O Lord, lead me to the state of undying awareness -that is nectar. Lead me from the death of "in-awareness"
and from being "non-present" to the Nectar of Presence."
~Sally Kempton

We never really know the depths of Love."

~Sally Kempton






"Adore and love God with your whole being,
and He will reveal to you that everything
in the universe is a vessel to be filled to the brim
with wisdom and beauty. Each thing He will show you
is one drop from the boundless river of His
infinite beauty. He will take away the veil that hides
the splendor of each thing that exists, and you
will see that each thing is a hidden treasure
because of its divine fullness."

"Love is the sea where the intellect drowns."

"Because of Love, I am a giver of Light."

"Only from the heart, can you touch the sky."

"This Divine Love, beckons us to a world
beyond only lovers can see,
with their eyes of fiery passion."

"Oh, my friend, all that you see of me,
is just a shell, and the rest belongs to love."

"Love rests on no foundation.
It is an endless ocean,
with no beginning or end."

"The way you make love,
is the way God will be with you."

"There is some kiss we want with our whole lives,
the touch of spirit on the body."

~Rumi