February 2010
Volume 10 Number 2
Volume 10 Number 2
Magnificence! Maui Retreat February 11-16
(Residential is full)
Non-residential Available ~ Six Days
About Katie Davis, Advaita Spiritual Teacher Non-dual Private Counseling, Satsang or Spiritual Guidance Non-dual Articles Advaita Bookstore
Live Satsang What is Advaita, Advaita Vedanta What is Satsang Free Advaita, Satsang Videos and Spirituality Interviews Free Spirtual E-books
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Satsang and Advaita Related Organizations Spirituality and Advaita Vedanta Publications Calendar, Schedule of Advaita Satsang Contact Katie Davis
Katie Davis Satsang Teacher, Non-duality, Self-Inquiry, Spirituality, Non-dual Satsang
Author, "Awake Joy: The Essence of Enlightenment"
Friends of the Heart
Day Use 7:00 am ~ 10:00 pm (all optional, all included): three vegetarian meals (vegan & raw foods options), sauna 50 ft. lap pool, Jacuzzi and sundeck, plenty of outdoor shaded meditation areas and still room
Sample Schedule:
Morning Sauna, Breakfast, Yoga, Two Hour Satsang with Sundance & KatieLunch in Grand Villa or Oceanview Lanai ~ Open ~ Late Afternoon Two Hour Satsang with Sundance & KatieSunset Dinner in Grand Villa or Oceanview Lanai ~ Open ~One Hour Silent Satsang with Sundance & Katie ~ Evening Sauna or Jacuzzi Last Day ~ Five Hour Cruise to Molokini and Turtle Town ~ Whale Watch & SnorkelingIncludes Breakfast, Lunch and Snorkeling Equipment 55 ft. Double Deck Catamaran ~ Lani KaiAvailable at Residential Group Rates: Massage and Body Care Treatments with Doreena Additional Private Yoga with Meenakshi Angel Honig (Maui) ~ Energetic Healing with Amara (Portland)
When we shift attention from compulsive thinking into the physical body, we become more aware of how we are feeling emotionally. The emotion that we are currently feeling is always a perfect reflection of our thinking.
The mind is more than our superficial thoughts. It also includes unconscious patterns, mindsets and tendencies. They may never surface in the form of an observable thought, so it may seem difficult or even impossible to bring them into consciousness.
Emotional Takeovers
By Katie Davis, Author, Awake Joy
Yet, the body is the perfect tool. If you are willing to feel the body, it never lies. We bring the feeling or emotion into the light of consciousness and simply allow it to be. I am not suggesting that you try to change anything. That is resistance and just another form of violence that will perpetuate more negativity.
Neither do we need to analyze or interpret "why" the feeling is here or "what" the feeling means. The analyzing and interpreting mind is a good tool for many things, yet not the right tool for Self-realization.
When the emotion is allowed, we are no longer controlled by it, just like when we are watching our thoughts, they can no longer use us. We no longer have emotional takeovers. Instead, we are the witnessing presence that allows everything to be as it is.
This witnessing is a harmonizing and unifying factor. In the light of attention, the darkness of negativity cannot prevail.
I am not proposing that you act the emotion out. That is the emotional takeover that will more likely than not cause another emotional reaction; causing more suffering for you and others. Nor am I speaking of repression. Repression is a form of resistance that perpetuates suffering. I am only suggesting that you consciously feel the emotion in the body and allow it to be. Be the space within which it is appearing.
In your willingness to fully feel the body, all that remains unconscious within you will be revealed until all that remains is the simple joy of being ... and that is love.
A Gift to Heart Friends from Meenakshi Angel Honig ~ Powerpoint Musical Slideshow
~ Click the link below to start the Show ~
Spiritual Integrity
By Sundance Burke, Author, Free Spirit
Spiritual Integrity is being true to Self, being who you really are. Initially, being as Truth means discriminating the false in the present moment. This means we must admit that we do not know who or what we are. Admitting that we do not know is our opening to truth.
The ego self, the mind-identified person, believes in a concept of self, ranging from the very bad to the very good. As long as this believing persists, there is very little chance that such a mentality will desire more. If true Self is to be realized, we must be graced by a desire to look within our mind and heart for our essence. However, looking to the mind, the giver of pat answers is just a beginning.
Deeper than belief is feeling, the intuitive knowing that the mind's ideas of peace, love and joy just aren't real. Going deeper within ourselves, we discover inconsistencies, contradictions and unconscious lies. Discovery of the latter, challenges the egoic self to its core and so, it may be difficult for us to admit that we have witnessed a selfish motive in the center of our giving or fear in our attempts to express love.
Yet to realize the truth, we must be open to its revelation and accept the false as false when we become aware of it. Why?...because then we might stop being untrue and this stopping is the very action of truth.
Sometimes by talking or thinking about love and enlightenment, we miss the presence of truth right up to the very instant that we intuit our mistake. The truth is within us and always available. By honoring our ability to intuit the false and surrender it, we naturally expand our consciousness. This opening of our consciousness cannot be labeled or controlled, as being openly Self-aware is beyond every sense of body and concept of mind. While the mind temporarily reflects your name and form, and the consciousness temporarily reflects your being, awareness is. Thus, in any given moment of experience, we can be aware that we are. Herein is the knowing presence that naturally sets us free from all self-deception.
Fearless Loving
That which we fear the most is the cracking open of our hearts. Why? Because most of us have vivid memories of suffering emotional pain and anguish at the hands of our fellow beings. Many of us have found our greatest betrayals to loving sourced in our family experience. We fear love, because what has passed for love in human life is not love at all. The selfishness of personal and collective egos is not love. Love is not greed, jealousy, lust, hate, arrogance, prejudice or any form of war, abuse and neglect.
After thousands of years of mean-spirited human relations, most of our present population is psychically damaged and in need of compassionate healing. This population doesn't have a high opinion of love or its power. We don't believe that love conquers all. In fact, we believe just the opposite, that love makes us vulnerable, weak and unable to protect ourselves. So, of course, we are wary of opening our hearts to life as it is.
However, the truth is that we don't know what love is. We only know what it's not. Without this cracking open of the heart, real love cannot be directly experienced and thereby realized. Fearing your open heart simply keeps you from healing the past. Surrendering to fear sustains the dis-ease of all self-loathing and separation. Fear merely perpetuates this suffering endlessly.
If you can recognize the role that fear is playing in your life, you just might decide to face this fear. This facing of fear is loving, but you cannot know this without your own encounter. So don't wait to be free from fear before giving your faith to this impulse to open. Allow all to be as it is without story, the presence of loving in the face of fear. This is fearless loving and as This, you are free.
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