I chose the sacred path of the Higher Self.- Karma Yoga

The closer you get to the core of your being, like the core of the onion the more you are going to shed your tears and even if you know deep down inside that there is really nothing that lies after you have found the last piece of veil that hides the truth from you, you will still be forced to keep pursuing your objective. In the last few weeks of my practice of Vipassana style of meditation i have been going through some heavy duty challenges to my mind if not my ego. I have been led to feel at my lowest and my sense of neediness is leering at me mocking my efforts at practicing patience and faith in what  i need in order to resolve the financial issues i have; it always boils down to money. Thank goodness sex has taken a back seat for now and anger is quite easily recognized and understood in its rising, staying and disappearing without having to deal with its physical manifestation. It hasn't been easy on the body either as I find myself waking up every day with so much pain all over, especially in my left shoulder and arm, sometimes i scream out loud inside my head from just an excruciating a pain. In this i find doing my exercises helps to relief the pain.
I am not high on discipline and if and when I am able to i try to get by and sometimes i feel like i am not carrying my weight when it comes to works or earning a livelihood. After having gone through some thirty odd jobs i don't know what that is anymore and if i want to work for anyone anymore. I put in an average six to eight hours of painting but that is not "work' by normal standard as it does not guarantee a steady income and even if i have tried to set up a deal with my Chinese Brother and patron LeeKhai to help me financially by the purchase of my works whenever i desperately needs financial help, this is not cut in stone. Sometimes I feel i have worn out my welcome with him which i cannot blame him as I am, it seems always in need of help. So, how does all these works out with a Vipassana Practice? How does all the meditation suppose to help? Naive if not childish questions but legitimate at some level as the mastering of the meditative technique is partly to help one find ways and means of alleviating one's woes.
A few entries back i wrote an entry under the title of the Buddha's Bowl, an experiment in 'The elegant way of begging' for help and i got no takers and my daughter thank goodness can sit for her final exam thanks to her cousin who came forward and helped her out; he has never read my blog. Hence other than making myself a needy fool and a vagrant I now know for sure that "Unto thyself, O Ananda can you depend on for your salvation," These were the words of the Buddha just before he passed on into Parinirvana.I am naive and sometimes i take my life too seriously as my friends often reminded me and this experiment thing they say it all started with having read Mahatma Gandhi, but Gandhi was a lawyer and what am I/ Gandhi can afford to experiment with his life as he got the whole of India to back him and me, who is behind me? So like my Zen instructor used to shout at me, Wake Up! There is more to life out there than humiliating yourself and not getting anywhere!
AH So! this is the side effects of Vipassana meditation and one has to be aware of it as it starts to tear down every fabric of resistance you may have in trying to protect itself(The all mighty ego!). Meditation bring to surface all the crud that sits at the bottom of your well as it stirs the water with mindfulness practice. These bottom sediment of rotting leaves and garbage will being to rise to the surface revealing your hidden weakness and pain, your childhood traumas and mental cravings most of which were suppressed at the bottom of the well of your being. When they surface and manifest themselves in you external life you will find yourself sometimes wishing you were dead, but by recognizing them for what they are you can learn to accept them and understand their inherent nature and let them go. Turn their negative influences in you mind into positive lessons and insights that you can share with others. This too is who I am, but this part of me is no more of use to me I have to move on towards the light of wisdom and compassion and i am not carrying this baggage anymore of feeling needy or guilty or ashamed for being the man that i am.And what is this insight I am talking about?

Karma Yoga

This is the path of self­less work. For the devo­tee, it means to do all ones work as an offer­ing to God and to expect noth­ing per­sonal in return. For the philoso­pher, it means to see that all action is the inter­play between the mind and senses, on the one hand, and sense objects, on the other, and to real­ize that the higher Self is merely the wit­ness. It is to feel that one is not the agent of action. In either case, it means to prac­tice detach­ment and equa­nim­ity with regard to work, and to real­ize that the results of all actions are not in our hands. Through such a prac­tice, the mind becomes puri­fied, and the seeker comes to real­ize his or her true nature.
Vedanta Center, Washington DC.
I give meaning to my life. Not my children, nor my close friends nor my family and relatives. If i walk alone it is only because i chose to do so.When you chose not to give when i ask with genuine need, there is nothing you can give me when i have no more need. Yes i am a beggar and my life seems like I am always low in my self esteem, this too is only because i chose to be so on account of my past pride and arrogance that i had lived catering to my egoic nature. I have chosen the Selfless Journey.
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