Found Affirmation


My friend who was driving the car, pointed out the cat on the hat and asked if he should stop the car. I waffled; he encouraged. I already had my camera out in my lap, so it was nothing to run out of the car for the photo.
The cat gave a purring grin (though he wouldn’t keep his face towards the camera, too busy was he looking at something down the street). The guy asked if I would give some money so that he and the cat could get something to eat. Sure; I was happy to give them a dollar for their offering.
I thought about how much I appreciated being reminded of how we can use needing to get by, when getting by can be so challenging, to spur creativity and connection instead of letting it beat us down.

Do you ever stop to wonder about the ubiquitous, wildly patterned expanses of carpets at the big chain hotels?
What might be the reasons for such carpets?
1. The carpet designers all ingested some kind of substance that gave them visions?
2. Patterns hide the dirt better than solids?
3. The interior designer wanted to make sure that the hotel carpet could not possibly be like one you would have at home–thus giving some fantastical notion of the exotic?
4. The hotel wanted to make sure that if your eyes glazed over during some conference that the swirling of the patterns could draw you into some entrancing meditative state that you would associate with visiting the hotel?
Peace and light, E — Posted with WordPress for BlackBerry.
The camera may not lie, but it certainly, like our own perception of things relative to that of others, have a distorted or unique perspective. One of the essential principles of the yoga world view is that of maya or illusion. In classical yoga, everything in the world is illusion; the only thing that is real is Atman–ultimate consciousness or god. In the tantric world view, the role of maya is more complicated. It essentially boils down to the idea that we are under an illusion when we think of the world and divinity as separate, and that this illusion of separation leads to a suffering of the individual spirit. Whether one hold with either of these world views or not, it is always true that thinking our limited perception is the only truth will likely lead to discord, misunderstanding, and strife.
Please read this beautiful article by Natalie Miller on bhakti — the path and practice of devotion.