Extraordinary Moments

What separates the ordinary from the extraordinary moments?
(by Anandagiri)

I am sure all of us understand what I mean when I talk of extraordinary moments. It’s something all of us experience all the time… maybe not as frequently as we wish to. At times, moments we feel very special and fulfilled… very grateful to be alive… and we keep looking for it again and again.

They don’t have to be extraordinary spiritual experiences that you have during meditation or prayer but moments in our everyday life. The same food that you have been eating everyday that particular day it tastes special and you wonder why it tastes so good this evening.

The same tree that you keep seeing everyday as you walk from your home to your work or to your business, you have been seeing the same tree for 10 years but that morning the very same tree looks different. There is something special about the tree.

The same meditation you practice everyday, one morning the meditation is extraordinary… you feel there is something special about the meditation and when you begin to reflect and find out / inquire whether there is something different to the meditation and the answer is no. It has been the same conscious breathing that you do everyday.

The same person that you relate to everyday, that you have conversations with everyday…some days it is extraordinary to be with that person. It feels very special, you think life is beautiful

What is it that separates the ordinary moment from the extraordinary moment?

Ordinary moments you don’t have to talk about … routine moments… not so inspiring!

What some of us might even call existence, we all know existence is different from living. Existence is all about existence… somehow to move along… somehow to make a livelihood. We are alive because we are afraid of death. And if we are existing and we are living in that state all that matters to us is to somehow to keep the relationship going.

But if you are living you want to take the relationship to a new level. You want to grow in that love… you want to grow in that happiness.

Maybe we can associate ordinary moments with existence… extraordinary moments with living.

If you want to reflect on these moments (I don’t think we have enough time to inquire into what existence is and what living is, but I’m sure you can differentiate it for yourselves)… we believe, when I say we I mean myself and my fellow faculty members serving our organization One World Academy, we believe it is the quality of attention you bring to any experience that makes it ordinary or extraordinary.

If there is total attention, some call it being present, when there is total attention to any given experience in life, the simple experiences of our day-to-day existence… the experience of eating, the experience of chatting with your friend… the experience of listening to a child weep or laugh… or make noises … the experience of working on your computer or the experience of sitting in this hall listening to me speak or watching a beautiful sunrise or sunset.

Any experience, if there is total attention, undivided attention, then there is something extraordinary about that moment… it’s very fulfilling… it’s almost as if in that moment the question “What is the purpose of my life?” is absent, which is a question that is otherwise present most of the time. When you are living, you don’t ask the question “What is the purpose of my life?” When it is an extraordinary moment you don’t have to search for the meaning of life… the meaning is in that moment.

That leads us to the next question: ‘What makes this attention possible?’

This is Part One of a 4-part video series from a recent OWA Event with the Yes Group in London UK

What makes total focused attention possible?
(by Anandagiri)

What are these moments? … These extraordinary moments? What is so special about that perception? Obviously you are not perceiving with the sixth sense… it’s the same eyes that are perceiving the same tree… the same ears that are listening to the very same music that you have been listening to for so many years. But for some reason, that day, that moment there is that attention… What makes that attention possible? In other words… what can make our life extraordinary? What can make our relationships extraordinary? What can make everything we do more extraordinary? The work we do more extraordinary… our pursuits more extraordinary…

Obviously the first requirement is one must try for an extraordinary life. I don’t know if I am right in saying this but it has been my observation that our society has conditioned us to accommodate distress and what does this mean? When you are challenged emotionally or physically or spiritually you’re told to accept it as a part of human life… you’re distressed… you’re disappointed… you’re in fear… you’re suffering… and what’s told to us is that suffering is a part of human life.

We are taught to ignore it, avoid it or run away from it. What do we tell ourselves every time there is pain, I mean psychological pain in whichever form, as fear, as disappointment, as hurt. We tell ourselves that life is not a bed of roses, that suffering is a part of human existence and you are not the only one suffering so there is nothing unique about it. Everyone is suffering … in other words… we are settling for less. Maybe not all of us… maybe not the group sitting here… the group sitting here all of us are fortunate enough to be pursuing growth, to be pursuing an extraordinary quality of life and I believe that is the reason we are here this evening. But if we truly wish to find that quality of life it begins by questioning this thought… the thought… the idea that suffering is a part of human life … why must suffering be a part of human life?

I understand if you are told problems are a part of human existence because all of us will have problems, must have problems… that’s a part of life. All of us have challenges… it does not matter how enlightened we are or how unenlightened we are we are still going to have troubles and it has nothing to do with punishment from God, that’s the way of life… you see that in the plant kingdom, animal kingdom and human kingdom is no different. You must struggle… there will be struggle for survival. If there is bad weather, unexpected hurricanes or a typhoon… you lose your home and you will have to work hard to find a new home. If there is an epidemic there is every chance the body will be diseased and you must find a cure for the disease… and if there is an economic slowdown you probably lose your job and you will have to change your career, improve your skills and look for a new job or settle for a less comfortable life.

So it’s understandable when we have told ourselves that problems are a part of human existence but is it true that suffering is a part of human existence and that we must accept it as a part of human existence?

Unless we inquire into this conditioning of ours… challenge it… question it… we are not going to be striving for a superior quality of life.

This is Part Two of a 4-part video series from a recent OWA Event with the Yes Group in London UK

Happiness is not dependent on external circumstances
(by Anandagiri)

Healing the Gulf

The last three weeks have been a very special journey for me, a very special three weeks. I was touring the Gulf States; the states of Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama and Florida (USA) trying to help some people there. My self and two of my fellow faculty members, along with some volunteers, we were on the road, driving through all these states because many people were very deeply disturbed. First of all around 5 years ago was this disaster, Hurricane Katrina and then, just as people are trying to regain their normal life they are hit by this oil spill which affected tourism there and many fishermen had lost their source of income… there was a lot of emotional distress.

In fact it was Tony Robbins who called me one day and asked me if I could go and work with these people and help these people. He asked if we could spend two days of our time because we were very busy doing a lot of One World Academy events in North America and so we told ourselves why don’t we make this a 10-day trip and help as many people as we can.

And we went there with a vision, our vision was to help people make an emotional shift and if they must make a shift there must be the link to challenge their old conditioning and what does their old conditioning tell them? It tells them that we must wait for our external conditions to change before we can have a good life again and we went to them with a message…

Healing the Gulf

The message was:

Why it could be true that all of us in this world do not have the same opportunities to be equally rich or to be equally skillful or equally well known, we all certainly share the same equal opportunity to be happy and the reason is happiness is not dependent on our external circumstances… peace is not dependent on our external circumstances… our ability to laugh is not dependent on our external circumstances. Our problems, yes, maybe dependent on our external circumstances, our comforts, yes, maybe dependent but not our happiness, not our peace, not our inner state, and this is the message we wanted to bring to them.

It appeared a little difficult to us in the beginning because you can not go to a suffering man, a suffering family who have just lost their home, lost their job… angry with the government, angry with technology, and tell them ‘you can be happy’.

We did it because we had a desire to serve them and we had a conviction that suffering is not caused by our situations, suffering is in fact the meanings we attribute to the situations that happen to us. It is in fact the stories our mind is telling us, our interpretations of the events that happen around us, in fact that’s the conviction with which the One World Academy was founded, the organization that I serve with, and it’s with the same conviction we visited these places, knocked on peoples homes and they’d ask us:

“Who are you and why are you here?”

I would introduce myself, I am from India and I come from One World Academy…

“And why are you here?” “What do you do?”

I teach people to be happy…

“Do you mean to say you have traveled 10,000 miles to tell me that I should be happy?”

There was some resistance!

But I guess there was some sympathy too considering the fact we had traveled so far so most of them welcomed us in!

We met many people, many families, and it was very beautiful working with them and to see that they made a shift, even the most difficult times, when they’d given up all hope that their life is not going to change, that they are not going to be happy again until their conditions have changed.

Healing the Gulf

It was very touching, we had many touching moments and one of those moments was when we were working with a blind veteran (war veteran) who served in the US military during the Vietnam war, he is blind… we knocked on his door… he welcomed us… and of course again the same question and the same answer, we are here to teach you to be happy… and he laughed, but he was kind to us… he brought us some water… and for more than two hours he kept speaking… what did he speak?

He tried to convince us how impossible it is for him to be happy again in life because he can not see… he was convincing himself and all of us at the same time. But unfortunately for him, it was one against four… and so we said: would you listen to us now Sir it is our turn… and four voices spoke at once…

And then we challenged his story… he had a story to tell us… we made him question the stories his mind was telling him… that it was impossible for him to be happy… and he made a shift in the end.

When he was asked: do you have any words to share?
He said: “I am happy and I am now convinced…”

This is Part Three of a 4-part video series from a recent OWA Event with the Yes Group in London UK

Healing the Gulf

Helping Residents of the Gulf Anandagiri and One World Academy Begin Service Project for Gulf Residents in Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, and Florida...

Concluding...

Getting back to our question; what makes this attention possible, this awareness?

Why are you not able to dedicate that total energy and attention to the given moment?

What is preventing it from happening?

When you are relating to another person, why is it that you are unable to totally connect with that person?

Why is it that there is not that love, that joy that should have been there in that relationship? Why is it not so extraordinary? What is the obstacle?

Is there some indifference and what is that indifference if there is any?

The indifference, obviously, are the stories that the mind is telling us, the meanings our mind is giving to that conversation.

When we are relating to another person our mind has already projected so many images as to who or what that person is... attributed so many meanings to that relationship... meanings coming up from our past experiences with that person or our disappointed past experiences... all the ideas, beliefs,the concepts that we have inherited from somewhere, maybe from our religion, maybe from our textbooks, maybe from a novel, from a movie, maybe from the stories of our grandparents or maybe from our own early childhood conclusions as to whom to trust and not to trust.

If we can become aware, conscious what makes us unhappy, what cause fear in us, what causes disappointment... is it the actual situation or is it the meaning attributed to the situation and where from that meaning arises.

Why is it you are very happy chatting away with your friend, having such a great time and then you are watching television and on the TV you see the graph go down, and you know what I mean right?

In an instant your state has changed from a happy, blissful, wonderful moment... all of a sudden you are in fear... if you ask the question: has anything really changed in this moment? Nothing has changed... you still have your television set, you still have your wonderful friends, you still have a job, have a nice car, still have a great family...

What caused that shift to happen?

When in actuality nothing has changed. As you saw the graph go down your mind has given it a thousand meanings already, somehow the media and the world has conditioned us to believe that financial security equals happiness or financial insecurity equals misery and we become victims of that idea.

There are many such beliefs, ideas, views, opinions that are not allowing us to see things as they are.

When we can learn to see things as they are, we have taken a huge step forward.

In order to see things as they are we must learn to live a life of awareness.

This is Part 4 of a 4-part video series from a recent OWA Event with the Yes Group in London UK