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If You're Gift, You See the Present (reverse)

(If you're present, you see the gift)

Present With the Sentient

The young student visited a guru who lived in a forest among the animals. After joining her for a vegetarian meal, the student admitted he ate meat and even had some for breakfast that day and felt ashamed in her presence.

“There is no need for shame on this earth,” she said. “That is a destructive emotion, not a productive one.”

Still feeling uncomfortable, the student asked, “How long have you been a vegetarian?”

The guru smiled.

“At least one lifetime. You see that cow walking freely in the pasture over there, uneaten? I’ve been a vegetarian his whole life, so from his perspective I’ve been a vegetarian eternally.”

“What about in terms of our lifetime?” the student asked.

“For one who experiences a universe in a blade of grass, for one who lives purely in the moment? Always.”

The student replied, “But I am not living purely like that yet.”

The mischievous gleam in the guru’s eyes grew brighter. “Do you want to know the answer as time is measured by meat eaters, or vegetarians? Because one of those ways of eating ages one quicker because of the added hormones, ammonia, antibiotics, cancer-causing toxins, hardening blood vessels, diabetes, colon disease, and other factors.”

“Maybe you don’t know how long?” the student asked, catching on to her storytelling tactics.

“How long? As long as I lived here with the animals and knew them as fellow sentient beings. How long? Longer than my intestines measure, which is many times longer than a meat eater’s, who need to expel the meat it eats quickly before it rots, something our herbivore intestines do with some difficulty.”   

The student gazed over at the peacefully grazing cows and horses. “I think maybe the question of 'how long' is less important than ‘why.’”

“And hopefully my answers were easier to digest than your breakfast. Now pass the potatoes.” 

My Goal Is To Stop You From Reading This Blog*

First, here are the reasons I write this blog:

1. To express the amazing experiences I’ve had since starting yoga and meditation, not caring if even one person reads it (although I’d prefer a few readers...)
2. To process the profound changes in my life as a result of the practice
3. To help others find or create a similar type of community
4. To inspire others to start their own blog about their community

In other words, my goal is to have lots of people read this blog… until they don’t have the time because they’re too busy writing their own spiritual community newsletter/blog, or are too busy contributing to that community.

So if you do it right, your life will be too busy to read this blog!

And I’m not talking about the kind of busy that keeps you running like a hamster in a wheel.

I’m talking about the kind that fulfills you, feeds your soul, and maybe even makes the world a better place.

It’s the kind of busy the comes when you don’t want anything for yourself – which is a real gift to realize – and you now have the time and space to give to others who haven’t gotten that gift.**

For instance, the baijis at my Ashram have devoted their lives to service and are already very busy, and when we raise all the funds to build a bigger studio to allow more students, they would like me to lead some yoga classes so they’ll have more time for their ministering duties. There are also fundraising duties for the two old-age homes (the baiji’s sisters run those) and an orphanage in Nepal (all of which I plan to visit in the next year – busy-busy). There is also the wonderful Sunday afternoon satsang service followed by a delicious vegetarian meal.***

There are also tabla lessons, harmonium lessons, and vegetarian cooking lessons when they let me peek into the kitchen on Sunday afternoons. At our Ashram there’s even a Homeopathic specialist with years of study in natural healing you can occupy yourself with.

So I dedicate this post to the givers out there who are taking steps to make the most of their day. You might as well: it could be your last.

*Except for those at my Ashram. You better keep reading – I might mention you.

**Another name for that gift is “the present.”

***On that day I’m "busy" right through to dessert.