Learning and Growing ALL THE TIME!

The Formula to Life is in evolving and integrating your mind, body, heart and soul. In order to do this we have to work up the Chakras. This means we want to first be able to provide ourselves and our families with food and shelter. Without that one very basic element taken care of we are unable to asecend up the levels. We can't be engaging in evolution and growth at the higher levels unless we take care of the lower levels. Once we have taken care of the basics then we are free to evolve beyond them. Learning the art of manifesting and creating that which comes from your soul is your key step to living the life you've always dreamed... while being able to give back and integrate with the larger whole for the greater good of All.

Its high time we were giving back more than taking, loving more than living, being more than doing.

This means you will have a well-rounded sense of self that is expansive and not contracting. It is a sense of a seperate self with the capacity to take on more and to integrate as a part of the whole. Aligning the Will of your first, second and third chakras with the Power of the fifth, sixth and seventh chakras means that you integrate the higher purpose of your loving, compassionate heart at the fourth and middle chakra.

When we use the chakras as a tool for helping integrate and evolve the mind, body, heart and soul, we are consciously practicing the formula for life.

And, for me, I hop in and out of retreats all the time so as to keep moving and growing along the cutting edge of spiritual growth and development. So next month, well this Sunday, I'm off back to the States where I'll be in Patagonia, AZ, at Gabriel Cousens Tree of Live Rejuvenation Centre, otherwise referred to as "Raw Food" Retreat by yours truely. And then I'm going across to the other side of the States to East Brookfield, MA, where I will be participating in Jun Po Roshi's Mondo Zen Teaching Training retreat, otherwise referred to as "Boot Camp" or "Brain Gym" by yours truly. This truly is Zen for the 21st Century and while Ken Wilber says it accelerates therapy, Jun Po says it is the end of therapy. Either way, I know it works and I know it opens hearts and helps people find their "Knowing." It also is the most direct meditative experience that I have encountered that leads me directly to that Inner Grin where you know you're sitting in Samadhi and that no matter what happens... it is what it is, and thats ok.

I'm perceiving both these retreats and this whole trip actually, as steps along the way as I walk the path of awakening. I'm fairly certain I will come back from this trip renewed and raw. I'm fairly certain I will laugh and cry, feel split open and hopefully stictched back up too. I'm also begining to understand the magnitude of what it means to Awaken in that we identify less and less with our past, no matter how painful or beautiful it may have been... it is the past and the more we identify with it as who we are today, the less we awaken to our now - the only moment in which we can effect change and contribute to the co-creation of our future.

So, I'm off to Raw Food Retreat and the Brain Gym!
Swahaa!! (Which loosely translated in Zen means Wahoo!)
Till next time, with grace and love

Carmel
aka GuruGirl