Puppet-Ji on Seeing
Now you see it, now you don't. Join Puppet-Ji, world-class pundit, on the nuances of what seeing is really all about...
Posted by Mitch Ditkoff at 12:23 AM | Comments (1)
March 26, 2009Harvest Me
Stories of your beauty
drift down to me like ash
from a fire
I have not yet been warmed by.
Your absence only singes me,
and though I flame
at the mere mention of you,
still I remain unconsumed.
Don't you understand?
Just the wind of your walking
would be enough to release me,
your glance,
enough to wake me from my dream.
Posted by Mitch Ditkoff at 12:54 AM | Comments (1)
March 24, 2009The Right Bank for Changing Times
This just in from David Gittlin, guest blogger and all around cool guy.
The moment arrived unannounced during a set of solitary yoga postures on my plush, living room rug. A long stretch to relieve the tension of the day popped something open inside me. It was not a ligament or a tendon. It was my hardened heart.
In the Hollywood version of the story, the hero manages to crawl to the phone, call 911, and then wakes up in a hospital bed after a miraculous, life-saving operation by a brilliant, open-heart surgeon. The experience impresses upon our hero a number of crucial life lessons. After the crisis, the hero's character and actions towards others change profoundly for the better.
Fortunately, life does not resemble a Hollywood B movie, notwithstanding my intense desires for this to be the case at the time. My physical heart had not split open. A more subtle heart had opened, and with it, a door to a new world and another destiny.
It all started with Jorge, the new employee I would never have gone to lunch with if my usual lunch-buddies had not run off somewhere without me.
Jorge was Mexican, the only Latin guy on the second floor executive suite of Wallco, a wallpaper distribution company that hired mostly white Anglos in 1981, when Miami's transformation into a multi-cultural city began in earnest.
Jorge, like me, was in his early thirties, average looking, average height, dark hair, brown eyes, thin mustache -- an easy-to-get-lost-in the-crowd kind of guy. I had no idea his unheralded arrival would trigger a seminal occurrence in my life.
Wallco hired Jorge for its fledgling export division. Jorge's mission was to open up markets in South America and the Caribbean -- approximately one quarter of the world -- all by himself. He had the ability to speak Spanish and, I presumed, Super-human sales skills coupled with a pioneering spirit. I didn't envy Jorge one bit.
I considered myself above Jorge. I was the high and mighty Marketing Director -- Jorge the lowly new sales recruit. I had served my time in sales. I was grateful, beyond words, not to have to spend my days selling wallpaper sample books to dealers who had no more room in their stores for them. I figured, if nothing else, I could learn something about the export market by going to lunch with the new recruit. Besides, Jorge was the only soul left on the second floor other than myself.
Jorge suggested we eat at a nearby natural food restaurant. This sounded much better than tamales or burritos, or whatever weird, bready, spicy stuff Mexicans ate. I happily agreed.
Over salads and grain burgers, I discovered Jorge was a vegetarian and engaged in practicing meditation on a daily basis. Here was a subject I had some interest in, having experimented with various forms and teachers of meditation over the years. You might say I was a semi-serious spiritual seeker. I had reached a curious crossroads, a sort of impasse in my life.
I had everything a thirty-something American male could wish for: the perfect job in a field I enjoyed; a great boss; a townhouse bachelor pad; girlfriends, a few pals to hang out with; a sports car and club memberships. I had scrupulously followed all of the prescribed formulas for success. I had turned up every stone in my search for happiness.
I had cobbled together all of the accoutrements of an ideal life. Yet I felt restless and unfulfilled.I was terrified there was something terribly wrong with me. I felt the cold winds of middle age blowing in my direction. I saw myself dating one girl after another well into my eighties, until I finally abandoned the search for true love when my body and spirit caved in from old age.
There I was, sitting across from the lowly new recruit, munching on his iceberg lettuce, rattling on about a profound experience of peace. He invited me to a presentation scheduled at a hotel on Miami Beach that evening. I told myself there was no way I was going to drive all the way from South Miami to the Beach to attend some dubious spiritual seminar.
That night, I found myself sitting in a lime green, orange accented meeting room at the Carlyle Hotel. Curiosity and something between Jorge's words at lunch had picked me up from the chocolate brown pit sofa in my living room and deposited me in an uncomfortable chair with a room full of strangers.
Indian music played from six-foot speakers flanking a makeshift stage. The only thing that kept me in my seat was the absence of Hare Krishna-like chanting.
I glanced to my left and caught a glimpse of Jorge, who smiled kindly at me. Someone took the stage and began speaking into a microphone mounted on a pole with a long wire snaking outwards to an amplifier.
The Indian Music and the microphone are the only details I recall after the program began. My perspective slowly shifted from an outward focus to a pleasant inward experience. A succession of three speakers addressed the gathering that evening. I do not recall a single word any one of them said. I just remember feeling relaxed. For the first time in a very long while, I had actually enjoyed myself without a great deal of effort or alcohol to help me along. I felt like an invisible hand had knocked off a layer of caked mud from my body.
It is difficult for me to describe what happened after that evening. I can only say that it marked the beginning of a long journey that lasts to this day, to this very moment. It is a journey filled with peace and joy, based on a living, inner experience.
The experience has transformed me from the inside out. The Indian music has since changed to New Age and Modern. Six years after the event, I walked into the receptionist's office at work and promptly told her my life story. She became my wife and soul mate. A year later, our daughter, Danielle, came into the world. She is now a beautiful, sane, nineteen-year old who everyone adores.
My life remains full of challenges, but I face them with real joy and optimism. I have discovered that life can be every bit as beautiful as you want it to be. It takes some courage and effort, but the possibility is real for anyone willing to step up to the plate.
The saying goes: "No depositâ€â€No return." The trick is to find the place where you can get the best return on your deposit.
If this story strikes a responsive chord, you can discover more at www.wordsofpeace.org
Photo by BeHereNow
Posted by Mitch Ditkoff at 08:45 PM | Comments (0)
March 21, 2009Words of Peace TV Taxi
Is this cool or what -- the WORDS OF PEACE TV taxi in London. (I think we should do a promotion with Dominos -- the Words of Peace Pizza. I'm not exactly sure what it is, but maybe YOU know.
Thanks to Dalit Fresco for posting this link on VirtualServiceHub.net
Posted by Mitch Ditkoff at 02:07 AM | Comments (1)
March 20, 2009Prisoner of Love
I am a prisoner of love, completely captive, bird whose wings wish only to fan the face of his Beloved. What need have I to fly? Where in this world can I go? Bound with the invisible thread of devotion, I pace my inner courtyard, rave silently beneath a local moon and wait for his return. To call this a jail is a lie when all I want to do is crawl further in, dig my tunnel deeper to the one forever guarding me.
A prisoner of love, yes, that's what I am!
Howling at the half moon, screaming for the full, I turn my self in, keep turning myself in and in and in to the only one worth being in love and alone with. Why dream of other times and places when the one who has the key is knocking at your door?
Posted by Mitch Ditkoff at 09:51 PM | Comments (3)
March 19, 2009ASK YOURSELF THIS: "What Can I Do to Help?"
No matter what path you're on, used to be on, think about being on, can't remember you're on... or disbelieve there is any such thing as a "path," the question always remains the same:
"What can I do to help?"
In other words, how can you participate on planet Earth in a way that serves? Certainly, there must be something you can do to go beyond yourself and make a contribution.
In the end, it doesn't really matter what form your effort takes, as long as you are authentically stepping up to the plate and giving it your best to pitch in.
Maybe your effort to serve will have something to do with a "cause" or a Master. Maybe not. If you have a Master, maybe he or she is living. Maybe not. Maybe your Master is Maharaji... or Gurumayi... or the 17th Karmapa... or Thich Nhat Hanh... or Neem Karoli Baba... or Yogananda... or Buddha... or Lao Tzu... or Jesus... or countless other great souls who, from the beginning of time, have been reminding human beings about what's really important in this life.
Yes, the way they've communicated this message has differed, but the essence of the message has always been the same:
What you are searching for is already within you -- and you can experience it. Indeed, that's what you're here for.
Once you've experienced it -- no matter what adjective you use to describe it, it's time to give back -- time to participate... time to serve.
Or, as Bob Dylan once said, "You've got to serve somebody..."
No need to wait, like some wallflower at the High School prom, to be asked. Now's the time.
Start dancing!
Posted by Mitch Ditkoff at 02:12 PM | Comments (3)
March 17, 2009One Love
One more beautiful music video by Playing For Change.
And don't miss Stand By Me.
Posted by Mitch Ditkoff at 01:58 AM | Comments (0)
Buying a Book for My Mother
For many years I wanted to buy a book for my mother -- a book that would explain everything... what I hadn't or couldn't explain since I had been old enough to notice my mother wasn't all that happy and, Lord knows, I wanted my mother to be happy and if not "happy" per se, then at least aware of what it was that made me, her son, happy -- the "thing" that, for so many years, she thought was just a phase I was going through and, even worse, some kind of heartless rejection of her and her way of life.
Oy vey...
Yes, I wanted to buy my mother a book that would explain it all -- the whole "New Age thing," the whole "Guru thing," the whole "it's OK that I don't eat your veal parmagiana any more because I'm a vegetarian thing."
Somebody must have written it. Somebody must have noticed the market niche of "mothers over 60 who worry why their high performing sons have gone spiritual."
And so, I went looking for the book. Like some people look for God.
And though I never found it, I did find some reasonable facsimiles -- cleverly titled books displayed by the check out counter, conceived by marketing geniuses who somehow knew my need -- the need a son has to make his mother smile... the book that would keep his mother company during those long, cold nights when her husband was working late and her children were asleep and there was nothing good on TV... the ultimate self-help book that would remove her worries, her doubts, and her exponentially growing fears of thinking her son had gone off the deep end for "receiving Knowledge" from that young boy from India.
I wanted my mother to know how beautiful life was and how simple it could be to experience that beauty. I wanted her to know there was something timeless within her, something beyond the stress of aging and the clipping of coupons.
Maybe it was selfish of me, but I wanted to buy my mother a book that would deliver some proof that love was the name of the game... and that (bite your tongue and spit three times) the act of "receiving Knowledge" from Maharaji was as healthy as chicken soup.
Eight years ago my mother died from a four-year bout with emphysema.
During my stay with my father after the funeral, I discovered the books I had given my mother for the past 35 years.
Most of them had never been opened. Like some strange mix of Stonehenge rubble, they lay in piles all around... on her night table, on her desk, stuffed behind cookbooks, in the garage. Some, when you opened them, still had that new book crackling sound.
I don't think I was sad she didn't read them. Just disappointed. Or maybe it was more like resignation -- the kind teenagers feel when they realize their parents just don't get it.
Looking back, I realize now that no book would have been sufficient to have given my mother.
No. I wanted her to have the experience the books were describing, not the description of the experience. As Maharaji has mentioned many times, if you are thirsty, you need water to drink, not the description of water.
Ultimately, that's what Maharaji's offer is all about: helping people find the water -- the naturally occurring well of well-being inside us all.
It's something my dear, sweet, canasta playing mother would have definitely appreciated.
Photo by Weeping Willow
Posted by Mitch Ditkoff at 01:15 AM | Comments (0)
March 15, 2009VIDEO: Obstacles to Enlightenment
Let's see... your to do list for the day... walk the dog... buy some groceries... check your email... and LET GO OF YOUR CONCEPTS!
Posted by Mitch Ditkoff at 01:59 AM | Comments (1)
March 14, 2009Speechless
It's not what I say,
it's what I don't say.
But every time I say nothing,
what I don't say
leaves so much to be said,
I am speechless.
Maybe that's why Groucho
raised his eyebrows
and Jesus raised the dead.
Posted by Mitch Ditkoff at 12:45 AM | Comments (1)
March 11, 2009Off the Coast of Love
My wife tells me I should pay more attention to details --
the house, the car, the lawn --
there's a thousand things,
by sunset,
that need to be done.
She's right, of course, it's true.
If only I wasn't floating
three feet off the ground today,
caught in the updraft
of a single gaze from you,
spinning
like a thousand cyclones
off the coast of love.
(Excerpted from Thirst Quench Thirst)
Posted by Mitch Ditkoff at 03:42 PM | Comments (1)
March 10, 2009This Longing, This Ache
This longing, this ache,
this pulsing of the deepest part of who you are
is the reason why you're here.
Do not confuse it with desire.
Desire is wanting what you
don't have.
Longing is wanting
what you do.
Posted by Mitch Ditkoff at 12:19 AM | Comments (2)
March 08, 2009WAITING DOWN UNDER: A Timeless Moment in Amaroo
When asked to explain his highly abstract Theory of Relativity, Albert Einstein made it comprehensible in just two sentences. "Put your hand on a hot stove for a minute," he said, "and it seems like an hour. Sit with a pretty girl for an hour, and it seems like a minute."
I can relate.
There are entire years of my life I can barely remember, but singular moments that seem eternal. The birth of my first child was one of them. So was the birth of my second... as was the first time I saw the woman who would later become my wife... and the time I almost drowned.
"Peak experiences," they're called, moments when time seems to stop and we connect with something timeless -- moments when thinking gives way to feeling and we realize, without words, what life is all about.
And though the catalysts for these moments are different for each of us, the experience is universal.
Something takes us over. Something opens up. A Red Sea parts and we feel totally alive, far beyond the usual ways we measure the world, our worth, and life itself.
I've had my share of these moments and am grateful for each of them. But the most memorable ones have been in the company of my teacher, Maharaji.
Being around him brings out the best in me.
I laugh the loudest, feel the deepest, and experience the kind of spaciousness within that contains everything. Home sweet home. Free Parking in Monopoly. The peace that passes all understanding.
Maharaji, for me, is an amplifier of all things good, a human tuning fork vibrating at the frequency I most love to frequent -- the frequency of love.
Which brings me back to the reason why I began this article in the first place.
A couple of years ago, I attended a five-day event with Maharaji, in Australia, along with 3,500 other people from more than 30 countries.
It took me 27 hours to get there, but it seemed like a minute.
Life was simple in Amaroo. I lived in a tent. I went to bed when the sun went down. I woke with the birds. I had no cell phone, no laptop, no worries, and nothing to do but listen to Maharaji -- twice a day -- hold forth beneath the vast Australian sky.
I was a happy camper.
On the fifth day of the event, I began to feel an old melancholy creeping in -- the kind I used to feel as a kid on Sunday afternoons when I knew the weekend was coming to an end.
Ah... the paradox!
On one hand, I was immersed in an experience that left me wanting nothing. On the other hand, the more this awareness grew, the harder it was for me think about leaving.
And so when I bumped into Michelle, an old friend of mine now working at Daya's Fine Dining, the on-site restaurant Maharaji was known to frequent, I asked if there was any way I could get in tonight -- my chance, I thought, to see him one more time before I flew home.
"All the reservations are taken," she replied. "But we still need waiters. If you meet me after the event, I'll introduce you to the woman in charge of personnel."
Fast forward a few hours.
The next thing I know a very focused woman is introducing me to Carl, the Head Waiter -- a well-dressed gent oozing confidence, purpose, and five-star restaurantiness.
Quickly, he explains my role, the difference between salad plates and dessert plates, when to bring the bread, when to pour the water, when to open the wine, when to take an order, how to take an order, where to find the spoons, how to fold the napkins, when to present the check, where to get the checks, what the consecutive numbers of my tables were, and a thousand other things that went over my head like an empty thought bubble in a Homer Simpson comic I had no time to read.
I wanted to take notes, but couldn't find a pen. I wanted to ask questions, but there wasn't any time. I wanted to confess my ignorance, but no one was available to play the priest.
I still didn't know where the kitchen was.
And then, before you could say "What are the specials tonight?" the doors open wide and the guests come flooding in.
I go to my section. I meet. I greet. I pour. I nod. I try to remember how the pork is prepared.
So there I am, walking across the room, carrying a chilled bottle of an Italian mineral water I couldn't pronounce if my life depended on it, when the entire restaurant becomes totally still.
Not the sound of a fork. Not the clink of a glass. Just pin drop silence and everyone looking in the same direction.
This, I knew, could mean only one thing.
There, at the threshold of the room, stood Maharaji, radiant, buoyant, completely present. He is looking in what I think of as "my direction," (though I'm convinced he's looking at someone else over my shoulder.)
"Hey Mitch!" he calls out. "So it's come to this? You've been demoted to a waiter!"
Everyone laughs. It's funny. But more than that, it has opened the floodgates. He's broken the ice and opened my heart with only 13 words.
It's clear that Maharaji is talking to me, not that mythical dude over my mythical shoulder. It's also clear that, standing halfway across the room, I'm much too far away to be having a meaningful conversation with him.
I should be closer. Much closer.
And then... I have one of those moments Einstein must have been referring to, years ago, when explaining the Theory of Relativity to people like me.
Time twisted. A second became a lifetime. A lifetime became a second.
Next thing I know I'm standing next to Maharaji.
I have no clue how I got there. Technically speaking, I walked, but not really. I didn't move an inch as far as I could tell. I was moved -- as if the entire restaurant had just been tilted in his direction... and I simply slid towards him.
Effortlessly.
Now next to him, before any other conversations in the room had a chance to begin, we continue the thread of what started as his humorous ice-breaker. I look at him and smile. He looks at me and says something about ADI, the new magazine he likes so much. I respond with news of my recent meetings with Ole, the editor. He says something else. So do I. Small talk, you could say, but for me it wasn't small at all.
It was huge.
Now everyone in the room is getting into the act. The guy at Table 12 (Trout Almondine and the broccoli soup) asks Maharaji about a new software program. The couple sipping champagne at Table 9 talks about music. Someone asks about this. Someone asks about that. And he is totally gracious and present with everyone -- as if each person speaking was the only one in the room.
Me? I'm just standing there next to him, soaking it all up.
And then, just before he continues on his way, he turns and, out of the blue, says something kind about my writing.
Then he pivots and is gone, schmoozing forward into the next room where more people who love him are waiting patiently. I follow behind, a self-appointed member of his entourage, but I know my moment with him is over. I have people to wait on, wine to pour.
And so I return to my station.
Everyone seems a bit different now than when they first came in. Lighter. More expansive. And no one is asking about food.
Of course, that moment passes, too. Soon someone is asking for more butter. Someone else complains about the bread.
The odd thing?
If you look at this story from the outside, it doesn't seem all that extraordinary. OK, so I fly to Australia, live in a tent, don't use my cell phone, and listen to Maharaji for five days. Then I dress up like a waiter, walk across the room, and have a seemingly mundane conversation with him.
"That's it?" one could easily conclude.
Ahhh... This is precisely where the great mystery kicks in, my friends -- the mystery of the off-the-grid relationship between Master and devotee.
It's never about the what. It's all about the who and how.
When you're in love it doesn't matter what's happening. Everything you do, everything you say, everything you don't do or don't say is infused with a feeling.
And that feeling is what it's all about.
My moving across the floor at Daya's Fine Dining took just a few seconds. My conversation with Maharaji took just a few minutes. But the feeling of it all will last a lifetime.
This is what Knowledge is all about. This is what we were born to experience: the timelessness of love. And it is available to each and every one of us every single second of our blessed lives.
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PS: This posting is actually one of two articles on this blog about being a waiter for Maharaji. To read the other one, click here. If either of these move you in the slightest way, please consider forwarding them to a friend or (ahem) a...relative.
Posted by Mitch Ditkoff at 11:14 PM | Comments (2)
March 05, 2009Home Base
Throughout the ages and even last week, many people have tried to describe the experience of Knowledge -- the gift that a true Master gives.
In a grand attempt to be thorough and profound, they have cited a wide variety of inspired sources to make their case: the Bible, the Bhagavad Gita, the Upanishads, the Koran, the Talmud, and hundreds of other holy books.
Their efforts have been, as far as I can tell, well-intentioned, noble, and sincere.
At the same time, bringing in all of that heavy artillery can confound matters. Scriptures have a tendency to be a bit off-putting to some folks -- especially those who have had negative experiences with religion or don't particularly resonate with "things spiritual."
And so, for everyone out there who has some interest in Maharaji's Knowledge, but is not yet sure it's actually for them, allow me to present a simple metaphor of what it's like. (And remember, folks, this is only a metaphor).
Knowledge is like home base in the child's game of tag.
When you're experiencing it, you are completely safe. Connected. At ease. Beyond the madness swirling all around you. And while you are free, at any time, to run around and play the game, you know where home base is.
Posted by Mitch Ditkoff at 08:43 AM | Comments (2)
March 03, 2009SOUL BIOGRAPHIES: Charananand
Sweet video of Charananand talking about life, appreciation, & the beauty of turning within. Produced by Nic Askew. (Great work Nic!)
Posted by Mitch Ditkoff at 05:14 AM | Comments (1)
