Wahe Guru, and I hope your day has been infinitely blessed!

Yesterday’s service at Krishna’s temple was exciting. That is the best way to worship. I grew up as a Mormon, and in case you didn’t know, the Mormons worship with a very solemn and reverent spirit. That is great. I prefer to have an excited and empowering attitude towards the all-mighty. That attitude carries me throughout the week.

Every week, students from the surrounding universities come to our worship to complete assignments for their religious study classes. Last Sunday, there were at least thirty students visiting for that reason. They are always kind and reverent. Jai Krishna Das came to service. He is a guy who knows how to hype the crowd and invite the spirit of fun. I always have fun when he’s there with us. We dance hard, we sang hard. We listened hard, and we ate hard.

We were downstairs eating after service and a struck up a conversation with three ladies who were sitting across from me. I’m so sorry I don’t remember their names but I remember that they studies philosophy, psychology and music. The psychology said something that stuck with me and I’m still thinking about it. It will be the topic of this blog. We were talking about sharing our light, and this lady said, “You have to fill up your own cup in order to dip from it.”

That is perfectly true. We often live our lives in a fashion of looking elsewhere for our personal fulfillment. My humble observation is that relationships are often characterized by the fact that two people are codependent on each other for their personal well being. We expect our friend or partner to lift our spirits or make us feel wanted/needed.

I can speak of this from personal experience. I can remember one thing staying the same about me since I was a kid: I’ve never been able to shake my chronic loneliness. Yes even in the presence of good company, family and my girlfriend, I couldn’t stop feeling alone. In an unconscious response, I cultivated my talents as a people person. I learned how to make friends, include myself and talk to people. But in all actuality, when the day came to an end and I laid my head down, the empty and lonely feeling was waiting for me.

I found the antidote! Adopting a conscious living showed me where that emptiness came from, and I think these implications can apply for the masses. I can’t be the only person who feels this way. I used to spend so much effort being dependent on outer circumstances to fill me up. My practice to live consciously showed me how to slow down and be with myself. This practice is like going to the gym. You hate it at first. You have to convince yourself to go and put in the effort. It hurts at the beginning. A couple weeks pass, and your body begins to embrace the new practice your giving to your life.

This is like meditation. At first, it can be anxiety inducing. It can be dreadful. Because in meditation, you have to put business to the side and be alone with yourself and whatever you’re leaving without attention. At first it will make you cry. But when the sky of your mind becomes clear, then you have come back home to yourself. And then, the tears will come again, but this time the tears are that of bliss. Because for the first time in maybe a while, you’ve come back home. You’ve revisited your space of peace. It’s still and untouched. Its pure and untainted. It cannot be tainted. That is why it is your real true home.

When you come to this space, you’ve filled your cup. Your reality will soon shift from one that was codependent with outside, to one that is sovereign in and of itself. You carry it with you everywhere. And you don’t need anything else to come here. It is innate and is your birthright as a human being. Close your eyes and breath. This is the passage way to home. Your temple is behind your eyelids. The only ingredient is a few mindful breaths.

If you do this, you have filled your cup. You will not need a partner. You will not need food to satisfy. You will not need cheap conversation or mundane thrills. You are already full. You can make yourself this way. I believe that you can do it.

This is the most simple thing. This is the path to well being. You do not need a doctrine and you will certainly not need religion. It matters not if you believe in God. Because for this, you will not need to look up towards heaven. You do not need to look any direction outside yourself, because this is a method of looking inside.

I think soon I’ll be writing more about my meditation practice. I think I’ve said plenty about meditation itself, but I have no spelled my own. And at the end of the day, I can only speak from my own experience.

The older I become, I realize how little I actually know. I write this blog, but very honestly, I don’t know very much aside from my own experiences. I don’t know the recipe to everlasting happiness. I don’t know the meaning of things. I don’t know what my future will be like. I don’t know what happens when I die. I don’t know why my love left. But I know this one thing quite well. That is my own breath and how to listen to it. I’ve spend many hours listening to my breath and my discoveries have been quite the tale. That is true.

I love you all! The Creator made each of you with the most precious design, and that makes you valuable!

Sat Nam

Erik H.