Ben Ralston

Resurrection


She is alive,
Right here inside
Next to the
Garbage that I didn’t throw out yet
And the uncut grass in the garden
Alongside last year’s tax receipts
And all of the
Broken relationships,
Forgotten friendships,
Neglected plants that withered and died
Long ago,
And my guilt for them.
My guilt.
Who knew?!
Here she lives
Right here
Alongside the homeless addict
Who plagues me daily to numb
And avoid my pain
Begging for spare change
“Can you spare some change mate”
As if that’s all he deserves.
Spare
Change.
My love doesn’t mind!
She doesn’t judge all those
Problems the way I d(id).
She simply opens Her arms and waits
For me to fall into them
So patiently.

Take responsibility – don’t hand over your power to others.

Somebody told me about a friend who is obsessed with the world ending in 2012.
Guess what – the world won’t end this year in 2012. It probably won’t end for a very, very long time.
Until it does, please don’t give away your power to anyone that would have you relinquish your responsibility. Whether they be conspiracy theorists, psychics, healers, spiritual teachers, yoga ‘guru’s… anyone.
Right now, there is important work to be done – for yourself, for those around you, for the planet, for future generations.
Let’s do that work, and stop worrying about an uncertain future. Focus on the present – be real, stay grounded, and do what you need to do to cultivate more joy.
Be more free.
Spread more love.

Thanks for listening – if it’s of value, please share.

How your personal views are worthless (and why you should probably re-think everything you think you know)


I once believed that:
If I don’t wear shoes, I’ll hurt my feet.
If I don’t keep warm, I’ll catch a cold.
I only need to practice yoga to stay fit and healthy.
I only need to stay fit and healthy to be happy.
What’s good for me is good for everyone.


When I was at school I had a friend who was, to be honest, an asshole. He once hawked up a big green lump of phlegm out of the depths of his chest and spat it full in my face. Yes, that kind of asshole. But he was nevertheless my friend, and I loved him, and somehow still do (although we’ve long since lost touch).
He once told me this saying, and it’s stuck with me ever since:
The more you study, the more you learn. The more you learn, the more you know. The more you know, the more you forget. The more you forget, the less you know. So why bother?
Of course it’s a bit silly, but when I heard it then it felt very right. Perhaps because at that time the whole adult world seemed to be pitted in a deadly struggle to teach me crap. Parents, teachers, extended family, family friends, and distant relatives were all hell-bent on cramming my head full of algebra, geology, ancient history and chemistry, at a time when all I really wanted to do was climb trees.
Many years later I read the classic book ‘I Am That’, by Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj, and the following line changed my life:
“Love says ‘I am everything’. Wisdom says ‘I am nothing’. Between the two, my life flows.”
Socrates said:
“All I know is that I know nothing”.
Such simplicity. Such beauty. Such wisdom.
That’s the kind of ancient history I am interested in… 

Shoes.

Of course, if you don’t wear shoes, you hurt your feet, right? It’s only logical.
There’s another way. Develop faith, and walk down a jungle-covered Indian mountain barefoot.
I also once got high (long time ago), and ran full speed down a narrow, steep, crooked and uneven footpath, (tree roots, rocks, and all) in the pitch dark. The odds of my making it down in one piece were probably about a billion to one. “But” as it says in the bible, “with faith, anything is possible”. (Mathew 19; 26)

Cold.

That’s why they call it ‘a cold’ isn’t it? If you get cold, you get a cold, right? Right!
Except, if you raise your energy, develop a strong immune system, and have faith, you don’t ever get colds (or, very rarely).
When I believed this one, I used to keep warm. I also used to get a lot of colds, flu’s, and throat problems. Now, I rarely dress ‘sensibly’, and I hardly ever get sick.

Fit and Healthy.

Many times in my life I thought I found The Answer. You know, the answer to all our problems – Life, The Universe, and Everything. But the truth is, there is no answer. The question is the answer, because in the asking of the question we find another question, and it’s in the very asking of questions that we find our purpose (isn’t it?). So every time you think you’ve found that answer, think again. The part of us that likes to believe in answers is our Ego. So what would happen is, my Ego would find The Answer, and then a little while later I’d realize that The Answer didn’t actually answer all the questions after all, and I’d set off in search of The Answer all over again. This is the definition of suffering isn’t it? It’s certainly one definition of insanity.
Nowadays, I very much concur with Carlos Castaneda / Don Juan’s secret to staying fit and healthy:
“The secret to having a healthy body is in what you don’t do”.

Happy.

It’s been told a million times by a million people better than myself, but I’ll say it again: happiness is an inside job.
‘There is no path to happiness. Happiness is the path.’
That said, I’ve found something very interesting in my time thus far on Earth: we are innately happy beings. Given a natural, peaceful biological development (from conception to adulthood), and a supportive and loving upbringing / education, we cannot fail to be happy.
How many of us had those two simple things? Very few. Instead we have almost all of us experienced abuse and trauma, and trauma disconnects us from our happy Self.
So, yes, happiness is inside us already, waiting to come out, and yes, in that sense, Self Help or Personal Development is a waste of time, but you know what? Until you’ve healed the trauma, the happiness is hiding. Like the Sun behind the clouds.

Good.

Another cliché: ‘human beings are like snowflakes’.
Yes, cliché but true. No two of us are the same. Even if you take the most identical identical twins, they are deeply different; each unique. And as different as we all are, we are also all on different paths, and at different stages of the path. So no, there is no ‘one size fits all’ in this life.
One of the things that brought this home to me very clearly was a comment that a reader left after my article The 3 Reasons to be a Vegetarian. Calling himself simply ‘Omnivore’, this person said that despite having had been raised a vegetarian; and despite believing completely in everything that my article espoused; and despite having eaten the perfect ‘textbook’ vegetarian diet; he needed meat, and when he started eating meat, his health and sense of well-being improved greatly. He went from ‘surviving to thriving’. His comment helped me to understand that there is no right way to eat. (I thought I’d been writing The Truth, The Answer). It also helped me to find a better way for me to eat. Changing this belief – a strong viewpoint that I’d taught in seminars – wasn’t easy. But it was liberating.
What this world needs like a hole in the head is more beliefs, views, and opinions.
What this world desperately needs is more people who love themselves and each other and the world around them, regardless of views, beliefs, and opinions.
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Thank you!

Get out feeling good. (The wise grieve neither for the living, nor for the dead.)

Jacques-Louis David, The Death of Marat, oil on canvas, 1793 (Royal Museum of Fine Arts, Brussels)

You probably think you are “(insert your name)”. You’re not – you can legally change your name, but you won’t have changed what you are – your name is just a handle with which the world is able to pick you up and examine you.
You probably think of yourself as either a man or a woman. You’re not. That is just a gender association that you make based upon the genetic choices that your cells made when your body was being formed biologically. You are only an association as long as you are not being the genuine article.
You probably think of yourself primarily as your body. Most people do…
You’re not your body anymore than you are your car!
When you sit in your car, you don’t say: “I am a Ford / Honda / Daewoo”! (At least, I hope you don’t). You probably say: “I’m driving my Daewoo”.
Your car is just a vehicle that transports you from A to B.
Your body is just a vehicle that transports you from A to B. A very beautiful, wonderful, miraculous vehicle, but a vehicle nonetheless.
You are not your body. This may sound strange to you until you consider the following: if you have an accident one day and the doctor has to amputate a leg or two, (let’s say for the sake of argument – all your limbs)… will you be any less you? No, you’ll be the same you, just without arms and legs.
You probably think of yourself as American (or Slovene, English… whatever nationality passport you carry). You are not. That is just a label that you were given. Labels limit you  – you are much more than a label.
You are not American any more than you are Christian, or Buddhist, or Jewish, or Muslim, or … insert any other religious / spiritual belief system. These are just labels that you identify with. The real you is beyond labels, beyond identification.
You are pure light (bear with me here if you’re allergic to new-age-isms – I am too! But this is truth…) You are all colors and no color. You are pure light.
You are pure light. You are pure consciousness. You are pure love.
What is pure light, consciousness, love? Are these just nice words; nice new-age concepts that are devoid of real meaning?
No! They seem that way sometimes because their meaning is so subtle… but love, light, and consciousness are the fundamental properties of existence!
‘In the beginning was the word’: Consciousness.
And God said, ‘let there be light’: Consciousness.
Pure consciousness is what you really are.
Pure consciousness is your essence.
Your body, emotions, and thoughts are simply waves of consciousness. All that you think you are – just waves of consciousness.
What you really are is pure consciousness.
Swami Vishnu Devananda used to say something every morning when he taught the Sivananda Yoga teacher training course. He used to ask the question:
“What is today?”
When I was asked this same question (by his disciple Swami Mahadevananda), I replied ‘Monday’.
He said ‘No’. And waited.
‘5th February?’
‘No’. Long pause.
‘Your birthday?!’
Smile. ‘No. It’s another day closer to death’.
Today is another day closer to death.
Death is coming. Sooner or later it will catch up with you… how will you feel in that moment?
Will you be afraid? Sad? Regretful?
Will you be joyful? Excited? Will you celebrate?!
What dies is only the body. We do not die. Just as it is written in the Bhagavad Gita:
“The wise grieve neither for the living nor for the dead.
Nor at any time indeed was I not, nor these rulers of men, nor verily shall we ever cease to be hereafter.
Just as in this body the embodied (soul) passes into childhood, youth and old age, so also does he pass into another body; the firm man does not grieve thereat…
…The unreal hath no being; there is no non-being of the Real; the truth about both has been seen by the knowers of the Truth.
Know That to be indestructible, by whom all this is pervaded. None can cause the destruction of That, the Imperishable.
Weapons cut It not, fire burns It not, water wets It not, wind dries It not.
This Self cannot be cut, burnt, wetted nor dried up. It is eternal, all-pervading, stable, ancient and immovable.”
So, the job, the house, the ‘stuff’. All the places we direct our attention: how important are they? You can’t take any of it with you.
At that final moment, when you are about to leave this body, the only thing that will matter is how you feel. That is important. You won’t be thinking about your bank balance, or your mortgage, or the news, or any of the other things that take up so much of our time these days.
You will be aware only of how you feel.
My advice: get out feeling good (without regret; without sadness; without fear).
Because perhaps death is just the first step of the next part of your journey, and the first step of any journey is a big one.
Get out feeling good.
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Introducing a true spiritual master: Tony Samara

Some people talk of the world ending in 2012 – personally I think that’s nonsense. The world won’t end; but our world just might, unless we evolve human consciousness from the fear mentality that currently pervades, to a new paradigm of love.

I have always had this feeling, this vision (and it has not faded) since I was a child. Indeed, as I have grown older, it has been re-affirmed.

Swami Vishnu Devananda founded the Sivananda Yoga teacher-training course because he had a vision during meditation of the world burning; human beings running around in chaos and fear and desperation. He created that yoga teacher-training course not so much to train yoga teachers as to train world leaders. He recognized that moral, ethical, and spiritual leadership throughout society would prompt change at a ‘grassroots’ level: the change that is necessary to avoid the kind of disaster we may be facing now.

When I learnt of this – as I took the teacher-training myself – I was deeply moved. I silently vowed to do all I could to become the kind of leader that Swami Vishnu envisioned. I did this not only out of love for him (although I never met him – he died in 1993, the year I discovered yoga – I have always felt a tremendous loyalty and love towards him). I did it also because I resonated with his vision, and because I love this Earth, this home that we all share; upon which we float together through space, and towards our shared destiny.

So my work for many years now has been about making a difference. My work as a therapist, healer, and teacher; running yoga retreats and healing holidays; and indeed everything I write; all comes from a heartfelt urge to create a more positive human society.

Today, I begin to do something more.

Today I tell you about a spiritual teacher called Tony Samara…
I call myself a spiritual teacher from time to time – I don’t mean, and have never meant to imply, that I am a guru, or that I am enlightened. Like many, I have tasted the bliss of self-realization but have not been able to sustain it.
Tony Samara is different. I have never met anyone like him, and believe me: I have searched; and I am not easily led.
He is endlessly patient, yet utterly intent.

He is simultaneously deeply compassionate and ruthlessly detached.

He is powerful – miracles seem to happen around him all the time – but his power is matched by a deep humility and gentleness.
I invite you to watch the following video. Made by those students closest to Tony, it is stunningly beautiful. However, the most beautiful aspect of it, for me, is simply Tony’s voice. I invite you to listen to his voice, feel his energy, and consider his words.
If you feel drawn to his teachings, know that there is no dogma or doctrine. He teaches a path of simplicity, and is himself a family man – he has four children.
You can find out more about him on this website, and tune in, for free, to his live Satsang at 17.00 UCT every wednesday. You may also view many of his previous Satsangs, and other videos, at the video archive accessed from the same page.
I will write more articles promoting Tony’s work: how I met him (and the amazing impact that simple moment had on me!); how other people met him; some of my personal experiences whilst being guided by him in meditation; how he has visited me (and others) in dreams.
For now, please enjoy this beautiful video!
With love, Ben