Ben Ralston

Why healing, personal development and spirituality are really the same thing.

Kiwan and Jai. Masters of Simplicity.
Sometimes, life seems so damn complicated, doesn’t it?! I have an intimate relationship with my wife to maintain and nourish; my child to educate, support, and nurture; my work to soak up my passion and creativity… and all the while the whole world seems to be trying to sell me something!


But lately, more and more, I’m feeling like everything is actually incredibly simple. Because the root of all these various and complex problems is the same – me!
When I get myself in order, everything else falls into place. Life becomes, once again, very joyful.
I used to think that I had to do lots of different things in order to get myself into that joyful space: Yoga; meditation; eat just right; get a balance between work and play; personal development work so that my relationships would work (as long as my partner also did personal development work!)… God, when I look back at what I was doing I cringe…
Now I realize that there is only one thing I need to do, and all the labels I used to apply really boil down, in essence, to this one thing:
Healing is this one thing.
Personal development is the same as this one thing.
Spiritual growth comes about as a result of this one thing.
Healing.
I’m not talking about the word ‘healing’ as it’s come to be used so much – as a kind of band-aid. This healer and that healer who do this and that, and eventually, after a while, you realize that actually, nothing has been healed!
I’m talking about profound, permanent transformation.
The reason why healing, personal development, and spirituality are the same thing: because we are already perfect.
There is nothing to do, to achieve, to get. It’s all there already, right there, inside you.
All we have to do, is let go of what’s blocking it form coming out!
When Buddha said: “Be a light unto thyself”, I’m pretty sure that’s what he meant: ‘just look at yourself, you’re perfect!’
When Jesus said “All these things, and greater, you shall do too”, he was saying that he was nothing special – just an ordinary human being like you and I, who had realized his perfection, and through it, was able to achieve miracles. And that we all can do that too!
We’re all so beautiful, amazing, and perfect. But we don’t love ourselves enough. And that’s the crux of the matter. We simply have to let go of the blockages that stop us from loving ourselves.
That’s healing (and it’s really very simple).
It’s also personal development and spiritual growth.

Yoga teachers training: how I stopped resisting, and started living.

Ben, Vijendra, Sacred mountain

It’s coming towards the end of January, 2001 – and the end of my one month Yoga teacher’s training course in Kerala, India.

It’s been the longest month of my life – bar none. I’ve been ill for most of that time with bronchitis, tonsillitis, and flu (yes, simultaneously) and I never would have believed that it was possible to feel quite so useless. Having never been seriously ill in my life, and having come here with the idea that I would become God of Asana, it’s been a humbling experience, to say the least…





When I first arrived here a month ago, jetlagged beyond belief, I shared a room with a 52-year-old French guy who, a few days into the course, accused me of stealing his money. I was evicted from the room, and since then the whole French contingent have been giving me the evil eye. Standing in line for morning ‘chai’ and feeling fifteen French faces burning a hole in my guilty until proven innocent back didn’t make me feel better…
Next, I shared a room with a 52-year-old Serbian chap (Rade) who accused me of sitting on his pillow. I may well have done that by the way, as I admitted openly to him – I’ve been feverish to the point of hallucination, and some days didn’t know my own name, let alone my own pillow. However, this upset him so much that he wouldn’t speak to me (until recently)… needless to say the atmosphere in our little room hasn’t been all that amiable. That didn’t make me feel better either… nor did the fact that said Serbian snores frighteningly loudly, and gets up an hour early each morning for an extra hour of meditation. So his alarm goes off at 4.30, and then he does Neti in the tiny toilet joining our room. Most days I am just drifting off to sleep when his alarm goes off, so I have an hour of sleep interspersed with the sounds of his snot hitting the toilet water. Nope, that hasn’t helped much.
One of those mornings, when Rade’s alarm went off, I started crying. I was really at the end of my tether, so to speak. I didn’t think I could handle any more of this relentless hardship. All I wanted was to be home, and get a hug from my girlfriend. The thought of that hug… well, at that moment, I was closer to quitting than I’ve ever been in my life. I cried for a while while Rade cleaned his nose out very thoroughly nearby, and decided to stick at it. I steeled myself for more days and nights of misery, but I wouldn’t quit. I decided. That decision didn’t help me to feel better anytime soon, but I think it might have almost saved my life!
I really haven’t slept much. We work and study each day ‘til late, then have homework, and by the time we get to sleep it’s almost time to get up. Together with the jetlag, the snoring, the early starts, and the mosquitos…
Oh! I didn’t mention the mosquitos. Well, let’s just say that they are big; ubiquitous; and hunt in savage packs, like maniacal rabid dogs.
So, all in all, I haven’t had much sleep lately.
The schedule itself is relentless! We have two asana classes a day (two hours each), meditation and chanting twice a day, endless lectures on the Bhagavad Gita, Kirtan (chanting), anatomy, yoga theory… an hour of Karma yoga, which for me entails filling a large barrel of water with buckets from the lake. That would be fine normally, but since I can barely raise my hand, carrying buckets of water is pretty difficult.
We only get two vegetarian meals a day. I’ve never heard of that before. Where I come from, everyone says that ‘breakfast is the most important meal of the day’. Well, here there is no breakfast. They also say that you can’t survive without meat, because you won’t get enough protein. Well, we’ll see won’t we!
Speaking of which, I’ve just remembered a funny conversation I had with my Dad. I called home after about a week, and told him about the food situation. He told me that he’d read an article on cults. Apparently, cults brainwash people by starving them of protein – or so he read. ‘Watch out’, he said. ‘If you start feeling weak and susceptible, come right on home’.
Thanks Dad, very encouraging!
Recently though, I have been slowly feeling better.
I think that the massage helped a bit – the one where I lay naked on the hard stone floor while a fat, hairy Indian man walked up and down my arms, legs, and body, grinding my joints into the ground with his heels – he narrowly avoided breaking me in half by hanging on to a rope that hung from the ceiling. Perhaps when he massaged my genitals with his feet… yes I believe the sheer shock of that moment did me some good after a month of strict routine.
The chanting has definitely helped. When I first arrived, I was surprised to hear a chorus of strange, loud sounds coming from the building in the middle of the Ashram. Unlike any music I’d ever heard before, it was alien and uninviting. When I was sat in the middle of that hall the next day, and for the following weeks, and urged to join in the chanting, I couldn’t get past the fact that I didn’t understand what the words meant (what if Dad was right?!).
But slowly, the words of one of the teachers here began to sink in: “stop resisting”.
And one day, I found myself chanting with the best of them, lungs pumping like pistons, and tears streaming down my face as I somehow felt myself yearning for something that I didn’t understand. That yearning, that yearning… yes, that made me feel better.
I’m sure all the asana practice has helped too. When I arrived, I thought I was pretty damn good at the old asana. I figured I’d be one of the best here, and they’d probably be asking me to demonstrate stuff, and might even want to photograph me.
However, I was shocked to see that some of the people here can do things that I’ve never heard of and probably won’t ever be able to do. At first, I was pretty peeved about that. But soon I was too ill to think about it, and after a while the asana practice just started becoming, well, less competitive really. I stopped thinking about what I looked like, and what they looked like, and I just started breathing deeper. Deeper than I’d ever thought possible. It was like my whole body was one big lung! And each cell was breathing in harmony with every other cell, and the inhalation and exhalation were flowing into each other, and well, even though I could barely do much at all, what I did do felt great.
I’ve decided that I may not ever be able to do those asanas where you get your legs behind your head and then walk around on your fingertips, but I’m going to work hard at doing what I can do, and I’m going to master it. Setting myself that kind of goal without being ‘attached’ to the result, felt good.
I know the meditation helped. Sitting still for 30mins, observing my breath, repeating the mantra until my mind becomes so focused that all other thoughts dissipate and there is only this vibration happening, which is my life, my breath, my self, now… doing that twice a day has definitely helped. I’m going to keep on doing that, because when I do, I feel great.
And now here I am, up a mountain. It’s 6am, and the Sun has just risen. We all walked up this mountain together this morning, in silence, in the dark, and meditated while the sun came up and warmed our faces. Then we chanted to the sky, to the jungle, to the universe.
They say this mountain is a holy place. I believe. There’s certainly a sacred feeling in the air now. I feel as if I can do anything here. I feel no animosity towards anyone, for the first time in my life. If the devil himself were stood in front of me I’d wish him well. I certainly don’t have any ill feeling towards Rade: I went to him and apologized yesterday, and guess what? He apologized right on back. We didn’t say much, but there was such a feeling between us that it didn’t matter.
I don’t hate the French guy either. I guess he was having a hard time too in those early days of the course. I reckon he really did believe that I’d stolen from him, and he’s entitled to believe what he wants. Anyway, I’m too busy feeling great to worry about what he thinks now.
I stand here at the top of this mountain, and want to sum up how I feel in one word: it’s a word that I would never have used before I came here to India.
It’s a word that I used to associate with religion, and religion was one of the things that I used to think I hated.
But the word that comes to mind is Faith. I am full of faith. I stand here, full of faith. Not faith in God, or faith in a religion, or an institution like the church, or another person… but faith in myself.
I’ve been to the darkest of places in my self. I’ve wanted to quit, and I’ve had to find out what I’m made of. I found out that I may not be who I have always thought I was. Actually, I know I’m not. I’ve realized that nothing is what I thought it was. Nothing is for certain anymore, but I think I can handle that: I’ve finally stopped resisting.
I take off my sandals. I’m so full of faith that I know I can walk down this jungle mountain barefoot. Something in me tells me to do that, and I don’t question it. It just feels like a good thing to do, so I do it, because I don’t need any other reason. As I walk, I feel the rocks and soil and tree roots beneath my feet and between my toes, and somehow there is no pain. Somehow, it’s as if the earth moulds itself to my feet, and my feet find their way. I don’t even need to look down at where I put them – my feet just find their way. That’s faith, and that’s what I’ve found this last month.
I wonder where it’ll take me next.

WHAT IS GROUNDED SPIRITUALITY?

Grounded spirituality is an approach to life founded on an experience of reality. It’s for people who have a ‘healthy skepticism’, but are nevertheless faithful.

It is a way of life that simultaneously embraces rooted-ness (being ‘down to earth’), and star-gazing. This wonderful quote from Oscar Wilde comes to mind…
“we are all in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars…”

We are not really American, or English, or Slovene, or any other nationality.
First and foremost, we are Earthlings.
Whether you were born here or there; whether your skin is black or white; whether you speak this language or that language, or many languages, or none at all, I don’t care.
You are the same as I am. We are separate only by appearance, and through perception.
Another wonderful quote comes to mind, from Shakespeare:

King Richard II:
“Cover your heads and mock not flesh and blood
With solemn reverence:
throw away respect, tradition, form and ceremonious duty,
For you have but mistook me all this while:
I live with bread like you, feel want, taste grief, need friends:
subjected thus, how can you say to me, I am a king?”
Whether you are a king or a beggar;
CEO of a multinational business, or the cleaner who sweeps the floor;
a teacher or a student:
you live with bread, feel want, taste grief, and need friends. 
Just like me.
We are all, basically, the same. We all want to be happy. And for all of us, the ultimate happiness is the true experience of love.
Grounded Spirituality is for you if  you recognize that heaven is a place on earth. Sometimes, for us to accept that, we have to first know hell – and it’s also a place on earth. 

“… if you know what life is worth, you will look for yours on earth…” (Bob Marley)

Grounded Spirituality is for people who want to change the world, one step at a time, by embodying that change themselves.
It’s for people who know that the world is in them, and not the other way around.
It’s for those who know that in order to realize our divine self, we first have to realize our humanity.
Ancient Zen saying:
“Before enlightenment, chop wood, carry water.
After enlightenment, chop wood, carry water.”

Grounded Spirituality is not an escape. It is not a fantasy. It is not a new-age airy-fairy get-away.
It’s the opposite. It’s about ‘keeping it real’ and upholding your responsibilities; being able to stand up in any situation with your head held high, knowing that you are doing the right thing, even though sometimes that can be painful.
It’s about being a ‘peaceful warrior’, having the courage to stay open to every possibility; closed to none.
It’s about knowing that truth is beyond perception; 
but going ahead and trying to perceive truth anyway.
Grounded Spirituality, to me, is a challenge and an invitation and a call to arms.
What is it to you?