Gregg Braden on ‘the single eye of the heart’, compassionate living, and using prayer to become a force of love in this world.

 

This is a truly wonderful, enlightening interview with Gregg Braden who speaks to us about, among other things, taking a step back and observing our negative judgments about an experience and instead understanding that ALL experiences teach us, especially those that may cause us pain. The pain that we feel is caused by our past experiences, by our old wounds, our childhood, our ego, our conditioning… What we don’t realize is that those experiences can be the greatest blessings in our lives. We can respond to a negative judgement and to any experience that causes us to hurt by asking ourselves,”What does it tell me about my life?” We can choose to bless the hurt that is giving us information about ourselves.

By neutralizing our negative thoughts and judgments as they flow through us, we can begin to turn something potentially toxic into something truly beneficial and revealing and use it as a tool that can help us to tap into the power we all have to cultivate a higher consciousness.

I transcribed some of his words from the interview here because I couldn’t find them anywhere else.

ON BAD FEELINGS:

Our experience is only an experience, not positive, not negative. Until we judge our personal experience, until we give it an importance based in our perceptions and our beliefs, until we do that, it is simply an experience.

So the question is, why are we judging ourselves and how do we judge ourselves? And the healing comes from allowing ourselves to feel whatever it is that the world gives to us to feel and to acknowledge that feeling and say, “hmm.. Yes, this is a feeling.” Sometimes it’s a good feeling, sometimes it’s a bad feeling, but to allow the feeling to unfold without judging what the feeling means or being afraid of how it may affect something else in the world.

The feelings that we call negative are simply indicators, indications that something has crossed our path that is now inviting us to examine this experience. “Why do i feel this way? What is it saying to me?” And they become a problem only when we ignore them, when they go unresolved. ‘Unreconciled feelings’ is the term that we use when the feelings are unresolved and we bury or mask our hurt or our frustration or our anger or our jealousy or our rage and we do that month-after-month, year-after-year and that feeling is buried inside of us looking for an expression. That’s where we begin to have the problems.

But the feeling itself… when we have a feeling.. I have negative feelings and I don’t judge them, I Say, “Hmm… I’m having a feeling about this person or about this situation.” And then I have to check with myself and say, “Why am I having this feeling? What does it mean to me? What is it telling me about my personal beliefs and my personal experience?” And in that way, the negative feelings become our best friends because they actually serve us rather than hurt us. It’s all based on our beliefs and the judgement that we attach to that experience.”

ON ‘THE SINGLE EYE OF THE HEART’:

When we are experiencing judgement and ego, what is that saying to us really?

Well, the first thing it’s telling us is that we are not in our heart because the heart has no judgement and the heart has no ego. When we are experiencing those qualities, it is coming from our mind. It’s coming from our inner child. It’s coming from our fear, from our families, our perceptions, our conditioning. It’s not coming from our heart.

In the English language, the language is not designed for this conversation. Other languages are. Sanskrit for example, ancient Sanskrit. In Sanskrit there is one word that means the energy body of the human, it is ‘Prana.’ In English there is no single word for Prana so we have to take other words and put them together… And the same is true when we speak about the language of the heart. There is no word in the English language that describes the language of the heart. Part of my heritage is Southeastern Cherokee, Native American Cherokee and in that tradition there IS a word that means ‘the single eye of the heart’; the eye that doesn’t see right and wrong and good and bad… that simply sees what has happened with no judgement. And that word is ‘chante-ishta’ = the single eye of the heart.

And so the goal of many ancient traditions, early Christian, early Jewish, early Buddhist, Native American, and now the scientific principles today, is to find the way to view the experiences of life, what happens in the world around us; our relationships, our finances, our health, through the single eye of the heart, the eye that says, “yes, this is what has happened.” without saying that what has happened is good or bad or right or wrong. And when we find ourselves having those experiences, we are in our mind … and the way they say to transcend, to get through the judgement that we find ourselves in, it sounds strange at first, but what they invite us to do is this: When something hurts us in life, when something crosses our path that causes us pain, our first reaction is to move away from it, to say, “I don’t want that.” And that is when the judgement comes in. If we can embrace the experiences when someone (or an experience) hurts us in life, not that we like the experience or that we want to have it again, but the ancients say that we should bless the experience. And this sounds very strange, to bless the things that hurt you, but here’s what happens: When we begin to bless the things that cause us the pain, the blessing is simply the acknowledgment. When you say, “I bless the person who has just been dishonest with me. I bless the person who has violated my trust, betrayed my confidence” and you say that again and again and you say it out loud, what begins to happen is, the verbal expression brings the physical energy up from the heart into the body and soon your body becomes warm and you have tears in your eyes and you say, “I bless this person. I bless this person.” and it is the blessing that relieves the charge of the judgement for just a moment. And that’s all we need because for just a moment, when the charge is relieved, we can replace the hurt with something else. And the ancients say that that something else is what we call ‘beauty’.

Beauty is a powerful force in our world and it already exists everywhere. The ancient Essenes and the Native Americans alike, they say that beauty is already everywhere, in everything. Our job is to find that beauty, to seek it out.

Mother Teresa was a master at this. She would walk down the streets of Calcutta, India and she would see dead bodies on the street and decay in the gutters… and in the dung, in the gutter of the streets of Calcutta, she would find a flower growing and in that flower she would find beauty in the streets and that experience allowed her the strength to find even more beauty in life. So, rather than judging the experiences, when they come to us, if we can look at each experience as a blessing and when we find ourselves hurt say again, “Yes, I feel hurt.” So, acknowledge it first. Secondly, what is this hurt saying to me? What voice am I hearing? What does it tell me about my life? and bless the hurt now that is giving us information about ourselves.

ON PRAYER:

“This experience of the heart, prayer, is not something that we do, it is something that we become. 

It is something that we live in our lives.

Life becomes the prayer.

Every moment of every day is the prayer.”

It’s called ‘the lost mode of prayer‘; feeling-based prayer. Because the prayer is based in a feeling and we could have a feeling all the time; we could have a feeling in our cars driving on the highway, we can have a feeling in the office, in the school, with our families, alone in the park, we can always have a feeling and that means we can always be in prayer. But it’s not something that we do in a moment, it’s a way of living. It’s a way of life. It’s something that we become. And when we do that, the prayer never ends and that is the secret.

ON THE FORCE THAT HOLDS THE UNIVERSE TOGETHER:

The Abbot in Tibet was so clear when he said this, the new Abbot: I ask him the question through the translator, I said, “What is the force that holds the universe together?” We had already had the conversation that there is something out there so I was asking for specifics from his Tibetan Buddhist perspective.

I said, “What is it that holds the universe together? What connects everything in the universe?”

And he had a conversation with the translator and then he answered me with one word.

He said, “Compassion.”

And I said, “Well, wait a minute. I thought that compassion is a feeling, an experience that we have in our bodies and in our hearts. I’m asking you what is the force that holds everything together?”

And he answered me again and he said, “compassion.”

And I said, “Is it an experience or is it a force?”

And he said, “YES. It is both.”

And to me that is SO powerful because it reminds us that we are born into this world with a power in our hearts that we already have, that we don’t have to learn, it’s already there! And it’s a power that aligns us with the framework, with the matrix of the universe itself… And from the Tibetan Buddhist perspective, they recognize that the experience of compassion, it’s not just feeling sorry for someone or saying, “Ohh… poor person! They’re having a bad day!” In western tradition sometimes people think of compassion that way and that may be a part of it, but from the Buddhist perspective, it’s much deeper than that. It is living life awake and conscious and present in our hearts, in the moment, knowing that we are part of all that is and that what we do in every moment of life is affecting not only us, it’s affecting the other side of the universe. It is consciously living our lives respecting and honoring that relationship. It’s such a beautiful way to live.

New York Times best selling author Gregg Braden is internationally renowned as a pioneer in bridging science and spirituality. For over 22 years, Gregg Braden has searched high mountain villages, remote monasteries, and forgotten texts to uncover their timeless secrets. Combining his discoveries with the best science of today, his original research crosses the traditional boundaries of science, history, and religion offering fresh insights into ancient mysteries. In doing so he has redefined our relationship to our inner and outer worlds, while sharing his life-affirming message of hope and possibility.

Food For Thought Exercise: What would a 110-year old version of yourself tell your current self?

“we already have all of the wisdom we need.” – Tal Ben-Shahar

Your Mind Is A Garden That Only You Can Tend To

Perhaps you have heard this reference and it is a powerful image. There is no greater metaphor for the mind and our thoughts.

There is a quote by William Wordsworth that comes to mind

“Your mind is the garden, 

your thoughts are the seeds,

the harvest can either be flowers or weeds.”

Think of the subconscious mind as the soil in which you plant your garden. It offers a foundation for seeds to grow and take root, providing the plants with nutrients and water. It gives them a place to thrive. However, it also offers a wonderful place for weeds to flourish and multiply. The soil doesn’t discriminate; its purpose is to create and support plant life of all kinds—beautiful and ugly, bitter and sweet.

the conscious mind—is your everyday mind. It’s made up of the thoughts you have about the things you hear and see and ultimately do. In our garden analogy, your conscious mind would be like the seeds that you plant in your garden. Every thought you think is a seed.
A conscious thought which reappears often will eventually make its way into your subconscious mind, where it will grow into a permanent belief. When we plant a seed in our garden, it always grows into what the seed was meant to be. If you plant roses, you will reap roses. If you plant pansies, you will reap pansies.
And just like the seeds you plant in a garden, the thoughts you think also grow into what they are meant to be. If, for example, your thoughts are predominantly about scarcity, you will build permanent beliefs of scarcity into your mind at its deepest level. Do you think that might affect your life? You bet! Your outer reality will reflect your inner thoughts and beliefs with great precision.
Gardeners know that if they do not plant seeds of their choosing, their garden will grow seeds that blow in on the wind, such as dandelions and other weeds. In other words, the garden will grow into a wild, unrestrained, weed-filled mess. In the same way, when you allow your mind to think whatever thoughts blow into your mind, without checking and scrutinizing those thoughts, your mind will become a wild mess, and so will your outer world.

The mind naturally leans toward negative thoughts, and without your intervention, it will lead you to negativity.
So many people don’t make conscious choices when it comes to their thoughts. They allow their thoughts to run rampant, unchecked, and uncontrolled.

“An unattended mind can create havoc for you because your mind is amazingly receptive to whatever suggestions may be dropped into it. It has been said that the subconscious mind cannot take a joke. This simply means that whatever belief is introduced to it, it takes seriously as an instruction to grow that thought-seed into a full-blown plant–be it a rose or a weed, and it doesn’t care. Just like soil in a garden, it says, “yes” to all seeds planted, positive or otherwise. When you stop and consider how many thought-seeds are blown, dropped or purposefully planted in your mind on a daily basis, it may cause you to tend to your mental garden with a bit more regularity. In addition to all the seeds that were planted in your mind before you knew you even had one, as you listen to the radio, watch TV or even sit in a restaurant where others are talking, your mind hears it ALL, irrespective of whether you are conscious of it or not. Given what’s going on in our world today with all of the talk that comes from fear and anger, this is a vital point to grasp.” – Dennis Merritt Jones, D.D.

So, how can we cultivate our own garden?

We must be mindful. Be skillful in the seeds that you plant and in how you nurture them. Fleeting thoughts are like seeds blown in from a breeze.  They do not get planted, watered and nourished unless we chose to do so. When you repeat thoughts, you reinforce and reaffirm them and in turn, they grow stronger and deeper roots. They take up more space in your garden. But when you step back to observe and analyze your thoughts as they come, you can decide which you find beautiful and which you find destructive and you can choose to remove those that don’t serve you. You can encourage the growth of those you’d like to see more of.

It is your responsibility to seed and fertilize your inner garden with the plants you want, or it will seed itself with weeds. Remember, the subconscious mind does not discriminate between thoughts. It grows the seed that is planted, the thoughts you think and feed—irrespective of whether those seeds are helpful or harmful.
there is a significant penalty for neglecting your inner garden: a life not of your choosing.

“Your life is your garden; keep the weeds out because that is one way in which you can personally beautify our world. You owe that much to yourself and to those who receive the benefit of the seeds you drop along the way.” – Dennis Merritt Jones, D.D.

To start off, make a real effort to observe your thoughts and see exactly what it is that you’ve been planting in your mind garden. At first it will be quite difficult, but keep in mind that we are learning something new and any time you learn something new, practice is the only way. You don’t learn to speak a new language or play violin flawlessly overnight! It takes dedication and effort, but eventually it becomes second nature. You will begin to see the patterns in your thinking, recognizing the thoughts that repeatedly flash across your mind. These are the seeds that you are nourishing. Are they what you want them to be? Are they harming or helping you? As you become more and more aware of negative thoughts, you begin to consciously cultivate your garden, you choose to step in. Suddenly, you realize that you have more power than you ever imagined; You can say, “No. I will NOT plant this weed in my mind. I will consciously choose to plant something better.”

The results are truly spectacular and life-changing.

TO START YOU OFF:

MINDFULNESS PRACTICE FOR TODAY: Here is an exercise devised by Dennis Merritt Jones, D.D.

He says,

“Keep a journal for the next 24 hours. Make note of ALL the different thought-seeds that become obvious to you throughout the day. By this I mean repetitive or habitual thoughts, either positive of negative. Don’t judge what you find, simply write it down. At the end of the day, sit quietly and review your findings. If you discover thought-seeds that are growing beautiful experiences for you, see yourself planting even more of those seeds. If you notice any pattern of thinking from which “weeds” will grow or are currently growing, simply visualize yourself plucking the thought-weed from your mind and immediately plant a thought-seed that supports the idea of wholeness. You may have to do this any number of times, but it is your garden…and you are the only gardener who can tend to it.”

 

Lennon, on happiness

“When I was 5 years old, my mother always told me that happiness was the key to life. When I went to school, they asked me what I wanted to be when I grew up. I wrote down ‘happy.’ They told me I didn’t understand the assignment, and I told them they didn’t understand life.”
-John Lennon