Pray Meditate Be aware.Stay awake Bow Practise yoga Feel Chant and sing Breathe and smile Relax.Enjoy.Laugh.Play Create.Envision Let Go/Forgive.Accept Walk.Exercise.Move Work.Serve.Contribute Listen/Learn.Enquire Consider.Reflect Cultivate oneself.Enhance competencies Cultivate contentment Cultivate flexibility Cultivate friendship and collaboration Lighten up Celebrate and appreciate Dream Give thanks Evolve Love Share.Give.Receive Walk softly.Live gently Expand.Radiate.Dissolve Simplify Surrender.Trust Be born anew
Surya DasRam Dass, Krishna Dass, we all spoke through interpreters. There were good interpreters there, educated people in India speak English but Maharaji was the One, the Baba, Holy Man, mendicant, he didn't speak English. We talked to him and it was hard to know him, he was an ancient holy man and I was a 21 year old seeker. So I never knew what was going on, I mean I don't really know what's going on now, my guess work is a little better perhaps.
Surya DasEverybody has similar values. You travel around the world and everybody is different, but everybody is also the same in those ways. There's so much difference but there's so much similarity. Nobody wants to be harmed, or have their children, or their mates, or their relatives, or their families harmed, exploited, bombed, starved, dislocated, or become homeless refugees. So we're all similar in that way and spiritual life and religion is supposed to be part of the solution not part of the problem.
Surya DasThere's many lanes on the highway of enlightenment, they don't have to be on the razor's edge like the yellow line dotted in the middle. Balance is appropriate, not too tight, not too loose, the Middle Way as we call it in Buddhist dharma teachings.
Surya DasOther people canโt cause us to be impatient unless we let them do so. In other words, others donโt make us impatient. We make ourselves impatient, through our expectations and demands, fixated attachments and stuckness.
Surya DasHowever, we need to participate and manage skillfully, helpfully, and harmoniously, for a better world, family and society to be possible. So everybody's spiritual by nature I believe, not that they necessarily have to be religious. Everybody wants, or cares about, and has values even if they don't talk about them all the time explicitly, like some noisy preachers do with their foghorn voices and dogmatic views.
Surya Das