For years, my job as a healer has involved listening to my clients and reflecting back to them, working as a kind of problem solver for a range of issues from anxiety to career swings to relationship questions. Albert Einstein has a beautiful saying, “We cannot solve problems at the same level of thinking which created them.” Offering new perspectives to my clients helps them discover new parts of themselves so they can create more of what they truly want.
Applying this approach to my own life, I realized I had a longing to spend more time in meditation exploring the practices of Kundalini Yoga. One of my teachers, Guru Dev Singh, has recommended for many years that I become fluent in a set of about 300 meditations. In Kundalini Yoga, also known as the “Yoga of Awareness,” meditations focus on developing expanded states of consciousness through a combination of seated postures, chanted mantras, and breathwork.
Continuing to develop my own consciousness is what I like to call “cooking the rice,” while teaching and supporting others is what I call “the steam.” I use this analogy because steam can only come from hot rice. Practicing these meditations for several hours a day, I’ve dedicated myself for the past two-plus years to “cooking rice.” To avoid becoming a total recluse, I also kept some “steam” by continuing my healing practice and teaching weekly meditation classes at MNDFL, a meditation studio in New York City.
All this is to say I’m sorry you haven’t heard from me for a while as I took time off from my newsletter to focus on my healing and meditation practices. My experiences during these past two years have re-inspired me to share what I’ve discovered with you through both my continued healing sessions and workshops, and a return to this monthly newsletter.
One of the key insights from my meditation intensive was, “If you have an itch, scratch it.” We all have aspirations that we are not taking action on and the most common reason is what I call the “something-nothing” fallacy.
Let’s say you long to be a great novelist, but you fear, as we all do, that you will fail. If you don’t take any action, then becoming a great novelist remains a possibility, or a potential “something.” On the other hand, if you actually write your novel and it’s bad, then your dream of becoming a novelist is officially dead, which is a real “nothing.” In order to avoid the “real nothing,” we attach to the “potential something.” Ironically, this “potential something” is, in fact, nothing at all. It’s just a fantasy. Clinging to this dream, prevents us from taking the necessary action to create a real something!
To get past this limitation, we must recognize our infinite horizon. Your current aspiration is not your last and only one. Whether you accomplish your immediate goals or fail, infinite hopes and dreams exist for you down the pike, as that’s the nature of our creative spirit. Our fear of not realizing one prevents the rest from revealing themselves, and we are left with nothing.
So if you have a book to write, write it. A career move to make, pursue it. A new relationship to explore, spark it. An itch to scratch, scratch it—and scratch it right now.
My highest aspiration for these past two-plus years has been deepening my meditation practice. Fulfilling this longing has awakened my next one—sharing more with you.
If you’d like support in realizing your highest aspiration you can book a phone-based healing session with me. In addition, I also have several workshops coming up including Roadmap to Healing at the Omega Institute May 25-28, which I am especially excited about.
I’m thrilled to re-engage with you all via the newsletter, workshops, and more. I would love to hear from you too. Please leave a comment below and let me know an aspiration that you would like to move forward on.
It’s great to hear from you, Ivelisse, and thanks for your insightful question. “Maya” and “truth” exist in the same space and time and reference how we engage with the moment-to-moment reality of our lives. “Maya” refers to actions that stem from more limited levels of our minds and “truth” refers to actions that are inspired from a deeper source within. Rather than treating all of reality as an illusion to be renounced, our task is to differentiate between the controlling, fear-based messages of the mind and the more accurate guidance of our pure awareness so that we can take positive and effective action in our lives and relationships. Meditation and spirituality are the practical tools and knowledge that we leverage in this task of clarifying our minds, to access our deeper awareness, in order to live in congruence with the larger process of reality that we are a part of.
I hope this response is helpful as you continue to ruminate on these essential issues. Thanks again for posing such a great question.
Thanks for sharing your comments here, Fengbei. I will be offering several upcoming events which you can find on my website here. The next one at MNDFL will be on May 14 and I hope to see you there.
Great to hear from you too, Heidi! I will be sharing more content moving forward so it’s wonderful to hear that people will be receiving it. Hope to see you somewhere soon!
Great to hear from you, Faith, and thanks for your suggestion here. I absolutely intend to record a meditation CD – likely sometime in the second half of the year. I will definitely keep you posted and thanks for supporting this goal.
Thanks for sharing your kind words here, Renata. It is so lovely to hear from you after so long! I do occasionally travel to Florida so perhaps we can plan a class for the next time I am around. Let’s stay in touch about it. In the meantime, I hope you’re well and thanks again for commenting here.
So great to hear from you, Farah, so thanks for posting your comment. You can find all of my upcoming events listed on my website here. The next one in NYC will be a meditation class on April 25. Hope to see you there or somewhere else soon!
Thanks for reaching out to me, Juan. I hope that your SNR practice continues to grow and that we’ll have an opportunity to continue working together soon, too.
Welcome back Aaron. Your presence has definitely been missed. Thank you for the words above, they are very inspirational and thought provoking. Would like to revisit when I am feeling uninspired. Curious, is the dream part of the “maya” and the calling part of the “truth”, not sure about the answer my self, but your passage sparked that question in me. Please more classes in the near future.
Welcome back,Aaron. I’m really excited that you come back.Hopefully I can get your teaching soon.:)
Hi Aaron,
Glad to hear your voice! Sending our best to you, Kelly and family.
Love, Heidi and Chris
Hi Aaron,
Always good to hear about what you have been up to.
As a marketing person in a past life, I would like to suggest that perhaps it might be a providential idea to offer your followers a meditation CD from you. (
Much love to you and Kelly & family, looking forward to seeing you all!
So good to receive news from you. I am always telling people about the wonderful teacher you are, and now I can share this newsletter. I would love to see you again, maybe in Miami.
I’m so pleased to see you in my inbox! I would love to come to your lecture in NYC. Could you send me more information. I hope you and Kelly and family are doing exceptionally well.
Good Morning Aaron
It’s so nice to hear from you , I am looking for shear and learn from you. Thank you to reach up we will see eachather soon. Sat Nam! 🙂