Go Ego Go!? An Inside Story

Before you read this blog entry or maybe after, listen to The Inside Story to get a sense of what Ego as a tool can become. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iqe0GhObL70&feature=youtu.be

All dressed up for the Queen 

It is a well known fact that people think that to become spiritual they have to get rid of their ego but is this really possible?  While we are alive in a body we HAVE an ego and that surely means we CAN'T BE the ego. We know we have a face and feet, ears and eyes and which are useful but WE AREN'T THEM; they may partially define us to ourselves and to those we meet but we really know that although we have a face, feet, ears, eyes and nose, we aren't them. We don't try to get rid of them do we? We have them for life and we take care of them; wearing shoes to protect our feet, covering our face in the wind and the rain, blowing our nose, cleaning our ears and generally keeping these useful things serviceable.  Our ego is what we face the world however once we get the idea that we aren't the ego, we have a chance to decide what to do with it. We don't have to let it decide what to do with us, we are the one in charge.  Just as we might dress in suitable clothes each day, in garden clothes for gardening, garden party clothes if we are invited to a Buckingham Palace garden party, we can choose to use our ego in the most suitable way for whoever we are being at any moment.
So if we really can choose what to do with the ego we have to begin to understand what we are. The wise have told us that we are pure spirit and if that is the case, the ego is just a part of the way we express that spirit.   We may not think we have a choice but if we know we aren't the ego, then we must be able to choose what to do with it.  We can be careful what we do with it, we can tend it, not allow it to be selfish, we can resist anger and temper extreme emotion, and if we find that steady place we become like the sovereign who plays her part with equilibrium.  I am confident that meditation helps us find that place of spirit by resting in stillness.    Then we get a chance to become the person we are really meant to be. And that person is not ruled by an untamed ego, it is ruled by a tender, loving Self.

Who you might see on the bus on the way to St Martin-in-the-Fields!

Look carefully at the passengers getting off the buses at Trafalgar Square, on Wednesday morning, especially those from Willesden!! You may a smallish woman dressed in a white sari (maybe with a white macintosh if the weather goes on like this), she has a lovely smile and everyone on the bus may be so enchanted with her that they may follow her off the bus and into St Martin-in-the-Fields.  I will be there!! and I will be as pleased as pleased to see her because she is Sister Jayanti, European Director of a worldwide movement called the Brahma Kumaris, a group of world well wishers who wear white and get up at 4.00 am. She may come by car though which will be sad for the bus driver but she will still be in Trafalgar Square heading to St Martin-in-the-Fields.

Emily Johnston

I have written about them before and about her but never before about her travel arrangements.  I think I had imagined that she travelled by lightship or at least by a most sophisticated method, not just on the good old London bus like you and me.  But this is a woman who will surprise you by her humanity as well as her special light, you are bound to like her just as I do because she will make you feel worthwhile, feel your very best self and her smile will spread itself across your face without you thinking you have moved a muscle.   Because she reminds you of your best self, it reminds you to do the same to others you meet and if we all tried to do that we might really make a difference to those people who travel on the bus with US.  She is coming to talk to people who are interested in meditation, (many Grannies and Grandpas as well as young people) in the morning.  There will also be Emily Johnston in there, another great speaker and lover of meditation. And coming along too you may See Father Laurence Freeeman, stepping  into St Martin -in-the-Fields to lead people from all faiths and maybe some from none in a meditation.  This is Just this Day 2014 and if you want to come, there will still be room for you!

Marriage, Murder and Meditation! and Just this Day

You may think I am going dotty putting marriage, murder and meditation into one message but this week there were two reports.  One that divorce among the over 60's is on the rise and the second that if a married couple bicker, the risk of heart disease rises!! Click on the blue if you don't believe me! it's apparently been proved scientifically.  

from this

to this without too much stress!

Emily Johnston

Father Laurence Freeman OSB

Now, I am a married meditator! and I am over 60 and I agree with Sybil Thorndike, (famous actress mostly only known to others over 60!)  who famously said when asked if she had ever considered leaving her husband "Divorce, never!  Murder, often!  This is how the mind of a married person thinks from time to time and the older we are, the more likely it is that our life partner's habits and foibles will find just the spot to send us into orbit if we let them."  But here's the trick to make certain that you stay triumphantly together to the end and that you don't get heart disease from too much bickering.  If you meditate, you just have to let each other's unreasonableness or quarrelsomeness go, otherwise you just meditate on murder!! and when you come out of meditation, the world looks different, it isn't so compelling and you aren't cross or upset anymore, so I can commend it as a very ordinary over 60 (by quite a bit) wife, mother and grandmother.  But if you are in London next week on November 26th and you come to St Martin-in-the-Fields you can join in Just this Day an annual celebration of stillness and meditation.  You will hear 3 people telling you why and how meditation is the key to living well and finding balance even when the going is tough.  And if you look carefully at all the people there, you will see many a granny with a grandpa at her side who have stayed together and whose hearts are ticking away pretty well.  Your speakers are Father Laurence Freeman, B.K Sister Jayanti and Emily Johnston who all try to give this message  to all the people they come into contact with, with teachers and students, children and the old. They and I look forward to seeing you.  If you live in Australia, India, China, Hong Kong, Singapore, Dubai, Russia or any place in the world, you will be able to watch the whole thing on You Tube the very next day.  Don't worry I will put the links up on the blog as early as possible on the 27th.

BK Sister Jayanti

You are the star in the firmament

Over the last few blogs you have seen some remarkable people, Father Laurence Freeman and Sister Jayanti are among the few who are both exemplars and teachers.  But there is an important message which both of them give and which all of us can take comfort from. They may be the angels and stars for us but they aren't asking us to become their clones and imitators.  The world needs a few saints, but it needs doctors and lawyers and bankers and cleaners and wives and husbands and sons and daughters, it needs dentists and engineers and scientists and adventurers, it needs you and me to be US but to be US remembering what those saints and angels and stars and exemplars are telling us.  We are all made up of that starry angelic stuff but knitted in different shapes and with different strands of talent and ability.  The one thing we share as long as we are well and in good health is to let that inner star shine brightly.  YOU ARE THAT so how about it!  Come and hear both Father Laurence and Sister Jayanti and Emily Johnston encouraging all of us to be our best starry self on November 26th at St Martin-in-the-Fields in the morning.

Granny goes viral! Wow!

Well who would have thought it!! Granny goes viral and it was all by chance or was it?  I went along to Global House for a meeting and there were the two film boys making this little film and they wanted someone to interview about what the Brahma Kumaris meant to them.  And there I was, hair newly done, looking like a cross between my own mother and the Queen and they put a nice white shawl in front of me and this is what happened.  It is true too, the Brahma Kumaris are remarkable, they only wish people to enact their own birthright which is to become the spiritual person they really are.  It doesn't matter if you are a formal Brahma Kumaris, there are plenty of them but it does matter that their message is known to be a universal human message.  It is just the same as Love your Neighbour as Yourself.  So, why not do that? why not?  And you never know, you might just go along to your friendly neighbours and find that there is someone with a camera and a shawl and you become a star, just for a minute.  Of course the real message is that everyone is a star and just needs to be assured of it! 

And the Dalai Lama had toothache

I think that I was told that when this interview took place, His Holiness the Dalai Lama had a toothache and Father Laurence had an ear ache.  It doesn't show which says a lot for whatever it is that they do!!! Father Laurence will also be at St Martin-in-the-Fields on November 26th and I hope that he doesn't have earache then.  Come along to hear him.  To find out more about him and about the other speakers go to www.justthisday.org

Sister Jayanti, a woman who speaks to the world today

Here is a link to a film made by BK Sister Jayanti for Just this Day.  She made it a few years ago but as she is speaking on November 26th at St Martin-in-the-Fields, it seems a good idea to give you just a little taste of who she is.  I am deeply pleased that many of you who haven't met her will get a chance to hear her speak in person.  However, if you can't get to London on the 26th, you will be able to hear and see all the speakers on You Tube.  Hooray for technology!

Meditating Grandparents are the BEST

Isabelle looks happy doesn't she!

Mrs Laura Hyde

This is a message to mine and every other grandchild: Meditation helps you in life and is a lifeline to the part of you which watches the whole show, which doesn't change along with the hair and the teeth. Put quite simply if you don't find that space inside yourself when you can, going through the process of ageing without inner help can be difficult and meditation is the one thing which makes the ups and downs of life less confusing. 
When you are a Grandparent you are definitely likely to be over 50 but more likely to be over 60 or even 70. And there are only a few grandparents or people of grandparenting age who are likely to be climbing Everest, running marathons and sailing single handed across the oceans like Robin Knox- Johnston. Most of us are not going to be high-flying pensioners, we are mainly going to be low-flying! So it has to be a good idea to be prepared for this stage otherwise we might take it all too seriously and be full of regret that our toes curl inwards and that reaching our toe nails, never mind about painting them, is a triumph! No more stiletto shoes for us, we may be looking for the velcro fasteners. And our teeth aren't waiting to be whitened, they are waiting for us in a glass! We aren't thinking Jacuzzi, we are wondering if we should put a handle on the side of the bath in order to steady ourselves as we climb in!! It takes a rather determined state of mind to make it through this part of our lives. It takes a bit of humour, a bit of patience and an understanding that this is the way it is, was and ever has been and use cheerful reason to find a point to it. Most important though is to discover what YOU REALLY ARE. 
So find out about how to have a spiritual life while you are young or if you are a granny, find out because its never too late! And here is your chance....On November 26th in the evening, (7.00 pm) Just this Day finds itself at St James's Church, Piccadilly in London with two remarkable women, Laura Hyde and BK Isabelle Gauthier facing questions from a young panel on what having a spiritual life means. You can come along, you can bring a friend and if you can't come because you live too far away you will be able to see the film of it. .
Register by clicking on THE INSIDE STORY

Boethius and banana skins

blessed boethius severinus

There was a Roman called Boethius who lived in the 6th Century.  He had everything; intelligence, fortune, estates and long established family.  He came from a long line of brilliant and well known men of the time and had two sons who just been promoted to high position.  He loved Greek philosophers and was planning to translate the whole of Plato into Latin.   He was charged with treason and everything changed.  No longer able to translate Greek Philosophy, he had to become Greek Philosophy.  That's the only choice when life lays down banana skins in your path, you are forced to live the things you aspired to, you either live them or you don't!

Boethius with Philosophy

In Prison, he had an imaginary conversation, or was it a real inner conversation with Philosophy, his long time friend and he wrote it down.  In it, he complained to her, he tried to rationalise and understand the things which seemed to have happened to him. She stood by his side and because the circumstances were so extreme and there was nothing to protect him from accusation and disgrace, no rationalising what had happened, he  had to listen, he had to nakedly keep going towards what was going to be an end to this life of success and then disgrace. He had to give up everything else!

Meditation,worth trying early!

What he didn't have was the complete addition to philosophy, he didn't have meditation, he just had to think it through and reason it.  Meditation gives just one more defence against the wretched cosmic banana skin, it means that every time a banana skin looms up in your mind, you have a friend, you have a mantra or a point of light to put your attention onto.  Now, it may not do more than give you a tool to keep going but underneath it develops a strength of being which will stand you in the only stead you can rely on when everything shouts it's compelling message of division at you.

If you are interested in meditation and why it is a positive step, come and hear from 3 marvellous speakers at St Martin-in-the-Fields on the morning of Wednesday, November 26th.  To find out more go to www.justthisday.org

feel familiar, banana skin!!