Davina's Domain

It seems that almost no one likes change, unless they decide to change for themselves.  Which is rather ironic when you think about it, because change is happening every moment – atomic, human, cosmic – all levels of consciousness have built in change.

Everything changes.  No matter how many pictures you take, children will grow and look different tomorrow.  They will outgrow their clothes, their games, their needs.  The restaurant you loved last year on your vacation – the one on that little side street  -will have a new chef, a new menu, or may be a tattoo parlor when you come back again.  You cannot hold things still.  If you try, you are out of sync with the flow of time, and you are not participating in the flow towards the future.

But people get attached – to circumstances, relationships, places, cars, clothes.  If it’s part of the material universe, people can figure a way to get attached to it.  But attachment, if you think about it, equates with immobility.  Everything is always in flux, so being attached means trying to hold on to something that isn’t really there any more – it’s in the past moment.  So attachment doesn’t permit you to enter into the stream of life.  The moment you try to hold on too hard to something is the moment that you become stuck.

Detachment, on the other hand, allows you to enjoy each moment, each person, to the fullest. And when I speak of detachment, I am not speaking of it in the sense that you don’t fully engage, and sit on the sidelines watching.  Quite the opposite.  True detachment allows you to engage in the fullest sense in any activity or relationship, and yet be able to let it go and move on when you choose.  The key words here are “move on.”  Attachment doesn’t let you move on; detachment allows for motion and action towards the future.  Real detachment is a sense of being both the observer and the participant, living in the moment completely.  It is not a state of aloofness;  nor is it a foolish consistency, continuing to want things  that used to be good, or workable, or fun, or convenient.

In short, detachment allows you to experience and move on, not get stuck in the way things were.

This is especially true of “enlightenment” experiences.  If you have an experience during meditation that opens you up to broader vistas of consciousness, and then you try to “get that feeling” when you sit down to meditate again, then you are not meditating – you are trying to recreate something, rather than being in the moment, and allowing yourself to be conscious in this new moment.

Attachment fools you into thinking that if you “go back” you will experience the same thing you did before.  But that isn’t possible, if for no other reason than that you are different.  Detachment affords you the opportunity to be present, every moment, living that moment, and then the next.  It allows you the luxury of moving consciously in the stream of time.  This is how you contribute to the future – by being present each moment, learning from the past and looking toward the future.

To see my art, go to www.davinarubinart.weebly.com

When I began writing this piece, I had pretty much worked it out in my head.  But then I began to challenge my own thinking.  Rather than simply eliminating the whole piece, I decided to rewrite it, and it became something else altogether…

Many years ago at a work retreat at Asilomar, a speaker said, “All your time is free time.  You are free to do whatever you choose.  And right now in your life, you are doing exactly what you want.  It’s your choice.”

“Now that is ridiculous,” I thought when the idea first hit me.  It was 1972, I was working at a job I didn’t care about, and I wanted to move back to New York but I couldn’t.  To me there was no freedom of choice – I couldn’t find a teaching job, I had to keep the job I had to stay solvent, and I had to stay in California because…well, because.  The fact is, I could have gone back to New York, gotten a teaching job, and slipped right back into the life I had before I left.   Yet when I look back at that time, I see that the speaker was correct.  I was doing what I wanted; I was choosing how to live my life, and I had chosen to change it. The fact that things were difficult, and not how I had envisioned them, did not make the fact of my choices any less true.

We do what we do because we think it is the best choice for the moment, or the one that will get us what we want, or the one that agrees with our self-image.  Sometimes we don’t choose, which is itself a choice.  Sometimes we do  things simply so we won’t be challenged, or won’t put ourselves in a position to fail.  We make choices in order to avoid consequences that we don’t want to deal with, and then later we’ll justify the choice by saying, “I had no choice.”

But we also do things because our sense of ethics, of right action, compels us.  A parent with three children doesn’t just up and quit a job she hates, because she has a sense of responsibility.   She’s decided that what she wants to do is to be a good provider and do the best she can.  This doesn’t mean it’s the only choice; it means it’s the only choice that allows living with the principles and ethics that guide her life.  She might complain, bitch and moan, but if someone came along and said, “Hey, we’ll take your kids off your hands – go live a happy life with lots of stuff,” you would see her bristle.  “Hell no!”

We decide how we will live based on our ethics, our sense of self, our expectations – and a host of other factors.  But when we do something, it’s we who have made the choice.  (Even as we say, “But, I don’t want to do this…I have no choice…”)  Our choices are what give the framework to our lives.  The most important aspect of this is that we have to be willing to live with and be responsible for our choices.

So now I can see that the speaker back then had definitely expressed a truth.  But only one truth. Because then I asked the question,   “Does a woman sitting with three dying children in a refugee camp out in the desert have a choice?  Is she doing what she wants?”  One would tend to doubt it, and so the idea of universal free choice gets called into question, because choice involves living  in circumstances which afford you the freedom to make choices.

And when I started to think about the freedom to choose, I realized that what people in the United States (or perhaps the developed world) consider freedom of choice is actually very tightly regulated.  Sure, people have many things to choose from.  Just go to a supermarket and walk to the shampoos – an overkill of choices.  But do we get to choose whom to vote for?  Actually, not really.  We only get to choose between the choices someone else decides for us.  We get to choose the evil of two lessers.

The more I started to think about the idea of choices, and freedom, the more it came down to this: The only choice over which we all have complete control is our decision to be conscious.  This is the most important and life-affirming choice there is.  For once I am conscious, the choices I make regarding any other issue are obvious.  Once you are conscious, you can never avoid responsibility – no one who is conscious would ever want to avoid responsibility, because that means one is not fully conscious.  If you are fully conscious, whatever choices you do make, you do them with the knowledge that the consequences are your responsibility, and you accept them.

We live in a world in which most choices are so irrelevant to the core of our lives that it’s okay for us to make them.  But when it gets down to real choice – the only truly significant one is this: Will I be conscious?  Will I wake up to the truth?  Will I live my life facing everything rather than avoiding?  Will I be responsible for what my consciousness dictates I do, or will I just go back to sleep?

Am I awake, fully conscious?  At times.  But it is a full time job, and I often don’t make it.  I hear myself say things that are just automatic, or unnecessary. I find myself doing something that actually has no significance or importance, just because it’s something to do.  But as I work at being more awake, more alive, more conscious on a daily basis, I realize that being conscious is the only real job I have – the rest is just commentary.

Enjoy your day!

When I was a little girl, no more than ten, my father used to talk to me about Life.  He would tell me stories with lessons in them, or he would quote something and explain it to me.  The one I remember best (perhaps because it was only a short time before he died) was a quote from Shakespeare which, as I learned later, he altered slightly to make it comprehensible to me:

“He who steals my purse, steals trash,” he said, “but he who steals my good name steals all I have.”

He explained to me what “a good name” meant, and how important it was that we live up to our highest ideal, because no one can take away the good reputation you earn.  You should always do to other people the kindest things, because that’s how you would wish to be treated.

A couple of years later I was visiting my married sister.  She gave me five dollars to go to the corner grocery store and get a few things.  I kept my hand in my pocket the whole way (a short block and a half), touching the five dollars and the list.  Just when I got to the store, I took the list out of my pocket to check it.  One of the old ladies from the neighborhood, a rather dour and unkind woman, always sat outside the door of the store, watching.  Never acknowledging anyone, just sitting and watching.  No one else was around.

A few minutes later, after I had picked out what I needed, and then found that the money was no longer in my pocket, I ran out of the store in a panic.  “Did you see five dollars in the street?  I think I dropped it here.”   The old woman stared right through me.

I ran back to my sister’s, and told her what had happened.  Five dollars was not a trifle back then, and money was tight in her house.  I was heartbroken as I explained to her what I thought had happened – I had dropped the money, and someone picked it up.  I had been careless, and had paid for my carelessness.

So life taught me the other half of the lesson.  Maybe it was the old woman, maybe the five dollars fell out of my pocket in the store.  But someone picked it up and claimed it, and I was the loser.

Now, some people might say that the lesson is, if someone does it to you, you have the right to do it to someone else.  But to me the lesson was firmly ingrained in me after that experience.  I really understood the principle of doing to others only what you would wish for yourself.  Daddy was right – live up to the ideals you set, and treat people the way you wish to be treated.  The oldest rule in the books.

There have been many occasions in my life where I have found something of value, or been offered the opportunity to “cash in” at someone else’s expense. I return what I find, and turn down offers that make someone else the loser.  Some might think I’m a chump, but I choose the lessons my father and Life have taught me.  And I think I make the right choice every time.

I would really like to hear from you about the lessons you’ve learned in life, and how they have served you.

“How do you live your life when no one is watching?”

There is a story I have been told of two seekers who went to a holy being, wanting to find God.  So the guru said, “Look, it’s a big topic, and I’m a little busy right now.  I couldn’t just tell you how to find God.  Here – I’m giving each of you a piece of stick.  Go and find a place where no one is present.  Break it in two pieces, and come back to me, and then we’ll take it from there.”

So these two went out, looking for a place where no one was present.  One just went around the corner and looked around – nobody was there – snapped the stick in two pieces, came to the guru and said, “Here are your sticks.”  He took the sticks, and said, “Okay, sit down.”

Other one came after four or five hours, holding the same stick, and he just stood there with his head bowed to the ground.

The guru asked, “What happened?”

He said, “Babaji, no matter where I went, the wind was there, the sun was there, the directions were there.  And most of all, I was there.  So I couldn’t find a place where no one was present.”

Babaji was very pleased with this answer.  He said, “I got all the time for you.  Come, sit down.”   And to the other one he said, “Go have some chai.” *

The fact is, no matter where you are, you are the witness of your own life.  And you always know whether your actions are honorable, fair, or kind.  Only you know if you have done your best, and whether or not you have made a good choice.

When I am the only witness, what do I choose?   These choices are the most difficult, because there may be others who are trying to sway me, or there may be circumstances in which I can justify my decision, at least to others.  But I am always there as the witness.

What choices have been made in your life that were done “when no one was watching?” Would you make a different choice today?  You still can, even if it’s to take total responsibility for that other choice, and decide that you would choose differently today. Then when a similar choice comes, choose the one you know is right.

* This story was related by Baba Harihar Ramji of the Sonoma Ashram in Sonoma, California.  His stories are always thought-provoking, helpful and educational.  I learn a lot from listening.

At a Christmas party last December our host asked what we were grateful for.  My first answer was “consciousness,” but then I remembered a story I read many years ago, and the effect it had on me.  A man was sitting with his family at a restaurant when another man came up to him, and said, “I know you!  You’re ________.  You were a pilot, and you had to jump out of your plane, and you landed over enemy territory and got picked up by our guys after two days.”

The man was stunned, and he asked, “Who are you?  How do you know about me?”

The answer came, “I packed your parachute.”

So the question after the story is, “Who packs your parachute?”  Even after many years I think about it often.  I think about my father, who set an example for me to follow in my life;  I think about all the people who make life easier – teachers, nurses, farmers, truckers.  My sister, my friends.  There are so many people who have “packed my parachute” over the years.

So I’ll ask you the question – Who packs your parachute?

Home – Planet Earth.  We all live here, in the body of this planet.  How absurd it is that we work so hard to stay healthy, while at the same time we trash the home we live in, making it unsafe for sustaining life.  Without a healthy planet, our lives eventually will be a nightmare from which we won’t awaken.

I love this planet, but it is in deep trouble.  And I am suggesting, asking, begging, that each of you who reads this consider doing something about saving our planet from further damage.  Pass this message on – if you want to live a healthy life, if you want your children, your grandchildren to live healthy, productive lives, then you must work to assure that the home they live in and on – this planet Earth, be made healthy for all of us.   I just saw the film “Home” which was financed by the employees of many, many businesses, and is sent out free to theaters or individuals who want to show the film to others.  Free.  All because people want to save this planet.  Be one of them.  You can watch “Home” on YouTube.  You can order it for free to show to friends.  It’s informative, sad and yet hopeful.

My name is Davina; I’m a retired teacher who still feels the call to teach or at least to give people the opportunity to learn.   This is the first day of my blog.   (Actually, I wrote the first entry months ago, but just didn’t get back to do more until today.)

There are two sections to this blog.  The first is “Points to Ponder” and the second is “Life Lessons.”

“Points to Ponder” will, I hope, offer ideas for you to think about or comment on.  Perhaps these ideas will spark something in you, influence your thinking, give you encouragement.  I hope you’ll let me know if something I write has value to you, or if it makes you think of something you want to contribute to the dialog.  The topics will be wide and varied in subject matter; I hope you’ll take some time to read and comment.

“Life Lessons” will be about things one learns while traveling life’s road.  I’ll share mine, and if you have something you’d like to share, then please do so.  It would be wonderful to get a whole compilation of the lessons life has taught us.  Hopefully we’ll all learn something!

“Everything can be taken from a man but one thing: the last of the human freedoms – to choose one’s attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one’s own way.”
Viktor E. Frankl, Man’s Search for Meaning

I think this is a very important idea to master.  It makes no difference what is happening to you – it’s your attitude which often decides the outcome.

When I taught English I used this quote to introduce a story called “A Many Who Had No Eyes.”.  The story is about a wealthy, well-dressed business man wearing a fine suit and using a beautiful silver-handled cane, who leaves his office on a lovely spring day very aware of all the smells, sounds and sensations of the season.  He encounters a blind beggar who is rather dirty and smelly.  The beggar wants to sell him a lighter.  Though the man doesn’t need one, he buys the lighter to help the blind man out, and then asks, “Have you always been blind?” Continue reading →