Love, Actually

I'll have my "race" hat on at the movies this season. "Invictus", "Princess and the Frog" and "Avatar" are all pricking my interest on this level. I can't wait to see Morgan Freeman's Mandela, one of the human beings I'd most like to meet. "Princess" I am rooting for...now that the "Old Men" of Disney animation are retired, I can expect more inclusion at the Mouse House...it's been painful to grow up without a single animated image in all the millions of character images in the Disney feature animation world...and to hear all the excuses made, or the current cries of "affirmative action" among the unwashed. "Avatar" I'm looking forward to as much as anything i a very long time...and keeping my fingers crossed that at least one black male character survives. Cameron seems to have a real problem along this line, but I love him anyway.

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On another front, can't wait for "Sherlock Holmes." It tickles me that Holmes purists complain that he is presented as a man of action, although that is very clearly what Doyle created. The fact that Watson never chronicled a really action-oriented story is irrelevant to me. What IS relevant is that Holmes was described as a stickfighting and sword expert, as well as boxing and a form of jiu-jitsu. He was also credited with remarkable strength and agility. Considering that Holmes knew NOTHING that he didn't consider critical to his major interests (remember he didn't know whether the Earth revolved around the moon or vice versa?), why in the world do YOU think he knew these things? He was said to spend serious time down on the docks in disguise, extraordinarily rough company at that time. Someone thinks that he didn't have serious opportunity to practice these skill that he himself thought he needed? Nonsense. Victorian stories were quite circumspect about things like sex and violence. Hell, Holmes could have belonged to the Hellfire club, and Watson would never have talked about it. Considering the dozens if not hundreds of different portrayals of Holmes (including a bumbling idiot in "Without a Clue") what in the world is wrong with one portrayal in which he has the physical skills to survive the problems he gets into?

And as for sex...yeah, right. Watson could be oblivious for years that Holmes even had a brother, but we're supposed to know whether he'd know if Holmes dipped his wick from time to time? What a load. Can't wait for "Holmes". But his deductions had better be slick!

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The subject of love comes back again and again. While a devotee of Sri Chinmoy, I learned the Heartbeat Meditation that is the spiritual heart of my teaching. And while I matured using the bottom-up approach, I would recommend the Heart centered path to most people, unless powerful survival imperatives are at play. But recent comments from people who are looking into their emotional lives more deeply tell me that I need to address, specifically, the need for self-love. I've had several comments to the effect that when people either begin the "Soulmate" path, or the path of deep introspection, emotional sewage gushes in, leading to a cascade of negative feelings, vile inner voices, convictions of helplessness or unworthiness, pain, fear, and loss of motivation.

This is the emotion you have been repressing. It is the sewage tank under that dream house you're building, and it's leaking into your basement. If you don't drain it, the vermin and stink will poison your life.

Moving toward any high-level career, finding love, losing protective weight...will shock the ego, and rip the cyst holding your unprocessed emotional crap wide open. All the doubt, guilt, blame and shame will pour out, and it will be SHOCKING if you have been in denial about your pain. So what do you do? Ignore the inner work? That is what most people do...and so the poison stays in your system, leaking up into your life in a time-released fashion. Again, its effects can be seen in lack of love, health, or success. Clearly, I'm speaking to those who want to walk toward their futures without being crippled by their pasts.

For those courageous souls, the path is to confront the demons on YOUR terms, in YOUR time, in a safe context: say, meditation and journaling.

What happens when you meditate? You will find out who you are.

1) Negative voices rise up. They were there anyway, so much a part of your background noise that you can't even hear it. Killing you softly with their song.

2) Negative images and memories. Again, they have been within you for years, and by stuffing them you don't deal with it consciously. That's like thinking that if you have a gas leak in your home, you hope you also have a head cold, so that you won't have to smell it.

3) You go to sleep. Guess what? That's what you're doing in everyday life: just going to sleep, totally unconscious about the very things you need to do most.

4) Wild distractions fly into your mind. Guess what? You distract yourself with the trivial or imperative in life, rather than doing what is actually important.

It's all there.

If we connect with the love inside us, we START with the sense that we are worthy, desirable, delicious, lovable, pure and vital spirits. These are the kinds of emotions people mistakenly think they will derive from actions or relationships. NO. This is your birthright, a fire already burning within you, and if you will take the time, daily, to clean away the debris, you can make the connection.

Every day. Every damned day I wake up and meditate, connecting with my heart, reminding myself who I am in this world, and my commitment, and what I must do to keep my feet on the path. Every day. I shudder to think what would have become of me had I not found a way to process the poison in my life.

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That said, I hate tobacco executives.

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That said, I will find love in my heart for Insurance Company execs if they adopt one modest proposal: if you drop a client for pre-existing conditions, refund every damned dime of their premiums, plus interest. Otherwise you are STEALING.