Laura Basha

Renewed Beginnings

Laura Basha

Photo by Todd Steitle

In the depth of winter, I finally learned that within me
there lay an invincible summer.

– ALBERT CAMUS

It’s the beginning of January, and I sit here this evening writing while listening to the continuous sound of saturating falling drops in a week of much-needed rainy days.

The days still shorter, the nights still longer. Cozy evenings by a fire, soups, and lots of reading – all call to us. Whereas 6 months ago we were still out running errands and working and just being busy until the sun set much later in the day.

If we look at life as a metaphor, we can see the symbolism within nature’s timetable. Less time for outer activity, more time for inner reflection. As the season stays colder, nature has slowed down and hibernates, leaves haven fallen from the trees, growth has slowed or stopped, and nature lies fallow to replenish and rejuvenate for Spring and its expansion.

We too could slow down, reflect, review the past accomplishments of the last year, consider what we could evolve and grow into in this coming year, with the renewed capacities born of rest and reflection. We emerge from the holiday season of many spiritual traditions to celebrate the birth of an awakened consciousness. In the dark and quiet seclusion of the deepest winter night, in the quiet seclusion of our deepest reflection, wisdom unfolds, gathering substance as we allow ourselves time to be present to the Silence. Wisdom emerges as inspired and awakened consciousness, lighting the way for our own inner sage to find voice, ready to take form in the New Year, and the coming longer days of Spring.

Peace within emanating to peace without, choosing peace for all who think of us, all who speak of us, and to all whom we contact.

With Renewed Beginnings and a New Year of Soaring Possibility!

Peace My Heart

Laura Basha

Peace, my heart, let the time for the parting be sweet.

Let it not be a death but completeness.

Let love melt into memory and pain into songs.

Let the flight through the sky end in the folding of the wings over the nest.

Let the last touch of your hands be gentle like the flower of the night.

Stand still, O Beautiful End, for a moment,

and say your last words in silence.

I bow to you and hold up my lamp to light your way.

~  by Rabindranath Tagore

This morning we said goodbye to an old and dear friend.

I met Jim when I was 27 years old. His wife Joan became my dearest friend, a friendship that has now lasted decades. We studied together, worshipped together, traveled together, our husbands were friends and our children have now grown up to raise their own families.

There is something so sacred in the grieving process of loss. When my children’s father who was also Jim’s friend died, the impact felt like devastation, as it was sudden and unexpected.

I remember going for a walk during that first week between hearing the news and setting up the memorial, and I stopped on the path and looked up at the sky, listening, and it was if the world would never be the same, as his precious soul had left this physical plane. A thread in the tapestry of life had been pulled out all the way, and the tapestry was now forever changed.

Listening from a deeper inquiry of how to make sense of the larger order of things, a quiet thunder of love resonates with no interruption, cracking open the constraints of loss and grief and the past. Timeless, it unfolds like the deep guttural chantings with overtone singing of the Lamas from the famous Gaden Shartse Monastery.

Blessings to you in your journey onward, Jim. We shall meet now in the in-between, where we shall soon laugh at the thought that we were ever apart.

Lost In Traffic When the Road is Clear

LAURA BASHA

Photo by Noah Buscher

“The art of transformation lies in knowing that the thought is the thing. A transformational shift would be one in which a fundamental shift in perspective takes place.”

~ from The Inward Outlook, by Dr. Laura Basha

We were up at 2:50am this morning to get to Stanford Hospital in Palo Alto by 5:00am. My husband was scheduled for surgery and it was a drive from where we were in the East Bay. 

Although one cannot ever really say there is never traffic on I-880 S, it is sparse enough at 4 in the morning to be noteworthy! We arrived on time, and due to covid restrictions, I had to drop him off and drive away. There was the need for a consciously chosen moment to let go of whatever worry-thinking pulled at me for attention. I focused on figuring out how to navigate in the still dark and unfamiliar neighborhoods, directions that are clearly being commanded by Siri. I worry instead about getting lost, and so stave off the weirdly uncomfortable feeling of disloyalty that non-verbally tells me I am abandoning my husband …

Five days before I was in a global zoom conference inquiry with other like-minded transformation devotees, pondering what has us as human beings feel incomplete? Over many hours we made lists of items about which we felt incomplete, and then explored ways in which to communicate what needed to be said to another, or actions to take that would complete a task, a commitment, actions to restore wholeness and a sense of well-being.

I sat with these lists of mine, reviewing the pages of things I had written down, and suddenly, something occurred to me in the midst of my cognitive struggling. It dawned on me that I wasn’t actually incomplete. These lists were just lists of action items that I hadn’t addressed, and instead of addressing them I spent a lot of time thinking about them, having internal opinions about them, having unspoken judgements and resentments about them and so feeling pressured and stressed. 

The next day I was exceptionally productive and it surprised me – not so much that I got a lot done, but that I got things done with ease and focus. When I began to think about the item that needed attention, I noticed that I was thinking about it, and I said out loud to myself, “LAURA, STOP THINKING!!!”, and I simply got back to being present with the tasks. What I realized is that there is no feeling of incompleteness or stress when I am completely present with what I have chosen to accomplish. There is actually no thinking when I’m in the moment – only being with the thing at hand.

I remembered all of this as I was driving back from Palo Alto this morning. I remembered to stop thinking about my husband’s well-being. He was, after all, in one of the best hospitals in the world. I became present to driving and let Siri navigate. Made it back with ease and several hours later got a call from my husband. He was he said, feeling joyful and grateful. The surgery was a success, so Siri and I will go back to Palo Alto in the morning to pick him up.

Perhaps the next evolutionary plateau for human Intelligence to reach is developing the capacity to NOT think. There is freedom and clarity in allowing moments of not thinking. I can practice using thought as the tool it is, rather than be what it uses, and let the traffic be only on I-880, rather than in my head!

The Power of Conscious Choice

Laura Basha

Photo by Dylann Hendricks

“Conscious choice implies connection to our essence, to being present in the moment,
where life actually and only occurs.

This knowledge not only aids in discovering our true self-expression, it automatically moves us towards the full optimization of it.”

~ from The Inward Outlook, by Dr. Laura Basha 

What does it mean to “consciously choose”? How could it be otherwise? When we make a choice aren’t we obviously aware of it?

Actually, not always. 

So much of what we choose is in fact unconscious, choices given automatically from internal thinking that incessantly speaks like a ticker tape, a tape that is so familiar that we don’t recognize it as thinking, but just how life actually occurs. Until we can become aware of the unconscious patterns of thought from which we create an entire life experience, we are at the mercy of the impact of life happening to us, rather than from the powerful and joyful stance of life being experienced through us. 

A very good practice is to become aware of the incessant thinking that consistently seduces us away from experiencing the peace of mind and well-being that permeates a quiet mind. Practice being present in whatever circumstance you find yourself, with no attention paid to thinking. Consciously choosing to not pay attention to your thoughts, but rather to pay attention to what is in front of you, say, a flower, or a child, or your pet dog, or the sky as you sit in traffic, or the in and out rhythm of your breath, without any attention to the internal commentary about what you are perceiving, will give you access to the quietness of the present moment.

Once you have even the briefest experience of the present moment, and you see how stress, worry, and complaining disappear, you have the beginning of seeing how to consciously choose. It is from the quiet power of the silence abiding in the present moment that wisdom emerges. From wisdom, inspiration, lightheartedness, even joy, you can see choices available that were previously obscured by thinking. Consciously choosing from this present-moment wisdom creates a life of quiet focus, power, creativity, ease, and confidence. 

Our true self-expression naturally emerges as we are one with the only moment in which life actually occurs – the present moment of now.

From Anxiety to Peace of Mind

Laura Basha

 


Photo By: Laura Basha 2020

 

Have you found yourself dealing with the grip of anxiety, especially during this time of global concern? Is it possible that you have been paying attention to a particular mindset of thinking, not just to the pragmatic information we need to know to protect ourselves and others?

 

Many of us at this time are healthy and cautiously paying attention to the actual steps we can take to protect ourselves and our communities: social distancing, washing our hands for 20 seconds, elbow tapping instead of a handshake, etc. Yet what I notice in myself as well as my friends and family, is the insidious rise of anxiety, as we think about and/or speak with each other when the conversation inevitably turns to our concerns.

 

THINKING ACTUALLY CREATES OUR EXPERIENCE OF LIFE. WHEN WE PAY ATTENTION TO THOUGHTS OF DREAD, THE BODY HEARS THAT AS AN ACTUAL THREAT, AND GENERATES AN EMOTIONAL RESPONSE APPROPRIATE TO A DANGEROUS SITUATION.

 

Fear and anxiety surge within us. We may not be aware that this is the process that is happening, but on reflection, perhaps we can notice that our imagination has expanded our circumstances from one of safety with the need for practical preparation, to one of imminent danger, without anything actually having changed in our external world.

 

There are times when I have been quite calm and relaxed, and then as soon as I turn on the news I am bombarded with this imminent global danger. I walk away from the tv visibly shaken, no longer calm but considering my alarmed thinking that I hadn’t known the extent of the danger we are all in!

 

Here’s the thing. When we are reacting to our thinking about a situation, not dealing with the situation itself, there is no action we can take in the outer world. Were we to be faced with the actual circumstances we are imagining, we would take the appropriate actions necessary to address them. But when I walk away from my tv, in looking around the room – nothing has changed! It is the same room, with everything as it was before I turned on the tv. The only thing that has changed is my thinking about the circumstances. Does it occur to me to take the only action I can to feel safe again: to stop paying attention to my fearful thinking?

 

MUCH HAS BEEN DISCUSSED FOR SOME TIME ABOUT THE BENEFITS OF MEDITATION. THE FACT IS, WHEN WE ARE COMPLETELY PRESENT WITH OUR BREATH, FOCUSED ON THE INBREATH AND THEN FOCUSED ON THE OUTBREATH, WE CANNOT THINK! THIS GIVES AN AUTOMATIC REPRIEVE TO THE INFLUENCE FROM THE BACKGROUND OF THOUGHT.

 

Human beings are hard-wired to be thinking machines. Much of the time we aren’t even aware of the fact that we are thinking, yet the personality is attached to certain perceptions that run in the background, determining our experience of life.

 

Once we can distinguish that it is our thinking that is creating the anxiety, we have access to a bit of a buffer to choose to step away from paying attention to that thinking. Taking the time to slow down, taking several slow, deep breaths, we can feel our body relaxing. The body is no longer responding to thoughts of danger, but is rather connected to the present moment, which resonates only with the frequency of peace and well-being. Then we look around at the very same environment we have been in with anxiety, and have a completely different experience of it – one of ease. It is as if a huge burden has been lifted: the burden of fear.

 

Whenever the grip of anxiety pulls at you again, notice what thinking you are paying attention to, and see if you can take a step back, take a few deep breaths, paying attention only to the breathing, and allow yourself the reality of the peace of the present moment. Then if a tangible issue arises that needs to be addressed, it can be dealt with from the common sense thinking available by being completely present in the moment.

 

THIS IS THE HEART OF “BE HERE NOW”.

 

Let’s remain free from the suffering born of thinking, while we remain present for solutions to this very real issue.

 

Pragmatic action arising from wisdom is the most powerful remedy and always available to each one of us.

 

May you and yours be well and at peace.

The Paradox of Time

Laura Basha

 

Photo By: Lucas Ludwig
 

“Whatever you do takes time, and yet it is always now. So while your inner purpose is to negate time, your outer purpose necessarily involves future and so could not exist without time.

 

But it is always secondary.

 

Whenever you become anxious or stressed, outer purpose has taken over, and you lost sight of your inner purpose. You have forgotten that your state of consciousness is primary, all else secondary.”

 

– Eckhart Tolle

 

I woke up in the early morning hours as I do sometimes, and there it was: that nagging feeling of dread.
 

Sometimes it isn’t there, or it emerges as a different version of itself, all the different versions of dread. It’s such an amorphous feeling, the more distressing because it has no apparent cause. No specific incident or occurrence that I can tag it onto. I know on some level it is thinking, but if I try to distinguish which thought or remember some event either past or future, it only exacerbates the dreadful feeling, but gives no distinguishing information that then lets my mind think “Ah ha!”.
 

This morning I remembered: It’s all a ruse – all a delusion of the ego trying to have me feel the stress of not having completed the books by now, not having caught up on the articles for the website in time, not having sorted through the clothes to bring to the consignment store.
 

Yada yada yada …
 

There is only peace and ease in the now.
So, everything other than peace and ease is habitual thinking.

 

This morning I remembered. Who I am is: I am.
I am that. The Absolute. That. I am Now.
 

Be where I am. In bed. Comfortable. Safe. There is only peace and ease in the Now. So, everything other than peace and ease is habitual thinking. And thinking wants me to continue to focus on it so that I can keep being attached to form, the physical, the constraints of time.
 

Now, this woman Laura who is writing this is not a silly person. She is quite strategic and pragmatic as a personality. But through habitually paying attention to the undercurrent of patterned thinking, I then identify with the pressured thoughts of “not enough”, “behind the eight ball”, “overwhelmed”, and then of course fall prey to the types of emotions that resonate through those types of thoughts.
 

This morning I remembered. Be where you are. Stop thinking. Yes – stop paying attention to thoughts and pay attention to the present moment, with no attention to thinking. This is Be Here Now. This is peace and ease and all is well.
 

This is living my purpose. Address the needs of the day from THIS state of consciousness. Ease and peace of mind. Then items to address get done with ease and peace of mind.
 

All else is secondary.