Well first,  here’s the Table of Contents.  What the heck.  The book is adapted from columns originally printed on examiner.com so some of the titles might look familiar.  But everything is edited and changed quite a bit from those days.  And each chapter contains four or five subheadings that I’m leaving out here or it would be the world’s absolutely longest T of C.

1. R U My Mother?

2. Shopping with God

3.  When You Know the One, Anything Can Come

4.  Follow the Inner Lead

5.  Giving it All Up

6. Be What You Seek

7.  The Holiday Emergency Survival Kit

8.  When in Doubt, Clean

9.  Objects in Mirror are Closer Than They Appear

10.  Own Your Power (or Someone Else Will)

11. Romantic Kismet

12. Mundane Miracles and other Mysteries

13. Contestants Must Be Present to Win

14.The Higher Octave

15. Be Who You Are, Really

16. Be What the World Needs

TRYING TO FUNCTION (WITHOUT GOD)

Learning to surrender to a very sophisticated Deity has been the single most important lesson of my life.
Shirley MacLaine

Lose your inhibition, follow your intuition, free your inner soul, and break away from tradition…
Black Eyed Peas

When I was in ninth grade my friends and I played a certain game for months on end. No matter what someone said we just added the words “during sex.”  Such as, “She loves to eat anchovy pizza (during sex).”  Or, “He always forgets to do his math homework (during sex).”  For whatever reason, this never failed to send us into gales of hysteria.

But then, we were fourteen.

Now I find myself in a new version.  Have you noticed how some people will rush to discourage a certain goal?  Or at least let you know how futile, exhausting or expensive your attempt will be before you even start?

So in my revised game I always take their words and add “without God.”

As in, “It’s impossible to find the right job in this economy (without God).”

Or, “You’ll never be able to find parking there (without God).”

I can’t tell you how well this works.

I happened to turn on NPR during a mind-boggling interview with an ‘efficiency expert.’  He had written a book on procrastination with forty-four ‘critical steps’ to be followed in his Act for Success plan.  I was soon giggling so hard I had to pull the car over at the corner of Clay and Divisadero just to be safe.  Even the poor interviewer sounded flummoxed.

He asked, “So you’re telling our listeners they must follow all forty-four steps?”

“Absolutely.  Every single one,” the expert intoned, “in the proper order. Otherwise it will not work.”  And he began to fire off the list again.

My head was spinning like a bad carnival ride.

“Well,” said the interviewer.  “To be honest, that’s all a bit daunting.  Isn’t there a simpler way for people to begin?”

“No.” the expert said gravely.  “As a master, I devised this plan scientifically.  And of course, if people are confused, they should take my seminar.”

Of course.

Wiping away tears of laughter, all I could think was, “Yep.  He’s a master of how to overcome procrastination (without God).”

I remembered how life was indeed a weary road before I let the Divine lead the way.  I ran from one self-styled ‘master’ to the next with my problems.  The combination of a delicate nervous system and a good dose of ADD made my life often derail.

But at some indeterminate point, perhaps more from exhaustion than evolution, I pretty much gave God control.  And though problems still come, solutions usually follow in fresh and novel ways.

The other day I met an interesting writer in a cafe.  We started discussing the book proposal I’d been stuck on.

She offered, “Well, I could help you do it.  These usually take about thirty hours to create and I charge $250 an hour.”

“Wow, are you kidding?”  I gasped, doing some quick calculations.  “That’s over seven thousand dollars!”

“Well, I do have a handy flexible payment plan,” she said.

Then I remembered.

That’s what a book proposal costs (without God).

When I demurred and left, I sat in my car and invoked Divine Order with my full heart:

“If You wish this written, I cannot do this on my own.  You know my limits.  But the perfect route is already selected, so if this is Your Will, fling open the doors. If this is meant to be, please bring the right help..”

Within a month a writer friend of mine in New Mexico serendipitously emailed me one of her own proposals.

“Hey, you popped into my mind tonight,” she wrote. “In case you’re still working on that thing, just use mine like a map.  You’ll finish in no time.”

All separation, every kind of estrangement and alienation is
false. All is One – this is the ultimate solution for every conflict.

Nisargadatta Maharaj

Seeing the world as you is a way out of inflated self-importance, or what Buddhists would call self-cherishing.  I’ve learned about this the strangest way, through my life-long arachnophobia, or terror of spiders.  I should call it my slowly-but-steadily-waning-fear of spiders.

For as long as I can remember, spiders always paralyzed me.  If they were bigger than a quarter, forget it; I’d run screaming from the room like a six-year old.  I can’t say the number of times I’ve frantically begged a friend or partner to come airlift one outside.  At least I knew enough to not kill them.

A psychic once suggested that in a prior life I died in a whole vat of them like something out of Indiana Jones.  Charming  image.  And really, who knows?

Some years ago in India I was at a special fire ceremony for Lakshmi, the revered Goddess of beauty and wealth.  At one point, a spider the size of a kumquat scurried over my hand. I gasped and swatted it away.

One of the Hindu priests nearly boxed my ears off.  “What are you doing?” he yelled.  “Mahalakshmi Herself was giving you Her darshan, Her private blessing.  Are you insane?”  Then he turned to another monk and muttered, “I told you we should never let the idiot Americans come to this stuff.”

Well, this got me thinking.

Here I am projecting all my fear on this poor creature, and here She is, the Goddess herself, coming to bless.

What if She is a disowned part of Me?

I prayed intensely to be healed of my fear.

I was in bed one night ready to turn out the light when suddenly I saw a golf-ball-sized spider on the wall.

Panic, sweat, pounding pulse.

Then I thought, “Hey, why not just talk to her?”

“Look,” I started, haltingly.  “I’m delighted to have you visit, and even come so auspiciously into my bedroom.” I took a long deep breath, trying to calm down. “So just let me promise from the get-go, in case you’re worried about this all yourself, I won’t  hurt you. I finally know who You are.”  I gazed at her with as much affection as I could muster for something that had filled
my nightmares forever.

Then I continued, “But let me be honest, you really, really scare me. And you know, I actually wonder right now if you might be a bit scared too?”  This idea actually calmed me down considerably.

I took another breath. “So I’ll tell you what, my adorable Goddess.  It’s a big room.  How about if you take the ceiling, I’ll take the bed.  You just stay up there, my darling multi-legged Love, and we’ll share a beautiful night.”

Perhaps it was chance, perhaps not.  But at the exact moment I finished, she began to race up the wall and slip into a dark corner of the ceiling.  She tucked in her legs and became a nebulous shadow I could barely see

I bid her a good night and peacefully fell asleep.

In the morning she was gone.

Later that day I received an email from my friend Erin.  On a whim, she had sent me a column she had just written…on arachnophobia.

She said it came from fear of one’s own power.I mean, really.  Is anyone ever out there but our Self?

A heart does not choose.          Colette

But it just might be a lunatic you’re looking for.         Billy Joel

Perhaps because of retro-fifties moldy tomes that still hang around like The Rules, I get plentiful calls from women fearful about relationships.   Even ones who are otherwise strong and capable, of any sexual orientation, still ask stuff like, “Did I say too much?”  “Should I have been more coy?” or “Why didn’t I play it cooler?”

But the forces of karma need no manipulation.  After all these readings to all kinds of people, I know one thing for sure:  if you’re destined to be with someone, nothing can stop it.   You won’t need to rope, trick or drug them into loving you.  Those books that leave women terrified of just being themselves are somehow both tragic and hilarious at once.

A psychic teacher of mine used to say, “Karma is like a train. When it pulls up, it’s almost impossible not to get on.  And, for that matter, not to stay on until the last stop.  For better or worse.”

Here’s my proof.

A guy named Eli called to say he had reunited with his ex, Elsa.  Beside himself with delight, he wanted me to look at their charts for potential wedding dates.   Suddenly, I remembered our initial reading the year before.

“Whoa, wait a minute!”  I yelled.  “Wasn’t she the crazy chick who threw out all your clothes? You’d called me from your bathrobe, remember?”

Eli laughed as he reminded me that they had a huge blowout one night and he left the next morning for a business trip.  While he was gone, Elsa, an Aries-artist-with-Leo-moon-total-Kali-incarnation if there ever was one, was still enraged.

So she took all his clothes, shoes, hats, even his precious vintage motorcycle jacket, and sold the whole lot at Crossroads Trading.   (No Goodwill donations for this firecracker.  She was gonna make some bucks off the deal to boot).

Then she took the money and moved out.

He went to his IT job in sweats and flip-flops for a week until he could get new threads.

Yet now they were reunited and planning to wed.

“You know,” he confessed, “she’s a creative genius.  And yes, she’s a complete and total maniac.  But she’s my maniac.  I’d be bored to death with anyone else.”

He recently wrote to say the union remains “blissfully tempestuous.”
And what more could you want if you choose to marry Kali, the Hindu Goddess of Death and Rebirth?

That’s just how karma is.  When something is right, prior lifetimes carve patterns of energetic familiarity and recognition.  A template forged in the fires of the past clicks back in.  People just fit.

Yiddish has a good word for this resonance, bashert.  Meant to be.

So you can relax and be yourself.

If it’s bashert, no need to behave ‘properly’.  You’re not auditioning for a Broadway play.

And if it’s not…well, you’ve probably just been saved a whole lot of trouble.

I have unshakeable faith in the perfect outcome of every situation in my life, for I am allowing God to be in absolute control and guide me in all proper actions.

Catherine Ponder

 
Last Thanksgiving, I heard from Maura, a local yoga teacher who was terrified because her classes were shrinking.  She wanted to know why.
 
As we talked it got apparent.  She constantly calculated the number of students she would need to pay her bills. She saw herself in anxious competition with any other teacher. And she envisioned a diminishing pool of potential private sessions as money got tighter in the current economy.   With rising fear, she tried to constantly corral and manipulate new folks to pay her bills.  Yet when folks felt her grasping, they understandably fled.
 
In short, she had one major problem.  She had turned each potential student into her Source.
 
But there’s a whole other way.
“What if you saw yourself as lucky to have work that relieves suffering?” I asked.  “What if your ‘bottom line’ belonged to God, and your only role was to serve with as much love as possible?”
 
“You mean do my classes for free?” she scoffed. “What about my bills?”
 
“No, no, you can charge.” I continued,. “but if you shift your energy out of your lower survival chakras, and move into your heart,  a miracle will come.  If you see the Divine as your Source, the funds can arrive from wherever It picks.  You could apply this to any livelihood, but jeez, you’re teaching yoga!  How the heck can you leave God out of the equation?”
“And anyway,” I went on. “There’s no such thing as competition.  You attract people by your own nature.  The people who are drawn to your particular energy will always find you.  You don’t have to worry if there’s a yoga studio on every block.”
 
Maura grimaced.  “Well, in Berkeley there actually is.”
 
“Yeh, but no one else is YOU.”
 
So she prayed steadily for the next few weeks,
 
I’m now available to receive anyone who can benefit from my teaching.  Let all who need me find me.   Let me help relieve suffering.  The Divine is my complete Source for all prosperity and will provide.
 
As she released her grasp, her classes started filling once more.  She also began offering some free ones to those in need.
 
And she remembered why on earth she had been drawn to teach yoga in the first place.
 

Then today someone sent this cool video in response to yesterday’s dance piece. And it just seemed right since the more comfortable you can become juggling and improvising right now, the better you’ll feel.   I love how the guy keeps screwing up and just keeps going.

;