Yesterday while at a training that I am in, two of my peers became very sick. It was evident that they shared in the same food or drink that caused a reaction in their body that floored them. As we hovered over them, through the act of sending love and healing, it was clear that going home was what was for the best so that they could recover.
Sometimes going home, that place of our center is where we heal.
In my morning meditation I have different "rituals" but one of them is I pull from a "mind-training" deck that is full of slogans that help in the training of being of service and loving kindness. As it would be today, the slogan the I picked was...
ABANDON POISONOUS FOOD
Well, duh! My ego screamed at first.
Then, I said to myself, "Oh lord, this is one more step to me moving to becoming vegetarian. Great! The commentary will tell me all about being compassionate to animals (which I completely believe) and this week that will be my focus."
Wrong!
That's not what this is about ... AT ALL.
The commentary says this, "The image of poisonous food suggests an experience that is seemingly nourishing, but in fact can kill you. It refers in particular to the poison of ego-fixation and its power to transform the nutritious food of loving-kindness practice into poison."
Ouch!
Essentially, it is saying - Stop ingesting every experience to be about you! Stop being self absorbed. It is inviting us, to stop using the things around us, that are good and good for you and turning it into the poisonous food for powering over, dogma to dictate and superiority to suppress.
For me, my spirituality is precious. There are things that I do in my meditation, prayer, yoga, church practice that feeds me good food so that I'm not knocked on the floor in my day. Or if I am, I have the tools to get back to my center, my home to recover.
However, that nutritious food that I get from meditation, prayer, yoga, church practice that is so good can become toxic. It can become poisonous. To me through how I treat people if I become smug over the very thing that feeds me.
Ok, true story.
This week I was at a meditation. Sitting. Watching my thoughts. Listening to the guided meditation. Opening my heart. Then, as I was watching my thoughts, I heard someone breathing. I rolled my eyes that were closed. Then I heard it again, times two. Ugh, I said to myself. Don't they know you are not SUPPOSED to force your breath in meditation. Then it got louder, clearer. And then, I was no longer being guided by the meditation, I was on the train of crazy and I was the conductor. "what the hell? " I said to myself.
What the hell is right! I poisoned myself in my thoughts.
Now, heres the good news. I noticed that I was poisoning myself. We all do. And that is good. Because it gives us the opportunity to come back to our healing center of home.
You see, unlike my peers that was sick from poisonous food that someone prepared for them they had no control over that. WE however, can begin to change the poisonous food that we digest every day.
How?
By just starting at the beginning, noticing, practicing forgiveness and waking to love.
Love and light
Imani