Friday, August 11, 2017

100 Percent

He should lift up the self by the Self,
and not sink into the selfish.
For the self is the only friend of the Self,
and the only foe.
(Lord Krishna, Bhagavad Gita)

"Losing 10 pounds is not a goal", an instructor once said, "exercising more, eating better, and stop drinking alcohol is." Her statement makes perfect sense from a control perspective since we only have control over the things we do but not our weight loss. For example, when we do well in life, or are in love, our metabolism runs fast. When we struggle in contrast, it slows down. Since the metabolism is key for burning calories, the events in our life have as impact on our weight as our lifestyle choices.


Still, when we always eat heathy and when we get our regular exercise and drink no alcohol, our body will eventually reward us with a lower weight. Same with our spiritual path, no matter how enlightened we might be, life circumstances and our experience of 'pleasure' and 'pain' is unfortunately out of our control. What we can do though, we can commit to our spiritual path 100 percent and eventually our happiness and peace of mind will thank us for it. 


As far as sticking to my spiritual rules is concerned, I am doing quite well. The same can't be said for my weight goal, however, I have been struggling professionally lately and as usual compensated my unhappiness with carbs and alcohol. Now that the autumn is around the corner, however, I have again reinstated the 100 percent goal for eating healthy food, exercising regularly and for not drinking alcohol. Let's build a little momentum for 2018 and see what happens.

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