Wherever you go, you carry your own imagination. Even if you go to heaven, you won’t be able to see it as heaven if there is a hell in your heart. If you have a heaven in your heart, you would even enjoy hell. Yes it’s true. Because you would see heaven there. It is all up to you.
-Swami Satchidananda
This was the passage that I read today at breakfast as I set my intention for the day. I recently got back from a Prana Flow training in LA. Back in Fort Wayne, Indiana where everything is so spread out, missing my daily walks, and no car necessary approach to life, I hesitantly loaded my girls into the car to take them to daycare. As I turned the key, nothing happened. I was honestly grateful, because now we were forced to walk to daycare which is only a mile away.
It’s just that, well, we sort of live in the ghetto, and so I usually start my car up to drive them a mile away, and then if I want to go for a walk, drive another half mile to walk around the beautiful park and golf course. Today I was forced to take the less sexy or scenic walk. I realized that I was doing something that was not only good for my body, my kids, and the environment, but I couldn’t help but feel down and stressed. Much less peaceful and present than when I walk through the beautiful park, that I usually drive to, even though it is only a mile away from my home. I was feeling discouraged about where we live and how the people around us live, thinking that we need to move and judging everyone around me. My kids were thrilled about the walk, and I was thankful that it wouldn’t take long, since I have a daycare provider so close. As we walked, and I judged, my 5 year old pointed to a home that we passed, you know the neighbor that has several porcelain figures, planters, and a bathtub alter with mother Mary, set up in the yard ..look mom…cool!! They have so much cool Halloween stuff ready, then she pointed down to a shiny 3 musketeers wrapper in another neighbors yard(my kids don’t really know what candy bar wrappers look like)”Look at that beautiful flower mom!” I reflected on the passage that I began my day with. Wherever you go, carry your own imagination.
It is easy to be inspired, feel sexy, and look younger, when we get out of our everyday lives and habitual ways of living. Like when we go on a vacation, go on a yoga retreat, or wake up on a beach or a mountain top. But how do we do this in our every day lives? How do we stop grasping for something other than where we are right now, and live and love every moment. We use our imagination. I started using mine, and began “picking flowers” on the way home. Not only was I cutting down on toxins in the environment today by not being able to turn on my car, I was helping to make my neighborhood a more beautiful place. Instead of obsessing about the new sexy Chevy Volt that I want, to show what a great yogi I am, I embrace being able to use my legs and hands for serving those around me. To serve those that may not have the time, health, or inspiration to clean up their own yard. As for the home with the Halloween décor all over the yard, well..at least it makes my daughter excited, and I have an alter at home too, we are not so different. It doesn’t matter weather we are laying on a beach in LA or walking through the ghetto on a drizzly day. If you are joyful you experience joy, wherever you are. What matters is how we walk this walk, and if we are reaching out to inspire and uplift others along the way. Be the one to capture something new today, to see something different than you usually do, and to carry your imagination with you. Change the, sometimes mundane, walk through life, into a path of beauty and wonderment. It’s all up to you.
Be Joy! Wherever you are!!
