Wow, the higher thinking!

Grand Canyon, Arizona

Along one of the South Rim trails at Grand Canyon there is a gorgeous panoramic view called Ooh Aah Point. The naming couldn't be more appropriate: it sounds like wow and the view is wow for real!
Some experiences cannot be easily described with words and we can just use sounds to express our participation. Still, what if I have to write an article about a difficult and vast topic, using a limited number of words and for which the deadline is like... yesterday?

There is a gurmukhi expression (which also is one of the most beautiful kundalini yoga mantras) that communicates that total sense of astonishment in front of the Infinite: it is Wahe Guru.
If you try to pronounce it, Wahe really sounds like wow! And that's it: a feeling of expansion and totality, an higher state from which we can see what is happening down there, where our human nature is having fun on Earth.
Guru is not only a famous brand, neither is just the Indian guru that we are used to see in pictures and documentaries on TV. Guru is the teacher and the word literally means "from darkness to light": in a nutshell, it is what enlightens us when we are totally wandering in darkness and don't know what's going on.
It is interesting to acknowledge that there is a guru inside each one of us and we all are teachers: we have the ability to see the big picture from above. Like from that Ooh Aah Point.

The topic can be difficult and the time given to us to write about it very short: instead of wandering in darkness and panic, we can take a step behind. Better, a side step. Even better, we can fly.
It is all about changing perspective: someone calls upon the lateral thinking, I would call that higher thinking instead. In place of bypassing the obstacle, we face it from above: we fly, hover and look at ourselves looking at the view. We may look like little points from there, compared to that vastness, but if we are able to see us is because we are flying. That should be enough.
To deliver as fast as possible, containing all the vastness of the topic in that limited number of words, we have to become innocent again: by forgetting our huge talents (and ego), we will simply say "wow" like a child would do (or maybe Wahe Guru, if we practice kundalini yoga)!
No efforts, just wow. The more the topic is difficult, the more words must be simple. Simple words take little space and time, both for the writers and for the readers. 

As human beings we are already microcosms who are part of a macrocosm, so we know from within the language to express that vastness in few words. We just have to work on our awareness to access those resources within ourselves, in order to have a sharp, fast and effective mind that serves our creativity.

Still Words in the giant forest

Sequoia National Park, Sierra Nevada, CA

In silence trees speak. As giant and thousands-year old sequoias they have even more to tell.
They told me about bears, deers and squirrels. About birth, life, death and rebirth. About the wounds from fire and the way they bear such a pain by keeping up in life.
I saw their blood, their scars, their wrinkles and their arms reaching out towards the sky whereas they are rooted on the ground.
I heard their breath, pet their wrinkled trunk, felt their roots under my feet, busted bears climbing on them. Like a little child, under these giant creatures I played the role of Dorothy in the world of the wonderful wizard of Oz.

Sequoia National Park is an enchanted forest like those I read about in some fantasy novels, a forest where you wouldn't be surprised to see some Tolkien's Hobbits or the trees themselves moving like human beings.
Into the wild it is easier to reach a meditative state of mind and creativity spontaneously comes up. This post comes from that wildness! Inspired by the forest I literally visualized some writing and communication techniques in the shape of trees.

How to manage the flow of our creativity? What are the steps to take in front of a blank page?
Trees are a good source to refer to: they suggest how we can stay with our feet on the ground but also reach our higher consciousness, where the best ideas come from.

Every time we draft some writing or we say something, words are like leaves. They are so many at the beginning of our flow of thoughts that we can't even count them.
If we don't want to be lost in the labyrinth of our mind, we need to realize that there are branches behind those leaves.

Branches are the grid, the structure through which we spread our thoughts and what we want to communicate. We can concretely organize this process by using a bulleted list of our ideas, so that we both leash our mind and keep the thread very clear to us from the beginning.

Branches are also connected to the trunk: if we write or talk far from our centre, we will deliver just fantasies without conveying a real message and there will be lack of personality.
The trunk is the power of connection between our pure creativity and the instruments that we use to express it: from that centre, all the points of our writing (the branches) and the words that come from those (the leaves) will be strongly anchored to the roots.

The roots are our experience, the background (or the underground stuff, we might say in this case!), the earth that ultimately nurtures our words. They also are the channels through which we connect to all the other trees (our public): words spreading from those channels express a conscious creative process.

How much better would it be if everybody trained their mind to think before speaking and let just flowers come out from the mouth?
If writing is both creative and rational, if words are under control and consciously expressed, the final product will have more chances to communicate with neutrality.
Neutrality corresponds to the ability of listening to the whole forest (environment) around us, from an higher point of view that allows us to see every detail, and also to the capacity of expressing ourselves with rooted wisdom and depth.
Neutral communication, as the result of the consciousness applied to each step of our creativity, is powerful and its feedback is long lasting. Just like a giant sequoia in the forest!

Yoga in the Everglades

Everglades National Park, Florida

I found Infinity in a swamp.

Walking along one of the trails in the Everglades National Park, a sign drew my attention. It was different from the others that I had read: it didn't just describe flora and fauna.

"There is more here than meets the eye". How many people do we meet here on this planet? How many experiences are we doing on this Earth?
Sometimes our relationships are challenging: we really meet rabbits, lubber grasshoppers, snakes, alligators, shy birds... Most of the time we think we meet these animals outside, but the truth is that we can encounter them even within us.

Every human being is sort of an animal. But there is an Italian word that is "anima" and it means "soul". Isn't it interesting? Anima is contained in the animal.
In every human being there is more than meets the eye. There is the soul.
The soul is fearless, far from being a rabbit. It is not clumsy, far from being a lubber. It doesn't need any poison to defend itself, like a snake does. It is neither aggressive like an alligator nor shy like a little bird, because it is beyond the environment that make those animal behave like that.

Our mind is perfectly able to make us behave like animals though.

"Stop for a minute, listen quietly, look carefully". Who wrote this sign, Patanjali?
I stopped for a minute, I listened quietly, I looked carefully. I found my breath, the synchrony with each sound of the environment around me, the vibrations resonating beyond shapes and colors. My soul, ultimately: infinite, eternal, free.

Do we really need to be anima-ls? The answer might be surprising as much as finding an anonymous sign like this in a World Heritage site: yes, we do.
What we can do is becoming aware of that "mental animal", recognizing it and taming it so that it becomes a friend and not just our mask anymore.

We can walk that path to understand who we really are, to let the anima inside the animal shine and show us the right directions.

I want to follow that light, full of gratitude and surprise in front of myself and any other human being, because "life here is abundant, but not always obvious".