Happy Monday to You!
I hope you all had a great weekend.
I enjoyed finishing my painting, titled “Enlightenment”, which I’ll share in my blog and vlog feature today.
I also update you on some recently completed CHEK Advanced Training programs and all the great experiences the CHEK Institute instructors are sharing with their students and the students with the instructors too. We teachers all learn a lot from our students.
I’ll finish by sharing a photo I just took of a beautiful roadrunner out my office window.
Meditation and Separating Our Snakes!
I begin my video today by sharing the painting you see I created it from a vision given to me by my soul; a gentle reminder of what a spiritual practice really is…
As I suspect most of you know the topic of “enlightenment” is talked about a lot today, in both scientific and spiritual circles.
Though there are many opinions on this topic, I can only share my own experience. Enlightenment has many meanings:
1. More awake than the average person.
2. Capable of dealing with Big concepts and not getting engulfed by the appearance of things, issues, biases, judgments, and holding a central position, giving validity to all opinions.
3. A state of complete Union with ALL, this means ALL that IS and ALL that ISN’T. This is a paradoxical state that can’t be described by language.
Such a state would be equal to being “one with the Tao.” Lao Tzu makes it clear that this state can’t be described when he says of it, “he who talks doesn’t know, and he who knows, doesn’t talk.”
4. The capacity to do things (like Jesus walking on water) that others can’t do is a common thought among the public, but it is really based on misunderstandings of religious documents largely from direct translations as “dictations,” as opposed to “connotations.”
Though there are those masters who have demonstrated incredible abilities that seem to defy the laws of physics, such as Sai Baba, such situations are usually glorified, scorned, and most always misunderstood.
For me, enlightenment is a word that describes the process of awakening to your true potential to love more fully – to love self, other and the world progressively as we mature to that ability authentically.
In my painting, you see an idealized vision of myself in a state of Samadhi, or spiritual union with the created and uncreated worlds.
The white snake represents the masculine energies called “yang” and the black snake represents the female energies called “yin”, out of which all existence is created.
In my video, I explain more about the painting, and share the simple (but challenging) methods I use, allowing meditation to be a practice I can use anywhere, any time.
Even as the world delivers a constant stream of opportunities to practice living as an enlightened being, I am reminded of the opportunity to practice.
OSHO, in one of his lectures I studied years ago stated “It takes 6 billion people on average to produce one enlightened human being.”
Whether this is true or not isn’t the point. The point is that his metaphor suggests that:
A. It is very hard work.
B. It is a very long journey, and
C. Very few people have the discipline, or motivation to do what the process requires…
I certainly don’t walk around considering my self “enlightened”, but I do consider myself as one who is committed to the process of learning to love and live fully.
I have been fortunate to have quite a number of Union experiences, both in my practices as a shaman/healer and through unaided practices of tai-chi, medical Qi-going, and meditation.
I was trained in meditation by Paramahansa Yogananda’s monks when I spent the summer with them at age 15. As I share in my video today, my mother was a big influence on me in many ways, including spiritual discipline.
I hope you enjoy my video blog today, and look forward to sharing more with you next week.
CHEK Advanced Training Course Completions
HLC1 Sweden, with Angie Lustrick
Angie has just finished teaching HLC 1 in Halmstad, Sweden at the beautiful Eleiko training center. I’ve been in contact with Angie every day, and she had a great time teaching her Swedish students. She said they really enjoyed the zone exercises, and that they had a lot of fun together.
Thank you Angie for doing such a great job! Thank you to Eleiko and Gavin Jennings (Director of CHEK Europe) for putting it all together and doing a great job as well!
HLC1 Sydney, Australia with Donal Carr
Congratulations to Donal Carr and his students for a successful completion of HLC1 in Sydney, Australia.
I can only imagine the experience the students had with Donal. He is a very experienced teacher and lives the HLC principles day in and day out with his beautiful wife Cathy, and his two boys, Ryan and Josh.
Thank you Donal for doing another great job teaching, and thank you to the Sydney HLC1 students for coming and learning from a master so you can “Be the change!”
Exercise Coach, San Francisco, CA, with Ashley Mazurek
I am sure that all of you who joined Ashley Mazurek for your Exercise Coach training had a great experience and that you are inspired to go all the way through your CHEK Institute training!
Thank you to you Ashley for sharing your love and wisdom, and thank you to each of you students for “being the change.”
Ashley Mazurek is now a senior instructor for the CHEK Institute. She has been a personal friend of mine for many years, and I love knowing she’s teaching the principles from which we live from.
Like Donal Carr, Ashley lives the principles day in and day out, not only as a CHEK and HLC Practitioner, but as a parent of two beautiful children, Jade and Carmine Jr.
Ashley has a long list of accomplishments, including being a multiple Iron man finisher with some very impressive times!
Thank you to all you students who have trusted me enough to look further into my teachings, and “Welcome Aboard! You are CHEK HLC Practitioners and Exercise Coaches now — the world needs your “leadership!”
Visit by the Roadrunner this Morning!
I took this photo of a beautiful young roadrunner right out my window this morning as I was preparing my blog.
We have loads of roadrunners here, but recently someone told me they had never seen one in person, only in Bugs Bunny cartoons!
It has just rained very hard all night, and this little guy was drying his feathers out on top of one of my rock stacks. They are unique birds. They make a variety of interesting sounds, and though most people don’t think they fly, they actually fly quite well.
They often hang around me while lifting stones, and I always enjoy their company; they probably wouldn’t be too good as pets because “they poop a lot!”
You’d think there were ostriches around by the size of the poops they leave behind, but I guess that makes them master gardeners!
I hope you’ve enjoyed my blog today, and I look forward to sharing more next week.
Love and chi,
Paul Chek
