Bound Lotus

Greetings all,

I started working since last week I think with the Bound Lotus meditation. I've worked with it before but could never really get into it. I still enjoy doing my Sat Kriya and Gan Pattee Kriya but those involve chanting and Bound Lotus basically involves no chanting. I just feel like I want to sit and do nothing. I've done other silent meditation but in Bound Lotus the goal is to wrap yourself in full lotus and have your hands behind your back, grabbing your toes while you bend forward.

It looks like this:


I'm not officially doing a 40 day discipline but I probably should. In the beginning, I felt like it was supporting me and I really enjoy bowing my head. Bowing the head is good for surrendering but also for feeling a sense of humility, which is a quality I feel our society is sorely lacking.

Spirit Voyage did a Global Sadhana a few years ago so you can learn more here

This is a good meditation for Sat Nam Rasayan practitioners such as myself since it helps get us to a state of stillness. Right now I am doing it in half lotus and can just grab my elbows but it's an interesting sensation and maybe it'll help me more in life.

Moving

Greetings all,

I was apartment hunting and found a place. It's pretty hard to find something decent in Toronto. The vacancy rate is about 2%. I will be within walking distance to my school and I will be living in the trendy neighborhood known as The Annex and not the up-and-coming-ghetto known as Parkdale.

I was looking for shared accommodation since it's a bit cheaper then getting a 1 bedroom. I will be moving into a house. I was looking at a few places last year and in the beginning of this year but didn't really find anything that I liked. I looked at one earlier this year before my semester started that was by the school but the room was super tiny and would not work for me.

I looked at a few places last year but they mostly were slightly too far. Still within walking distance but more like the walking would be 40 minutes. Not bad and something I could manage but since it was still early, I decided to keep on looking.

Last week I looked at a place and the woman was a therapist. She talked like one and I think for me, it would drive me batty to be living somewhere where I always have to talk about my feelings and dialogue. I'm a doer damn it, sometimes I just don't want to talk and want to get things done! I already had my reservations about the place going in because she had a few other tenants and they all participated in this shared cooking arrangement where you cook one meal a week for everyone and so does everyone else. I think 4 people would be in the house so you would have to cook for yourself 3 nights of the week. It's not too bad sounding and she seemed flexible about the arrangement but I think for me, it may not work and may feel too stifling. I am a very fussy eater and I wouldn't want to burden someone else with my weird food quirks and basically limit what they prepare for me since there are so many foods I don't like to eat. They did have someone in the house who had to eat gluten free but I think my level of fussiness surpasses that.

The room ended up being too small for my liking and was basically smaller then my old room. And that room was pretty small to begin with!

I am glad that I don't live in my old apartment as I was having issues with roaches and that's always a drag to have to live in. I guess I could have moved and put effort into finding a new place as I was there for 3 years but I hate moving and I at least knew my place was in my budget. I really think if I had a better job, I'd be able to have a better life and be willing to spend more but I remember reading that your housing costs should be 1/3 of your income but it never has been in my case. It usually ends up being 50% of my living costs.

The thing with living with the roaches was that it wasn't horribly bad. It seemed worse in the summer because they would probably hide in the winter in the walls. I would use my own baits. I would use orange juice with a bit of dish washer fluid. I also used boric acid with peanut butter.

The super would get someone to come in to use some special dusting to get rid of them. It would help but because it wasn't done regularly, after 3 months you would start seeing more.
The person who lived above me who is no longer there said he had roaches too but the super lived a few rooms down from him and said she had no problems. I wonder if she was just lying because her room wasn't that far away. My building was a small one and only had 3 floors and a basement so I think it was possible that the whole building probably was infested.

It made me feel very shameful to have to live with that. It wasn't always bad as there were times when I wouldn't see any for about 4 days and then I would see 3-5 in one day. I think when I first moved in, I didn't see a problem for about 3 months. I think the place probably got sprayed about 3 times in the entire 3 years I was there. I think it made me paranoid.

I hope my new place doesn't have any. I would Bed Bug Registry to check out places to make sure they didn't have pest issues. Unfortunately when I was looking online at apartments, I did notice according to that site that some places had a pest issue as people also list roaches and not just bed bugs. It certainly was a handy resource because it would save me the time from visiting places that have this problem.

I think the probability of having roaches is pretty slim in a house, although I had one friend tell me his parents had them in their home because of their neighbor. I didn't notice any reports for my new place. I guess it's possible but I am hoping there isn't. I didn't notice anything particular.

My room is a fairly decent sized room. I will have to leave my kitchen table at my parents because it has a kitchen already. There is no living room but I did look at another place in a nearby neighborhood had also didn't have a living room. This place was better since the room was bigger. It would have been nice to have a living room but I didn't want to risk not being able to find a place for the fall since I am planning on going to school full time and didn't want to commute every day from Hamilton.

Sally

Greetings all,

Who is Sally? Sally is the love of my life. We met over 19 years ago at the Hamilton SPCA and it was love at first sight. We made her part of our family and I have been in love with her every day ever since. She is the cat of my dreams and now that I am back with my parents I am back to my old ways of going on about how beautiful and gorgeous she is.

Now that she is 19 years old, I have noticed a change in her personality. She is super skinny. The vet thinks she has some illness. She weighs 6 pounds and still eats. She seems grumpier now and when I pick her up to give her some love, I can sometimes hear her bones crack.

She has also become the family beggar as my mother has been feeding her their food more often so now she spends a lot of time sitting in the kitchen. She gets tuna, steak, mortadella and sometimes chicken. She is by far the most cutest beggar I have ever seen because she will just sit politely and wait for her food. No meowing, just quiet politeness. We could all learn from her patience and grace.

I've been letting her go outside now since the weather is warmer and because of the sun. She doesn't go very far like she used to and walks around really slowly. She still likes to roll around on the patio so it's nice to see her have a moment of being playful since she seems more grumpy.

Sally also needs her nightly cuddle time with my brother and she lies on top of him every night while he watches tv. I will come home and see them two together. On the one hand it looks sweet, but this is how my brother spends every night of his life and I feel more pity for him if anything. He uses the cat as an excuse but I think Sally could survive if she didn't get her cuddle time.

She also cries a lot in the morning. She might be lonely or hungry but she never used to cry. She cries at like 6 in the morning, waking us all up. At first when I heard her cry in the morning when I first moved back, it worried me but now I just know she does it for some reason unknown to us and it doesn't mean she is in danger.

It's been quite an experience watching my own cat age. She is now a senior and her glory days are behind her. But she's still beautiful to me.