One Vision

One flesh one bone,
One true religion,
One voice one hope,
One real decision!


Often we speak with many voices, very rarely do they all sing together. The modern man and woman are streamlined into many separate identities (and we are lead to believe discreet), we often admire and connect with famous people who show the ability to switch from one thing to the next. Mother, financial director, athlete and lover all rolled into one what a brilliant image! The key point here is that they are indeed one, not many voices.

People often fail at New Year’s resolutions because of many voices. There is at least one voice saying go on put the cake down and four or five others saying mmmm delicious cake! The rational mind (cake hater and maker of exercise plans) and the emotional mind (cake connoisseur and lover of oversleeping) are at war, the physical body is grumbling about a lack of zinc and tension in the lower back (but gets ignored as no one is listening) and the spiritual mind is confused and upset by the whole affair (but secretly knows that everything is great!).

One of the things that all internal practices have in common is they are leading your many voices together. The key to this is awareness; lack of awareness is what leads to disharmony. Awareness is a difficult thing to train... If you can excuse a zen master moment; You must become aware of your awareness!!

Look and it cannot be seen, search and it can't be found, yet you use it all the time!

You basically have to cheat to get at your awareness, get engaged in something else with your whole being (and it doesn’t really matter what that particular thing is). Then the little bit that's left off, what some people engaged in meditation call the mind stream, starts to pop up in all sorts of places. Little funny thoughts and associations emerge, little glimpses of the other voices...practice enough and they will all be singing together. The key here is not to then run off paying attention to these voices just to let them come and go without any attachment, after all they all come from you.


So I think that a good new year’s resolution would be to really get into something that you are already into! Instead of struggling through your run, engage with it. Feel your heart beating and your breath moving (if the heart feels like it’s about to explode through your chest maybe running is not your preferred choice! Walking works great too.). Relax your mind and open up to yourself, you deserve it!

Happy New Year