Attitude is Everything

I really believe that attitude is everything. A man at a Hindu ashram came to Swami Muktananda and complained, "You must get rid of my roommate! He is a smoker and his smelly smoke s polluting the atmosphere in my room. Someone as vile as he should not be allowed in here!"

Muktananda thought for a couple of minutes and responded, "I ill change your room - for his sake, not yours. Polluting the physical atmosphere with smoke is an offense, but polluting the psychic atmosphere with judgment is worse. You are hurting yourself and the Universe more with your anger and judgment than he is with his smoke."

What we do with our bodies is important, but what we do with our minds and hearts is even more important. I spend a lot of time in judgment. I don't feel good about that. Because I believe that our reality is a spiritual one - and that who we are is really a spiritual being having a human experience (rather than a human being who has spiritual experiences) - I think it's important that our thinking habits and patterns are in harmony with a loving and forgiving Universe.

It seems almost impossible for me to read the newspaper and not be in judgment - sometimes so severely that I feel anger or extreme frustration at people I don't know, and circumstances I am not fully informed about. That's not fair.

So, I forgive myself for feeling that way - and I commit to trying to just be conscious that when I find myself in extreme judgement, to the point of creating anxiety or anger in myself, I can step aside and loosen my attachment to it. Let go and let God...isn't that what the AA bumper sticker says?