JANAKA'S MONTHLY NEWSLETTER--DECEMBER

Where?

Where to find truth
in this world gone mad?
Where to find refuge
from the crushing of the wheel?
Where to find peace
in this whirlpool of frenzied activity?
Where to find happiness
in this place of beckoning phantom forms?

It is in the Silence
amidst the relentless screams.
It is in the center
of the spinning wheel.
It is in the eye
of the raging hurricane.
It is in the I
of the Eternal Self.



Hello friends, family and associates,

While much of America begins preparing for Christmas and the holidays by waiting in lines on Black Friday and surfing the web on Cyber Monday, there is another way of making ready to receive the darkest part of the year. And it is Nature herself that gently calls for us to follow her. As the leaves continue to fall and reveal the skeletons of trees, and the garden plants withdraw back into the soil, the bare foundations of the Earth is revealed. It is her way of disrobing to allow us to glimpse her naked glory, her contours, her foundations.

Yet we are not separate from her. She is our self calling for us to do the same. While the shouts of the world want us to wrap ourselves up in the throes of shopping, pushing through the crowds of garish malls, to drive around the blocks in quest of parking spaces (taxing our parking angels to their limit), she calls us to the silence and hush of snow-clad fields. And to gaze into the long-growing crystalline nights and see the celestial images looking down. No matter what faith one has, or doesn’t have, there is a magic at this time when one goes into this inevitable darkness, willingly, to come to that virgin silence that awaits everyone. When one touches that Silence one changes, because the ever-birthing Consciousness, the I AM, can look out of one’s eyes, and with blossoming heart, look out onto the world.

Dickens' A Christmas Carol is a great story of the descent into the darkness, descending past his fearful habits of his separated ego, and emerging from his heart and finding his true place on the earth, realizing that his happiness lies in the whole and not by constricting his actions to only himself.

May everyone have a joyful holiday, however you spend it, and give yourself a few precious moments to find the Infinite Child within you.

As Tiny Tim says: God bless us, everyone.

Janaka

EVENTS

A couple of weeks ago and old friend from the Bodhi Tree days and storyteller, Michael McCarty, came up to Santa Rosa to tell tales at the a Tellebration event. It was great to hear his stories and to meet the storytelling community up here. There is a storytelling swap the first Tuesday of the month where the public is invited to attend and tell a tale (see my website for details). There you will find me. I just landed a storytelling gig and will be telling "Tales from Around the World" at the Santa Rosa Central Library on March 12. I am on the lookout for more storytelling venues--birthdays, spiritual gatherings, libraries, etc. My storytelling repertoire and resume can be seen here.

I have started A Course in Miracles study group that will meet the 1st and 3rd Tuesday of each month. For those of you who do not know this amazing work, it is a non-dualistic course about forgiveness and remembering your eternal divine nature. The meat of the course is a workbook of 365 lessons to help one change one's perception of reality: from that of individual bodies that are born, age and eventually rot, to seeing that all of creation is moving upon the unified foundation of Love. Over 20 years ago I began this course and I experienced the Grace that was promised, and still do. It is a very practical curriculum. The group is open, so if you would like to learn more about it let me know.

ARTWORK

More artwork has been posted at my Janaka's Art Studio at http://www.janakasart.artfire.com/. I would love to hear your input about my work. And remember that I have found a good source for making affordable good-quality prints, for those who cannot afford the originals. Remember the holidays and support the arts. With every original painting you get one of my books of your choice.

Attached are images of the three most-viewed works of my studio. Thanks to my brother I have a new camera for which to shoot my finished current work, soon to be posted when I get some sunny days to shoot the pieces. This past month I have done some portraits, one of which is one of Johnny Cash. I saw a great photo of him and had to do my impression of it. His music is a family favorite here, especially Aiden's (my 5-year-old boy). I actually let him add some color to the work as he is becoming very deliberate in his artistic endeavors.

WRITINGS

If you would like to see some of my writings visit my blog, Triliving: Celebrating Truth, Beauty and Goodness (http://www.janakastagnaro.blogspot.com/). And if you do visit, do leave a comment please. While I can see that people are viewing it from all over the world, very few people take the time to leave a comment. At this point I would almost welcome the inane commentary that one typically sees posted under Yahoo articles...well, maybe not. I have a lot of great videos posted on it, many are thanks to sharings by Facebook friends. Also, if anyone would like to read my manuscript of The Teachings of Yama: A Conversation with Death I would love your opinion. I want to get that book published; it has been in cyber gestation for too long. If you are interested I will send an attachment.

Please give me your feedback on this newsletter. Anything else you would you like me to cover? And if you want off the list just press Reply and message No Thanks. And if you like this newsletter and my work, please pass this on. Your support is invaluable.

Peace

Offering to the Community:
Fine Art; Tarot Readings, Meditation and Spiritual Guidance; Inspirational Books; Storytelling

Christmas Time

The following is an excert from my book, "Footprints Along the Shore of an Incoming Tide." I wrote it years ago when I was living in the wild swirling energy of Los Angeles. When I returned from my work with the Peace Corps in Cameroon and subsequent travels around the world, I arrived in America just around Christmas time. The culture shock I experienced, as I watched my fellow Americans run around in the frenzy of buying, was overwhelming. And I left again and went traveling some more in search of a sane place. Of course I never found a sane place until I found the sanity within me, the realization that happiness only comes from within our Divine Nature. Still there are some places on this planet where the simplicity of living is perhaps more conducive to that realization of inner happiness.

So while the pull here in America is to buy, buy, buy and rush around in traffic and add to the stress of completing the shopping list, give yourself some moments of quiet, away from everyone, and just listen to the Silence that awaits in the darkness of this time. And be Present.

Christmas Time

Outside in this city of images of Los Angeles, the world swirls about in madness in this time of celebrating the birth of Spirit and inner Peace. All of Nature, in this time of the longest night, reminds the humans to quiet one’s life and look inside, to make room for contemplation. But in this city, and all the cities of this land, the bright lights of advertisement signs pull us away from traveling upon our breath into the cradle of our souls. And to the malls we run.


O fools, run you hither and tither
To buy things that will only fade away.
With smiles and bright packages
You give gifts that will last
As long as a thought.

You scurry around
Like rats on a warehouse floor,
Cursing and fighting each other
Over crumbs you plan to give with love.

Review your gifts
And see what you wish to get.

What promotion might you receive?
What appeasement of a familial should?

What does the Master give
At this time of celebrating
The birth of the Master?

Nothing more important
Than the blessing of a smile.

Why does the Master smile?
For he sees things as they really are.

He smiles at himself.

Under the heavy foot of time,
As gifts break
Or are torn asunder
Or crumple into tangled shapes,
The smile of the Master never fades.

Why should it fade
When the Master is safe from time?

Smile.

Smile with the knowing of who you are
In the Peace of the Spirit
Of this day.

Go into the quietude
Of the cavern of the Self
And know the Truth.

There is no one to give a gift to;
No one from whom to receive.

Be your Self.
Free from the rampage of time.

And smile.

Smile upon your Self.
And thus smile upon the world.

A True Miracle

I had a dream last night. In this dream I was with a friend. He was troubled. He asked me about A Course in Miracles and what miracles were. I told him that the miracles the course talked about was not walking on water or other displays of powers. A real miracle is seeing God everywhere. And as I said that I was filled with an immense love for I was not the one saying it….
Powers are nothing in themselves. They come from the mind which has the power of God in it. Yet the mind can be an instrument of healing, which is leading one back to wholeness, back to unity, or the mind can be used to create more of the illusion of separateness or specialness. I have had the fortune of meeting several teachers early on upon my spiritual journey who had special powers and I watched how those powers cut them off from Source. They had become special and distinctively divine. We see people in our lives and on the screen and in our books who have special talents, special attributes given to them and developed by them. People may be brilliant intellectually, be a creative genius, have beauty, possess great athletic prowess, speak charismatically, etc. All these are of the mind, even the more physical if one sees that all physical manifestation is of the mind (which is another topic). Psychic or supernatural (or abilities that are not possessed by the majority of people) are neither right nor wrong to have. Like all the former abilities if they are used to bring one back to awareness of the Godhead then they are positive; if they lead to the opposite they just cause more separation as the wielder will unwisely identify with those powers. These powers, all the aforementioned, come and go. They are not permanent. If one identifies with her beauty, when old age comes where is her happiness? If one thinks that he is brilliant and the mind weakens where is his happiness? None of these abilities are worth our divine inheritance. Walking through a wall or levitating is not a miracle; it is simply an event in time.

The miracles that the course talks about are still an event in time but they are bridges to the Eternal. The true miracle is seeing the world with the eyes of the Holy Spirit and seeing the Christ in all beings and all things. It is looking upon the world with the gentle eyes of forgiveness. I met a client who shared her story of being raped in her apartment by a stranger. As she was being assaulted the grace of the Holy Spirit descended upon her and she saw not an assailant but her brother needing help. She told him that he was so loved and that he did not need to be doing what he was doing. He stopped. He told her how sorry he was, and with tears flowing down he left into the night. But he did not leave with a curse upon him but only with a blessing. That is a miracle. When we can see those events that one would normally condemn as wrong and see them with the loving eyes of spirit that knows that nothing that is real can be threatened, that all such acts are calls for love, then we actually become the miracle, the bridge of heaven appearing on earth. Then we see that every moment is and has always been a miracle beckoning us to cross into the Christ we are.

Do you want to see a miracle? Go look in the mirror and ask to see yourself with the eyes of spirit. And rejoice. For you are Divine.

Christmas Time

Outside in this city of images of Los Angeles, the world swirls about in madness in this time of celebrating the birth of Spirit and inner Peace. All of Nature, in this time of the longest night, reminds the humans to quiet one’s life and look inside, to make room for contemplation. But in this city, and all the cities of this land, the bright lights of advertisement signs pull us away from traveling upon our breath into the cradle of our souls. And to the malls we run.


O fools, run you hither and tither
To buy things that will only fade away.
With smiles and bright packages
You give gifts that will last
As long as a thought.

You scurry around
Like rats on a warehouse floor,
Cursing and fighting each other
Over crumbs you plan to give with love.

Review your gifts
And see what you wish to get.

What promotion might you receive?
What appeasement of a familial should?

What does the Master give
At this time of celebrating
The birth of the Master?

Nothing more important
Than the blessing of a smile.

Why does the Master smile?
For he sees things as they really are.

He smiles at himself.

Under the heavy foot of time,
As gifts break
Or are torn asunder
Or crumple into tangled shapes,
The smile of the Master never fades.

Why should it fade
When the Master is safe from time?

Smile.

Smile with the knowing of who you are
In the Peace of the Spirit
Of this day.

Go into the quietude
Of the cavern of the Self
And know the Truth.

There is no one to give a gift to;
No one from whom to receive.

Be your Self.
Free from the rampage of time.

And smile.

Smile upon your Self.
And thus smile upon the world.

-- excerpt from my book, Footprints Along the Shore of an Incoming Tide.