I decided to take Emerson for a walk up to the park a couple days ago. All the roads are pretty much laid out in grid formation here, although there is some deviation. And I understand the general direction of the park, so I set out a slightly different way than usual and walked in that direction. Then, I heard the ego voice in my head say, “You shouldn’t have gone this way. This is the wrong way. You don’t know where you’re going. You’re not going to be able to find the park.”
Then as I was walking up this different way, I saw that there was a Hindu temple that I hadn’t seen before. And then I remembered something from Byron Katie’s book, “Loving What Is,” where she teaches to say, “no mistake” in response to any perceived negative life situation. And she writes that yogis used to come to her after she had her awakening, and they’d all be saying, “Namaste, Namaste.” She didn’t know what it meant, so she thought they were saying, “No mistake.” And she teaches that there are no mistakes.
So I heard her voice, when I saw the Hindu temple, and it said to me, “No mistake.” Then I noticed there was this beautiful depiction of an elephant:
Emerson pointed at it and said, “Ale-font.” And I thought, “there are no mistakes.” Then I looked to my left, and there was the park we were trying to find. It’s hard when that voice in my head teases me with, “You should have done it the other way.” When I believe that thought, I create those realities. It becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. I’m learning to notice those thoughts more and more and India’s helping. As Alanis Morrisette says, “Thank you, India.” Om shanti, everyone.