LIVE TODAY!

Life is short.
Live today.

~ Bhakti Brophy


As a person with four incurable spinal diseases, living on borrowed time (10 years now), I cannot stress the importance of grabbing life by the reins and forging ahead.

Let no one drag you down.
Let no one crush your spirit.

And if you should fall asunder,
Get back back up
And claim the glory that is
And always has been yours.

The Self within shines as bright as the sun
Whether or not you can see,
Sense, or acknowledge her existence.

The Self is innate
All powerful
Omniscient
And infinitely glorious...

And you are That.

Namo Namah!

Bhakti

JAI BHAKTI™ BLOG: How I Type With Spine Injuries

One of my students asked if I use Dragon Software to type. No, actually, I don't have a computer.

I lie I bed and SWYPE everything from my phone!

Where there's a will...

Jaya!

JAI BHAKTI™ Blog: DIVINITY, FORTITUDE, AND DISABILITY

People often ask how I am able live with the relentless physical pain and disabilites caused by spinal diseases and cervical spine injury:


AREN'T THESE FLOWERS WORTH LIVING FOR?

COMING SOON!

Several months ago, Reverend Harriet Hawkins, from California, U.S.A., interviewed me regarding prayer--if I pray, how I pray, and what I ask for in prayer. These questions opened up an inspiring dialogue (via email) regarding my spiritual practices. The end result is a sermon she gave based on my life story, including the spiritual journey that guided me through four major traumatic experiences from childhood into middle age, and how I turned these experiences into a way to help others.

Reverend Harriet lives 3,000 miles away, and I have never met her in person (she read about my story online), yet her energy is so pure, her mission in life so uplifting and selfless, I bless the day she reached out to me and honor her friendship dearly.

We will be making the audio of this sermon available on JAI BHAKTI™ so others in my position can realize that it IS posibble to live with these diseases (the suicide rate is staggering)--no one ever said it would be easy, but it is possible and worth it.

The sermon also outlines the services I offer free of charge to anyone with disabilities. 

It's also a testament to the unconditional love given by my mother/caregiver, and father.



May you all experience the bliss and love of your Heart and realize this bliss and love to be your True identity.

Namo Namah,

Bhakti



Image ©2014 DL Bhakti Brophy
All Rights Reserved

Living with Chronic Illness in the Kali Yuga

YOU ARE NOT THE DOER
We are living in the Kali Yuga; the Dark Ages. Chaos is the principle characteristic of this time and age. It's all cyclical; the Satva Yuga, age of Enlightenment, is next in this wheel of time.

In dealing with chronic disease, severe pain, loss of autonomy, isolation, and all of the emotions that come with this life, etc.--STOP THE SELF JUDGMENT. Stop beating yourself up when you have had a difficult time treading the waters: the point is--you made it through to another day! By the Grace of God (Inner Self/Guru/Pure Consciousness/_____), you weathered the storm! Amen to that.


Follow me on Twitter:
@BhaktiBrophy


Love One Another. (JC)

©2013 DL Bhakti Brophy

Quote #10

Where are you grace?
Come out an play!


The above quote is an excerpt from one of my poems.
To read the entire poem click here or visit www.bhaktilovepoems.blogger.com 

Have a fabulous day!
Love,
Bhakti

LIFE GOES ON...

Hello Everyone--It has been a long time since my last...post. I am trying SO hard to get back into the blogging game again--it's just difficult after spending the past year virtually in bed, trying to find some way to live with this chronic pain. It seems as though I've been getting bombarded with one thing after another. For example, in the past week alone, I have found out that the L4 and L5 discs are bulging in my lower back; I thought that problem had been resolved years ago. Now, with the onset of severe lower back pain (only on the left side) and the recurrence of sciatica, I find that the discs are still bulging--or 're'bulging, if you will. Just today I found out that I am majorly vitamin D deficient, I have traces of Lymes disease (which explains the cramping hands/knees/joints), and I have high cholesterol (I just KNEW eating a half gallon of ice cream every-other-day would kill me!).

Well, this is not the topic that I chose to write about today. In fact, I tried to upload 5 new photographs that I took in honor of my great friend from across the pond, SA, a.k.a. 'MILADYSA', but Blogger has failed me. So, instead of not posting anything at all, I posted the first thing that came to mind: and I suppose my health has been on my mind today.

The GOOD news is this: when I thought about the fact that I have borderline Liver damage (I found out all of this 'great' health news via blood work, by the way; except for the bulging discs, which were found via an MRI test), all I could think about was "I don't want to die so young. I don't want to die at all!"

I sat down with this statement in my head, and I must admit, it threw me for a loop! I had been dealing with depression and suicidal thoughts (NOT suicidal tendencies--there is a GREAT difference between the two) ever since I have been wrestling with the severe chronic pain condition. Sometimes I just thought there was simply no way I could go to sleep at night knowing I was going to wake up feeling the same pain. Ultimately, not only my faith in, but my knowledge of the Self within saved me from such dark thoughts. Connecting to the Self within (also known, as Sally Kempton points out, as the Buddha Mind, or as I would point out, as 'The Way') is the ONLY way to overcome depression and the only way to get through the darkest hours of our lives. We have to know that there is something greater than our minds that is running the show. We're only the puppets in this here game called life, people. "Believe-me-you", as my elderly first grade teacher used to say.

When I had the thought that I didn't want to die of liver failure, I got out my laptop, lied down on the bed, and just let myself think about what it was that really scared me about the thought of dying of liver failure. What's the difference of dying from spinal disease, dying of old age, or dying of liver failure? I don't think there is a difference, but the thought of dying from liver failure scared the hell out of me.

As I lie on the bed, I let the feeling of fear run throughout my entire body; I knew running from it would make it worse. I wanted to go into the fear and see what it was all about. It truly made no sense to me whatsoever that I should feel such a fear of death; I thought I had dealt with--and gotten over--that fear a long time ago. I was wrong.

When I turned on the computer I immediately turned to my friend Sally Kempton's website (http://www.sallykempton.com/) and just began to navigate my way through her site; I wasn't looking for anything in particular, but Sally tends to be a vehicle in my life that leads me to the answers I am looking for. Ultimately, I wound up reading this kick ass article about loneliness that truly struck a chord with me. It described my experience of loneliness to a T. (In general, I think people fail to realize how lonesome it is to live with a long illness. I believe the deep depression I went through last month had to do with dealing with the loneliness that was crippling me throughout the last year--since my last surgery in November of 2006.) The article also touched on the importance of connecting with the inner Self while dealing with loneliness. As soon as I began to breathe deeply and connect myself with the loving warmth of the Self within, my fear of death literally lifted. It vanished. My fear of dying of liver disease lifted, too. I now know that it truly DOESN'T matter how I die. The point is: DEATH IS INEVITABLE.

CLICK HERE to read Sally's article.


My fear of dying of liver disease was actually my fear of dying in general. My immediate thought was "I don't want to die yet! I haven't accomplished what I wanted to do in this lifetime yet! I haven't served the world enough! I haven't been able to show my good heart to the world!" That wasn't coming from an ego point of view, it was sincere and was coming from my heart. Albeit, it was still fear of death.

Once I read Sally's article and established myself in the Self--i.e. once I let myself dissolve in the Ocean of Love also known as Pure Consciousness (the Self/Buddha Nature), I rested easy knowing that whenever I die will be the right time for me to die. If I die young, perhaps that's because God has other things in store for me than what I think He has in store for me in this lifetime. It's not my call--that's GOD territory. GOD, of course, being another name for the Self within.

With much love, I pray you all know that I miss you, my blogger friends, and I hope you leave a comment so we can converse again, just like we used to in the olden days. ;)

Bhakti
tags: Jaibhakti, Bhakti Brophy, Sally Kempton, the Self, Buddha Nature, severe chronic pain,

QUOTE OF THE MONTH and other nonsensical wisdomisms...

We learn from history that we learn nothing from history.

-George Bernard Shaw

No, I couldn't have said it better myself. We learn nothing from history. All we learn from history is to keep looking back to predict what will be. There is no 'what will be''; it's totally out of our control. I'm not talking about the absence of free will, it's just that, well, shit happens.

Lately, I'd been pushing my emotions away: Not dealing with anymore fear! Not dealing with any more pain! Not dealing with any more anger! Etc. Etc. However, that approach didn't work for me. Ultimately, I ended up crashing hard just in order to face the reality that was at hand.

My good friend Sally said to me something along the line that if you try to escape there is no escaping. That is SO true. I knew it was true with relation to emotional pain, but I didn't know it was true for physical pain as well. WHAT THE HELL IS SHE TALKING ABOUT??? you may be asking at this point. Well, what I'm talking about is rather than running away from the physical and mental pain that I have been going through lately, I learned that hard way that it is much easier and much more beneficial to just stare the pain right in the face, with a loving eye. No more running from the pain. Accepting, acknowledging, labeling, and then ultimately letting go of the resistance to pain is the only way to go about freeing myself from the pain.

I knew this before! I mean, I wrote an essay called Enter the Pain just a couple of months ago; but as the pain worsened the months went on, somehow I got into the habit of running from the pain--of creating diversions (TV, books, crushes on people I can't have, etc.). I didn't even realize I was copping out of the 'fight' until my meditation teacher/friend Sally told me to face the fears dead on. So I bit the bullet and began my regular meditation practice again. The result so far is that I've realized that I had reached an edge. When I was at what Pema Chodron calls the 'groundless' stage, I realized that there was no where else to hide. Nothing that I was doing was working. At the worst point in this running away charade I actually felt like I was leaning forward to get away from my mind and my body! No joke. Sounds crazy, but it's not. It was at that point that I began to ask for help. And it was at that point that I became so incredibly angry at my entire situation (chronic pain syndrome, radiculopathy, limited mobility for the past 9 months, and then having to resign from my teaching position) that I was able to move to a different stage. I cried out my anger. I acknowledged the pain. The fear. The anxiety. And, most importantly, the undying love that is still at my core. I realized that there is no fight, there is only acknowledgment and acceptance.

Why am I telling you all of this? For many reasons.

One: because I love my blog readers. I miss you and I want you to know that I miss you.

Two: I just wanted to convey that I had reached a really depressing stage in my recovery from this spinal surgery and its peripheral complications--yet, now I am beginning to see that perhaps hitting this dark space was very important so that I could make room for some light. It's all a part of my journey, and I thank GOD that I have such an incredible support system to help keep me on track!

Three: I finally felt like bloggin. :)

Thank you for listening. Thanks for you prayers and lovely comments.

Love,

Bhakti

tags: Jaibhakti, meditation, pain, spirituality

Pain Can Set You Free

Throughout the past seven months, I have been trying to learn how to deal with chronic pain. I can personally tell you that pain can be used as a doorway to the Truth. The subtle observation of pain, and the realization that pain itself is a manifestation of the conscious energy that creates everything, can be a way to transcend the pain itself. To view pain as a ball of energy, as a constricted form of the conscious energy that exists in everything, and to go inside the ball of energy and then let it dissolve into the bliss and joy of the Heart is the way to freedom when experiencing chronic pain. This may not make sense to those of you who have not or do not experience chronic pain; however, pain can be a doorway into caitanya, into the freedom of the blemish free soul: into our true being.

In other words, pain, too, just like everything else that exists, is a manifestation of energy. What I'm saying is don't be afraid of the pain. Don't run from the pain. If you are in pain (whether physical or mental) just be with the pain. Label it as a manifestation of energy. Watch this 'ball of energy' that is pain, and let it dissolve. It will dissolve back into the pure energy that it came from.

How to do this? Let's say you are in mental anguish because you are angry at yourself or someone else. Don't think about what triggered you to be angry. In other words, forget about who or what made you angry. Just sit with the feelings and the emotions that you are experiencing. Recognize in what part of the body you feel the energy most significantly. Just sit with the feeling. Then, take an in breath and breathe into the energy. Breathe into your feelings of anger. You will witness the feeling dissolving.

So much of the time, we, as humans, feel it is not 'okay' to be angry. We think it makes us less human, or less worthy of being loved if we are angry. But, I have found that the key is not to push away the anger, as this only suppresses the feelings of anger--they eventually have to come out somehow, maybe in the form of a disease or illness, or in the form of frantic, uncontrollable rage. We must accept that feeling angry is okay, because it is a natural human emotion. Contrary to popular belief, emotions are not good or bad, they just are.

If we could just embrace the fact that we are angry, and sit with our feelings--forgetting about the trigger--but just sit and acknowledge our feelings, then we will find that they will dissolve back into the pure energy whence they came from. Just like a violent wave that crashes upon the shore dissolves back into the ocean, so too will your feelings of anger return back into their source, which, of course, is pure bliss. The bliss of the Heart.

All emotions are cyclical. No emotions last forever. To be truly alive, we must not cling to them. We must witness them, acknowledge them, and let them flow back to the source.

Is it possible to stop a wave from crashing onto the shore? Is it truly possible to deny ourselves the feelings of anger?

No. To be alive means to have emotions and feelings. To be truthful to our own being, we must experience our emotions. We must 'go with the flow'. To go with the flow, we mustn't cling to the river bank, we must trust our experience of life, and experience everything fully.

If we view physical pain in this way, we can experience it as a manifestation of the loving energy that has created all. Physical pain is at times excruciating, yet it can take us to our Truth. It can make us realize that our physical bodies are not going to last forever. I know that my physical pain has brought me closer to God/the Truth than I could have ever imagined. I am not afraid of death, I am afraid that I will not be able to live! That is a great place to be! Rather than thinking about what I CAN'T do, because of my physical limitations, I am taking inventory of what I CAN do! I have been given the opportunity to look at my life and to think about what really matters to me. This is a blessing!

It's time to live! Right now!

I offer you this: Go within, right now! Don't wait for tomorrow! The time to live is right now.

Whatever you are feeling right now, FEEL IT! Don't push it away. Don't suppress it. Feel it, so that you may be free. Be true to the moment. Whatever you are feeling in this moment-- Feel it. And let it go.

Years ago, I asked my beloved teacher Sally Kempton how to deal with a particularly strong emotion I was dealing with. She said, "Experience it, and then let it go."

I will forever cherish these words. They are a jewel in my crown. They are so true. And now, two or three years after she said them to me, I am understanding their beauty in action.

May your life be lived to the fullest. May you accept everything that you are experiencing so that you may be free. May you experience your emotions and feelings as pulsations of energy that come and go: everything comes and goes, except for the Supreme Bliss of the Heart.

"The Heart is the hub of all places. Go there and roam" --Bhagawan Nityananda.

Blessings,
Bhakti


tags: jaibhakti, chronic pain, Sally Kempton, Bhagawan Nityananda