Beautifully written Bodhi 
Thank you, Charlie-D! 
Blog #70: Peruvian Flake
http://ayprecovery.org/blog-70-peruvian-flake/
On Saturday I was walking by the Hillsborough River alongside a row of parallel parked cars. In one of the cars was a man sitting in the driver seat. As I was walking by, he lifted a large, hardcover book up to his nose and snorted a line of some white powder through a rolled-up dollar bill. The fact that he was oblivious—or maybe just unconcerned—with me witnessing his nasal ingestion of what was most likely an illicit substance, really cracked me up. I laughed, but kept walking.
In my pre-sobriety days, I snorted some lines myself. Mostly cocaine and crushed pills (Xanax, Oxycodone, other narcotics). Cocaine was the worst. I remember the comedowns being particularly vicious. It felt like my soul was being sucked out of my body. I would lie in bed, writhing and paralyzed, unable to do anything but endure the pain. As Rick James said: “Cocaine is a hell of a drug.”
I recently watched the Netflix series Narcos, which recreates the saga of Pablo Escobar and the Medellín Cartel. Actually, my dad was a minuscule fraction of that epic Columbian drug trade, as it spilled over into Miami and moved north through Florida and the rest of the country. He did prison time for minor trafficking. I never got involved with the selling though.
Cocaine alters consciousness in a peculiar way. The molecule acts as both a stimulant and an anesthetic, so there is a hyped-up numbness that arises. In theory, it’s a great combination, because the mind stays focused without being distracted by the burdensome signals of pain. But, as we all know, the theory collapses under the weight of its own artificial constructs.
There’s a myth that percolates the so-called counter culture, and that is that great artists have produced great works because they were high on drugs. While I don’t doubt that a portion of famous songs, books, paintings, and other compositions were crafted while under the influence, I don’t buy into the suggestion that drugs enhance the overall creative process, at least not in the long term.
I’ve never written with as much purpose, clarity, or color as when I found AYP and stuck with sobriety. The inner sensuality of the natural mind, uninhibited by synthetic stimulation, is unquestionably superior. Even so, I’m still healing, and often times treading water—trying to generate enough momentum to reach a better plateau.
The effects of long-term use of drugs like alcohol and cocaine don’t just fade away with a next-day hangover. They last for years. Prolonged use results in prolonged recovery, and the process of regeneration and reintegration is long and arduous. But I’d rather be licking my wounds on the way to freedom, than staying comfortably numb and drifting further away from the truth. It’s not that hard of a decision or commitment. The logic is perfectly sound, and the love of the chosen ideal is perpetually sustaining.
The higher power is in us.
Blog #71: Knocked Down to Size
http://ayprecovery.org/blog-71-knocked-down-to-size/
Conor McGregor’s impressive winning streak and tirade of hubris was brought to a halt on Saturday night when we has skillfully defeated by Nate Diaz in two rounds of high-intensity, mixed martial arts fighting in Las Vegas at UFC 196. The Irishman was choked into submission by Diaz, a California native who talks plenty of trash himself, even in the midst of exchanging blows with his opponent. But after Diaz won the fight Saturday night, he hugged McGregor in a gesture of humility and condolence.
I watched the fight at a sports bar near my office. The restaurant was lined with HD TVs on every wall, and since every table, booth, and free stool was occupied, I propped myself up in a corner near the kitchen, parallel to the thoroughfare of servers breezing by. When McGregor appeared on screen, I felt a rush of adrenaline surge through my body, and when he entered the ring, I felt something a little different…a wave of empathetic fear swept over me. I thought: He’s outmatched; he’s not going to win.
I’m not claiming to have powers of premonition or prophecy, but it was a distinct, strong sensation that stirred in my stomach and heart. Sure enough, McGregor came out blazing and exhausted himself quickly with spinning wheel kicks that didn’t land, while his punches were easily absorbed and blocked by Diaz. By the second round, McGregor was panting, and Diaz was able to close in deftly with striking combinations, ultimately finishing McGregor, the featherweight champion, with a rear-naked choke on the mat.
The featherweight division tops off at 145 pounds, so McGregor had made a bold move to challenge Diaz in the welterweight class, which is capped at 170 pounds. Most commentators claim that it was Diaz’s superior weight and height that led to his victory. In simplest terms, perhaps McGregor bit off more than he could chew. In the post-fight press conference, McGregor quietly conceded that he would return to the featherweight class to defend his title before making any efforts to have a rematch with Diaz or to contend with heavier men of the welterweight division.
“Pride goeth before destruction, and a haughty spirit before a fall.” That quote is from Proverbs, and my grandmother Barbara has often referenced that verse, among other jewels in her repertoire of wisdom and insight, to help keep me in check and whittle me down to size when needed.
Though it is understandably dubious whether watching men pummel each other into states of submission or unconsciousness is beneficial to my path of AYP, enlightenment, and especially nonviolence, I will put forth a couple observations on the matter.
Conor McGregor is part of my ishta (my chosen ideal) because he devotes himself to the art of battle with a remarkable degree of diligence and excellence. He strives for perfection, even knowing that he will never achieve it. It’s not so much his audacious antics that inspire me, though he’s certainly entertaining. Rather, it’s the intensity of vision, desire, and action that he puts into his craft that really gives me hope. The seed of his mastery is no different than the seed of any spiritual master. His methodology and expression may be harsher, but inside, the flame which animates and ignites his limbs is universal to the human condition.
Yogani wrote: “We can choose to become active in surrendering our stories and dramas (and our knee-jerk reactions) to what is happening right now, even as the stories and dramas continue to play in our head. That’s fine. Let them play. We just release in stillness and live our life. In doing so, we can become fierce warriors of Being.”
So, there is a place for the warrior archetype on this spiritual path—not necessarily in a UFC octagon, but most definitely on the meditation mat, where the fire still burns ever so brightly.
The higher power in us.
Blog #72: Going with the Flow
http://ayprecovery.org/blog-72-going-with-the-flow/
The churning of the outgoing tide tugged against my torso as I wedged my bare feet into the bottom of a channel that ran in between a sandbar and an oyster bed along the coast of the Gulf of Mexico. The estuary was thick with saltwater and brimming with life—above and below the waterline. I was wade fishing, and maybe baptizing myself too.
My cousin Connor was fishing near our beached canoe, and his hound dog Missy kept chasing the bobber as he cast his line out into the briny creek. Connor would yell at her to stay put, but finally, he just gave up and started laughing as she swam freely back and forth in a game of aquatic fetch.
In the ocean, there is perpetual flow. On the land, it is the same. Everything moves until it comes to rest. This is the cycle of life. This is stillness in action.
In AYP, we talk about purification and opening. The practices purify the obstructions lodged in our nervous system, thereby opening our heart and mind to a more divine bandwidth of ongoing experience. Just as the ocean flows through its channels and estuaries, so does inner silence and energy move through our microcosmic system of individuality.
When the ocean becomes polluted, we clean it up. When the mind becomes tainted with delusion, we do the same. And if we don’t do it, nature will surely find a way to take care of the job. Nature has plenty of self-regulating mechanisms that protect and sustain its organisms, and since human beings are an extension of nature, we have the same capabilities and instincts to survive, and better yet, to thrive in our own ecosystem.
Going with the flow of purification and opening is an art. It takes time. It takes finesse. It takes devotion. Even though I’ve got five solid years of AYP under my belt, it still feels like I’m just scratching the surface. I can sense the vastness of the interior, and I know that hidden worlds exist in incomprehensible abundance. I catch glimpses, and I persist with the navigation. I fall into stillness, and I emerge on the surface again. In short, I continue.
When Connor and I got back in the canoe, the paddling felt different. Wading in the gulf stream and dunking my head underwater had refreshed me. There was a palpable rejuvenation that resulted from exposure to the motherly element. My awareness became more acute and lucid, and in a small way, I was reborn.
To surrender to the elements is to die and be born again, and each time, we get a little bit closer to Paradise. Only in returning to where we come from can we move forward into the unknown. Once again, a paradox unfolds.
The inner sensuality of active surrender is more than a passive mindfulness. It is a mindfulness with purpose. It is a well-structured, systematic program that also lends itself to spontaneity and improvisation. It is the best of both worlds. It is the genius of AYP.
The higher power is in us.
[OM]
Kumar Beehive Charliedog
Blog #73: Zootopia
http://ayprecovery.org/blog-73-zootopia/
The latest animated Disney film Zootopia portrays a world of animals in which predators and prey coexist in nonviolent harmony in a humanized, urban landscape. In the movie, there are no humans—only talking animals, like rabbits and foxes. In fact, the main character is a female rabbit named Judy, who becomes a police officer and unexpectedly forms an alliance with a sly fox named Nick.
The film brilliantly utilizes a literary tool called personification, or anthropomorphism, which is the superimposition of human qualities onto non-human characters and objects. This narrative sleight of hand is both captivating and believable, due to the story’s superb craftsmanship.
As I was watching the show last night in an AMC theater, I kept having jaw-dropping reactions to the level of detail achieved in Disney’s concoction of virtual reality. The fox’s fur glimmered with shades of elegant and orange grittiness; the rabbit’s ears perked up and drooped in accordance with a variety of emotional states; the hyper-resolution of the visual scenery bolstered and enhanced the witty dialogue and humor of the cornucopia of creatures.
It’s not surprising that the Rotten Tomatoes website is currently reporting a 99% approval rate for the movie from well-renowned critics across the nation.
Like every blog I write, I will find a way to relate this topic to AYP. In this case, it’s not a very hard task, since this particular piece of cinematic art is overflowing with jewels of bhakti, self-inquiry, and karma yoga.
So, going back to the details of the movie…a twist in the plot occurs when a group of normally civilized predators (a gentlemanly panther and law-abiding otter, to name a few) suddenly turn savage and attack innocent bystanders, thereby exhibiting traits of evolutionary regression. A wave of panic overcomes the city, and the protagonist police officer has to investigate and discover the root cause of these outbreaks. In her pursuit of truth and justice, the heroine gives the audience an opportunity to reflect on the trajectory of humanity and life on Earth.
In AYP, there is much talk about spirituality and evolutionary progress. To progress is the opposite of regression. It is moving forward in the spirit of growth and development, and leaving behind tendencies that thwart or stifle global unity. In Zootopia, random acts of violence and their misunderstood causes threaten the harmony of the culture. In our non-fictional realm outside of the movies, we have similar obstructions to dissolve, obviously.
The solution, both in the movie and in real life, is to amplify our pure awareness so that we can penetrate the dark clouds that have obscured the reality of Oneness. It is this same pure awareness that produces magnificent works of art—celebrating the beauty of diversity within unity.
The higher power is in us.
Blog #74: The Power of Memory
http://ayprecovery.org/blog-74-the-power-of-memory/
It was late Wednesday night. I couldn’t sleep. So I started scrolling through some on-demand movies on my smartphone, and I found Chasing Amy, which I hadn’t seen since high school.
Earlier in the day, I had ran into my old friend Johnny, who, interestingly enough, I also hadn’t seen since high school. We both happened to be buying smoothies at Xtreme Juice, which is a store I also frequented during my pre-college days, and where a couple of my teenage classmates had worked as well.
I guess Wednesday was a retro, throwback, warp-in-time day. Or maybe I’m just painting it that way in my mind so this blog will come across as deep, insightful, and super-synchronistic. In any case, I’m telling the truth about the high school correlation between the movie, my cool friend, and the smoothie shop. They all sent me spiraling back into memory.
Memory is a marvelous and miraculous aspect of Being.
Memory strings together every word, letter, and thought to form a coherent piece of communication. All the parts coalesce into a meaningful whole, thereby giving otherwise arbitrary fragments a purposeful solidification and expression through language and narrative. Without memory, there is no story to tell, and no meaning to comprehend. In short, memory is vital to life and consciousness.
To remember is to give credence to the past, which means absorbing the past into the present, and also connecting the past to the future, effectively creating the Here and Now. Therefore: Past + Present + Future = Here & Now.
So, enlightenment isn’t a blind forgetting or erasure of the past; enlightenment is a full integration of the past into the here and now. To the credit of Alcoholics Anonymous, they certainly try to reconcile the past by using the 12 Steps. Where I differ with AA is my contention that the past doesn’t merely have to be viewed through a lens of morality (right vs. wrong), but can instead be considered within the context of cause and effect (i.e., which desires did we attach to which objects, and how can we effectively redirect our desire for transcendence to better means?).
Anyway, when I watched Chasing Amy at the end of the night, my emotions were stirred in a cathartic way. The film portrays the intimacy of a romantic relationship with touching, artistic transparency, and one of the main themes is how the characters must learn to cope with their shadowy past, especially in regards to sexuality. Ultimately, the resolution of the plot doesn’t play out in typical, happy-ending fashion, but even so, there is plenty of wisdom and liberation to be gleaned from the conclusion. Besides that, the leading actress is very endearing and beautiful, so I would recommend the movie based on her alone. After all, is there anything better than the stunning radiance of the divine feminine? Not that I’ve found.
Fortunately, AYP presents sexuality in a very practical, non-esoteric way. The tantra lessons are simple and straightforward. All that is required is to apply the practices and principles according to one’s personal inclinations.
But I digress.
The more sobriety and inner silence I get under my belt, the more that I find memory to be a priceless asset. The ability to salvage the past, and to peer backwards with a clear mind, is what catalyzes my future vision and ishta.
The higher power is in us.
Misty colored memories, of the way you were 
memories ripen as we do
I dig it, Dogboy! [Misty colored glasses]
Blog #75: Massage Therapy
http://ayprecovery.org/blog-75-massage-therapy/
I started massage school on Monday.
When I walked into the classroom and sat down at a desk, I looked to my immediate left and saw a classmate reading a book entitled Kundalini Rising: Exploring the Energy of Awakening. I smiled to myself and thought: Oh yes, I’m in the right place. Of course, I couldn’t resist starting a conversation with my classmate about her reading material, and in a matter of minutes, guess what I mentioned? Wait for it…wait for it…here we go…AYP!
Shocker, right?
Then today, I was eating lunch with another classmate, and again, in a matter of minutes, she started talking about a strong kundalini blast she had experienced last year. I just laughed exuberantly and proceeded to tell her my own tale of being touched by the Spirit. We also talked about our mutual affinity for Harry Potter, and I showed her the “Dark Mark” of Voldemort etched on my inner forearm, recently drawn with henna ink by an artistic co-worker. (The “Dark Mark” is a depiction of a kundalini-like snake crawling out of a skull—it’s pretty gnarly and creative.) Naturally, I eventually brought AYP into the conversation.
I’ve lost count of how many people I’ve told about AYP, but it’s probably in the hundreds by now. It happens randomly. The other day I was at Smoothie King, and the cashier was wearing a chakra necklace, and I said: “Hey, check out this website,” then she eagerly scribbled down the address. At sporadic times like those, when I feel like it’s a good opportunity to bring up AYP, I speak a few casual words, then let them go, like samyama. Who knows when or how they will take effect? I don’t worry too much about the outcome, because I simply enjoy any chance to speak freely about this platform in the open air (which is realer to me than the online forum).
Despite my cheerleader demeanor and persistent candor in divulging my spiritual preferences and past history, there are still only a handful of people I’m in touch with locally who practice AYP. But, in time, I think a few will turn into many. This material is too good to be ignored indefinitely. I know it to be true, even though I can’t prove it. The unfolding of the future will be proof enough.
Anyway, I was conversing with yet another classmate today, and he told me how a relatively new massage technique called myofascial release had helped heal his knee injury, after surgery had failed to mend the damage. He was so inspired by his own recovery that he is getting his massage therapy license so he can pay it forward to others in need.
The power of human touch is undeniable. I’m not sure that anything comes closer than touch to expressing and transmitting the vibrations of love that emanate from stillness. When I wrote a series of blogs on the five senses, I deliberately put touch at the very end of the series—saving the best for last.
It is through touch that we feel, and it is through feeling that we realize and become who we are destined to be. To feel at the deepest level is to experientially know the truth, thereby returning to the source of our own consciousness. The more stillness there is, the realer it becomes.
The higher power is in us.
Thank you for sharing your new experiences Cody,
Yesterday one of my students was telling me, she is having an intake at the Yoga TeacherTraining school I studied. Because of yoga her life changed for the better, she is strong enough now to make the choices she feels in her heart. I was happily surprised, you can imagine.
Grateful to see how this unfolds. Throw back in time. The same way I said this to my yoga teacher 6 years ago with the same insecurities I told him, she was telling me yesterday.
It’s beautiful to see that what you feel is worth to pay forward is really heard.
Wishing you happy, interesting study times
Next to yoga It is my believe too that we all need loving human touch. Only to touch or being touched has already a healing effect, can you can imagine what massage does.
So true on so many pranic levels; at this stage of married life, massage is the best physical expression of our love and history together.
[quote=“Bodhi Tree”]
I’ve lost count of how many people I’ve told about AYP, but it’s probably in the hundreds by now.
[/quote]Awsome!
Full circle! And we spiral onward, hand-in-hand…
I’ll follow that lead! 
Ain’t it?!
Blog #76: Terror and the Hidden Enemy
http://ayprecovery.org/blog-76-terror-and-the-hidden-enemy/
Last night I had a dream that I was eating at a restaurant, and a man pulled out a machine gun and started threatening people. Sensing that he was about to spray bullets around the room at random diners, I ducked out the back before the massacre could take me down. I jumped over fences and raced away as fast as I could—in fear that the mindless killer might be in pursuit behind me. As is often the case, I don’t remember how the dream ended, but when I woke up, I reflected on the content.
On a related note, I’ve had many flying dreams. Some of them are recreational and fantasy-like, but others involve me trying to escape, like when a policeman is chasing me. In last night’s dream, I wasn’t able to fly, probably because I didn’t lucidly realize that my experience was a malleable dream. In any case, in my morning reflection on the REM extravaganza, I thought: What a coward I was! I should have tried to disarm the shooter and save other people. I should have invoked magical powers and been fearless. I should have not been afraid.
In The Secrets of Wilder, the hero John is able to do just that—use magical powers (siddhis) to stop a perpetrator from hurting one of his loved ones. John’s tale of enlightenment has other superhero and comic book qualities, but there is plenty of normalcy in the story too.
My personal life hasn’t yet had any superhero benchmarks. It’s mainly been a comedy of errors that has played out against the backdrop of the grand miracle of life itself. But hey, there’s still plenty of time, and there’s got to be room for me to attain superhero status. I just need to find my proper uniform and a solid nickname, then it will be game on.
But, going back to my dream of terror, and my cowardice, it was certainly in line with events that have been unraveling on the global stage of waking consciousness as of late. No need to mention any particular instances; there are plenty being reported in the mass media on a regular basis.
The comic strip character Pogo famously said: “We have met the enemy, and he is us.” What a simple, profound, and humorous quip that is. It points to the truth. The promise of enlightenment is to see one’s self in everyone and everything. That means that the so-called enemies are still reflections of Self. Or, to quote another character from the Vietnam War film Platoon: “I think now, looking back, we did not fight the enemy; we fought ourselves. And the enemy was in us.”
So, whether it’s in a dream, or on the news, or right in front of me, I am confronted by myself everywhere I turn. There’s no escaping the fact that my “self” is beyond Cody. And yet, Cody still remains, for a little while. So it makes sense to align and merge him with the rest of the Big Self, while there’s still a chance. And besides, I don’t have any better ideas.
When it comes to confronting terror, samyama is a helpful tool. Any negative thought, feeling, person, place or thing can be dropped in stillness, released, and transformed into something better. It’s a morally self-regulating practice that relies on surrender to the divine within us.
There’s also a Buddhist practice called tonglen, which takes a radical approach to suffering by grabbing the bull by the horns, so to speak. Suffering is breathed in directly, and liberation is breathed back out into the atmosphere. The inner light filters and transforms the darkness. On my recovery website, I have listed a similar practice of my own design called meeting in the middle. Meeting in the middle came to me as a way to endure the often rocky emotions and energy of AA meetings. I’ve been using it for a couple years now with good success.
Godspeed, and good luck.
The higher power is in us.