January 3, 2024
The Guru Speaks
By Amba Gale
Dearest You,
Greetings to you, and many blessings to you, as we complete 2023 and enter 2024.
As we begin to look to our new year, intending to create a great and passionate life, we often look to goal setting, affirmations, or planning to find our way. Many of us have tried that and are wondering if there is a better way.
While it’s counterintuitive, I have found there IS a better way.
In 1974, in a conversation I had with Swami Muktananda, a Great Teacher of other Teachers, known as a Sadhguru, from India, it was like I “got shot out of a cannon.” While the creation of the conversation called The Joy of Being came years later, the guiding principle stuck with me throughout my life.
At the time, I was in great angst. It was after my divorce, which was a crisis I shared with you about in our Heart of Leadership journey. After I had been to Esalen, I spent three more years traveling in my developmental journey, before I met him.
I had engaged in three profound spiritual/development paths in the course of those years and felt I had to choose one to devote myself to.
Here we were, 1975, in Aspen, in a devotee’s home. Baba, as we called him, a small brown man robed in orange and with a big smile on his face, from a little village in India called Ganeshpuri, filled with love, was sitting on a chair in the living room. With great angst, I asked him to “tell me what to do with my life.” And then, I described each of the paths I had been studying/following/engaging with, how potent each was for me, and how I felt I could be a Great Teacher in any of them.
He laughed and laughed and laughed. His laughter was infectious, and I eased up on myself. Then, he hit me with his peacock feathers across my face, which tickled me. He paused and said, quite deliberately, looking me straight in the eye, “Do whatever makes you happy.”
And, I did. And I’ve never regretted it. And I’ve followed the path of my heart for my whole life. And still do.
And now I’ve developed a 4-day retreat-like course that opens up the same space for you to do whatever makes you happy.
“Well,” you might ask, “How do you get to “whatever makes you happy?”
A lot of folks have a “Find Your Life Purpose” course. What makes The Joy of Being different/distinctive?
Nowhere else will you find the depth of thinking from the stillness and from a connection with the Source within, which gives you access to the deepest level of your own wisdom. It starts with slowing down and going deep inside. Deeper than you’d ever think you could go.
No one else asks the questions, which might be considered weird, strange, or “woo-woo”, by some, but that gives you access to “hitting the nail on the head’ of your own vision for your life, what you are passionate about. Questions like- (as you are witnessed and held by other awake beings in the community who provide you with their wisdom and unconditional love)–
–What is your Soul’s name?
–What is the “ing” verb that you are?
–Who have you known yourself to be, forever?
–What brings you most alive?
–What belongs in your suitcase that you carry through life?
–What does not belong?
–Who are you as an “ing” verb in each of the domains your life?
Last, very few people know the art and science of manifesting intentions.
Often, people confuse creating goals with creating intentions. Intentions and creating stands that precede intentions give you the Power of Manifestation. Goals do not.
That’s why people who only live in the world of goals often are disappointed.
That’s why people who have done The Joy of Being feel like they are living a meaningful life, a well-lived life, a life of passion.
I don’t know of anyone else who offers a template for creating a Life Design that is as robust as the one we offer.
I don’t know of anyone who offers the enormity of that design being an opening for action so that you can step into living the Life that Brings You Alive!!!
In the space of this conversation, the barriers and beliefs that stop us from discerning our life’s purpose and living out of it simply disappear.
This is not about what you wish for, want for, or hope for, or think you should want or should have because other people have told you you should, or even that you have told you that you should. That way of thinking, that energy, is the energy of lack.
That way of thinking places us in the conversation of insufficiency and scarcity, in an “in order to” world. (“I need this in order to be happy.”) Unbeknownst to us, that way of thinking keeps us from fulfilling our true desires and intentions.
Happiness does not come from any out there. It comes from a place deep inside where, when you are connected with your Authenticity and your own Uniqueness, you create and then live a Life Worth living. Outer meets inner as you design your life.
So, this is not about creating affirmations. It is not about setting goals.
It is about creating alignment with the divine within you through a deep conversational process of arrival at the gate of your own Soul’s purpose and designing a life in which your Soul thrives.
While you can find other testimonials in the descriptive material, here’s what three people have said:
“Thank you, Amba for the opportunity to share how taking The Joy of Being made a difference to me! ‘I am a human being not a human doing.’ Those are the words that hit me when I first considered taking the Joy of Being. I was just living day to day. Not unhappy but not feeling fulfilled. Working through this course, I realized I was still living in fear that was keeping me from jumping into action. The Joy of Being helped me focus, move away from my own hesitancies, and create my own destination again. The conversations Amba leads you through during this course change the conversations we have with ourselves every day in our heads, which often limit the creation within ourselves. There is a quote in the manual that stuck with me –
‘Whatever you can do, or dream you can, begin it. Boldness has genius, power, and magic in it.’
~W.H. Murray
The Joy of Being was a journey of coming back home to myself, creating the space to see the journeys ahead that feed my soul and reignite the passion to travel down them.”
Jodi Guetle, Pediatric Services/ Mary Bridge Children’s
“This course came at a time of great uncertainty and darkness for me and I feel I have the tools necessary to handle what is ahead. I’d reverted lately to a stone in a stream, unmoving, stubbornly still as the water flowed around me, slow erosion steadily wearing me away. Now I feel like water, able to fluidly flow past–or over– obstacles in my way, as an amorphous, infinite being.
Bless you! And thank you so very much!”
Alex Fascilla, Zoom course, 2020
“The Joy of Being course is one of my favorites and I have taken it several times because it affords me the time to slow down and re-remember what is at the core of my life and how I truly desire to live from that core. Having space to work on designing the arenas of my life from my core is a potent way for me to be intentional about what I am saying yes and no to as opportunities to live out my purpose in this lifetime.”
Marianne Bastin, Mary Bridge Children’s Hospital and Health Network
I take The Joy of Being myself when I lead it, as who I was in one iteration, or epoch, is not the same in the next. And I am definitely IN this February course!
This offering will be held LIVE, in person, and held on February 7, 8, 9, and 28.
I invite you to join this community.
This course registration closes on January 17, and is filled on a first come, first served basis.
As a bonus, when you register, you receive 8 additional ways to begin the conversation for yourself, to reflect upon this, and to start the conversation for yourself, even before we meet in person in February.
If you are interested or would like to talk about this, please reach out to me or Marianne Bastin at mariannebastin@comcast.net. We will serve you in your life right now, and facilitate your being able to participate in this course or, if the course is full, put you on the list for the next one. We keep the course retreat-like to allow for deep one-on-one coaching.
To learn more about the course
With much love,
Amba
