My Answer

My answer:

yesterday I was asked about my own practice, why there was suddenly health issues in play when I talk of forgiveness, prayer, meditation, and yoga. My reply was instant and straightforward, no sense giving a long explanation to a very simple query:

life.

no one is immune from whatever lesson that presents itself. Life still happens, illness, sorrow, loss and grief are part of being alive. I don't know of any spiritual master who escaped any of those issues and it doesn't seem to me that escape was their lesson to teach at all. I'm a vegan, a yogi, lifelong athlete. I teach and practice meditation and breathwork. I'm sincere in my practice. 

and sometimes I get sick.

I'm pretty fortunate to largely have good health, exceptional in so many ways. Right now there's a few issues that have laid my low but physically I'm still strong and fit. Emotionally there's been a bit of a struggle but that's not entirely new. There's been addiction in my past and a history of depression. I've navigated both pretty well. Sober for over 25 years, and even through periods of depression - my life is largely joyful. 

All things are lessons God would have me learn. (ACIM, W-193)

here's the thing, my simplest of answers.

my life is dedicated to forgiveness.

things happen, I don't know why, and yes, sometimes I do question them. But I know their purpose, there's a plan already in place for whenever anything occurs.

Forgive, and you will see this differently. (ACIM, W-193.5:1)

and that's my answer.

~

I love you, Eric

To read more from Headless Now, please visit:Quietly Surrendered

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Quietly Surrerended

Quietly surrendered:

I can't say that I live a completely surrendered life, one fully devoted to listening only to the voice of love guiding me through the day. There are still insistent demands of the ego that I give into, sometimes following darker thoughts to unpleasant places in my mind. 

but there's a way that leads me home.

always.

and more often than ever now I don't go down those paths at all. 

my day begins with three questions:

³What would You have me do?
⁴Where would You have me go?
⁵What would You have me say, and to whom? (ACIM, W-71.9:3-5)

these questions echo through my mind over the course of the day, a background thought track that urges me to pause and simply listen to a softer voice that the one I've mistaken for my own. This is my Jhana yoga practice, a continuous self inquiry that points to my true nature. What I've discovered is that asking these questions brings me to a natural pause, a brief repast that stops the mental chatter. They bring me to a place of spaciousness, aware, genuinely curious for answers.

willingness.

three questions, and perhaps just asking them them is an act of trust.

so maybe it's a devoted life,

afterall. 

quietly surrendered.

~

I love you, Eric

To read more from Headless Now, please visit: Safe Harbors

Also, please visit to buy; The Mystic Jesus

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Safe Harbors

Safe harbors:

it's funny, even as my life clearly becomes more orientated towards A Course in Miracles, a livelihood earned by sharing it's message on my YouTube channel, lessons and text studied to the point where they often seem to spontaneously work through everyday life - 

and at the very same time I feel so free from the Course as well.

it's the Presence that matters now. 

the Course is my anchor, a safe harbor that keeps me from drifting to close to the stormy seas of ego's complete control. It still repeatedly leads me home. My daily life is filled with it's words. But it's the Voice that guides me now, more clearly than ever, and it often leads me to other safe harbors as well. Briefly though, healing points that feel much needed until I'm asked to let them go too. 

above all else,

here's what I'm told to do....

Simply do this: Be still, and lay aside all thoughts of what you are and what God is; all concepts you have learned about the world; all images you hold about yourself. ²Empty your mind of everything it thinks is either true or false, or good or bad, of every thought it judges worthy, and all the ideas of which it is ashamed. ³Hold onto nothing. ⁴Do not bring with you one thought the past has taught, nor one belief you ever learned before from anything. ⁵Forget this world, forget this course, and come with wholly empty hands unto your God. (ACIM, W-189.7:1-5)

it seems the details of what I do don't really matter.

life is still happening.

yet I no longer fight to be the one in control.

at least not as often.

I'm guided to those safe harbors.

there's a voice that always leads me home.

~

I love you, Eric

To read more from Headless Now, please visit: A Favorite Reminder

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A Favorite Reminder

I do not know what anything is for. (ACIM, W-25)

the above lesson from A Course in Miracles is as true to me today as it was when I first picked up the Course so many years ago. These days it's become a favorite reminder for me, a zen point in which I reset my ego's certainty and instead ask the Holy Spirit for guidance. Yes, there's still a rush to seek judgement, an immediate sense that I do know exactly what a situation or person is for in any given moment. But it's not as lasting or as harsh as it once was, a softer response always makes itself known with a gentle reminder to pause and reconsider. 

this is how so much of life has become a consistent meditation. 

pause.

remembering to ask.

a reassignment of purpose and meaning. 

forgiving. 

and so my life day's go on.

~

I love you, Eric

To read more from Headless Now, please visit: Just a Yogi

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Just a Yogi

Just a Yogi: 

so it's just a little YouTube channel, low tech with a 10+ year old phone and internet connection. But it is part of my ministry, a place for company, presence, and whatever healing we can manage. The channel's name is Just a Yogi: The Yoga of True Forgiveness and both aspects of the title are important to me - that I am just a yogi based on my sincere commitment to simply practice through the day to day struggles that tend to offer me a lifetime of distraction if I'm not not mindful. I just show up - meditation cushion, yoga mat, and for every opportunity to forgive. 

that's it...just a yogi.

as for the second part, the yoga of true forgiveness, it's based upon an after meditation vision I experienced - Krishna and Arjuna on the battlefield together, and right after the 4 paths of yoga were explained. It was here, in my vision, that Krishna, with arm across Arjuna's shoulders led him off the battlefield and whispered a final message to him on another path of yoga. A fifth yoga, but one the world wasn't quite ready for at the time. The yoga of true forgiveness. My little vision was also based upon lesson 122 of A Course in Miracles:

What could you want forgiveness cannot give? ²Do you want peace? ³Forgiveness offers it. ⁴Do you want happiness, a quiet mind, a certainty of purpose, and a sense of worth and beauty that transcends the world? ⁵Do you want care and safety, and the warmth of sure protection always? ⁶Do you want a quietness that cannot be disturbed, a gentleness that never can be hurt, a deep abiding comfort, and a rest so perfect it can never be upset?

2. All this forgiveness offers you, and more. ²It sparkles on your eyes as you awake, and gives you joy with which to meet the day. ³It soothes your forehead while you sleep, and rests upon your eyelids so you see no dreams of fear and evil, malice and attack. ⁴And when you wake again, it offers you another day of happiness and peace. ⁵All this forgiveness offers you, and more.

3. Forgiveness lets the veil be lifted up that hides the face of Christ from those who look with unforgiving eyes upon the world. ²It lets you recognize the Son of God, and clears your memory of all dead thoughts so that remembrance of your Father can arise across the threshold of your mind. ³What would you want forgiveness cannot give? ⁴What gifts but these are worthy to be sought? ⁵What fancied value, trivial effect or transient promise, never to be kept, can hold more hope than what forgiveness brings?

(ACIM, W-122.1:1–3:5)

this is yoga, it's a directive path, 

a practice.

and it truly offers everything I want. 

so my channel is just a reflection of this, a collection of videos that describe my practice, a small gathering that comes to some live streams to laugh, relax, and, hopefully, feel a little better by the time they leave. I talk about yoga. I talk about forgiveness. And when I'm very fortunate a guest joins me for a healing conversation. Most of all - my channel is a place to practice. An ashram of everyday life where forgiveness greets me as an opportunity even here. 

I'm just a yogi after all.

practicing.

~

I love you, Eric 

To read more from Headless Now, please visit: Truly Helpful

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Truly Helpful

Truly helpful:

thinking again of ministry and what it means to me - how it's to be applied on a much smaller, more intimate scale than previously imagined. This is a ministry of presence, of just showing up and practicing consistent courtesy, as mentioned in the original edition of A Course in Miracles. So you are my ministry, in whatever form you show yourself and however I may be called to serve. 

²I am here only to be truly helpful.
³I am here to represent Him Who sent me.
⁴I do not have to worry about what to say or what to do, because He Who sent me will direct me.
⁵I am content to be wherever He wishes, knowing He goes there with me.
⁶I will be healed as I let Him teach me to heal. (ACIM, T-2.V-A.18:2-6)

it's a ministry of surrender.

~

I love you, Eric

To read more from Headless Now, please visit: Ministry

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Ministry

Ministry: 

after years of feeling it would be presumptuous of me to even consider the word, I've grown to love the of a ministry, embracing it not as a mere concept, but an actual lived experience of life. It's an energy really, a daily tasked performed for the loving benefits of others - quietly so. 

my ministry is simply showing up everyday.

extending love.

forgiving.

and not a single word need be spoken.

Now has our ministry begun at last, to carry round the world the joyous news that truth has no illusions, and the peace of God, through us, belongs to everyone. (ACIM, W-151.17:3)

~

I love you, Eric 

To read more from Headless Now, please visit: Nothing More I Need to Know

Also, please visit to buy: Discovery of the Presence of God

Thank you.