The following is an excerpt from a letter Sevara wrote to a friend having a tough time coping with life.

I turned to a devout spiritual practice of yoga. Though meditation, the use of breath and postures, as well as ruthless mental discipline I was able to get over fears and enjoy life again, not only enjoy life but feel blessed and in gratitude for all the good and bad that has happened. In other words, my suffering has been a miraculous catharsis that has lead me to my inner flowering.

My friend, I have to tell you this: you have to stop wallowing in your self pity. You are my dear friend, so I must be ruthless with you as I was with myself. If you wallow you waste precious time. Yes, you've encountered some tragedies in your life. Human suffering and tragedies are not unique, they happen every day. History is filled with pain, but it is also filled with triumph and the greatest triumphs are the ones that we do not hear about - the ones where ordinary people rise above all the pain that surrounds them and instead of being overcome and destroyed by it, they transcend it. In transcendence, the ordinary person becomes something else: a light unto the world. Because they have suffered and transcended their presence becomes a great blessing to all around them. Why? Because they have suffered and have gone beyond it. Their suffering allows them to have great compassion as they know what the pain feels like, they know what loss feels like, and more importantly, they are living proof that one can overcome the hurt. In this way they inspire hope in the hopeless, and this is a very noble achievement. This has nothing to do with god or getting into any heaven.  This has to do with consciousness. Recognizing living with love, forgiveness, joy and compassion are the greatest attributes a human can have. And these conditions are our truest state of being.

I have come to perceive that every moment is an energetic point in time - it occupies a time and space measured by our consciousness. The mind and its discriminatory faculties determines if an event is good or bad. But this is just the mind's perception based on egoic contraction. The mind looks at a cause and effect and says "how does this affect me?". It cannot see beyond into the infinite, ultimate, non-linear sense of things - in other words "the big picture". Because we are wrapped in a physical body and bound by the physical laws of nature we perceive everything through our five senses.

As we move closer to our True, inner self - free from the ego and the pain sensed by the mortal heart - we get closer to that which is beyond nature: the Spirit. If one allows this state to emerge, through meditation, yoga, experiencing no-mind, and so forth, one can "feel"  the center of what I described as an "energetic point in time". Though the moment may be impressed upon the mind as being painful, happy, frustrating, offensive, loving, funny, whatever, there is at its' center a neutrality which can only be identified as bliss.

There are three states of mind: positive, negative, and neutral. Negative mind is of the past, it looks at and recalls past experiences and attempts to bring them into a present context. It indulges in re-experiencing self-pity, loss, humiliation, regret, and so forth. So if we engage the negative mind we are essentially "living in the past", as we go on re-living, re-playing, and re-evaluating past events in hopes that by thinking about them we can some how solve them or come to another conclusion about them. This never happens! This only strengthens and empowers the energetic attachment to the event, meaning we are digging the hole of our misery deeper and deeper each time we think about it.

Then there is the future mind in which we conjure up future possibilities and scenarios that may or may not happen. Actually they can never happen because the imagination is imperfect and cannot imagine exactly how a future event will be, therefore it can never be accurate - not to mention we often worry about things that never come to fruition, thus putting one under unnecessary stress which harms both the mind and the body. Both negative and positive are useful tools if employed under the guidance of a mastered mind.

If we cling to past hurt or future fears we cannot experience the nucleus of the here-now energetic point in time, and we cannot live fully, and we cannot live in bliss. At best, we may experience a few moments of happiness here and there followed by less satisfying states or even misery. This is because the mind is not mastered, therefore it is free to wander between past and future.

The only solution to eradicate these unsatisfactory states is to become more and more aware of the present moment, and live in the neutral mind, or no-mind. This is a matter of self-discipline, which is why we practice things such as yoga. Yoga, through breathing, meditation, and physical postures, forces the mind to be present. And any moment that is experienced in utter awareness is worth more than an entire lifetime spent unaware. But one cannot be lazy; because we were active in accumulating all the karma, one must be active in one's own self-growth, burning out the seeds of karma and destructive thinking. One can wallow forever in self-pity, but he or she misses the miracle that life can be, even with all its trials and tribulations. Yoga and such practices are for those who wish to rise above the dark night of the soul to become a light unto themselves and unto others - to remember that at the center of everything there is divine, sacred, bliss. I know you can be this Light.

It is only out of my love for you that I write these things. I see your heart and I know the love that resides within it. So do all those around you. We all want to see you shine. Forgive whatever needs to be forgiven.

Your friend,

Sevara