...ante up...

...without the poker face...with the courage of a poker player to heighten the risk, knowing the stakes are already high...and taking it higher...but...can you do it so you are taken Higher...how can you and i ante up for the Higher?... towards Higher... the route of base emotions, sensory wants are easy enough to ante up on... but would it be ante-ing up if you ate grabbing for that extra bunch of walnuts and raisins? spending an extra hour hidden in a cafe?...

...in some ways...violence, like putting your cards down, in poker, does require an ante up...as there is risk...one that may cost you your life...but where is it coming from?... ante up! m.o.p told us in the early 2000's... go get that fool...ante up...kidnap that fool...

...but, again, the question is...where is the ante up coming from? a place of ego? a place of shame, un-resolved anger, grief?...

...ante up...

...what would it mean to ante up towards your Purpose? what is your Purpose? to serve Life...all beings... humans, trees, birds, bees, fish...water, air, earth... to serve from your talent, your particular gift... the one that is unique to you...

...how do you know what your gift is? it appears to us in the form of hurt, of a wound, so we can't forget it, so that it will haunt us until we do something with it... so that when you do unpack it, it will change everything...

...gandhi was hurt about how he was treated as a second class citizen, how others around him were, and as a man of deep spiritual practice, tapped into vedic teachings of universal love to channel his truth into compassionate activism...

...malcolm also rose from a place of hurt, and learned to channel his hurt through speaking about it, to acknowledging how crazy it was, how it was wrong... he spoke about it through the lens of history, deeply grounding in the history of humans to arrive at his understandings, which he then shared publicly...

...my hurt has been being invisible...being absent from television, movies, what is seen... my hurt has been witnessing the permanent 3rd class citizenship of my parents, for being immigrants, accents,  brown, muslim, broke, struggling, and somehow being amazing in their resourcefulness... my hurt has been from being on the margins of standards, of having to be an audience to babylonics... of...being rejected over and over from jobs, schools, cool-kid parties... and taking this in, believing it, believing i was wrong for being poor, looking poor, being indian, being bangli, being of immigrance, being thin, being weak, being academically marginal... and this rejection has led me to keep my distance, keep people at a distance, distrust intimacy, trust that it will end, that it will fail... believe that the job won't work out... to not count on friends, other than to count on them to not count on them...

...and what this hurt of rejection, of silencing has propelled in me is a deeper path to embrace what is Real... more Real than the temporary, then transient relations...to embrace my own lineage of yogi, of going into ancestry, delving... to delve deep into ancient mathematics to understand that whether others show up or not, you, i, can show up for ourselves, and showing up means living the way you wish to see the world - through Love... instead of pride and ego... whether you invite or don't invite me... i might ask you about it... i will still give you Love... and be vulnerable... i will go deeper in my asana and meditation and fresh plant food preparations... in keeping a clean vessel for this spirit... i guess my rejection has led me to find anchors to sustain me, even when know one else does... and to use these anchors to grow deeper in my self-less Love, through Loving my-Self the way i wish to be loved, and Loving others the way i wish to be loved... you are invited... to Love yourself... and if you are like me... if you feel this pain... a hollowness inside... ante up your gift...

...take your gift to the next level... by embracing it... share it... do it from a place of Real and not marketing... and it will resonate...

...ante up in Purpose means to Love and do like tmmrw is the last...