Where Tigers Belch

 

I saw that my little book, Where Tigers Belch, is available For Free on Kindle Unlimited.. (For how long? I don't know. They decide.)

That inspired me to offer an excerpt as you might read in a bookstore with a hard copy in your hands.

 Where Tigers Belch is that spot that lights our fire.

 This road to the tiger will be an adventure. While adventures are often wrought with strife, and the possibility of all hell breaking loose is ever present, there is a gift at its end.

 Joseph Campbell called it a "boom."

A boom is a gift the adventurer takes home to the tribe.

 I read a story about a woman who wanted to watch soap operas all day. This was before smart TVs and Video recordings when we were forced to watch our favorite shows when the studios aired them. People often missed their favorite Soap Operas and thus missed out on some important plot twists. She decided to write a synopsis and print it in a little booklet that came to be known as The TV Guide. (Boom.)

Another successful entrepreneur loved her husband but was tired of his grunting and answering in monosyllables. She watched a show on training exotic animals and applied their training methods to her husband. It was, basically, "Reward what you like, ignore what you don't like." After collecting data, she wrote a book, What Shamu taught me about Life, Love, and Marriage. It was a rousing success and gave the tribe a new perspective.

To find what you want to do, Martha Beck suggested sitting in a room and allowing your eyes to glide over the objects found there. When a particular object attracts you, stop and ask yourself why you chose that. Next, write down its characteristics. Third, ask how those characteristics pertain to your business. And what business might that be?

 Don't judge yourself. Be as stupid as you can. That frees your mind. Allow yourself to keep doing it over and over. In the process, you may hit on that one thing or more than one. You're allowed.

I tried the experiment. My eyes landed on a little plastic orange pill bottle on the bookshelf.

What attributes did it have? Well, it was a container that held something good and intended to be beneficial and healing. It was a small container, ordinary, apparently insignificant, but held mighty ingredients.

How could I use that as a business? A webpage is that. Small, ordinary, apparently insignificant, but holds mighty ingredients.

 

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I began another website, named it Travels with Jo, then found it was confusing to google, for it wasn't a Travel Blog. I renamed it "Wonder with Jo." 

 To wonder and invite others to wonder with me.

 

https://www.wonderwithjo.com

 

Introduction to Where Tigers Belch

You might have read Paulo Coelho's book, The Alchemist, where a shepherd boy begins a quest to find a treasure and something he calls his" Personal legend."

Here is another quest as a young college student sets off into the jungle to find her purpose and reason for being. And she declared it would be where the tiger's belch that she would find it.

Have you ever had one of those days where you felt off? You were out of sorts, irritable, thinking nothing was going right? You were mad at the world and mad that things weren't going according to plan. You were angry that you aren't further along on your enlightenment trail, wondering what enlightenment is anyway.

You could search for years and never find that spot where the tiger belches, where you are calm and believe all's right with the world. It is the place where you feel invincible. 

I understand the gap. Best to back off. Go into your hut, nap, pet that baby cheetah on your bed, and listen to it purr. (I've heard that they have a purr like a lawnmower, and if they lick you, your skin will feel like it has been sanded.) Decide at that moment that you will be fresh tomorrow, and you are not going to push it today.

 I've decided that tomorrow I will take my backpack. I will add a few bottles of water and a couple of sandwiches and set off to find my destiny.

This is the purpose of Where the Tigers Belch. It is an investigation into finding our purpose and learning that we are magnificent beings on the road to greatness.

To see "Where Tigers Belch" on Kindle, please Click.

 

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Really?

 

Which do you choose, the front row or the third?

This picture tickles me, that's the reason I am posting in again.

Think of a man who wants to win the favors of his lady love. He attempts to improve his appearance. He builds up his body. He changes his behavior and practices techniques to charm the object of his intention. And so, it is with spirituality. It is not what you do that brings it to you. What matters is what you are and what you become.

 

Anthony De Mello tells us, “Those things within you that you struggle to fix just need to be understood. If you understood them, they would change.”

 

Easier said than done, my good man.

 

No wonder people ask the age-old question, “What’s the meaning of life?”

 

My daughter asked that question recently, and it made me wonder why people ask it. Wondering about the meaning of life infers that they see no purpose in it, and it prompts such books as “Man’s Search for Meaning,” which usually happens in the face of suffering. 

 

Frolicking people rarely stop laughing to ask that question. They are having too much fun. 

 

Back up a bit. We know too much. We know that life comes and goes. We know that happiness comes in spurts. We know that what brings us happiness one minute can be gone the next. People come into our lives and leave. Pets die. People die. Diseases come. Sickness happens. We know there is suffering.

 

And we know that there is joy.

 

Perhaps that is what we signed up for when we came here, all of it. Maybe we did come here for a reason. We joined the playground hoping to play and got hit in the head by a flying baseball.

 

 

Remember Grandma in the movie Parenthood? She told of a carnival ride that traveled up then down, and she was thrilled by it. “Oh, what fun,” she proclaimed, “we went up, we went down.” 

 

“Nice story Grandma,” said the Steve Martin character.

 

His wife got it. Grandma was talking about the roller coaster of life. 

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What if?

What if our religion was each other?

If our practice was our life?

If prayer was our words?

What if the Temple was the Earth?

If holy water—the rivers, lakes and oceans?

What if meditation was our relationships?

If the Teacher was life?

If wisdom was self-knowledge.?

If love was the center of our being?

--Ganga White