Soul on Fire #25💪

Dedicated to truth and adventure.

Greetings

Welcome this issue of Soul on Fire
In this issue you’ll see some of my latest paintings, comics, videos and some photos from my adventures.

the realisation I’d like to share this week is that perfectionism is maya. Perfectionism says a lot about you. It’s a manifestation of faulty beliefs. Here are a few unconscious beliefs I have become aware of that have lead to my perfectionism:
I need to perform to be loved which means I’m not inherently loveable and need to become loveable by doing something perfectly.
I should be able to do it perfectly because I’m awesome. I have to be awesome. Anything less than spectacular is trash. People will judge me if it’s not perfect. My humanness is bad. Pro or nothin. I have to be the best because I’m capable of that. I’m better than others and they should know that. I don’t want to be a no one. I need to be glorified for everything I do. I need acknowledgement for my strengths, skills, abilities, effectiveness, qualities and methods. I need to be the centre of attention. I’m nothing, so I need to do something to be someone. My performance equals my worth. This grandiosity, pride, arrogance and controlling behaviour impacts the quality of my life because I self impose these high standards and expectations on myself and it’s stressful. It leads to procrastination and makes me late for deadlines. Seeing the damage this has done and the defects that perfectionism comes from I am creating the possibility of being human and being OK with my averageness.
*hopes this article perfectly blows your minds and causes a revolution in your life so I can feel like I’m allowed to exist* 😂

Comics

Win a print!
Tell me your favourite comic on my website to be in the draw to win an A4 fine art print of that comic!
Only 1 out 300 subscribers can win this week but I will do this again for each week in December. The only condition is you pay for postage if you’re outside Wellington. Go and pick your fave at muchu108.com

Disclaimer: viewer discretion advised. Some of my comics have adult themes. May aim is to illustrate the insanity of materialism and I draw a lot of inspiration from the yoga texts which often discuss the topic of lust.

Throw Back

Circa Melbourne 2013. Photo by Ash squires.

Life

The weekend before the last Nasser and Dan and I went to lake reserve and camped there. We had open conversations, learned about Islam and shared about yoga philosophy. We read Hiding in Unnatural happiness on the way home and stopped for a swim in a water hole.

Today was nice. Bal and I went on books in Kilbernie like we did last week. Before going out he wants to show me a verse so he opens Bhagavad Gita and of the 600 plus pages he opens it right to the exact page. It’s about “understanding and accepting the fact” and going back to godhead in this life time. Then we meet this lady named Camile pictured wearing blue and at one point she says “I want this life to be the last” then he opens the Gita to show her a verse and again opens to the exact page he was looking for! Then we meet Clay who I sold a book to last week and he is stoked to see us. His mum was there too. We also sold a book to Binay in the liquor store. His name means polite which suits him perfectly. He told us how he comes from Orrisa where the Lord is worshipped as Jagannatha with a big smile. Bal told him he is currently learning the prayers to Jagannath and recited a verse to which Binay responded that he was very impressed. The books I sold were to the first and the last person I stopped this session. I learnt that books go out naturally if I’m confident and enthusiastic in Krishna consciousness. Thanks for reading.

last night Steve Purdy who is a famous book distributer in New Zealand and who brings addicts in recovery to Bhakti, told me he met he a few years ago when she was just getting started on her spiritual journey.

So Dan texts me on Friday and says do I want to go exploring the city. I wasn’t really keen because I have already hit plenty of rooftops and abandoned sites here plus I’m trying to follow the law. I devised a proposal that we do kirtan and read on a lot up soccer field and presented it. he was inspired. As we spoke about the details of our plan we came up with the idea to camping instead. We packed our things and headed to this bunker called fort balance. On the way I called Rama and invited him. It’s 9pm. He googles the place and says he’s coming. After all it’s near scorcharama. It must be a sign he says. We set up by 10 and do some kirtan. These 8 people come over and sit by us. They listen and clap when our chant ends. One of them asked if we were ISKCONS lol. The next morning at 5 am after a rough sleep with high winds keeping us up most the night we venture out for a japa walk. Rama and dan who have never done it before agree to chanting 16 rounds on the grounds that there is nothing better to do, which is a deep truth I can elaborate on another time. We break after 8 rounds and read about Krishna for inspiration. After we should know who we are calling out to. We hea back but go a different route, a less traveled route. It turns into a total bush wack. We climb pine trees to navigate our way back to the fort. it starts to rain. We find a hill with bushes you can dive into, a car, shells, buckets, two bath tubs and a dead body. Just kidding about the dead body. We make it back and go for a swim in the ocean, have hash browns at scorcharama and then dan and I paint a krsna piece at the fort. Life is freaking good.
Bush walking is wack, bush walking is where it’s at. 🌲🌲🌲🌲🕺🕺🕺

Reading about Krishnas unlimited attractiveness. It was cool because Rama here led a kirtan last night where he chanted Madan Mohan and this little book was unpacking what that meant. He bewilders even Cupid.

Dan going for 16 rounds💪

Found this random car

Disclaimer. That’s paint on my gumcha.....
This clothes line was even more surprising to find in the bush than the car. I guess we were on the site where a house use to be.

Dan on the back ground. First time doing aerosol art.

Believe it or not this design is totally not mine. I was sitting down for lunch in Melbourne with a guy I met the previous night at the temple while doing kirtan. Apparently I led the exact tune he wanted to hear which for him was something mystical. So we are sitting and eating and he sees my paint stained finger nails and says are you the hare krsna graffiti artist? I said yup.........are you the other one in the USA?
he affirms. Both of us had been following each others work for years by googling Krishna Graffiti and clicking ‘images’ there really is only a limited number of Bhakti yogis who came from a graffiti background and only a handful of us chose to dovetail it in Bhakti and among us there are only a few who are really active. To meet him there was really cool. He painted this all over Sanfransisco and is very well respected in the graffiti scene. Another active graffiti Bhakti became a disciple of my teacher and now paints entire sci scrapers and trains with Krishna conscious murals for a living. His name is Kardama Kapila. Look him up.

Cained my shin painting this. I realised from looking at this that it doesn’t reflect me anymore. I have been drawing in this simple style for a while and have kinda got the clean curved line style down pat but it just bores me now. The faces lack interest. My style will evolve over the next few months.

Rama das personifies simplicity and determination. He stands here five hours with little to no result but has a huge smile when you ask how he is going. He says “Krishna is making me a failure as he likes” and explains how Krishna has been revealing his defects through the different people who have rejected him that day. He wears his heart on his sleeve and transcends all conceptions of what I think a Bhakti veteran should be like.

I just sat down and the door bell rang at Bhakti Lounge the embassy of the spiritual world on planet earth. Peeved and bitter I answered the door to find this soul wearing a maori body. Prejudice set in at first glance. He asked if we were open. I let him and and explained we were not but open again tonight. I invited him to sit down and have a cup of chai with me. We talked for an hour or so and read the Gita. He is a gentle soul who was seeking a more spiritual yoga place and was recommended to come here. He lives close by and agreed to vacuum the entire place because I told him he could volunteer here. He came back that evening for the soul feast and exclaimed he will come Tuesday to meet HH Devamrta swami.
Such is is the value of letting people in and giving up your small agenda for an hour.

This is book turned my life in another direction. My goals were to be famous and noticed through graffiti. Now I have a guide for making choices towards sanity, peace and a very satisfying and fulfilling happiness. Applying his wisdom makes you powerful, productive and peaceful and I heartily recommend reading even one chapter of it.

This month I am making an effort to share that which made the biggest difference in the quality of my life.
This Book is an encyclopaedia of transcendental knowledge. Without sounding faithy, this book can answer any question you could ask about existence. We are all lost souls and suffer due to forgetfulness of who we actually are. Most of us have no clue what we are doing with our life beyond trying to hook up and going to a job we do t like just to maintain our humdrum existence.

Email me me for a copy and use my paypal address joshuamenheere@gmail.com to give a donation. Just make sure you cover the postage too. All profit goes to printing more of these incredible books of spiritual technology.