This Moment To Be Free

i teach yoga because i love yoga, and one of the reasons i love yoga is the neverending flow of experience and learning that comes with this practice on so many levels.

this past week i have been reflecting on the seemingly contradictory aspects of a yoga class – that of sangha, or community and soul, the individual as her own best teacher.

when people come to practice yoga together, a sangha, a spiritual community, is created – even if it is for only a short time each week, when we practice this beautiful and ancient art together we are a community. it is for this reason that teachers ask our students to chant om together at the beginning and end of class, and to all move in the same direction, or to lie with their heads facing in the same direction – to my understanding, this facilitates the energy of the sangha to join more completely in unison.

however, there is another equally powerful aspect of practice where we learn that our bodies, our own souls are our own best teachers and that the teacher herself is only a guide through the practice. in integral yoga, especially, we are taught to take what works and leave the rest  – that what the teacher says is always and only a suggestion and guide – and i love this freedom and honoring of the individual and her own needs at all times.

so in the end, we as teachers say what we feel and know will support the sangha and at the same time we honor each  individual’s choices within that structure…i teach knowing that everything i say is a way of guiding students in their own personal practice — i teach from my heart to serve each individual and to serve the sangha, the community spirit of each class. Each student must do what is right for her and each teacher must strive to create the most peaceful and joyful sangha possible.

om shanti, om peace.

“i am not my body, i’m not my mind, immortal soul am i” — is a version of the mantra a jnana yogi, one who uses reason to reach non-attachment, might repeat – i am having this experience, but I am not this experience…

whatever pain or discomfort i may be feeling at this moment is the result of my own actions, and reactions – call it karma – as i learn and grow and expand and as my heart is tenderized. sometimes the hand of god opens our chests and takes our hearts in hand and gently, or less gently touches…massages…or even pounds…open heart surgery to get us to wake up, be alive, live…

because otherwise, i am just a detached spirit who feels nothing — how else to learn to feel? how else to wake up with an open heart? Spirit needs to live on this planet embodied and mortal in order to learn compassion – for self and for others…

we do not start off compassionate – we are not angels or saints – this is a myth – we are brutal immortals who need to pass through the fire of mother earth’s gravitational and elemental orbit, to live among other embodied souls and partake in the confusion and chaos and pain – the uncertainty and mystery – the forgetting of our immortality and the smallness and vulnerability of our little lives…in order to struggle through, to sip the air and bathe in the waters and absorb the light and smell the dark clean soil and eat the food and become grateful for whatever we may be given to sustain us…we need this in order to become creatures of love…

vulnerable creatures of heart and of love…and not cold, unfeeling spirits…

so here we are passing through the tunnel from birth to death – we are not this experience but this experience changes us – hopefully for the better – hopefully in favor of love and of becoming more open and more full of heart and of light…

as my friend S. wrote of this journey toward and through awakening: “the important part is to have trust deep down.  know in your heart that it’s a process, and trust whatever forces are in this universe that things will work out”.

om shanti, om peace

namaste.

Last week was a holiday in the Hindu calender for the god Shiva – the Destroyer. This Shiva holy day is about transformation. Yesterday my yoga teacher mentioned this and noted that transition can feel like destruction. Indeed.

I am thinking of the tower card in the tarot, and the death card which traditionally does not mean actual death, but change.  I am again shifting and changing and it does feel like destruction, like a tower falling. One thing Shiva destroys is bad habits. Good, I need that…in general though, the transformation seems to be just happening.

Transformation physically, emotionally, spiritually, in relationships…just happening right now and i am hoping to end right side up, which ever side is right.

I am thinking of the word shiva – in the Jewish tradition there is a transitional time of seven days after the death of a close loved one. This time is called shiva – you sit shiva – sit for seven days in mourning, on uncomfortable chairs, your clothing torn (you rip a piece of clothing to signify mourning), and friends come visit – you are never alone during shiva, during this transition time around death.

So whether it is a feeling of death during a time of transition, or a marking of the transition around a time of death — a Hindu god, or a Jewish  custom — Shiva or shiva — is a very powerful experience and I feel as though I am sitting shiva during this time for whatever is dying off in and around me during this time of Shiva.

Om shanti, om peace.

i have not written in two months – needed to just be and do and not yet to comment on it all…

i am having a difficult moment right now, because i love my life so dearly and am feeling pleasure and expansion and grace and gratitude and…again, the humanity, the imperfection…

my greatest fear is, having begun to build, having found a home – all this will be taken away from me — worse, that somehow i will do something or act in some way or say something  that will cause all that i love to disappear…

i speak in yoga class of the peace within. i tell my students, or those who come to my class to hear the wisdom of the swami as it passes through me…i say “feel the peace within. this is your true nature, your true nature is peace. this place of peace is a place you can come home to at any time – your true home, waiting within – welcoming and warm – and you can dwell in this place of peace at any time, no matter what else is going on in your life at that time”. I say this, and i mean it when i say it – but right now, i am not living in it.

i need to find out, once and for all, what it is to dwell in the place of peace – unafraid and at home in the world – because i know that i am not my body or my mind, or my surroundings – but that i am a spirit. that i do not need to continue to be attached to the external form of my experience – although i love dearly and with all my heart the external form of my experience right now – that it is – so much = an expression of myself and what i desire….

and if deep down what i truly desire, and what is truly right for me, is what god desires — than so be it. But i register my desire, dear father, dear mother of all things, dear physical manifestation of reality — let me stay and experience all the beauty i have around me and for which i am so grateful and i am truly sorry if i have taken your name in vain. i apologize and will strive never to do this again.

with all my heart, i thank you for being allowed to continue to unfold as a being of light and love upon this planet.

i thank you for all the opportunities you give me to grow and learn, and for teaching me how to be grateful.

grant me the serenity to accept what i cannot change, the courage to change the things i can, and the wisdom to know the difference.

om shanti, om peace,

amen

as of next tuesday it will be a year since i began this blog, and more so, this journey…

it has been a most wonderful year. i was talking yesterday with a friend, a fellow student from the public health master’s degree program i took at columbia a few years ago. we were both much happier and more energetic than we had been when we were in school and we agreed that this is because we are listening to the inner voice as guidance and following our hearts, rather than only trying to make money. the path of love, over the path of security.

i still worry about security — i am a cancer with a capricorn moon, so it is somewhat ingrained in my nature and part of my star-self to want to feel at home and secure, and to be ambitious — but i am learning that true security is found when i am able to come home to the peace within…that within me, within all of us, there is a home that is warm and secure, peaceful and happy — a home where we are always welcome, and always given all we need…the anandamayakosha — the place of peace within. Over the past year I have learned about this place and visited it many times. It is a good home and a home i hope to dwell in more and more as my practice deepens.

this year i have also felt anger, blame, hurt, fear, guilt, heart-break, confusion…in other words, all the human reactions to being alive…and i am slowly, with the help of love, good friends, good teachers and yoga practice, coming to realize that much of what keeps me from the place of peace within are my own character flaws. i am beginning to work on these more consciously.

in the course of the past year, i did indeed lie fallow – for about 4 months. it was so nice…doing yoga most days, shopping for, eating and cooking whole foods entirely at my leisure to play and experiment in the kitchen. then i found this wonderful and challenging job at the apothecary and now i am completing level 1 teacher training. i even yearned to write a book and had the image that this blog would become my book…until my oldest friend wrote me with a book proposal and we are in the process of creation of that — proof that your dreams may come true, but not necessarily in the form you might expect.

in the past year i have learned that it is ok to let go and let life evolve more organically. now on the precipice of the end of my first year living this way, i am very happy and feeling both expectant/excited and peaceful…and also some fear — despite the evidence of a joyful year of self-connection and connection with the Divine on many beautiful levels, i am still at times an anxious person. i do not have much experience listening only to my inner guidance, and i have not had as loud an inner directive since the first one to “take six months off, rest and do yoga”…

maybe i do not need to be directed as loudly or firmly, since i am now on this path – but i have so many interests and so many ideas – coupled with a bit of shyness, sensitivity, and the fear that maybe no one will want to play with me (a holdover from the long ago four year old inside)…

so i take a deep breath, and another…and thank god, the mother of everything, and the universe…i thank my beloved husband, and my cats…i thank my dear friends and my teachers…i thank my family…i thank all of my joys and all of my challenges…for being with me this past year as i journeyed out upon this path and i intend, in the coming year to plant the field i have prepared in this past year….i vow and intend to plow and till and plant seeds and try to trust and have faith in god and the earth that the work i am doing is right for my soil and that god and goddess will help me know which seeds to choose and where and how to plant them, and that the seeds i am planting will take root and grow…and i pray for a bountiful harvest, one that i and I can share with the world, feeding others as I have fed myself — even being blessed with opportunities to teach others what i have learned about how to “farm organically” in the pastures of body and soul.

in humanity, and hope…

om shanti, peace.

“ring the bells that still can ring – forget your perfect offering – there is a crack, a crack in everything – that’s how the light gets in” — Leonard Cohen

i have been sick in bed for two days and have decided to give myself one more day to rest and recover.

i have been doing nothing “yogic” with my past two days – just laying in bed drinking tea and juice and water and eating and sleeipng and watching tv. i have been feeling a bit guilty that i am not doing anything “yogic” – by which i mean meditating,moving my body, reading inspiring literature, and so forth.

but perhaps it is the most yogic action to just let go and take care of my body when i am sick, and what my body wanted was to simply zone out and be fed nice healthy things to eat and watch silly movies and tv shows and to just relax and not be good, or be yogic or be anything…

and now my cold is going away and i feel a lot better physically and my body still wants to just rest and relax…

is that so bad?

i have to trust that my body knows what it needs and i need to let my mind follow that need rather than dictate strict rules for what is ok and acceptable and yogic – i need to allow sick time, and i need not to be rigid — i need to cultivate an “easeful body, peaceful mind and useful life” and this will come naturally in time if i do not make strict and rigid rules, but rather go toward what i love and be in the flow of what i need.

peace.

om great mother, you live in my heart, as my heart…

without you we would have nothing,

we live in you, we breath you, we eat of you, and you sustain us

dwell in me, lead me, sit within me and feel my gratitude to you

fill my heart, my body, my soul with your love and let it overflow

let me help you heal our world, our one body, our one soul.

amen.

i had a dream where i had somehow gotten, or was staying, at a high-rise apartment and had a pass to the pool – i thought the pool was in the basement and r and i took the elevator down to the lobby level to see about going to the pool. once we were down there, however, r disappeared and when i looked i saw him way on the other side of a huge outdoor pool area sitting on a roof waving at me to come over — and the pool — it was huge — outdoors, not in the basement — with a view of the ocean or a wide river beyond and it was crowded, but i thought that it was evening and people were partying, but maybe during the day it would not be so crowded. so i went to this food stand first and got r and i some sandwiches – steak sandwiches, which is odd b/c i do not eat meat — and then i spoke with the lady at the concierge desk and this other woman kept interrupting, so i walked away and came back – and then the other lady was still interrupting, do i told her to go away – and the concierge was very nice and friendly and implied that it would be fine for us to use the pool b/c she would arrange it, she would comp us even though our pass was not officially for that pool…

and then i woke up from all that luxury in my dream and said to myself “I have nothing” and i felt sad…and reminded myself of all the things i do have – that i have so much etc…that in the scheme of things on this planet i am rolling in riches all the time…but that did not make me feel any better…

but then as I was brushing my teeth i said to myself – well, from a yogic point of view, i really do have nothing — it is the truth – nothing is mine, everything is god’s – nothing really belongs to me – i do not own this body or any of “my” possessions and even the breath i take in, the prana, is at the will of god, or the universe, or nature…and that thought made my whole body relax…i do have nothing it is all god’s and i cannot control that essential state…so feeling that brings peace…

but also, since in essence i am spirit, and part of the universe – i am Self, part of the Self — in that sense I have everything – all of it is mine and all of it is one…One…

i still have this feeling, that i felt the other day, that we are all sort of holograms – there is a book about this — that we are holograms arising, emerging out of the fabric of the universe, the material that is all things, and each individual person or animal or thing arises out of the material of the universe, which is made of energy, of light, and we live and interact as this individual being — and the point is to realize that. We are playing a role to have a certain experience. I have been cutting in and out of that consciousness — sometimes I know that it is all not real, and that we are all part of the Light and sometimes i get lost and caught up in the drama and the passion and the pain…

and feelings are real – they are waves that pass through and we need to feel them and learn from the feelings…but i can, like most of us, get caught up and lost in the dream of what i feel…

so i do have everything, and i do have nothing…in every sense and on every level. Painful, amazing, beautiful…all of it.

peace.

this morning in meditation – as meditation – i paid attention to the breath and repeated the mantra “so hum” — so for the in breath, hum for the out breath — the sound of the breath.

i am not so mellow this morning, i am trying to figure out my day…

and just following my breath felt so good — then i realized that this is really all we do — we are these animals that breath. we are always breathing – so hum, so hum…

we do everything else we do and have our thoughts and activities and plans and goals and worries…and we breath — somethimes we breath calmly, sometimes agitatedly – sometimes deeply and sometimes shallow…we can control the breath, though by constant attention…

so we are in bodies and we breath. that is about it. and then what? i don’t know…we have dharma – purpose to be here, somethings to do here…meaning, mission…

but really we are breathing all the time – that is the baseline. breathing.

let me see if I can focus on that — i wonder how much of the day i will be able to be aware that i am breathing, aware of my breath, of so hum?

hmm….

peace.

i am starting to become aware that the feelings i pull back from, or pull back when in, are feelings which are just natural parts of the process of living – especially during times of change and expansion — especially when I am doing soemthing challenging or new…

so fear goes along with change  – so, not to wait for the fear to subside, but to realize that it is part of the experience…

we all need to learn this…i need to learn this…

peace