Tags
Asana, Divinity, Enlightenment, God, Guruji, Happy New Year, Love, Mantra, Musings, New Years Eve, Non-dual, Sanskrit, Yoga
Written after a good hour of book browsing and buying…
(thanks to my employers for the Borders gift voucher!)
It’s easy to love with abandon a child, our favourite sport, poetry, chocolate, alcohol, movies, nature, our lover…
But not our Self.
We are cynical about such things. We have trouble thinking we’re more than what we see in the mirror. Often, we think we’re even less than that.
Human beings are truly magnificent – if we can get over our own suffering, selfishness, self-importance and smallness. Greatness is inherent. Waiting for us.
Yet, often we don’t want to expand the boundaries of possibility too far – in case we can’t recover ‘when bad things happen‘. We don’t want to open our hearts too much to another for the same reason.
We have trouble with the concept of God, especially those who are not traditionally religious, like me (a pagan/yogi). Whether it’s the connection to our own divinity, the use of the ‘G’ word, wavering between direct knowledge, belief and doubt… what we can’t see, we question.
There’s a profound issue with our ability to see our Self as God, all beings as God… and to give ourselves over to that larger possibility of human life.
But to me, love of God/Self is actually, the same thing. And, also the same as loving anything else in our lives – our favourite TV show, popcorn, porn… whatever… it’s the same. Just… those things are a smaller version of that larger concept of love.
The obsession/small love for ‘objects’ can arise from the sub-conscious desire for union of self with Self. Unlimited, a sense of connection that when we get it – be that through orgasm, a sunset, realising one of our dreams, meditation – feels so incredibly wonderful. We project this experience on whatever object is around. We want that feeling to last forever. And when it doesn’t, we’re disgruntled.
Home base for human beings is that state of union as a permanent experience.
Trini Girl Blue wrote today that she feels people would shun her if they knew her inner secrets.
Perhaps. More fool them.
Perhaps not. Not everyone thinks that way, thankfully.
This is just fear and the sense of isolation talking. I’ve been in that space too – and continue to experience it off and on. But this state lacks any of the love we easily extend to another person/object.
Some of my most wonderful moments of opening have occured when I’ve told a friend something I was sure they’d think less of me for… only to receive love and support and a different viewpoint on what I thought were my ‘evils’.
Are we afraid of our own divinity so much, that we push aside any possibility of seeing ourselves that way? This is self-cruelty. Are we so afraid of our ability and capacity to be whole and real? To be connected to others – everyone and everything else?
Tonight I sit here alone, deciding if I should venture out and listen to some music – or stay in and meditate (what do I need most of all??)…
Right now my only company is the cat.
Or is it?
This room, if I choose to feel it, is alive with love. There’s… an inter-connectedness of all things…
When I perform yogasana, I clear my channels…
There’s not really a set of channels for each person you know.
Actually there’s only one set of channels for the whole lot of us!
~Guruji
And so I awaken myself through asana to the mass of swarming energy that is life.
I sit for contemplation or meditation, and I lose my sense of I-ness. As a separate being, alone, without other.
When I chant Sanskrit prayers and mantra, it’s the vibrations that tune my heart – allowing me to open wide and have that feeling for myself. To know that it’s true…
The paradox of me – my yogini Self and my suffering Self… I’ve learned and experienced a lot of very profound things in the last eight or so years since I met my Guru.
Whilst the wisdom is with me daily, those experiences of everything being one – they haven’t cemented yet. If they had, I’d be enlightened! 😉
So for now, I honour the duality whilst respecting the non-dual knowledge and experiences I’ve learned and earned.
And here I am, in all my imperfect glory… dealing imperfectly with what I have to deal with… knowing full well its not the entire picture.
I am human, I am flawed
I am human, I can grow
I am human, and love
Is my weakness
And my greatest victory!
~Svasti
Wishing everyone a good dose of peace and harmony on this eve of new tidings. May 2009 bring you insight, love, healing and happiness. May you achieve your heart’s desire.
~Svasti
Svasti: A Journey From Assault To Wholeness 
This is the most beautiful post I’ve read from you so far. Your writing style and ability to capture the essence of things amazes and inspires me.
When we recognize our own godliness, our own magnificence and our own beauty we free ourselves to live in a world of endless possibilities.
May you be filled with love and light in 2009 and beyond.
May your dreams be manifest and life be blessed.
You are a channel of blessings for others Svasti and I am pleased God put me in your path.
Beautiful and thoughtful post. I have found myself wondering some of the same things… Perhaps our disconnection from God/Universe is symptomatic of our disconnection form Self.
The more you gain courage to explore yoruself, the more your life seems to transform in positive ways. In truth, reality does not change. Only your perception and level of self-awareness and self-acceptance. Happy New Year!
@Christa – well, its possibly the first time I’ve felt capable of writing something so beautiful. This post represents a lot of thoughts and feelings that have percolated for a while now, but that have never been solidly formed.
I’m very glad you enjoy my writing – many blessings to you (and everyone) also.
@Michelle – Yeah, that’s exactly how I feel – that our disconnection from God/Universe is symptomatic of our disconnection from Self. Yet, we’ll call it anything else, but that.
@Liara Covert – That’s very true – absolute reality does not change. Just our capacity to see it and our own state of conciousness.
A wonderful post! I hope that you have an absolutely delightful New Year!
Happy New Year, Svasti. 🙂
Lovely post!
@Jane Doe – and same to you!! 🙂
@Immi – here’s wishing you some speedy healing from that car crash and a wonderful 2009…
It is impossible to connect to another person or spiritual being without being connected to yourself. If you are not connected to yourself you miss the whole wealth of what being a human with the full range of emotion is. That is part of connection. If I disconnect from me, I disconnect from the Universe. It is the art of “being” from which everything flows especially love for others and self.
My thoughts today.
A beautiful post, Svasti. May the new year bring you much health and happiness! :o)
@CC – I think people can feel more for another than they do for themself. You were recently writing about self-hatred on your own blog… and we can also feel like we’re connected, but instead its a whole load of delusion.
I guess what I’m saying is… people should extend the same courtesy and love to themselves as they extend to others.
@earthtoholly – thank you, and may your year be super-wonderful also. 🙂
Thanks for posting Svasti, it is definitely apparent that you are closer to “wholeness” than “assault.” Keep looking to the light my friend.
Michelle
@Michelle Tackabery – sometimes it feels that way, other times… it does not. But I keep plodding along, hoping, anyways…
You are treading with more purpose, the path I am stumbling along.
xhenry
A very beautiful post. A happy and beautiful new year to you.
“And nothing, not God, is greater to one than one’s self is”
Walt Whitman, “Song of Myself.”
Thanks for the good New Year’s Eve wishes…I actually didn’t even realize the year had turned until something like an hour and a half later, enraptured as I was in a dazzling phone conversation with this nutty Australian chick…who I can only hope truly realizes how glorious she is…
That asana pic looks awfully familiar by the way…you didn’t steal it from my blog header by any chance, didja?
@soulMerlin – Ah, perhaps I only seem more purposeful in this post… because of the lovely state of mind I was in after spending so much time browsing delicious books? Some inspiration hit, as I sat there scribbling in my notebook in the coffee shop inside the bookstore…
@Josh – why thank you… and the same to you!
@Jay – compliments, compliments, what surprises will you have next for me, eh? It was a very fun, very loooong chat. Wonderful, even. Some people espousing such words as ‘glorious’ at others, should look in the mirror from time to time…
And I’m glad you noticed the pic! Others might appear here too, but since I took ’em, guess I can do as I like! 😉
See you in a few weeks, Svasti. Take care & I’ll be thinking of you
Lots to chat about soon,
lotsa love, Amanda
I enjoyed your turn-of-the-year musings, Svasti. Everything of the best for 2009.
P.S. It was such a wonderful surprise to discover my post on Stumble. Thanks so much!
@Amanda – hope your time away is very relaxing!! Can’t wait to see the pics/hear the news about your land.
@Robyn – Thanks for commenting and you’re welcome!! 🙂
Loved this post. Thank you for the care you obviously took in writing a piece that offers guidance in such a heartfelt way.
@Lydia – actually, I have no guidance to offer. This piece of writing was inspired and whilst it reflects my thoughts, I didn’t really write it… it wrote itself…
I think it’s just a mass ball of confusion and hurt that keeps people from understanding how precious and gifted we really are. Though we’re all unique, what tends to happen with us that doesn’t seem to happen with any other species is when one of us goes bad, we all go bad. I think we’ve placed too much importance on creating our ideal selves instead of our real selves, and it’s gotten to a point where one has to go through an unnecessarily hard process just to reclaim the self.
I personally see that as the manifestation of evil, but often have to counter my urge to slap everybody in the head to wake them up by remembering a key rule of survival and maintaining a strong society…it takes the individual to realize for themselves how to survive for them to be able to. If you’re awake and can’t wake the person next to you even with your best efforts, is it wise to blame yourself or wiser to use your time awake while you have it? If people who are awake waste their time crying over people who aren’t and don’t want to be, how is our general survival helped?
We have forgotten who we are because we became pre-occupied with correcting what we aren’t able to correct. It may be our luck that we’re a relatively young species as a whole.
@Jaleesa – I don’t know that if “one of us goes bad, we all go bad”… I think there’s a lot of fear and that fear can be contagious.
People want what they can’t/don’t have – there’s plenty of wars that attest to that. And for the most part, people live in a world that discourages getting to know who we really are. What we’re really capable of.
I don’t know that this is a definition of evil either… I don’t even know if I believe ‘evil’ as such really exists. I think perhaps that’s a cop out. Just another label.
No one can wake another. My Guru likes to quote this little joke (which he got from someone else):
“Seva, seva… seva-yourself… first”
How do you expect to help another if you don’t help yourself in the first instance?
Very few of us are truly awake 24/7 – I know I’m definitely not!
It kills to be awake 24/7. Insanity breaks it up after while, and I mean that figuratively and literally. 🙂 I stopped searching to stay awake solely because of that, I latch on to the consciousness with a death grip when I’m scared. I feel I did it because I was so into thinking if others were sleeping I couldn’t, like they’d infect me somehow. It’s what I meant about ‘going bad’…fear and ignorance are viral unless you realize you don’t have to be ‘infected’ if you don’t want to.
Made me more patient in my search, being able to see how vital mental and physical sleep is if you want a long life. I didn’t wish to be dead before reaching 30…what is it, “live fast, die young” and it applies to everything, even seeking higher consciousness and awareness…but I think I’m this spiritual by nature. I feel freakish because it seems most people have the path of being aware of what’s above, but I feel my path is learning to relax that same awareness. It’s hard on me because I don’t feel right when I can’t deeply relate to people — I need complete relation or I feel they’ll slow my roll. Maybe I need to relax that too, huh?