Yoga Tattuesday & Ordinary Joy #reverb10

Tags

#reverb10, Anxiety, back seat driver, big gaping hole, Depression, disassociation, Enlightenment, fairy floss, fork in the road, Meditation, morbid alternative, ordinary joy, Self-destruction, sense of enjoyment, spaciousness, vacuum, Yoga, Yoga Tattuesday

Before I get into the next #reverb10 post, I just wanted to mention that Birdie over at Yogi, Interrupted has written a feature post on my tattoo as part of her Yoga Tattuesday series.

Go check it out and say hello to Birdie! 😀

Ordinary Joy. Our most profound joy is often experienced during ordinary moments. What was one of your most joyful ordinary moments this year?
~ December 27 prompt

Actually, this year has had a bunch of them. Mostly as I previously described: those moments when I’ve realised that depression is no longer running the show.

Where I’ve been surprised by my own darkness-free sense of enjoyment. Free of anxiety, even. Those moments are almost unbelievable and they appear a little bit mysteriously. Think of fairy floss magically wrapping itself around a stick: there’s other forces at work, but to the naked eye things suddenly appear to change.

Like… hey, I think I’m feeling pretty happy right now. For no particular reason… Fuck, but that can be mind-blowing when you’re used to a more morbid alternative!

Don’t get me wrong, depression still sticks its nose out every so often looking for a soft place to land and dig in. That’s its nature. Once it’s had a taste of you, it always wants more. Although it should be noted that the “it” I’m referring to is none other than our own minds. Depression is not an imposition from the outside, but one way that our brain functions or rather, dysfunctions.

Over time the onset of depression’s symptoms get easier to recognise and as long as I’m still doing yoga, riding my bike and connecting with nature then it can’t easily get a foothold.

Not that it doesn’t try.

Most interestingly, while examining my mind recently I noticed that depression shares the same root experience as meditation. A sense of spaciousness. A big gaping hole. A vacuum.

However if you’re not prepared for that kind of spaciousness, it can be very scary. It can even look a little bit like death. No matter who you are or how much work you’ve done on yourself it can be quite shocking.

I know this from my own experience – I’ve been shocked several times now, via both depression and meditation.

And perhaps depression is just one fork in the road, a really well-trodden path because the alternative is… what? Self-destruction?

Unless you’ve had any meditation experience, then there aren’t really too many other roads to take. You can’t see them and even if you could, they wouldn’t make much sense. Because there’s just too much noise going on there in the ol’ mind.

Problem is, once you’ve become acquainted with that sense of empty space, it never really goes away. In fact, it can be a little bit like the worst back seat driver imaginable. Always commenting and shadowing your actions, seemingly not being helpful at all. Butting in when you wish they’d just SHUT THE HELL UP! Ever present and waiting, causing unnecessary stress.

Until we learn to relax and humour it: the back seat driver; depression. Take your pick. Life isn’t going to end because of them, not unless we allow it to.

This is why I say that yoga and meditation had as much to do with my recovery as all the therapy I’ve ever had.

The physical practice of yoga – all that movement and controlled breathing – was just what I needed to get out of my head, because depression lives in the mind and then invades the body.

To build up my sensitivity in order to dispel disassociation. To sense and feel in ways that weren’t too scary.

The practice of meditation helps us understand the mind’s vagaries and also provides discipline. And it is this discipline that we need in order to free ourselves of the endless terrors the mind will cook up if we let it.

Endless hours of this kind of work: vigilant observation of the mind; moving my sorry ass around instead of sinking further into the couch; feeling, even when it was painful to do so; facing the truth about my experiences, as much as they hurt.

And my reward is this: these little moments of ordinary joy.

Of rejoicing in a glorious sunny day while waiting for the train.

Of skipping gleefully down some street and noticing the beauty of a tangled mess of tree roots.

Of talking to animals I come across, just to say hello.

A cute random dog I befriended on the street

Of that incredible high I get post-yoga class, body and mind engaged and experiencing life fully as an integrated mind-body awareness. Less a singular person and more a living organism, just a part of the whole.

Of all of those things and more. Ordinary moments of joy, indeed.

~Svasti

Spellbound turn-o-the-year musings

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

Losing, letting go and surrender

Tags

Anger, Awareness, Emotions, Enlightenment, Lost things, Meditation, Road rage, Sadhakas, Spirituality, Surrender

The yogic spiritual path is really no different in a lot of ways to those on any other path. Stuff still happens, life goes on. Its the orientation to what happens and how you meet those things that is the difference.

People are prone to saying: “Oh, but you meditate. You should be so calm, never angry”. Well get this people – that state of calm that everyone imagines all people who meditate should have… isn’t that simple! That “everything’s zen” persona many people like to portray is usually bogus. Unless its not, in rare cases.

When I first jumped on this path some time ago now, I had this idea that having that floaty, happy calm feeling was the goal. That if I can induce that state (easy when around some of the great masters), then I was on the way. 😉

But guess what? This state, this sattvic (balanced) way of being can only be stablised 24/7 after a great deal of journeying – in some cases a life time. But always at least a good 10-20 years worth of practice for most people.

In the mean time, those moments where we experience that state (or something we imagine is that state) are precious and inspire us onwards. But then life gets in the way and we’re back at square 1!!

Not to mention, that sadhakas (spiritual practitioners) can and do undergo depression, sadness, anger and every other human emotion – in the process of purifying their karmas. However, the practices learned are meant to be applied to these states so that each time you do find yourself at square 1, its really not quite the same place. Instead of simply being reactive, there’s a process in place.

Remember this – its the birthright of every human being to eventually achieve enlightenment, even if its not in this lifetime.

And now to discuss “losing, letting go and surrender”. Yes I seem to lose a lot of stuff. My lunch – going from the bakery to my car. $15 in change whilst at a cafe. A button off a new top, a day after I thought I’d lost a button but really hadn’t. A prize of 4 movie tickets that I was awarded at my last job (whilst still in the building), between where the party was held and walking back to my desk. All crazy stuff right?

Over the years I’ve lost quite a few things I’ve had attachment to – great relationships, friends, pieces I jewelery I adored. And I have driven myself nuts fretting over those losses.

Then there’s my recent loss of pretty much everything that represented the “form” of my life. Those material things we all identify with. Kinda different to losing ‘stuff’ but not completely.

Right now as always, my spiritual path seems to be addressing this. Sometimes we just have to learn to relax and let go – surrender. Actually, its a little bit more like “struggle, struggle… surrender”.

OK, so I lost stuff I thought was important, I cared about or just bought/received. Each time I lose stuff now I’m noting my carelessness and how this could have been different if I’d had more considered awareness. And then I let go.

I still wish I hadn’t lost the stuff. But I’m saving myself from going crazy. And in three cases the ‘lost’ stuff I mentioned did eventually turned up. Like my lunch (down a space in my car), my button (inside the front door of my house – how lucky is that?) and my movie ticket prize (honest co-workers). But instead of spending the day thinking about what I’ve lost and draining my energy that way, I’ve thought about the pattern of what has happened. And that if stuff is meant to turn up, it will.

What can I say? It makes my day less stressful. And it makes me more aware of the little actions I take or don’t take.

Then there’s the common experience of struggling with traffic. We all do it. Get impatient, swear, shout, give dirty looks to someone we think is an idiot and shouldn’t be allowed on the road. Hmmm.

I started to notice the more I struggled with traffic, the more I was annoyed or tried to get around someone, the more strung out I was. Now I’m talking a pattern of days, weeks, months. I noticed that whenever I didn’t hold a vested interest in how fast the traffic was moving, things flowed better. Moment-to-moment stress about traffic is counter-productive and takes you away from what is – here I am in a car in traffic. OK. So its still something I have to work at but such a relief when I do just… relax…

Awareness, after all, is not just about meditation. Its about every darn thing in this world.

~Svasti