Tuesday, July 13, 2010

Finding Light in the Dark (Practice during a Solar Eclipse)

After I posted my last blog entry, I noticed a comment asking me what "return to the One" meant. Thank you for the question. I loved and appreciated the interest and will happily answer what I do know of this in a blog post very soon. In this blog however, I feel it more apropos to contemplate what illuminated action means when transiting through a solar eclipse.

This past Sunday, our planet experienced a solar eclipse. This happens when our Moon passes between the Sun and the Earth. The Moon fully or partially eclipses our view of the Sun. The effect of an eclipse can be felt a few days on either side of the eclipse time, so we can still feel the effects right up until Wednesday of this week.

Traditionally it is considered an auspicious time for introspection, meditation, spiritual practice and soulful evolution, a time in which progress in these areas can be made. It is not considered a time where it is recommended to pursue worldly affairs and business. How come?

Most of us identify with our world through the lens of matter, form and physical substance, filtered by our field of emotions. We are attached to our egos, our will, our emotions, our bodies, our thoughts, our perceptions believing that they are who we are. For most, this is what we know to be real.

From a worldly perspective, the sun is the center of our universe. In this way, our ego and will is the center of our own personal universe, driven by our likes and dislikes. When we go through a solar eclipse, we lose sight of our common vantage point, the energy of the sun, which influences our personality, ego and individual will.
For this reason, it is not considered a favorable time for practical and business affairs. It is a dark time when our perception is obscured and things are more difficult to fully see, feel, understand and perceive. So it is not a good time to spontaneously buy what you think is your dream home. Somehow, something is eclipsed from view and will not come to light until after the sun has returned to illuminate areas that were in the dark.

Conversely, for a spiritual aspirant, an eclipse provides an optimal time for spiritual progress and work that is done in the light of selfless service. For precisely the reasons above, the darkening of the worldly tendencies dulls our attachment to our ego and will. In the dark of the eclipse we can access, with much greater ease, the light of pure consciousness that is animating the entire universe. Most of the time, the access point to that infinite light is overshadowed by our attachments to the temporal light of the sun, our physical universe, our limited perceptions and ego. In the darkness of the eclipse, we can see the spiritual light more clearly. The veil of illusion is thinner so that we may peer through it and gain insight into our true nature. In this way, an eclipse is a powerful time for profound and lasting release of our attachments to our ego and limited sense perceptions and open to that infinite light of pure consciousness.

If you have a guru, mantra or spiritual practice, it is an ideal time to dive much deeper. These are the days to "step it up", meditate longer, surrender more, open wider and then wider still. The progress made during the eclipsing of the ego drive, when one roots one's actions in selfless service, will then fuel the connection to that infinite source of light when the tempting attraction to the temporal light of the sun returns and that window into the mysteries of pure consciousness is harder to find.

If you don't have a mantra, guru or active meditation practice, how can you take advantage of this cosmic window into pure consciousness? Find a quiet time before the end of Wednesday. Allow yourself to sit quietly. Then consider the thought that you are in the dark. Consider that from the physical points of view. An eclipse is affecting the Earth. You are now in shadow more than ever. Your body casts a shadow. Your mind is full of shadows, shadows of dissatisfactions, unfulfilled desires, the nagging feeling of lack, and lingering, painful emotions. Consider that much of your life is driven by the desire to escape those feelings, a painful void within. Consider that much of what you think you want would not in fact bring you happiness, because there still would be shadow. There is shadow as long as life is driven by the ego and limited will. There will be suffering until we release our attachments to our perception that we are disconnected from Source.

Then consider the notion that you are part of a much greater picture. Consider this in relation to your place with those around you, then your place on the planet as a whole, then your place within the universe. See if you can open to the possibility that beyond the life you think you live, the likes and dislikes you believe you have, the things in your life that you feel define you, there is an infinite expanse of pure possibility. Allow yourself to expand and go beyond limiting self-perceptions. Surrender them to the light. Let them go into the darkness of the eclipse, like a cosmic recycling bin. Allow yourself to expand. Imagine, sense or feel that you are in fact an infinite ray of that infinite field of light. You always have been, but you have not seen it because of your attachments to your ego and limited perceptions. Allow yourself to expand more and then even more. If you are a visual person, sense yourself becoming that light. Stay in your body. Feel your body. This is not about leaving to find some other place. Allow this light of pure consciousness to fill you up. This is who you are. There is no need to try to go "out there" and find it. There is no "making" it happen. You are not the doer. The infinite field of light is. All you have to do is allow this expansion to unfold.

Whether or not you feel lighter, allow yourself to feel the possibly of something beyond, much bigger than your daily life, something so vast it is beyond reason, something so infinitely full of love and possibility, you are eternally loved and received. In this quiet place, allow your soul to flower and your mind to be. In beingness, there is expansion.

This is a time of possibility. We can allow pure consciousness to become the driver of our lives rather living in the shadow of a longer lasting eclipse than the one we are temporarily experiencing: the bondage to our attachments to that which obstructs our view of who we truly are. Let us awaken to the Reality that we are infinite beings of love and light.

May we all realize the infinite light of pure consciousness,

Jai Ma,
Parvati


Please free to visit me at www.parvatimusic.com or www.parvatihealth.com




































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5 comments:

  1. Thank you Parvati for this most insightful blog. So if I am a spiritual aspirant who is practicing business during the solar eclipse can I benefit from the eclipse if I treat my work as meditation and a means to I AM consciousness? I am also wondering how to practice business affairs while staying in service to the creative flow? Perhaps you would be blog your thoughts of practicing business and spiritual evolution.


    Much gratitude for this sunny and certainly not eclipsed insight.

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  2. Om Namah Shivaya,

    I love this, Parvati. Some most excellent insights to ponder and a way to apply them practically in my own life. I have stepped up my sadhana for the eclipse and feel very blessed for having done so. Jai Ma!

    I hope that you will remind us of this post when the next solar eclipse comes on January 4, 2011. :)

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  3. Om Namah Shivaya

    Hello Parvati

    Thank you for this interesting and eloquent explanation of the energy shifts and flows at this time.

    This was the first time I really paid attention during a solar eclipse to what is possible. I'm finding that when I concentrate during meditations, it is extremely potent. A connection to a positive flow or vibration comes instantly. This is a new experience for me, and I like it.

    Thank you for your guidance.

    Jai Ma!

    Rajeswari

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  4. I have to get to check eclipses more closely and see how it feels when I do not see them. However, one thing I am sure is that seeing a solar eclipse is an amazing experience, so much, that for me, it was either an expansion experience or something very close to it. Perhaps, this coud be because of the fact that an eclipse is something that challenges what we consider usual, and brings again the feeling of novelty that allows us to feel the moment, to be. Knowing that eclipses are both beautiful to see and opportunities for spiritual growth makes them even more AMAZING!!

    I just wonder, how do lunar eclipses affect us?

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  5. Dear Parvati,In the dictionary, the word "blog" is described as: "an online diary; a personal chronological log of thoughts published on a Web page". This blog is so much more than that. It is profound teaching. I look forward to your next blog and get a deeper understanding of life and who I really am.
    The eclipse is an opportunity of Grace in giving us, as you said, the possibility to peer through the veil of illusion and gain insight into our true nature. May we hold onto that insight and use it to remind us of what is possible. Actually, not what is possible, but what already IS.
    Sunanda

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