Sacred Sexuality: Beyond Wanting - Part 2: Body Language

(Continued from Sex and Spirituality)

 

Whether we are heterosexual, bisexual, homosexual, a polygamist, a monogamist, or celibate, our physical body is part of a vast, multidimensional whole. What we do, think, feel, taste, smell and touch is never limited in isolation to our immediate sense of self, but has ripple effects throughout the entire universe.

 

When we communicate, we take in and impart information. For most, this is thought of as a verbal exchange. But for those who are sensitive to otherness, we understand that there is no such thing as purely verbal information. In addition to what we speak, we are also sharing our emotional presence, all the contents of our body language, the subtle innuendos, and our vibrational intentions.

 

When we share with someone, we are in contact not just with the physical being that we see, but with all that person’s past thoughts, experiences and actions, as well as all energies with which they have been in contact. We are in touch with the totality of their soul's evolutionary journey. Even when we are physically alone, we are never truly alone. Whatever we think, feel or do, we are continually in communication with an immense universe that comes home to us through our physical body.

 

The body is literally a channel for unseen forces. We know we need to take care to communicate appropriately when we share our ideas and our heart, whether silently to ourselves, thoughtfully through prayer or orally to others. We know we must be attentive to our audience and communicate appropriately so that we may be understood and so we may fully feel connected.

 

The same is true with sex. It is a form of communication, communication with self, and/or with other(s). Sexuality in the positive possibilities is about receptivity and trust, because in order to fully meet the divine, that is, the pure consciousness that runs through our being, and share in its presence that runs through everything, we must lay down our ego, rest in humility and let go of wanting. This takes spiritual maturity.

 

If we were deeply honest with ourselves and looked courageously into the recesses of our psyche, we would find that for most, sex is an expression of seeking external fulfillment, getting or giving to get, which are forms of our ego attempting to gain approval, feel safe and find control. Sex for most is a form of trying to find connections while feeling disconnected. Even when we feel we love someone, we need to be careful we are not still seeking their approval, playing out childhood patterns and being inauthentic in the moment. In this way, the sober truth is that for most, sex is more of an expression of the impossibilities, because it often comes from a place of scarcity, wanting and lack, rather than genuine and pure love.

 

Just like anything in the universe, when we approach life from a perspective of lack, we will continue to feel unfulfilled no matter how many fast cars we buy, how many shiny shoes are in our closets, how big our house is, or how many multiple orgasms we have. Unless we embody the courage to face our inner emptiness and switch internal dials so that we may let go of our inner wounds that tell us we are unloved and unlovable, we will not find the fullness we ultimately seek. Similar to the rules of abundance that tells us that riches cannot be made from feeling not enough, we cannot meet the eternal and divine through sexuality if we are in a disconnected state of wanting. Love comes when we love ourselves.

 

Sex transmits information. It is a form of communication - communing with self, others and otherness. It brings us beyond our limited sense of self and opens us to something else, be it the divine, or more wanting. (As a transmitter, sex also gives us STDs, which sadly have affected many, many people all around the world.)

 

When we look at sex from a spiritual perspective, we also understand that sex transmits information from the unseen to the seen. When we are spiritually centered, we realize that sexuality opens a multidimensional portal and has the capacity to transmit beauty, peace, joy, as well as unseen STDs, that is, interference patterns that take root in our physical form.

 

When I was living in Montreal and ran a yoga studio there, I went away one weekend on a meditation retreat by myself for personal recharge. When I came back, I was greeted by my then boyfriend and a swirling array of women I could see in his energy field... three to be exact. As soon as I saw him, I exclaimed, "Who are these women?” I knew he had been unfaithful to our monogamous relationship while I was away. I could see their energy imprint in his energy field. I knew that if we were to be intimate again, I would be interacting with him, his unseen field, as well as all those with whom he had been in contact. For me, the spiritual path is complicated enough, full of promise and pitfalls. Engaging in such complicated and unclear energy systems was not for me, so we parted ways.

 

That partner and I practiced at that time what most people popularly understood to be Tantra. It is from experiences like that relationship and others that I came to develop a deeper understanding of Tantra and know intimately the power of sexuality to touch the divine or to add complication to our lives. Sex can support our evolution if the energy is handled with absolute awareness and true understanding of wanting and desire. For most, sex either keeps us in cycles of wanting providing temporary highs, like white sugar rushes that do not ultimately feed our soul and body/being, or (when sexual desire is misunderstood as love, rather than seen as tricky wanting) it adds layers of complications to our path, and brings into our body/being energies from which we will eventually, in this life or the next, need to release.

 

(Continues tomorrow with Wanting Fulfillment or Open to Divine Love)

Ask Parvati 31: Relationship Complications - Part 5, Moving Through Depression And Attracting The Love You Want

PART FIVE: MOVING THROUGH DEPRESSION AND ATTRACTING THE LOVE YOU WANT
(Continued from Letting Go of Wounds)

Question: It seems I have this pending topic 12 years ago and I fell on a depression state but in that moment I didn't follow a therapy or anything. How can I deal with that and start trusting myself and a possible future partner, from a difference perspective out of ego?
It hurts so bad and I feel blackened...

My answer: If you still struggle with depression, it is best to work with a trained therapist to help support your healing. I would also suggest taking a look at the blog entries I wrote in the past specifically on depression and despair. You may find them very useful.

We are only going to attract the partner that we wish to have in our life, once we have found a true loving connection with ourself. I leave that as a single paragraph to emphasize how important this is! We are only going to attract the partner that we wish to have in our life once we have found a true loving connection to ourself. So important!

We all have to face a deep wound: feeling lack of love. It seems to be part of the human condition. The problem is, most people think that another person is going to fill their need for love. But that will never work. We look for that perfect person, but remain unfulfilled. Even if we find the person we think we wanted, eventually, we find out that it too leaves us feeling empty. The emptiness inside can only be filled by ourselves and our relationship to the Divine. No one but ourselves can do that. We must cultivate self-love in order to love.

So my sense is you must work on developing your own sense of self-worth and self-love in order to be in a lasting relationship. Relationships are not two halves making a whole. That will not last. Relationships are two whole people coming together to celebrate the gift of life. The love and respect they feel for themselves is amplified in their connection. The other one does not fill the other up. Each one already is full, ready to share, learn and grow. It is a bit like how a fruit needs to ripen before it is savoured. We must each ripen in our own way to be ready to truly love. To have a solid, loving, lasting relationship, we must learn to love ourselves.

From my experience, in a committed relationship for the past seven years (my anniversary comes up this month), even when we meet our partner with fullness, there is lots of room for growth. A partnership is like two universes coming together. Jointly, we co-create possibility. If we are not ripe in ourselves, if we are wanting, we will co-create impossibilities and pull each other down. We must be rooted in the positive possibilities of being, in order to co-create with another person in the positive possibilities. Then, when the proverbial "shit hits the fan" and we encounter conflict, we can look at the conflict from a healthy, rooted and expansive point of view, not one that threatens our very existence. If our self esteem revolves around another person loving us, we have placed our relationship to ourselves in something that is non-permanent and bound to change and cause pain. If our self-love is founded on our relationship with the Divine, then we have a rooted sense of self that is fed by the infinite. We then begin to see relationship as a spacious process of shared witnessing. We each are called in a co-creative relationship, to witness each other's fullness of being with delight and joy, and to be compassionately present when there is suffering and the opportunity for growth. That process of witnessing is the foundation of eternal love.

I go over the issue of self love and relationships in depth in the blog entry "I Suck, Please Love Me".

Thank you for this week's questions. I hope you have found my answers useful in some way.

Don't forget that today is the last day to send in your questions to be drawn by lottery for next week's blog topic. Please send in your questions to ask@parvatidevi.com.

Have a wonderful weekend,
Parvati

Video: What Are The Positive Possibilities?

Dear friends,

Here is a video in which I explain Positive Possibilities and Impossibilities. I go more into depth on this subject in my article for this month's edition of Parvati Magazine and, of course, in previous entries for this blog. Let me know what you think!

Introducing Parvati Magazine

Hello Friends,
This week has been very busy for me. I have been preparing to perform as the headliner for the St Pete Yoga Festival in Florida this October, and getting ready to launch the first issue of Parvati Magazine.

Thanks to the popularity of this blog, I felt inspired to reach out to some friends and ask if they would be willing to gather as a strong, conscious community, offering you broad support to live in the Positive Possibilities. The response was excellent and hence, the birth of Parvati Magazine.

Interestingly, this week I did not receive a question for “Ask Parvati.” So I took it as a sign from the universe to invite you to dive into the magazine and enjoy.

Without further ado, I am very pleased to announce the launch of Parvati Magazine! Below is the flyer that heralds the launch. Please go to www.parvatimagazine.com and check it out for yourself!

 

In honour of the magazine launch, I will be posting entries this week introducing you to my friends who made the magazine possible. So please come back each day for more juicy bits.

In addition, please keep sending me your questions for “Ask Parvati”. I enjoy receiving them and the process of responding. In the meantime, enjoy Parvati Magazine!

Be well,

Parvati

Ask Parvati 26: Follow Your Bliss - Part 2, Name It To Claim It

PART 2: NAME IT TO CLAIM IT

(Continued from Whose Life Are You Living?)

“The future belongs to those who believe in the beauty of their dreams.”
 - Eleanor Roosevelt

I have shared in these blog entries the need for us to challenge our core beliefs, because there we find the voices of external authority that we have internalized, which are not the voice of our soul. We need to ask ourselves, who is really in the driver’s seat of our lives? Is it our soul joy? Or are we trying to please our mother, our father, our schoolteacher or our religious leader? We need to look at what is writing the story of our life and reclaim authorship over it. Our unconscious patterns are part of creating our reality until we have the courage to look within and find out what is really going on.

In my case, the depression and ill health I experienced when I was in architecture was a gift from my soul that helped me wake up to live the life that expresses my joy. Living the life of an artist is not an easy one. I understand why my parents, though they encouraged my artistic skills, discouraged it as a career path. There is tremendous financial uncertainty and stress and there is a transparency that happens when we put our expression out into the world. For me the uncertainty has provided the most powerful spiritual seedbed for the cultivation of faith. It has fueled my spiritual growth in ways I could not have imagined. Then need for transparency helps me every day to face my shadows and purify my ego so that my personality and consciousness may be rooted in service and humility.

When I am asked today for guidance on a career as an artist, I always say, you must really love it, because it is not easy. But because what I do feels connected to why I am here on the planet, I feel connected to my soul voice and so very alive when I engage in artistic work. It is not like I am doing a job when I work on music. I am engaged with life and evolving spiritually. My artistic career feels like my spiritual path. I feel aligned with my purpose.

Part of letting go of living for other people’s dreams is being able to articulate our own dreams. We may judge the idea of dreaming as a waste of time and not even allow ourselves to go there. Before we have begun to connect to our soul voice and our purpose, we have already sabotaged ourselves by judging it as useless.

Once we determine whose life we are living and what voices we are listening to that silence our own, we begin to find the space to express even to ourselves who we are. “I love painting! My dream is to be a full time artist!” Or perhaps “I love flying airplanes. My dream is to fly jumbo jets!” Once we are honest with ourselves, we can be honest with the world and begin to take the necessary steps to make our dreams a reality.

In this clear, inner honesty, we can hear the call of our soul adventure. We can hear our soul speak, because we are now open and listening. We may feel some fear, but we are starting to realize that to resist our soul voice is to live in unhappiness. Though the fear of newness is great, we open to possibility. We welcome the new. We know that if we don’t, our life will remain the same and we will be unhappy. When we say yes to ourselves, doors begin to open and we see things that before were blind to us.

Joseph John Campbell was an American mythologist, writer and lecturer. He had a lifelong passion for the study of the cohesive threads in mythology that seemed to run through disparate human cultures. He spoke actively about the Hero’s Journey, something that we all must face if we are to follow our bliss. It was he who coined the phrase, "follow your bliss". Campbell said: “If you follow your bliss, doors will open for you that wouldn't have opened for anyone else.” What inspiration!

Here is a quote Campbell interestingly said he derived from the Upanishads, inspired by the word Sat-chit-ananda (Truth-Consciousness-Bliss), the high yogic state of bliss. He said, “If you follow your bliss, you put yourself on a kind of track that has been there all the while, waiting for you, and the life that you ought to be living is the one you are living. Wherever you are—if you are following your bliss, you are enjoying that refreshment, that life within you, all the time.”

To me that is a perfect summation of what it means to live in the positive possibilities versus impossibilities. When we live in the positive possibilities, we embrace the notion of support and interconnection and doors do open that were closed to us before. If we remain in the impossibilities, we remain closed and disconnected from who we truly are.

When we name it to claim it, we align ourselves with our soul voice and our life begins to move in support of our highest purpose. Though we will be tested, though we still face fear and doubt, we have begun our own hero’s journey, our soul path. And so it begins…

(Continues tomorrow with Managing Fear And Doubt)

Ask Parvati 25: Depression And Despair - Part 5: The Power Of Perception And Core Beliefs

PART 5: THE POWER OF PERCEPTION AND CORE BELIEFS

(Continued from Depression And Anger)

We are what we think ourselves to be. We are what we perceive. We are what we believe. I am not suggesting that life can be summed up by “you think, therefore you become”. We are part of a vast whole within which we co-create. We are not a singular, linear system that has absolute control. We have the power of free will and the ability to choose how we think, act and react.

What we think, believe, perceive and feel deeply affects the quality of our life. In the cave of depression and when we witness despair, we can feel safe to look within and challenge our core beliefs. We may be holding on to outdated beliefs about ourselves, about others and about the world that keep us small and hidden. The cave of depression can become an incubator for newness, just as when we were in the womb. In the practice of witnessing, we become open to the field of possibility and learn to see things as they are, allowing ourselves to flourish in the fullness of the whole.

We live in a world that still does not quite value the feminine qualities of receptivity, introspection, emotional fluidity, and intuition as much as we value the masculine qualities of productivity, order, logical reasoning and taking charge. Depression, I believe, is prevalent today partly due to our inability socially to know how to feel comfortable with the notion of life unfolding organically.

We are organic beings. We do not have it all figured out. Most of us have little understanding of what is actually happening in the now, let alone what happened a few minutes ago or yesterday. We certainly don’t know what will happen tomorrow. We live in a natural world that is huge and mysterious. Imagine the incredible depth and perfect chaos that you see when you look at all the leaves of a tree! They are all different. They all have their unique place. They all flutter in the wind in their own way. Yet they are all connected to the same trunk.

We cannot expect ourselves to have things all figured out. Ultimately, we are not in control. We have free will, which is the power of choice. We learn to make wise, whole, full, well-rounded choices in the moment that are fed by the voice of our soul, which is connected to the magnificence of the universe. We learn to live in the fullness of not knowing. When we let go of trying to have it all figured out, we may just find we start enjoying the perfection of this moment as it is, rather than trying to make it into something it is not.

Imagine a world where you feel you can say how you are feeling without being judged. Imagine that it is ok to not know exactly when you are going to complete a task. Imagine that others trust that you are doing the best you can at any given moment. Imagine that you are fully supported exploring an intuitive relationship with yourself, with your unique personal healing.

What if I suggested that that world already exists? What if I suggested that it exists in the perfection of the now? As we let go of core beliefs that keep us small and as we challenge our perceptions, we see that ultimately, we are all just doing the best we can. There is a lot of suffering on the planet. We all have the capacity for growth and change. Some people embrace the positive possibilities. Some stay in the impossibilities. The choice is up to each one of us. If we could look at ourselves with the eyes of the angels and give ourselves the love they have for us! Perhaps, if we were open, we might just see that the angels are among us…

(Continues tomorrow with The Angels Are Among Us)

 

Ask Parvati 18: TO DO OR NOT TO DO, THAT IS THE QUESTION. PART 7: THE TORTOISE AND THE HARE

PART 7: The Tortoise and the Hare

(Continued from “To Be And Not To Do”)

The Ayurvedic doctor Robert Svoboda once encouraged me to “think turtle”. I was very ungrounded after a year living in India, where I had a near death experience and an entire unraveling of all I knew. With this simple slogan, Robby was kindly trying to help me ground and be more rooted in my body/being.

I have thought a lot about turtles over the years. The motto “think turtle” helped me grow calm when I would get wired up. It helped me feel more connected to the Mother Earth. Turtles in their slow moving bodies, seem powerfully connected, wise and humble.

The classic fable "The Tortoise and the Hare" became a personal favorite. The story is about a hare that mocks the slow moving tortoise and challenges him to a race. With cocky confidence, the hare quickly leaves the hare behind. With a strong lead in the race, the hare decides to take a nap. He awakens to find the tortoise crawling slowly and steadily across the finish line before him.

To me our minds are like the hare, jumping around, racing ahead in spurts and starts. The tortoise is like our deeper selves that we learn to trust, with which we must connect. We learn to see that the slow and steady ways of the tortoise are like a cool stream of consciousness that moves continually forward.

The tortoise is like the loving force of life in which we can rest. With the zippy vigor of the hare, we may find our tasks done, but with eventual exhaustion and not necessarily having enjoyed the journey. The tortoise flows with a quiet assurance along its path, without fight, without resistance, in humbled surrender to what is. He is more like the karma yogi that Krishna describes.

I know that the more I meditate, the more I go deeply within and find that place of immense perfection and expansion, the more I get done during the day. I have fooled myself at times and thought I had too much to do and could not possibly meditate that day, so I would cut my practice short. Sure enough, as the day progressed, my mind would become more scrambled, my thoughts less clear, my actions less direct. I know it to be true that when we take the time to slow down, we actually get more done. We also enjoy what we do far more than if we were in a stressed hurry.

Ask yourself what is your deepest joy and make sure you do that every day. Life is too short to be full of “shoulds”. I feel the best practice is to eliminate the word “should” from our vocabulary. Should comes from the outside, imposed upon us like Father Time. Joy arises from within, like a flower blooming to meet the sun. When we open to what is, we are happier. We relax. We enjoy. When we do not resist what is, we expand and so does our ability to think, to feel, to process and to act. We accomplish more in less time.

When we act by aligning to our deepest truth and to our highest potential, we experience the divine. Life flowers in joy, rather than in resistance and resentment. Time seems to expand to meet that which is essential. Small miracles seem to unfold, without effort. Slowing down, we meet the fullness of what is.

LIVING WITHIN THE SACRED WHOLE

Every action is part of a whole. There really is no starting and stopping or beginning and ending. We exist within one flowing continuum.  We see our actions as finite, but everything we do affects a greater whole, beyond what we could ever conceive. Our place in this universe is perfect, precise, and interwoven into a fabric of existence that extends beyond our perception of a finite self.

This world is a reflection of the Divine. What we perceive, we experience as solid. Yet all that exists is dancing light energy in constant motion unrestricted by form. We experience reality as a reflection of our perceptions, what we want to see, until we learn to see through the grip of our ego into what is. Beyond our ego lay the dance of pure consciousness arising, which manifests all that is as a cosmic dance of which we are a part. We see ourselves as finite, but really we have no beginning or end.

In the Old Testament, time was understood as a medium for the passage of predestined events. Ecclesiastes 3:1–8, everything has its perfect place:

“There is an appointed time for everything. And there is a time for every event under heaven.
A time to give birth, and a time to die; A time to plant, and a time to uproot what is planted.
A time to kill, and a time to heal; A time to tear down, and a time to build up.
A time to weep, and a time to laugh; A time to mourn, and a time to dance.
A time to throw stones, and a time to gather stones; A time to embrace, and a time to shun embracing.
A time to search, and a time to give up as lost; A time to keep, and a time to throw away.
A time to tear apart, and a time to sew together; A time to be silent, and a time to speak.
A time to love, and a time to hate; A time for war, and a time for peace.”

May we learn to free ourselves from the grip of fear of being not enough and awaken to trust the flow of the divine, of which we are an integral part.

May we enjoy all we have in gratitude.

May we meet each moment, as it is, with mindful presence and with a heart willing to humbly serve.

Parvati

Ask Parvati 18: TO DO OR NOT TO DO, THAT IS THE QUESTION. PART 6: TO BE AND NOT TO DO

PART 6: TO BE AND NOT TO DO

(Continued from “When Is Enough Enough?”)

The very energy of life is dynamic. We hold on tight to the notion of our selves “doing” to grab onto some sense of solidity, some sense of control, some sense that we, our perception of a divided self, matters. From that perspective, we fear that if we were to be, we would turn into a puddle and do nothing. We fear we would not know how to even get out of bed in the morning because we would melt into an amorphous oblivion.

But as we start to let go of the idea of i-dentity, the i-dea of being i-solated i-slands, separate, each fighting for our own sense of self-importance, we begin to touch a sacred dance that has been carrying us all along. We then see that the fear of doing nothing, if we were to let go of the idea that I am the doer, is in fact not at all possible because all that is, is dancing. When we are in non-resistance to what is, we are all like cosmic dancers, dancing within life’s sacred dance.

When we live on auto-pilot and do not question the nature of reality, we believe that we are the doers. We believe we are in control, in charge, creating our lives. But do we really have control? Perhaps it seems so, for limited times. We feel we made it this far and got the job we wanted or we succeeded at completing a daunting task. We feel puffed and proud until we find ourselves fired from our job and our sense of accomplishment from completing a task unravels as things start to go awry.

What is it that moves life forward? What force propels evolution? Mystics will say that this is the force of life and it is divine. We have no control over it. It is our folly, our misperception due to our limited senses, to think that we are doing, when in fact we do nothing at all.

The mystic Nisargadatta Maharaj says through his non-dual teachings in his classic book “I Am That” "Doership is a myth born from the illusion of 'me' and 'the mine'."

The Buddha is quoted as saying, "Events happen, deeds are done, but there is no individual doer thereof."

We think we are separate, so we need control to try to regain connection. But we cannot find a solution to a problem with the same thought patterns that created the problem. From a divided mind, we cannot find connection.

We must learn to see beyond our attachment to separation and see ourselves as part of a whole. We must not identify with our actions, but see ourselves as servants to the divine, vessels for the energy of the sacred to move through us.

It is when we get out of the way that our lives flow. The tighter we hold on, trying to get it all perfect and right, the further we move away from the reality that all that already is, is perfection. We squeeze the life right out of life.

When we pause, when we open, when we begin to truly see, we feel immense power in the reality that we have no control, not because we are not powerful, but because we are powerful beyond belief. We have no need for a finite sense of control. We see that the idea of “I” is finite, a limited lens though which we see life, but is not the whole picture. We begin to understand that “I am” is more than enough. It is all that is.

(Continues tomorrow with “The Tortoise And The Hare” and “Living Within The Sacred Whole”)

Ask Parvati 18: TO DO OR NOT TO DO, THAT IS THE QUESTION. PART 5: WHEN IS ENOUGH ENOUGH?

PART 5: WHEN IS ENOUGH ENOUGH?

(Continued from “Karma Yoga: Action As A Means To Self-Realization”)

Mildred Norman was an American pacifist, vegetarian and peace activist.  Born modestly on a farm in New Jersey, she felt an inner call in her mid life to simply walk for peace and listen to God. In 1953 she adopted the name "Peace Pilgrim" and walked across the United States for 28 years. Her only possessions were the clothes on her back and the few items she carried in the pockets of her blue tunic which read "Peace Pilgrim" on the front and "25,000 Miles on foot for peace" on the back. She was backed by no organization, carried no money, and never asked for food or shelter. She vowed to "remain a wanderer until mankind has learned the way of peace, walking until given shelter and fasting until given food."

I love her inspirational teachings. She offers much insight on how to live with complete integrity, true simplicity and utter faith. In one of her few printed texts, she says, “Anything you cannot relinquish when it has outlived its usefulness possesses you, and in this materialistic age a great many of us are possessed by our possessions.”

We all have stuff -- and a lot of it! Do we really need all we have? Similarly, do we really need to be doing all we do? Could we not do and find perhaps more joy with less?

Most of us are plagued with a deep, pesky thought of “not enough”. We want more to try to fill an inner void we cannot place and cannot satisfy. We try to do more to impress others, unconsciously still seeking approval from our parents, teachers, caregivers, fearing if we did not do to impress, we would not be loved.

Peace Pilgrim goes on to say, “The simplification of life is one of the steps to inner peace. A persistent simplification will create an inner and outer well-being that places harmony in one's life.”

If all is Divine Play, then why not slow down? Be and enjoy what is! Oh! The juiciness of it all! We rush to conquer tasks ahead, missing the sweetness of this moment. This moment comes only once in all of eternity and then it is gone, never again to be. In our attachment to the past and future, we miss the fullness of what is now. When we slow down, we see that we have been missing the divine in what is, and what is, is a reflection of our true nature.

We need to question if all that we have stacked on our to do list is really what we need to be doing. Often what we feel we need to do masks what we are truly called to do. We can hide in business and never slow down enough to find out what makes us tick, what brings us joy and who we truly are. Business helps us avoid our fear of not feeling like we are enough.

When is enough enough? Go through your to do list and make sure that what you have there you really need to do. 

Ask yourself, “If today were my last day, what do I feel I need to do?” Do you have a bucket list? If not, start one and begin integrating the tasks into your life.

Of course, we all have rent and bills to pay. We must care for our necessities. But if we get mired in these and mistake them for what is most important, we loose the fragrance of life. It is like if we were to see a flower only for it’s stem and petals, we would miss the best part, the sweetness of its perfume.

Make sure that what is on your list is truly essential. Choose actions that build a balanced life between necessary tasks like paying your taxes, and living, like smelling the flowers and your bucket list. Ideally, the necessary tasks can begin to feel as much of a joy as smelling the flowers.

If your life is all about the taxes, you will feel taxed. If you are all about fragrance, you will loose your ground. Find balanced wholeness and approach each task with equal importance, seeing it as a reflection of the divine.

(Continued tomorrow with “To Be And Not To Do”)

Ask Parvati 18: TO DO OR NOT TO DO, THAT IS THE QUESTION. PART 4: KARMA YOGA: ACTION AS A MEANS TO SELF-REALIZATION

PART 4: KARMA YOGA: ACTION AS A MEANS TO SELF-REALIZATION

(Continued from “In This Moment, We Have All We Need”)

We habitually think of tasks to be done like objects outside ourselves to be conquered and cleared. We see errands to be removed from our to do lists, so that we may eventually find freedom and ease. And yet all that is, is an expression of pure consciousness. And all that has form, all that is before us, around us, within us, is the result of an eternal love affair between matter and consciousness. The Hindus call this Lila, the Divine Play unfolding, of which we are a part.

There are many different kinds of yogas. The most commonly known physical practice of yoga, Hatha yoga, is only one aspect of a broad life science. In karma yoga, the aspiring yogi is asked to practice seeing action as a means to self-liberation. He learns to see the tasks that are before him as an opportunity to serve and realize God. In this practice, serving is not seen as something done to another, to one who is believed to be separate from oneself. All that is, is seen as a reflection of oneself and of the divine. To serve another is to serve God.

The revered humanitarian, spiritual master and modern saint known as Amma (Mother) or The Hugging Saint speaks of our inherent interconnection: “The sun shines down. Its image reflects in a thousand different pots filled with water. The reflections are many, but they are each reflecting the same sun. Similarly, when we come to know who we truly are, we will see ourselves in all people."

She teaches spiritual aspirants to “fill your hearts with love and express it in all you do”. She goes on to say, "Do your work and perform your duties with all your heart. Try to work selflessly with love. Pour yourself into whatever you do. Then you will feel and experience beauty and love in every field of work. Love and beauty are within you. Try to express them through your actions and you will definitely touch the very source of bliss."

The word karma is derived from the Sanskrit word “kri”, meaning “to do”. In its most basic sense, “karma” means action and “yoga” means union. Karma Yoga then is the path of union through action. Karma yoga is described as a way of acting and thinking without thought of personal gratification, or one’s desires, likes or dislikes. One acts without being attached to the fruits of one's actions.

In the sacred Hindu text The Bhagavad Gita, Krishna, the manifestation of God, teaches karma yoga. Krishna explains that by working without attachment one attains the Supreme. He teaches us to surrender all our works to Him, “without desires for profit, with no claims to proprietorship, and free from lethargy and fight.”

Krishna explains that work done without expectations, motives, or anticipation of its outcome purifies one's mind and gradually makes us fit to experience the divine in all things. He states that it is not necessary to become a hermit, or be without action, in order to practice a spiritual life. We don’t need to run off to an ashram, or lock ourselves away from our busy lives. We need to act with consciousness. It is precisely through action, through non-resisting what is, through meeting what is with openness, alertness and ease, that we meet the divine.

Take a moment and consider this: What if we shifted our perspective and saw all the tasks in our lives as an expression of pure consciousness arising, as an expression of divine play, a call from God bringing us back to God? What would life be like? What if we were not separate from all those tasks? What if that task that we resist is actually our teacher, guiding us to wholeness? What if by learning to act lovingly, with integrity and kindness, action is leading us to live each moment in the divine? 

Ask Parvati 18: TO DO OR NOT TO DO, THAT IS THE QUESTION. PART 3: IN THIS MOMENT, WE HAVE ALL WE NEED

PART 3: IN THIS MOMENT, WE HAVE ALL WE NEED

(Continued from “The Perfect Now”)

If we could step outside our fixed ideas of reality more often, if we could learn to pause the habit brain that tells us that we are unsafe and must fight; that we are not loved and must want. If we could let go of trying to conquer life, we may just find what we were seeking. We would touch an eternal moment, the eternal now.

Those who meditate may know of this place, the space between breaths, the momentary pause that exists between the inhale and exhale. It is the space between thoughts that opens the gateway to the underlying reality of pure consciousness beyond the grip of our thinking mind.

Lovers may know this place when life feels perfect, whole, like million watt bulbs were just turned on and all of life bloomed into technicolour. Artists and athletes know this when surrendered to their task, time dissolves, the sense of separate self is gone and all that exists is the perfection of what is. Heroes know this, when they throw all caution to the wind and dive into a seemingly impossible situation and experience the momentary death of their ego expanding into the realm of eternal possibility.

This moment, eclipsed a billion times each day, has within it all we need. Absent of the wanting that comes with thoughts of the past and projections into the future, this moment is complete into itself. The thing is, we eclipse it. It is not eclipsed for us. Due to our habits, our thinking, we cut ourselves off from the fullness of living. This is great news. If we cut ourselves off, we can reconnect.

The author Byron Katie does a wonderful job at helping people cut through their limiting beliefs, so that they may open to the perfection of this moment. Her method, simply called The Work, consists of four questions and a turnaround. When you notice a fixed thought you ask yourself, “Is it true? Can I absolutely know that it's true? How do I react, what happens, when I believe that thought? Who would I be without the thought? Then you turn it all around. Each turnaround is an opportunity to experience the opposite of what you originally believed and in so doing, help dissolve the feeling of life being fixed and bound.

Once we have unearthed ourselves from the burden of our limiting thoughts, we discover that in the perfect now, we have all we need. We begin to live in I am consciousness, that is, in the flow of pure consciousness arising. This is not dependent on thoughts like, “I am a doctor. I am a nurse. I am a lawyer. I am a mother …”. We are simply “I am.” When we add descriptions after that simple truth, we add an i-dentity, a label, a story over what is. We become identified with our actions, rather than rooted in surrendered being. We are human beings, not human doings. Our value is in our beingness. Though we may do beautiful or horrific things, our inherent goodness lies beyond that. We are born of the infinite. To the infinite we must return.

(Continued tomorrow with “Karma Yoga: Action As a Means To Self-Realization)

Ask Parvati 18: TO DO OR NOT TO DO, THAT IS THE QUESTION. PART 2: THE PERFECT NOW

PART 2: THE PERFECT NOW

(Continued from “What is time?”)

People today may think of the word “now” and immediately associate it with Eckhart Tolle’s incredibly popular book “The Power of Now: A Guide to Spiritual Enlightenment”. His book skillfully sums up much of Buddhist and Vedantic teachings in a way that most can digest. To me, it was Grace that this little man with a big message was guided to be on Oprah and eventually have his own television station. Yay for conscious expansion!

Eckhart Tolle, like many mystics that went before him, insists time is an illusion. He says, "There's nothing that exists that's not now”. In his book “The Power of Now”, the author shows how to connect to the indestructible essence of our Being, "the eternal, ever-present One Life beyond the myriad forms of life that are subject to birth and death."

Because of our profound attachment and identification with our ego, we see things as divided. Through that lens, we tend to see things around us as separate from us, which somehow seems hostile, painful, void of love. We then reactively feel we must dominate and control. Yet all of this is the construct of our ego, the part of our psyche that is deluded into a self-perpetuated state of fear and disconnect. It is part of our human condition to free ourselves from this self-perpetuated nightmare and realize that what we experience is in fact more like a dream than a nightmare made real.

The Hindu notion of Maya is a profound concept that explains this notion of illusion. In the words of the great saint Sri Ramana Maharshi:

"It is like a cinema-show. There is the light on the screen and the shadows flitting across it impress the audience as the enactment of some piece. If in the same play an audience also is shown on the screen as part of the performance, the seer and the seen will then both be on the screen. Apply it to yourself. You are the screen, the Self has created the ego, the ego has its accretions of thoughts which are displayed as the world, the trees and the plants. . . . In reality, all these are nothing but the Self. If you see the Self, the same will be found to be all, everywhere and always. Nothing but the Self exists."

We believe what we see, feel, taste, touch, smell and think is something solid and fixed. Time then becomes something externally imposed, to which we are confined, rather than a temporary structure that can serve, but is not absolute. Sri Ramana Maharshi goes on to say:

"The idea of time is only in your mind. It is not in the Self. There is no time for the Self. Time arises as an idea after the ego arises. But you are the Self beyond time and space; you exist even in the absence of time and space."

As we begin to let go of the need to be in control, of seeing things through the lens of our ego, we begin to touch the substratum of life, the field of pure consciousness, our true state. In this, life arises, flows, unfolds in ways that are perfect and balanced. We then see ourselves as part of a complete system within Nature, within the Cosmos, cradled, held, supported, loved, given exactly what we need. We learn to embrace and relax with what is, rather than want what is not and push. In the perfection of now, life is.

(Continued tomorrow with “In This Moment, We Have All We Need”)

Ask Parvati 4 - Spring Cleaning: Change Happens Where You Are

Spring Cleaning: Change Happens Where You Are

March 20, 2011

Happy Spring to everyone. Thank you for your comments on my last blog and your question submissions. May we all continue to pray for Japan and the health of our planet and all beings.

Dear Parvati,

There are things in my life I want to change but can’t seem to figure out how. For example, I love my partner who also has some bad habits I really want to change. I also have been trying for years to make more money, but continue to make the same income and not get ahead in debt payments. How do I change things I don’t like in my life?

Thank you for this question. I am sure many can relate. How does change happen? We often say we want change, when really we are afraid of change. Holding on for dear life to old patterns in our thoughts, in our cells, in our action, we find ourselves without the results we want and repeatedly back in similar situations. We blame circumstance, others, even God, for the events in our life and can easily get stuck in self-criticism. Try and try as we do, here we are again right back to where we don’t want to be! So what is going on?

Often our knee jerk reaction, when we want something to change, is to see the problem as ‘out there’ so we go out and try to fix the situation or person to our liking. But this leads to further unhappiness. The funny thing about change is that it does not happen ‘over there’, but exactly where we are. If we could stop the inner push/pull that goes on endlessly within for a moment, the ‘wanting’ for things to be different, we just might find that the steps we thought were an absent mystery beyond are in fact right under our feet.

I love the word “understanding”. To me it shows us that when we fully see what is happening in this moment, we become aware of how we are fully supported. We are standing under, rooted in reality. And there we find sincere inspiration, momentum and traction to meet the possibility of change.

Life is in constant change. What in nature stays exactly as it is? Change happens when we are willing to see things as they are, rather than how we want them to be. By accepting what is, we are not giving in, but tapping into the flow of Nature, which is ever changing. By not resisting, we are open to the flow of life that always moves in the direction of evolution, which is in our highest good and in the good of all beings.

By being unwilling to see what is in this moment, we perpetuate our feeling of dissatisfaction and as a consequence, pain grows. By resisting what is we create a push/pull dynamic in which we are identified with being the doer rather that a co-creative participant or an unattached witness. As such, we become frustrated, feel alone and experience a roller coaster of highs and lows from conquest to defeat. This cycle is draining and does not serve anyone.

So then what really is change? Change arises from a place of active beingness, when we are willing to live fully awake and surrendered to the moment. What is so great about the moment anyway, you ask? Life. In the moment, there is a spark that guides us to our next evolutionary step that is perfect and uniquely tailor-made just for us.

The next time you move to inwardly or outwardly criticize your partner’s behaviour, pause for a moment. Practice instead seeing that person exactly as they are.  You may not like what you see. That is ok. You may feel uncomfortable. That is ok. You may want to run and hide. That is ok. You may feel alone, angry, sad, etc. That is ok. Whatever is right there, be with it.

The same goes for your finances. The next time that bill comes in the mail, notice your feelings about it. Rather than making a joke of it to push away any feelings of discomfort, or rather than getting angry about it and feeling like a helpless victim, just see it, for what it is. Notice the situation with eyes awake. Only by being willing to truly see, can you truly see what is the expansive course of action. Knee-jerk reactions cause pain. Rooted, surrendered, expansive responses are a win-win for everyone, even if some people may not see it that way. It is a win-win because in that choice, you are in flow with the very force of life itself and in so doing, you are in support of the good of all beings everywhere.

EXERCISE IN CHANGE

1) Acceptance is not blind and resigned, but active and awake. Life is not happening to you; you are an active co-creator in actualizing what is. You are not an isolated island, but part of an intelligent whole. So try this exercise to help you feel more rooted, expansive and vital in your life and embrace the possibility of change:

2) Find a quiet place to lie on your back, so that you can relax without the risk of falling asleep. Bend your knees and place your feet flat on the floor about hip width apart so that your breathing is easy, deep and relaxed.

3) Breathe into your belly, allowing the rhythm of the breath to bring your mind deeper into this moment, into your body, into the feeling of the here and now. Go deeper into yourself and feel the connection your body has with the floor. Then feel the connection your breath has with the outside air and how it flows into your body. Know that the air you breathe that feeds your being is also connected to all of life, all animals, all humans, all things alive.

Take a moment to feel that interconnection between you, life and all things. Feel the immense possibility of life itself. Allow your being to expand, to open to this life force that is in you, around you, everywhere. Stay rooted in your body by still feeling the ground, your breath, and include the expansive awareness you also feel. Allow yourself to open to receive this possibility in this moment, feel it in your breath and in your cells. While maintaining that presence, say to yourself:

• I am supported. I am open, ready and willing to receive support. I am. I am. I am.

Feel that truth in your whole being. Repeat it like you were feeding your cells with this lush, rich, expansive place. Repeat it until you truly feel it. Then say:

• I am open to abundance. I am open, ready and willing to receive abundance. I am. I am. I am.

Feel that truth in your whole being. Repeat it like you were feeding your cells with this lush, rich, expansive place. Repeat it until you truly feel it.

Keep going, making statements that feel expansive and are about yourself. Keep the focus within and on yourself, not on another. Focus on the positive possibilities of being you, not on wanting to change either someone else’s or your own impossibilities. Be present with the possibilities of the now because change happens exactly where you are.

Healthy Planet, Healthy People

I am about to embark on a journey to the North Pole. For those of you who know me as a singer/producer, I will do a performance-art piece on the icy shores of the Arctic Ocean just 200km south of the 90 degrees North Pole, to help raise awareness of the melting polar ice caps and the global impact on our delicate ecosystem. For those of you who know me as a healer, I will also facilitate energy work directly on our Mother Earth, very much in stress at this time.

Through my blogs, we have been exploring the power of relationships as vehicles for spiritual evolution. We have touched upon the notion of how all we see is a reflection our own state of consciousness. There are no coincidences, but absolute perfection arising from one moment to the next. Our external world provides all we need to wake up, to love ourselves, to love others and to be fully receptive to this moment and the richness is has to offer, in whatever form it comes. Right here, right now, we have all we need to drop the sorry story and awaken I AM.

The relationships we have explored have been with ourselves and with people. All the same principles apply to the relationship we have with the Earth, our mother, our physical home and sustainer while we are in human form. The bodies we temporarily borrow and the material land, air, water, fire and ether we need to live are all part of Her. She is all matter, our mother. We are connected to her in a very practical, life-sustaining way and in a deeply mystical, spiritual way.

LIFE FORCE ENERGY

I feel the global ecological crisis is a wake up call for us all, a call to awaken I AM, the magnificence of who we are. The planet reflects how we collectively treat ourselves, each other and our environment. A collective is only as strong as its individuals. If we want to change our environment, we need to transform ourselves.

What happens most of the time when you yell at someone? If you could see it in slow motion, you would see that person shrivel and close. If you could see energy, you would see that person’s energy shrink and their light fade.

What would happen if we were to yell at a flower? Would it too not shrink, shrivel and fade? Scientific studies have shown that plants respond to sound, much the way humans do. Play repeated, loud, harmful sounds with harsh vibrations to a plant and it literally dies. Play it pleasant, soothing, inspiring sounds and it thrives.

Thoughts are also vibrations. When we think angry thoughts, we emit that vibration. We all know the expression “my ears are burning”: the implied consequences of gossip and the heat of ego being expressed about another.

To me, metaphorically, the planet is like a huge, expanding and evolving flower. It is a complex living organism with intelligence, sense and wisdom beyond what we can truly know and understand. It continually responds to the energy we put out and we respond to it. As such our environment is a huge mirror to our collective state of global consciousness.

Throughout the world at this time, many people are consciously or unconsciously driven by fear and greed, living with short-term desires to get rather than give and serve. Most of us are taught to look out for “me”, rather than think about and care for “we”. In my song 911-1-L-O-V-E, which I hope to perform at the North Pole, the character I play called Natamba, a first timer to the Earth, picks up the phone and calls God to share what she sees on the planet: “A lot of people seem to be suffering. The air is more polluted than ever. Clean drinking water is scarce. People are hungry, hungry for food, but also very much hungry for love. So hungry in fact that there seems to be an epidemic, a disease called greed eating people’s souls. It is like people have forgotten who they are and why they are here on the planet, driven by an energy of wanting, wanting, wanting, living with short-term vision, looking out only for number one. People’s inner world seems polluted so our outer world is polluted.”

Most of us do not know or care how our food gets to our table or how it was grown. Most of us don’t know the tailor or cobblers that made our clothes and shoes. We can buy mangos in January in Canada that have traveled thousands of miles at the cost of gallons of fossil fuels and emitting pounds of greenhouse gases. We in the West have the privilege of clean drinking water, shelter and food. We are so very, very blessed. Yet we have lost touch with the impact of our actions on our environment, how what we think, feel and do affects all beings, everywhere, including the planet herself. We have lost touch with the cycles of Nature. We feel we can control, outsmart, out-do Nature. And Nature cries louder than ever to be heard: I am here.

What about the current natural disasters? What about global food and shortages? What about the floods, droughts, hurricanes? Like a person fighting a raging fever, building internal heat to shake off an invasive bug, so too, to me, the planet is feverish, trying to shake off the weight we put on her: the physical toxins we emit in the air, water and food, and the etheric toxins we emit in selfish actions and distorted thoughts. We live disconnected, thinking somehow we will find the love we seek by wanting more. Yet we are already love. We are already loved. I hear our mother calling us to stop. Make amends. Practice humility. Listen to one another. Listen to the still, small voice within. Reconnect with the beauty we already are, but have forgotten. We are all her children. We come from her. We sustain her as she sustains us. We go back to her. She is the mother we all share.

We need Nature as much as Nature needs us. For me, this is a call to conscious action. The pain I see in Nature is not something I can passively watch, just like I would not walk away from a person in distress. Like a hit and run, we outpour toxins onto our mother, and keep on going, expecting no consequence for our actions.

The pain I see is a call to action. Our wealth is global health. The vitality in nature gives me the energy to help create a world where all people can experience immersion in that beauty, in that health - everywhere. That is why I created Yoga In the Nightclub – to touch, inspire, expand and evolve; to align myself with Nature. That is why I felt moved to start the Earth Team, a group of volunteers that meet weekly to support evolutionary work. That is what my Positive Possibilities projects are about. That which I see in trees and flowers is that which I tap into in my daily meditation practice. Nature embodies the love we seek. Being connected to such is that which fuels all my actions to support all beings being liberated. How could I turn away from others who are in pain, suffering? I am not free until all beings are free. That is what Nature reminds me. For this, I feel so blessed.

CONNECT TO SERVE

Within each breath is perfection, infinite, still space and pure action. Inhale, allowing the notion of beingness to settle into each cell. Breathing out, allow yourself to be, absence of wanting, in a state of receptivity to this moment and the immensity of it.

As we go deeper, touch the way you are connected to Nature and interconnected to all. In that stillness, what do you find? Do you feel deeper expansion, a settling in, a receptivity to going deeper still? Be with such. Expand. If you feel resistance, allow yourself to settle more and be present with what is. Understand the unwillingness as a habit of deep tension, the mind being like a fist caught in muscular grip. This will settle. Keep breathing and allow things to be.

Go deeper. Imagine how every cell of your body is born on the Earth. There is no separation. By finding the connection to Nature itself, how she not only runs through your veins, but is the very stuff of which our veins are made, do you feel a love, a connection and a call to action? As a child of the Earth, as a steward of the land, do you feel the call to give voice in communion with Nature to help protect the life that sustains all?

Maybe you feel you have gone deep enough. You feel the impulse to get up from your meditation cushion and walk out your door to open an organic cafe or turn your company policies to 100% green. Or maybe you decide to start tithing a portion of all you make to helping Nature, protect wildlife, plant trees, save our water systems. Whatever it is, it is there, a voice that is waiting to be heard by each one of us, and belonging to us all. That voice is Her call, reminding us all that we are not alone.

As I travel to the North Pole in the coming days, I will be updating this blog more regularly with thoughts, reflections and feelings. What an immense journey to the crown of our mother’s body! We are all journeying together.

May all be well. May all be happy. May all be at peace.

In service,

Parvati

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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