Sacred Sexuality: Beyond Wanting - Part 4: The Body Channel - The Art of Love

(Continued from Wanting Fulfillment or Open to Divine Love)

What channel are we choosing to tune into and amplify when we mate? Whatever our state of consciousness at the time of sexual interaction, that consciousness is amplified by the act of sex. If we are wanting, seeking fulfillment and brimming with desire, we will feel satisfied temporarily from our climax, then ultimately feel empty once again and want more. The cycle of wanting then continues.

 

But if we approach sex from the point of view of the sacred, from a place of mindfulness and a practice of the release of wanting, most guys will say at first that they can’t get it up, and women will not know how to be sexy because they are so used to seducing or playing hard to get. Once the cat and mouse games or prey/predator games fall away, we are left with our naked self, our inner being, raw, vulnerable and real. Ok, you may ask, so what is so sexy about that!? That is when real lovemaking begins.

 

When we allow ourselves to let go of wanting the other to fill us up, when we let ourselves be real, as we are, another energy comes through our body and being. It will charge our entire being with a presence, a force that is absolutely free of wanting. We feel open, grounded, free, humble and powerful – zero and everything. It is as through our body, heart and soul simultaneously flower in reverential awe of the moment. This force is an exquisite expression of the flower of life itself.

 

Sacred sexuality is not about “me” wanting “you”, or “you” wanting “me”, or two people pleasuring themselves and each other. These temporary wants will come and go and will leave each person with the same sense of emptiness they were consciously or unconsciously trying to fill up through the other. Sacred sexuality is about the body being a vehicle for the divine. Beyond the grip of personality, the partners are open, present, and willing portals of the divine in human form. In this state, there is no desire to climax, in fact, perhaps a moving away from such. Should this force begin to arise, those who are keen practitioners of sacred sexuality will know that this is a sign that wanting is also rising, and interference has come. Practitioners must wait for that wanting to pass in order to proceed.

 

In sacred sexuality, there is the absence of desire, and the fullness of life itself. The whole body-being begins to feel like a sex organ, alive and pulsing with life. Spiritual bliss replaces orgasm and it is not limited to physical contact or genital stimulation. It is a spiritual lasting state that is not conditional upon action. The spine is a conduit for life force energy that pulses energy through every cell. There are no wild multiple orgasms that make you fabulously funky, and proud of your spiritual prowess. In sacred sexuality there is a genuine merging with the One. The mind is calm, clear and fully alert, yet relaxed. The body is present, open, gentle and very strong. This is a yogic state. This is a path to the divine.

 

Sacred sexuality is the expression of sexual energy without wanting. This is the embodiment of life force. It is a co-creation with the Cosmic Intelligence and Nature. It can be expressed with the self through the fulfillment of one’s destiny. It is when the Divine is incarnate. It can also be expressed through self with self-sex. But this may lead to trickiness because the physical body, being the heaviest vibration of our entire being, also houses and triggers our deepest attachments and our most profound wants.

The same is true with sex with others, be it same sex or heterosexual. Sex is to be free of wanting if we are to touch the divine. When wanting is absent, one has the experience of true presence, and this alone, with or without touch, can be soulfully orgasmic. It is a question of openness, readiness and willingness to be seen wholly, as we are without façade, fears and ego. A simple, connected gaze can lead our entire being into a different, expanded realm, one more real than what our limited perceptions and habitual personality would want us to see and believe. Sacred sexuality is not about or limited to genitalia. Sacred sex is about the force of life that flowers through the soul, meeting spirit through the body. It electrifies this moment into the fullness of being. It is living our fullest potential, realizing our magnificence and being divine incarnate. Sacred sexuality is not about the act of sex, but about reverential acknowledgement and humble awe at the spiritual force that flows through life, that we only know when we are willing to become quietly, lovingly spacious, unbound and free of all sense of disconnection.

 

Sacred Sexuality: Beyond Wanting - Part 3: Wanting Fulfillment or Open to Divine Love

(Continued from Body Language)

 

Sex is part of the cycle of life. It is a sacred thing. When the sacred is confused for the fulfillment of desires, confusion begins. The sacred does not fulfill our desires. It does not give us all we want but gives us what we need. The divine shows us the ways in which we identify with feeling disconnected and shows us a way to return to our more authentic state of wholeness.

 

It is not up to our lovers, husbands, wives and partners to make us whole. It is up to us to turn our attention to the divine and tap into that eternal light. It is our job to focus on and celebrate the divine within our partners, and forgive their shadow, as we too have shadows.

 

When we engage in sexuality, it is a time for heightened consciousness, not the release of such. When we let go of our spiritual attention and engage in sexuality, we amplify our already present tendency to want. Whenever there is wanting, there is interference. When we want through sex, we become downloading stations for interference and amplify our own state of disconnection. Though a momentary feeling of bliss through orgasm feels great, most of us have no idea what really went on in the unseen while we temporarily reached such heights.

 

When we feel whole, relaxed and are willing to be free of wanting while we engage sexually, sex becomes an opportunity to release wanting at its root so that we may feel closer to the divine. Sex then is not about peaks, highs and lows, but about a rooted, vital and expansive exploration of life force, while letting go of our ego so that we may return to the One state of pure consciousness.

 

Understanding the force that runs through sexuality helps us eventually learn to touch the sacred everywhere. Historically, the enlightened ones do not engage sexually to meet the divine, but seem to go into bliss just at the sight of a flower, or from the simple touch of Kleenex. The divine is everywhere and the opportunity to find lasting, expansive bliss is also everywhere.

 

Through our human form, we have been given a gift that sacred texts tell us is universally unmatched. Since the body has the capacity to be a conduit for the divine, channeling the pure consciousness of the Cosmic Intelligence into Nature and form, we are charged with the ability to tap into power that is so much greater than our limited sense perceptions and tricks of our ego. We can tap into the power of the infinite through sexuality and embody our true nature, only as long as we are willing to let go of wanting. Wanting is our human super-power kryptonite. Watch for it. Whatever we channel through our sexual act takes shape on our planet.

 

(Continues with The Body Channel: The Art of Love)

Ask Parvati Finale: The Miracle of Nature's Healing - Part 6: Nature's Perfect Love

(Continued from “Everything Must Die to Be Reborn”)

 

We are the planet. When the Earth cries, so do we. When she moves, so do we. We are carried by an inexplicable force that moves through our cells, that animates our souls, that literally keeps us alive.

 

Nature loves us in a way we cannot comprehend. We cannot comprehend it because it is not of our ego-mind, which knows only to divide and separate. By surrendering to Nature’s intelligence, I was called on the North Pole journey. By surrendering to Nature, I was also healed and experienced what doctors call “a miracle”.

 

To walk: we take it for granted. But it is a miracle. Through the injury, I saw how even the impulse to move is grace, a force beyond our ego. We think we are the doers, but the “me” does nothing. Grace always is, moving through us, even when we don’t see it. We think ourselves as divided, but we are literally one.

 

Healing only happens in the state of absolute surrender. When we think “we” are healing, we interfere. There is no doing. Because of the grace of free will, we can be amplifiers or sludge in Nature’s communication pathways. Nature will keep on singing, creating and evolving with or without us. It does not need our “help”. It needs our respect and service. We must reverentially get out of Nature’s way in order to fully thrive as a spiritual being in this material world.

 

There is no doubt in my mind that the body is a miracle. Life is a miracle. The very fact that we breathe – really think about it! It is miraculous.

 

I completely agree with the question sent this week that the body is designed to be healthy. But we must remember that it is not up to us to “make it” that way. We do our best. We show up and tend to its needs then get out of the way. The showing up is like going the gym and eating healthy. The getting out of the way is remaining in balance at the gym and not overdoing it, and not being attached to looking a certain way, but trusting that feeling of wholeness that is unique to each one of us.

 

What I have understood through my studies in sound healing is that the universe is fundamentally resonant and moves towards harmony. It does not move towards dissonance. (Refer to The World is Sound: Nada Brahma: Music and the Landscape of Consciousness, by Joachim Ernst Berendt). Just as the universe seeks harmony, so does the micro-universe of the body. The body is in a perpetual state of seeking homeostasis, a form of balance in this moment, as it is. Balance may not be to us what it is to Nature. Nature holds the bigger picture. We think healing may look one way, when Nature has another plan. We do not know Nature’s plan. Perhaps what we perceive as illness is a gift. We are subject to force so much greater than our will. We cannot see the whole picture, which is why the best attitude is surrender and reverence.

 

People get sick, but it is not necessarily a “bad” thing. In a product-driven society, sickness is seen as a weakness. But I was technically sick through most of last year, yet was contributing socially and went through profound growth at all levels. I was not really “unwell”. In some ways, I was never better. Yes, I experienced immense pain and was not mobile. But my body/spirit alignment needed to be re-patterned into a new relationship. Something had to change in order for that to happen.

 

We must let go of the old to make way for the new. Death is the beginning of life, just as life ends with death. My injury was the breaking point of one way of being and the birth of a new way. At a micro level, that happens all the time in our body, cells dying, new ones being born. We are constantly shifting and evolving.

 

In a healing state, there is no judgment about what is good or bad or right or wrong. It all just is. As the bio-dynamic osteopath would say, we are being held perfectly within the whole. The illness is being held within the whole. Remain there. If we get into thinking this illness is good or bad, a punishment, a burden that we must move, change, shift… then we are playing God, thinking we can see the whole picture and becoming divided once again. We see so little. We know so little. It is not up to us to know these things. We show up and get out of the way.

 

Through my recovery, I continually returned to a knowing that to heal, “I” don't do the healing. Nor do others do the healing. Healing happens through grace and grace alone. I, or a healer I am working with, may be a vehicle for grace, but healing does not come from “me” or any person.

I also knew through my entire recovery, with absolute certainty, that reality is plastic and therefore malleable. Physical form would change if it was divine will for that to happen and if I were to get out of the way. The universe moves towards harmony and wholeness, and so does the very force of life, so why not now and in this body?

I stayed with that image of plasticity constantly. I did several focused meditations and visualizations daily, knowing that physical form is just a conglomerate of dancing molecules, held together by specific thought forms, “my” thought forms, attachments that “I” have that make up “my” karma. So physical form is not solid or fixed. If I could rest in that field of possibility, then matter could change shape and flow into fuller wholeness – however that would look.

Though the process of healing is about me being present for it, to witness its grace, it is simultaneously about getting out of the way. And beyond whatever ability “I” may have to show up or get out of the way, ultimately the Divine holds the trump card. It was all about Divine Will, what grace had in store for me.

I had to find a place in my heart and soul that knew that whatever would happen would be in my highest good - whatever. If I were meant to be the performer in a wheelchair (I told the universe that there was no way I would give up singing and performing) then so it would be. I had to be equally ok with it all, while holding the possibility, without attachment, that I would walk again.

 

(Continued tomorrow with “Nature’s Masterful Healing”)

Innocence, Humility and Purity: The Birth of the Divine

Merry Christmas, Happy Hanukkah, happy solstice and happy Sunday! May this day be full of beautiful things for you.

 

Though I was raised in a Christian home and go to church from time to time and on most high holidays, what I love about this time of year is the rich imagery about light that we can see when we are open to various spiritual traditions.

 

The winter solstice has just passed. We are now moving into longer days, which to me is a welcome relief. As one who loves to jump around on stage singing "I am a flower", I have an affinity with warmer weather and lots of sunlight! The solstice marks the longest night and shortest day of year, when the sun's greatest height in the sky is at an all time low, a phenomenon most affecting northern countries. The turn towards longer days was celebrated by our ancestors as it meant that the challenges of winter, that often brought death and starvation, were soon to be lessened.

 

At this time of year, Jewish people celebrate the miracle of light through the eight days of Hanukkah, a festival also known as The Festival of Lights. Hanukkah commemorates the Maccabean Revolt and reclaiming of the Holy Temple in Jerusalem, which under the rule of Roman Emperor Antiochus IV (2nd century BCE), Jews were forbidden to attend. When the victorious Maccabees found a small jug of uncontaminated oil in the temple, only enough to light the Menorah for one day, the oil miraculously lasted for eight days, by which time more oil could be made. This holiday reminds us that light comes when we turn our hearts towards the Divine and enter the world of the sacred, the temple of worship. I enjoyed listening to the song "Miracle" performed by the Maccabeats (originally by Matisyahu), for those of you who are into pop versions of spiritual wisdom, which does it for me. The song is featured on the group's home page: http://www.maccabeats.com/

 

In the present day, Santa Claus, aka Saint Nicholas, a gift-giving character originating in Greek and Byzantine folklore, by far takes the stage for this day in North America. It is interesting to know that December 25th was historically marked by Julius Caesar (around 50BCE) as the date for the annual winter solstice celebrations in Rome. Early Christians (around 350AD) later appropriated the pagan solstice festival as the date to celebrate newfound light their way, this time as embodied by the birth of the Christ child.

 

When we move beyond Christmas folklore and settle into the spiritual meanings it brings, we notice that the light of the Divine, as symbolized in the birth Jesus, was born in a manger in and among shepherds and animals. This reminds us that the Divine is born through the innocence of a child, in purity and humility as one among us. Over the course of my blog entries, I have shared how I feel that the foundation for spiritual practice is humility, the simple, grounded, non-resistant acknowledgement that what is, is. No fancy excuses. No big stories. Just what is. The Christmas story reminds me of this simple and profound wisdom.

 

We are here, on this planet, amidst the beauty and imperfections of it all. We each carry inner light that can shine and cast shadows on the ground. As the little child who was born in a manger shows us, when we humbly surrender to the immensity of this human experience, we see that we are one with it all: the animals, the shepherds, the wise, the angels, the earth, and the stars. When we are willing to live with the innocence of a child and open to our purity with sincerity in our being, we enter the realm of the Divine. The Christmas story tells us that through the gateway of innocence, purity and humility we find the Divine.

 

Today, on this Christmas day, no matter what tradition you do or do not celebrate, consider the birth of light in your life. Consider cultivating innocence, experiencing things with openness and freshness rather than with anticipation, expectation and pre-judged ideas. Consider softening to life, rather than hardening to it. Consider being receptive, as a child is receptive to the newness and wonder of life. Consider the interconnections between yourself and all things, the way we are all in the mess of it all and guided by the shining light in the heavens, a light that reflects our inner light. Today, this Christmas, consider finding the light within yourself and through all things. I offer a guided meditation in Parvati Magazine on how to do just that.

 

When we are willing to open to this moment with innocence, purity and humility, we find the Divine Light of pure consciousness. There we meet the child of God that we all are. We enter into our temple of prayer and reclaim the miracle of lasting light, our birthright. Then we experience the fullness of light in every moment, and everyday, through all things.

 

May you enjoy this day and every day. Happy illuminating!

 

Parvati

 

PS: Please go to Parvati Magazine for more juicy articles by people who live, love and serve in their various fields to help you live a life in the positive possibilities. Lots of jewels there! My next post will be next Sunday. Have a wonderful week.

 

 

 

 

 

Ask Parvati 34: The Journey to YEM - Part 1: Early Beginnings

Ask Parvati 34: The Journey to YEM - Part 1: Early Beginnings

 

Thank you for sending in questions while I was away performing in Florida. This week, I answer a more personal question about how I came to develop my yoga practice. Please keep sending your questions. I enjoy both receiving and answering them. Send yours by Thursday to ask@parvatidevi.com to be answered by lottery beginning next Sunday.

 

Enjoy the entries this week!

Parvati

Dear Parvati,
I have recently bought your YEM DVD. I really enjoy your teachings and all the amazing information that the DVD offers. I have found the exercises are really starting to sink into my daily life. Thank you! I would be interested to find out a bit more about you. Would you be wiling to share a bit more about how you came to YEM and what Yoga means to you?

EARLY BEGINNINGS

 

When I was a child, as early as I can remember, I was aware of “otherness”. The unseen world, a place that children know and adults forget, was a place where I felt safe and comfortable. I saw spirits in our house, beings without form. I saw shapeless presences of immense light I called angels and spoke with them. I played in my room with my tape recorder creating songs to communicate with them. I composed musical scores, played my wooden soprano recorder and sang. Though I sang as part of various choirs from a very young age, I felt I sang for the angels. Sound was a way of prayer, a way to communicate with God. It was how I felt connected and alive.

 

I would lie awake for hours and hear the nighthawk sing in the summer sky. I saw nature as alive. I remember lying underneath the massive maple tree in our front yard in Montreal and feeling my body dissolve into the grass and my spirit commune with the life force of that tree. It was my guardian and my friend. In nature, I found a purity of expression that grounded me and supported me to feel safe and fluid as I communicated with a world without form.

 

I grew up in a spiritually aware household. My parents were both Christians. Unlike many people who follow organized religion, my parents encouraged me to connect to spirit in whatever manner I felt comfortable. They just wanted me to connect. They wanted me to know that life extended far beyond the tangible. Family dinner conversations revolved around spirituality, art and culture. I was exposed at a young age to Church and went weekly, but also I was brought to Synagogues and other places of worship, as well as places of need, such as long term care facilities and food banks. Despite my parent's open-mindedness, it was challenging for them to comprehend my comfort with the unseen world.

 

As with most children, I found out that it was not “cool” to be spiritually connected and see things that “were not there”. With the desire to fit in at school, I began to suppress my joy and natural connectedness. I did not speak about what I saw. I suppressed what I felt. Yet as spiritual things are undefinable, so are they unstoppable. Spiritual guidance still crept in.

 

I became aware of Yogic arts when I was about 10 years old. When I was over to play at my school friend’s house, I saw her mother, a tall, beautiful German woman (who I remember as having perfect skin and deep turquoise eyes) quietly excuse herself to go into a room in the house for some time. I was never invited into that mysterious room. When the room door would open, it seemed that it pulsated with something I only now understand as the spiritual energy I have seen in a yoga studios and meditation halls. After what felt like an expansive, infinite amount of time, my friend's mom would come out of the strange room and somehow, she seemed magically transformed, radiating, brighter, glowing. I wondered what went on in there. It seemed somehow the fairies were in there helping her with something. All I knew is that I liked it, and wanted to be part of it.

 

Later I found out it was not magic or mystery that made that room seem so special, but a systematic, disciplined practice and life science called Yoga. She knew that if she did certain breathing exercises, calmed and focused her mind, allowed her body to move into certain positions, she was boosting her life force energy, vitality and sense of inner peace. I later found out she was a long time practitioner of Iyengar Yoga, which I later ended up practicing quite extensively.

 

Around that same time in my life, each year at Christmas, my grandmother from Edmonton would come stay in our Montreal home for a month or so. She was my first spiritual teacher, more consciously so in my mid-teens. My grandmother had a special light. She spoke about her choice to cultivate “quiet assurance” through sitting each day in meditation to "connect with her Maker".

 

Though she had a Christian background, she had long since found the politics in churches dissonant with her joy for mysticism. She had lived through hell and back when she lost her husband around World War Two, and faced a debilitating disease herself that confined her to bed for a full year, without money, no husband and three young children. But she had a deep faith in a God that provides. Faced with what seemed like an incurable illness, she said she just knew that she had to give her whole life over to God, and go to bed and pray for a cure from the disease. At that time, there was a knock at the door. A woman who had also lost her husband in the war was without a place to live. She became the guardian for my grandmother’s children, my mom and her older brother and sister. A year or so later, my grandmother was “miraculously” cured.

 

Through adversity, a deep faith in God, a daily practice of what I now know to be meditation, my grandmother had found and exuded a spiritual fluidity and grace. I wanted to know how I too could find that. Each year she came, we had longer discussions about yoga, prayer, spirituality and meditation.

 

Upon this intimate foundation, inspired by "otherness", meditation and nature, my life flowered in reverence to the mystical. I learned to see that whatever happened, we were part of a much greater whole. I was taught from a young age that we were close to the Divine, something we could embody when we open in humility. Spirit and matter were not two but one along a continuum. From these teachings, YEM would eventually emerge. These early years were just the beginning.

 

(Continued tomorrow with Steps Towards Yoga)

Ask Parvati 22: It's A Spiritual Life - Part 4, Commitment and Courage

COMMITMENT AND COURAGE

(Continued from “Living A Spiritual Life”)

To live a spiritual life, we must make that the goal of our life and commit to it. If we seek enlightenment, we must make our goal God-realization, so that we may experience the divine in everything.

God-realization ultimately only happens through grace. Yet commitment and courage are essential in helping us continue along the path, especially when the going gets tough.

Some people think that a spiritual life is supposed to feel like having rose petals showered under our feet. At times, it may be so. Perhaps when we become enlightened, we will be in a permanent state of bliss where everything feels like that. That I cannot yet say. But I do know that on the road to such freedom, we can feel supported by a force as sweet as a billion roses and yet often step on thorns that painfully hurt.

Especially when the going gets tough, we must remain even more focused on our goal and commitment to realize God. Tough times along the spiritual path are like rock tumblers that help to erode our rough edges. They help us break through the resistance we have to this moment and loosen our attachments to our ego. This is why is it essential that we see all that is as grace, even the stuff we don’t like. This open, non-judgmental attitude helps us remain receptive to the teachings each moment brings, whether the teaching may feel pleasant or not.

Spirituality is a medicine to cure the disease of ignorance. Sometimes medicine is sweet and sugary. Sometimes, it is bitter and makes you want to throw it away. On the spiritual path, we learn dispassion so that we may be non-reactive and keep focused on a bigger, divine picture, maintaining evenness of mind no matter what life brings. With such an attitude, the divine is always near.

(Continues tomorrow with “Spiritual Guidelines”)

Ask Parvati 22: It's A Spiritual Life - Part 2, We Are Divine

WE ARE DIVINE

(Continued from “It’s a Spiritual Life”)

We each may have a spiritual tradition through which we can realize the divine. For some, the divine is formless, expansive light. For some, it has form as seen in nature, like a tree, a mountain or a river. For some, it is a male godhead. For some, it is the divine mother.

I believe there is no right or wrong in this. We are varied people with varied needs. The divine comes to us in a form we can understand and process. The divine is ultimately pure unconditional love, and as such, it will express itself to us in the best way for us to evolve. However we see the divine, what is essential is that we touch the reality of unity behind the appearance of diversity.

It is as though the light of the divine is a light we see through a window. The window frame may be Buddhist, Hindu, Christian, Jewish, Muslim, or any other tradition. What is essential is what is seen through the window, the light of the divine common to all.

Let us not get stuck on the window dressing. Let us look through the window and welcome the light that we all are. When we focus on the unity that joins us all, we create a beautiful human rainbow of light, varied colours, all part of the one substratum of pure white light.

As we grow spiritually, we begin to see that we are all expressions of the divine. Our body, our mind, every breath – everything – happens and is because of Grace. The idea that we are separate from the divine is an illusion that our spiritual practice remedies.

We are reflections of the supreme, primordial power of creation. Each one of us is aware of this spiritual truth to a greater or a lesser degree. Our precious and unique life is about becoming more aware of this underlying unity, temporarily masked by our limited vision and ego.

We can practice seeing the divine in all things. The very force of life that sustains us is divine. It is divine grace that we can walk, that we can breathe, and that we exist - at all! By remembering these miracles that we habitually take for granted, we begin to loosen our attachment that we are the doer. When we let go of the illusion that our ego is in control, we see that we are all a part of an exquisite divine play. We see the divine everywhere, always.

AN EXERCISE TO SEE THE DIVINE EVERYWHERE

With an open mind, and a bit of time, walk over to a private mirror. Look into it and see yourself reflected back to you. Rather than seeing all the things that you find wrong with yourself, look at the light behind your skin, no matter what colour it may be. Look at the light. Look at it well. Open to it. Receive it. Allow it to come forward. Allow your body/being to expand and express that light. It is the divine, your true nature, shining back at you! Hello!

Now walk out into the street. Be open to that same light coming through all things. The tree is not just bark and branches and leaves, but part of the body of the divine. See the light within the tree. The same light exists within all things, even cars and buildings.

Look at the people on the street. Even those who are closed, in pain, and look like they are having a bad day, there is light there, behind the story. That light is carrying them in every moment. That light is love. That light is the divine. That light is their true nature, your true nature, our true nature that sustains and shines through matter. The more you focus on that eternal light, the more healing and love you bring to yourself and to all beings.

We are one with the divine. Our true nature is the infinite, timeless reality of pure consciousness. Spiritual practice and discipline helps us see that reality in all of life. This takes practice. This takes a firm commitment to live a spiritually aware life.

(Continues tomorrow with “Living a Spiritual Life”)

Ask Parvati 20 - Tantra: Yoga Is Everywhere - Part 4, Yoga Is Everywhere

YOGA IS EVERYWHERE

(Continued from Yoga In the Nightclub)

 

My song Yoga In the Nightclub is a spiritually artistic expression that celebrates the notion that God-realization, yoga, the divine can be found, practiced, lived, celebrated and embodied everywhere. Perhaps even in today’s day, when we are called as spiritual aspirants to engage the world and be lights in the dark, we must find yoga everywhere, even in the nightclub.

 

We like to think one thing is spiritual and another is not. Our minds tend to judge, categorize and divide. In so doing, we may miss seeing the fullness and the beauty of life. When we walk into a yoga studio, we hope to find peacefulness and spirituality. We may find that. We may also find lots of egos stuck to their mats. When we do our own practice, we hope to let go of our ego, but we may end up having a tête-à-tête with our shadow self.

 

When we walk out onto a noisy street, we may only see speeding cars and hear loud noises. But what about the small voice within? What about the stillness we found in our meditation practice? Where have these gone? Are we still anchored, even in stormy seas? Have we have lost the eternal quiet that exists perennially beneath the noise?

 

We may go to a spiritual center or ashram and indeed, feel blessed by the spiritual energy there. But if all we see as holy is the ashram and then the world as mundane, we miss an opportunity to find the divine everywhere, in everything, even in things we find harder to like. Perhaps the world is our ashram and our body is our temple. That way, our yoga practice is everywhere.

 

When I first started to work with my music manager, he had spent his career navigating the murkiness of the music industry. The consciousness found in my music and my dedication to my yoga practice was for him a breath of fresh air. As we walked the yoga tradeshow floor together, he felt he was in bliss-land. But soon, behind the shiny, clean surface, he started to see similar patterns in people as those he had experienced in the music industry.

 

People are people and our tendencies are with us wherever we may be. Sometimes the darkest energies hide closest to the light. Ego and greed are everywhere. Though it is essential while on the spiritual path to take refuge, as the Buddhists say, in the three jewels: the Buddha (the guru or the awakened one), the Dharma (the enlightened teachings), and the Sangha (the community that has attained enlightenment), we must also engage the world. Wherever we are, whatever we may be doing, we learn, as true yogis, to be Yoga.

 

Practice seeing yoga everywhere and the whole world becomes your yoga mat. Practice seeing yoga even in the nightclub and that which you may once thought to be dark, becomes a creative seedbed for the birth of new light. Out of the darkness of the womb, new life is born.

 

(Continues tomorrow with Nada Yoga: The Yoga of Sound)

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