The following is the account of my day and the accompanying thoughts for April 17 - I finished prayer at 7:30 am. I think I was sitting longer than usual, about a half hour, after having completed my asana and pranayama portion of practice. Sometimes I am invited to sit for longer, and I just go with it. It’s difficult to escape the natural pull that comes with being so comfortable you don’t want to move. On the flip side, it is incredibly difficult and even frustrating to ‘try’ to meditate, because we feel that we are doing it wrong. And we are - to an extent. True meditation, the peak state of our cumulative yoga practices, is a state that arises when the conditions are right. Much like sleep - and we all know we cannot force ourselves to fall asleep. It just happens. If there is a lot going on in our lives, falling asleep can take some time as we unwind from our day. If we feel totally complete and whole and that there is nothing else to be done, sleep happens to us and we fall into a deep, restful slumber. This is a perfect analogy to meditation and we should consider it anytime we are involving ourselves in any meditative practice.
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Thankfully, I’ve had some great experiences since implementing a daily meditation practice but I’ll be honest. Initially, and for a long while, I resisted sitting silently even for just five minutes at the end of my ‘yoga’. I would basically zoom out of Savasana and take all that stirred up energy with me into my day. I wouldn’t say that it was disastrous, but I can definitely confirm that once I started taking the silent sitting portion of my practice more seriously, I began to shift in profound ways that I couldn’t have foreseen. It took quite awhile for the energy to actually settle enough so that sitting was even remotely comfortable, but eventually and with persistence, it became more important to my daily life than anything else. It was the bridge between all the other practices (asana, pranayama, even diet and other positive habits) I was doing and life itself. It integrated the benefits I was receiving from this sort of work so that I can actually apply it usefully and skillfully. - As meditation became more and more integral, the necessity for many other things in my life lessened. It heightened my sensitivity towards the abundant joys that are around me in all moments, and it increased my sensitivity towards the things that were destructive to my path. It clarified the purposes for existence that seemed to have escaped me from time to time, and still do, but it provided meaning and context to the unknowable. The interesting thing is that would be lying if I said it provided anything to me, because in reality it took away everything that was not in alignment with God. When I refer to God here I am talking about whatever extends beyond the highest vision that I can imagine for myself and the world I live in. Because to me, God represents the best possible scenario for all beings everywhere. And this is something that I will never be able to fully conceive with my limited mind, so I simply turn my attention inward towards the source of my very being, and whenever my focus wavers I actively appreciate that same source for its constant guidance. In this way, my prayers are both individual and universal, because it is nothing that divides or separates me from you, although it is distinctly an individual effort on my part. Yet it provides the juiciest juice to the longing thirst of my Soul for a love that extends beyond the seen reality that I seem to exist in. It offers me solace in the face of obstacles, both seen and unseen, for it reveals to me that there is no one else responsible for the issues that I see in the world except for myself. Which is at once both immensely terrifying and wholly empowering. And it is exactly why I cannot help but get up each morning and go about my practices so that I can sit comfortably and take refuge at the feet of this God and offer myself in service to it. -
- As the invitation to sit in meditation gradually revoked itself and I was essentially propelled into ‘doing’ from ‘being’, I stirred to close my practice with more active prayer. Thanking the practice. The teachings. The teachers. The students. The people whom I know and love, and those whom I do not. I thanked the Sun for creating light in the day and as I was wrapping up with an incredibly satisfying OM, the sun peered in the window of the studio and began to warm my face. I smiled - a smile that arose from my heart and crept into my face - and I beamed back. I love how the Universe arranges itself so magically sometimes. If I was sitting a foot in any other direction or had started/finished practice at a different time, the sun wouldn’t have come in the window at that exact moment to affirm me. ❤️☀️ - With that, I packed a day bag and set off on my rental bicycle for the local coffee shop to do my daily journaling/reading/writing. Dana was working - sweet girl with glasses. She gave me samples of the two roasts on tap, a house blend and a longer-roasted Ethiopian, as I waited for my small hot latte, extra foam. - Sometime before noon I took the thirty minute ride into central Berkeley to get to Dr Scott Blossom’s natural medicine clinic. He is a Chinese Medical doctor by trade, which as he mentioned is a great umbrella under which he has the shade to teach the non-mainstream practices known as Shadow Yoga. We had a private appointment scheduled at 12 pm. I’m sure you know how excited I was at this prospect. As I’ve mentioned , Scott has been studying with Shadow Yoga’s found Shandor Remete for 17? years. Basically, a long time. Training under any discipline with any one teacher for that long would require said teacher to have tremendous juice and experiences/ valuable wisdom worth sharing and learning from. Do any amount of that work on your own and you quickly see who is the real deal and who is essentially faking it. Nothing against anyone - it just shows us who is worth spending time with, simply because they have been to places that we have not. A teacher telescopes time for us. - Scott and I met at noon in his clinic. We had a great conversation, catching up as human beings. He performed some primal diagnostics in me, pulse checking and tongue examination, asked some fundamental questions: how do I sleep? Bowel movements? Dietary rules? Energy levels through the day? The basics. Thank God no issues there for me, although this wasn’t always the case. I certainly went through a very rough patch in my life of repairing an essentially destroyed adrenal system and the co-related nervous, gut and digestive systems. We discussed that and laughed about it. In reflection I’m really glad to have experienced these sorts of health issues early. It provides me context when conversing with others dealing with similar or related issues, offers me a great deal of compassion, and shows me what to look out for.
- After this, we talked about the issues of the modern day yoga industry. To sum of this conversation, it was both inspiring and reaffirming. What are the issues? I’ll let you make your own observations about this, but it is basically the same across all industries. This is largely unimportant, and as long as we know our role is to provide a true and authentic expression of who we are in any given moment according to the highest truth as we see it, I don’t think we can go wrong. We go wrong by continuing to express ourselves in the ways that are easy and comfortable for ourselves and the people around us without questioning whether or not something remains truly aligned with the deepest reaches of our faith. It is vastly critical to keep our lives open to new possibilities and to invite new understanding and new potentialities to not only co-exist but maybe even re-write entire scripts of belief systems that we hold dear. This is a painful process and never really gets any less painful, but it is perhaps the only one that provides any lasting fulfillment. The opposite of this empties the universal stream into a stagnant pond for the Soul to sink into and thus decay at the silty bottom amongst countless others who’ve ‘given up’. Keep seeking! It is the mystery that propels us forward with any meaning. -
Yet as the mystery is propelling, so is the joy that comes when it feels like we’ve found something worth sharing. Then share it!! Share it with the truth of your being, but don’t hold onto it forever. Always be open to something new, for something greater to take its place. And when that something comes along, be not afraid of what once was the end-all, be-all. We are evolving rapidly, and the only thing that halts this evolution is the fear of what could happen if we let go of our favorite toys. This means our favorite relationships, and not just with people, but to all things. Food. Habits - both good and bad. Practices that have worked immensely for us for long periods of time. Even teachers we adore. Eventually everything most go - we are all guaranteed death - so the more effectively and quickly we can squeeze all the juice out of the orange then let go of the rind, the quicker we can fill our cup. I guess the take home message is this: Don’t be attached, and be willing to admit “I don’t know”, continually searching for what is better whilst always practicing and applying what we know to be currently the best thing. Just like in the 70s when the low-fat diet fad struck. I bet there were a very large amount of people who found reducing their fat intake to be wildly beneficial to their health, but over time it may have caused issues. Those who were attached to this ‘way’ likely went on to suffer consequences in some way, i am sure. Those who were flexible and adopted a new approach grew into the next thing. “Let go of the old, make room for the new.” As my friend Chris Tai Melodista would say! - How might these things apply to you? Can you think of areas in your life where it is time to consider a new option? On the flip side, have you TRULY extracted all the juice out of an experience you’re having, or are you constantly jumping from thing to thing , never having approached any true depth in a subject before turning your attention elsewhere? Both of these things are extremely common and a primary reason for the largely collective dissatisfaction our society and culture is experiencing.
Consider this previous message carefully. It is important to re-emphasize the fact that we are largely dealing with a scattered and dispersed consciousness. To find lasting fulfillment, we are called to make the neurophysiological changes that accompany a focused attention on any one thing for a long enough time that true mastery sets in. It is on the road towards mastery that the growth and satisfaction our soul longs for is uncovered. It’s not hidden in any quick fixes, and deep down we all know this to be true. Much to our chagrin. It is funny to think that we all avoid the obvious truth of this simple fact, but that doesn’t make it any less true or obvious. So what do we do? We pick something and stick with it. Eventually we are directly, divinely ordained, really, towards the next soul-fulfilling objective. If we fail to do this with any sort of consistency, life appears empty and meaningless, because it is through dedication towards one thing that we learn that we are the CREATOR of meaning. That in order to walk in any direction with any respect, we’ve got to crawl first. As we learn to crawl, a step up from helplessly scrambling on our belly, we can start to lift our head a little higher and see a little further. Eventually we can walk and see even farther. Maybe we are destined for flight one day - I do not know. Take this metaphor for its symbolic implications, as it bares significance in all the other areas of our lives. Don’t be afraid to be humble and return to the belly down position, asking for help. Perhaps you are indeed destined for flight, but we’ve all got to start somewhere and work up. And with that, I’ll finish this lengthy journal entry. Thank you for reading and bless you on your journey.