Let me tell a story. This is going to be free format, open flow writing from me to you. I don't know what is going to come out here and I will not edit it nor will I attempt to slow the roll. So here it goes.
I remember when I first started practicing yoga, I began to have experiences where I was just feeling really connected to my body. I was constantly walking out of the studio with new openings, new revelations, and just generally feeling like I was making progress towards.... something. I couldn't put my finger on what that 'thing' was, or is - for that matter - , but I certainly knew and felt in my being that I was progressing in some meaningful way.
Over the first year or so of my practices, my reasons changed. I remember being very, very - what some may call - "dense". I was quite muscular, and in hindsight I can recall my pursuits to develop muscle and physical strength were my original attempts to connect with a bigger 'thing'. I was most definitely a 'Spiritual Meathead'. I can specifically remember being so dang motivated about my weightlifting lifestyle, it fed into all the other areas of my life. I began eating better, taking better consideration towards various lifestyle factors like sleep, and just generally wanting to improve as a human being. This was a far cry away from my previous lifeline here, as from the ages of 11 until about 16 I did virtually nothing but smoke pot and play video games.
I mean, yeah, I was also developing as a human during that stage of my life, and I won't discredit this specific stage of my evolution, so I will attempt to briefly explain what was happening during those years before we continue on this story of the Sun.
I'll spare the details, but in my early teenage years I was an experimenter. I got high, a lot. What I find most interesting was that I valued getting high by myself. Which was odd, considering my age and that these early periods of life tend to be characterized by the adolescent's desire to be around friends. What was different for me was that I loved to smoke marijuana, and enjoy the high whilst alone. I was incredibly introspective, looking back now, and I feel that these early years were key in my spiritual development as it unfolded. Of course, they ARE all connected, as it is ONE life we are living, but it is fun to reflect and point out the details.
Between the ages of about 13 and 16, I would get high and effectively meditate pretty much every night, by myself. I was also reading a lot, mostly fiction, and starting to play the electric guitar and write music, mostly metal. I had always read a lot since early childhood - thank you Mom and Dad - and music had been encouraged but never forced. This was a very interesting period for me as I was incredibly self-sufficient and cannot identify any specific guide, teacher, author or mentor that I feel was necessary for my growth during this stage in life.
This self-sufficiency carried with me when I began to weight lift, which was the 180 degree turn my life took my junior year of high school. At that point in my life, I had not voluntarily removed pot from my daily rituals, yet here I suddenly felt called to be "sober". I now became enamored by the physical awakening my body was having after years of sedentary activity. I was experiencing sensations of power like I could not imagine - the feeling of developing strength was an intoxicant. I didn't know it at the time, but really I was tapping into tasting the Infinite.
What I am referring to here specifically is the Source that animates any inspired activity. When we move in the direction of something that we inherently know is progression in our life, when we voluntarily overcome the sloth of inertia that has kept us living a life of same-sameness, there is an incredible flood of life force. This energy is the intoxicant I am referring to, and I believe that paradoxically it is the only 'intoxicant' that is truly not an intoxicant.
What I mean is that when we tap into the source that animates us towards inspiring activity, when we really feel connected to this, it seems intoxicating at first - because we are encountering our connection to real, lasting power. Any beneficial thing ever accomplished in life required at least a trickle of this juice, otherwise we would never had made that courageous step towards the thing we are after.
As I began to weight lift I had my first memorable encounters with this energy and the transformative potential behind it. I suddenly became much more aware of how my mind was influencing my physical reality, such as the immediacy of my body, and I began to honor this connection. The mind-body thing was happening. It felt great.
From 16 years of age until 24 I was incredibly devoted to this pursuit of weight lifting. And not in just an exclusive framework of getting stronger, but all the encompassing details that were required to improve my life from an objective standpoint. Could I maintain a physically healthy body so I could perform in the world in ways that were beneficial to society? Could I work to improve the relationships inside of myself so that the relationships outside of me were complementary and fun to be involved in? I started to see how it really was all connected, yet I far, far too involved in my egoic pursuits at this point in my life to make meaningful progress in the direction of what I consider God.
Let me clarify to say that God was not present in my childhood growing up, but not in a way that made it impossible to reach God. I was raised in a household that emphasized the embodiment of characteristics such as truth, integrity, honesty, "doing the right thing", and other universal qualities. Which led me to establish my own relationship what I call 'God', and as simple as I can define what God means to me it is this: the sum total of all processes that lead life towards a more universally beneficial state of existence.
Until the age of 24 I was stuck in a very fragmented and personalized version of God. It was very necessary that I go through this and I am deeply grateful for the experiences during these years. I developed a solid ego identity, one that was stable and grounded in practicality and, quite literally, a dense encasement around a very fragile and precious soul within. I was deeply rational, had my own agenda in life, and incredibly driven and motivated to achieve great things in life. The discipline that came as a result of this mindset was and is fascinating to reflect on. I am reminded that all great things in life as just behind processes, commitments and consistency. Again, I'll spare most details here, but to just for clarity's sake I was devoted with a single mission in mind - to be the best self I could be. What that looked like, was seen in many different things that I did and how I lived my life. All I know now is that this was a requirement for the highly developed ego self that I needed to reach a state of completion, before I could move onto higher service.
The irony is that by age 24, I had achieved so much in such a short amount of time, yet felt deeply unfulfilled. What I see now was that my spiritual component was largely lacking as a foundation to my worldly pursuits. So without the fundamental bedrock necessary for the world to grow on top, my teetering stack of illusory ego identities was constantly threatening collapse. I had to find out the hard way what this meant, and it manifested itself as several severe health related issues before I started to take a deeper look.
I do believe that one of the greatest gifts life presents us is the irony of incredible hardship and pain. These are often our greatest teachers, because we (or our ego identity) has to learn the hard way. This shouldn't always be the case, but it often is.
With my health on the verge of collapse, my internal hormones is such a state of disarray that I felt my life force had abandoned me, I stumbled into a yoga studio.
My reasons for beginning this practice were egoic in nature - I think all of our initial reasons often are - but over time, I started to zoom out a bit of my tightly gripped stories. Stories about who I was, what I wanted to do, how I wanted to live.
I couldn't believe the changes that happened at first and after months of daily practice, not only had my physical body completely transformed, but my mind was starting to release its hold on certain ways of viewing the world. This was where the questioning that I had as a child returned.
I remember being very young and always, always asking - "why?" I wanted to know the mysteries of the Universe. Those questions were somewhat pacified during my experimental phase with marijuana and my early meditations of riding an inner roller coaster in my mind whilst listening to music, but I had not had real encounters with a reality that was bigger than my own other than a few off-shoots here and there.
As my yoga path unfolded, it seemed my reality, and what I thought about it, was started to get smaller and smaller. And the interesting thing was that I was comforted by the experiential knowing of this. Before, as a physical powerful weight lifter and a successful corporate suit-and-tie-r, my reality was THE reality. As far as I was concerned, I wanted to control all of the things that would give me better leverage in the world.
With yoga, it taught me to let go of this need to control everything. It showed me that there certainly is something that IS in control, and it most definitely is not 'me'. Not in the egoic sense of the word 'me'.
This was when my relationship to God really deepened. As I've said God represents the total amount of things leading us towards a greater reality. In a way, God is simply the ideal. I try to be as inclusive as possible about this - and in having faith towards God it should allow me to access more objectivity about life itself. IF there is an ideal, which I believe there most definitely has to be, then why would we not aspire towards it? Is it true that all human beings admit that there is a potential which exists embedded in all of us, propelling us forward in life towards something meaningful and worthwhile? It is this ideal that I am after; cue my relationship to God. Had I not zoomed out from my own narrow view of reality, I would never have seen how my own actions (and in-actions) were substracting from that beautiful ideal. It would have been far more difficult for me to see how my life was or wasn't in alignment with God, and this is (at least partially) my reason for writing.
Over time, with a dedicated yoga practice, but more specifically an opening of my heart and mind, I began to allow more things to take root in my personality. I watered the seeds carefully that I felt would help me serve the world, and I plucked the weeds that seemed to be embedded from years of my own selfish pursuits. And for the past four years, since beginning my yogic path, I've devoted myself to understanding my role and my place in the cosmos. Even though I am just one of the inhabitants on Earth, I do understand the importance of my own individual identity. I do understand the uniqueness that I bring. And also, I do accept the responsibility that I've been blessed with (that we all have been blessed with!) to be a caretaker of Earth and a servant of God.
EDIT: After completing this journal entry, I am reflecting on the idea of Love. I think I can fit this in here. To me - Love just represents the actions that stem from my Heart which guide me towards the ideal, that we discussed above. If I fail to love, then I fail to move towards that heavenly realm. That is all.
I think I am finally coming to understand this beautiful paradox, and the irony of it all. I am not afraid to admit when I am wrong and I am certain at this point that I value the Truth above all things. For these reasons, I can confidently say what I say and be who I am. Forever and ever, I will surrender 'my' knowledge in deference to the Truth, and while I take 100% responsibility for my actions and embodiments in this form as a human being, I give all credit to God. For it is He (or It) who guides me, eternally, bringing me closer and closer to a place of pure appreciation towards the wonder of life.
My parting words in this story are this. I can confidently conclude that there is no greater mission in my life than to Love, and at this point I am solely interested in removing whatever blockages are preventing me from realizing this Love. In all the ways that love can manifest itself, which in reality, is infinite. Our scientists say that the Universe is expanding which, to me, just means there is ever more Love to experience. Don't worry - I'm on it. If you feel like joining me, you know where to find me.