you are the wind

you are the sea

you are the boat

you are the howling against the wet wood

flapping with nature

you are the crashing of white water

slapping shiny rocks

you are the smallest florescent fish

losing its way down a deep dropoff

you are the oldest turtle swimming

silently guiding the smallest fish home

you are the light shining

through the surface

you are the glistening ray

reflecting all past and future

you are the oars on every weathered boat

the strongest men have felt weak rowing you

you are the tears every brother and sister have cried

you are the giggle and smile of every angel

you are the wind

making no excuses for your fearlessness

you are the sea

you represent endless resource in motion

you are the boat

steer dear, steer.

I am meditating on the thought that I can not experience deeper levels of gratitude and essence until I move through some old barriers.  The reason I am thinking about “barriers” is based on what is coming up for me now in my life.  In my current relationships with family and friends I am graced with some insights about myself and my ego and my attachments.  I don’t blame (well maybe initially) anyone for the challenges and lessons they bring me.  I am sure they are unaware of all the edges and buttons they are pushing me.  This makes it very interesting on my part…to know that I am feeling anxiety or anger with a conversation and letting the conversation go on with a certain flow and calmness on the surface…watching my heat on the inside build and fester.  When I walk away from a meeting like this I need time to process all the emotions I was having.  I look at my anger (or jealousy or fear) from a few different realities.  First, I look at the other people involved and put myself in their reality.  This could be enough information to let go of my false fear.  If I need more information I will look at my past and when I repeat this anger behavior it will show up in similar ways.  I go back as far as possible.  Usually there is a pattern.  I try and read the pattern like a scientist rather then an emotional lunatic.  Lastly, I go to my spirituality.  I practice what I preach.  I practice what I read.  I practice what I have tried to learn.  I practice compassion.

Everyone is my equal.  This is the practice of compassion.  Compassion is the ability to feel empathy for people you feel equal to.  Compassion is not feeling sorry for the underprivileged or ignorant or arrogant.  We are all privileged and underprivileged due to the blueprint; the map that is set out for us in order to reach our full potential here on earth, and our spiritual potential beyond earth.  I would say that anytime I am feeling anger or jealousy or fear it is due to my inability to feel equal to others – those close to my heart and those I consider distant both pose a threat.  At first it feels like a threat.  When another person is heating me up, getting a rise out of me, or creating worry I feel threatened.  Just as an animal is threatened, I puff up and defend.  Sometimes this encounter is graceful and my words come out sounding friendly to my perceived enemy, and other times I am down right aggressive and cruel. 

I have read and heard all sorts of information on compassion and looking for my “teacher” where  I least expect him or her.  Nobody I know wants to admit that their ex-boyfriend or ex-girlfriend was a gift and a teacher for our enlightenment.  That sounds ridiculous given all that they did to us.  But I am starting to see that it is true.  Yes, it is probably true that these horrible people did nothing to me.  Of course I am kidding about them being horrible, it just needs some humor to get through this level.  This is the level I am stuck at but seem to be squirming through.  I could have never realized this during my grieving times at break-ups or arguments.  This understanding is coming from a place within healing that is necessary to go through.  What I have found is that you can not speed up healing by reading or hearing the right information, it only happens when it happens…but reading and listening are the ways that directed me here to this point of understanding.

I have chosen the people in my life based on my level of compassion and intuition and my need for spiritual awakening.  I see the greatness in everyone and sometimes this makes me blind.  I think I know everything and this gives me poor perception and poorer decision making.  But in the process of letting go of my ego (my believe that I know best) I practice with those who are closest to my heart, and those who seemingly can take away my outer false image that my ego has created.  Those who threaten me are only threatening my ego or my false image that I am trying to protect.  When I see this I can only see the gross amount of falsehood I have created and the fear it causes me.  I should (on a good day) only thank those who have chiseled at this fear.  The heat I am feeling is not anger really, but purification.

I titled this post “Intentions and Vehicles for Awakening” to look at the difference of surface intentions and emotions and the process that is taking place underneath our still budding minds.  There is a force beyond our recognition that is setting intentions for us in our daily lives.  Thomas Moore writes about this in his book, “Care of the Soul.” Basically, on a soul level, we are living both a mystery and a mystical experience which is beyond our understanding.  We do not need to understand everything.  This is arrogance.  This need I have - to know best -  is ignorance.  Prana and life force energy is running through my blood and cells and your blood and cells and the cosmos blood and cells.  Our intentions can be to surrender to the greater force that brings vehicles for awakening into our lives.  I am asking for the practices of yoga to come forward in my life, and the way that happens is through feeling anger, fear, jealousy and regret.  These emotions are codes to breaking down barriers to compassion.  Used wisely, these emotions are the healers.

After battling and then giving in to these voices, I get up, grab my journal and go into the living room.  It is sometime between 1 and 2 AM.  As of 5 months ago I started writing a journal to my unborn child.  I title each entry “Dear  ___” I put the size of my little one down as it changes every week, from a fig to a bell pepper.  So on this particular night or morning I write “Dear Turnip,”

                        The Goddess is here.  With us.  She will not let us down, she will not leave us.  She will let us go down to the darkness of our soul to find out truths, to eventually free us.  She will give us distance to wander freely – sometimes going beyond her guidance – so that we can choose which paths will lead us back to her closeness.  She is source of inspiration, which streams out through rivers and dirt and trees.  She says now “You don’t have to drink only from what you think is THE source, the source is present in ALL things.” Isn’t she divine! (smiling) She says “Drink from all sources that remind you of me, and you will never fear loss.” 

                       It is the middle of the night.  My body is hot.  Something is burning inside of me.  Something is “cooking” inside of me.  I feel more curious than disturbed.  Lately, I have been pretty confused.  Which means Goddess has been invited to visit me tonight.  What she needs to remind me is so vital that I need to be quiet and alone and open to hear her words.  She works best on me at the earliest hours of the morning.  She quietly stands over me, next to me or a few feet away, letting her warm ecstatic energy permeate my cold spots.  Sometimes I think she is inside of me cradling my baby.

As I write in my journal I take time to close my eyes and hear her.  I spend time looking at pages in books I love.  I just grab one and open it up.  A Rumi poem falls in my lap:

                                                                     “Humankind is being led among an evolving course, through this migration of intelligences, and though we seem to be sleeping, there is an inner wakefulness that directs the dream, and that will eventually startle us back to the truth of who we are.”

Of course these are Rumi’s words.  But they are Goddess words too.  They are my words.  I tell my yoga students that the yoga poses themselves have no meaning, it is up to us to bring the meaning to them.  I forgot who told me this.  When the words spoken from teachers make sense, we take them on as our own.  Rumi’s words describe my story.  The Goddess talks to me and I speak her language as my own.  It is simply Grace that puts the night in front of me, the paper in front of me, the child within me.  Grace is the evolving course.  Grace is the benevolent energy that is moving us forward.  Grace is seeing or feeling God/Goddess in action, and Grace is also when we don’t see or feel God/Goddess in action. 

Tonight, in the darkness and confusion, I heard, I saw and I felt.

How? Gratitude for rocks.  Gratitude for all the little bits in our life.  Gratitude for the home, no matter how hard or cold or dark it may feel.  Gratitude for the body, supporting us.  Gratitude for our bones, holding us up….so we can enjoy a carefree ride. 

Faith and multi-living are about seeing what is REAL.  Not what you imagine (imagination is another tool) but rather a direction that is pointing out of range of what was thought as REAL.  The range of your images are limited by the range of all images carried around by all people everyday.  If you look at a homeless person and smile and say, “I am you. I love you,” instead of giving them a quarter or a dirty look – then you are multi-living.  Your love (faith) is surprising everyone.  You are a revolutionary.  You are brave.  You are LOVE.

Keep surprising everyone with how much you expect and accept out of everything.  Give as much respect as you can, and also give away your fears to the world.  With practice the fear will turn into love before it hits your lips and you may never speak ill again.  This doesn’t happen overnight.  Mult-living is like training for the Olympics of Love…dedication, sweat, blood (maybe) and tears…not painful to be love – only painful to be non-love. 

One time I was lying on the beach in Maui (one of my favorite homes) and I was in the sun and looking through the water soaking my hair, and I saw something that resembled the Chakras I had seen in books…there were all the colors of the rainbow in a pin drop of water - moving off my hair…and I saw within the pin drop vortex…a DNA like chain moving up and down….  If that wasn’t enough to flutter my heart – I saw the circles around this staircase beating out – like the rings around the sun….moving in all directions…I felt like a was being told a secret.

Multi-living is life moving in all directions and coming from a place of Love.  Appreciate all things, beings and ideas…  All  – All – All….not just yours or your groups…but ALL…ALL…all….May ALL beings be free from suffering and the cause of suffering….I think this can be related to each moment we feel hurt…Go back to the center where the cause is melting into love……it will lead you there (to love) as long as you are aware you are looking.  Keep looking for the options with positive thinking and the clarity will be there as surprising as ever!

*there are a few really coolways to read this message a second or third time.  One way is to insert “God” or “Self-Realization” or “Alignment” anytime you read “Dream.”  And also insert the word “Mentality” or “Inner Dialogue” anytime you read “Relationship” SEE WHAT HAPPENS when you read it this way – shortcut to enlightenment~ haha!

Nobody will hand you your DREAM.  You have to go after it.  But don’t go mentally chasing after the end result (THE Dream), just go after the first step…whatever is right in front of you.  Whatever is pointing the way… On the surface it may appear to be a step back. (i.e. leaving a relationship or a job that others have possibly revered as “good” or “decent”) The question is: Is the judgement of others, and therefore yourself, enough to keep you in hiding? Will you feel better in the long run – after the loss is over and the judgement (illusion) is gone?

If you can’t feel better immediately about leaving your current mentality, the decision to take the first step still may be the way to your Dream.  Think about why you may not feel better immediately  – it is probably those old ideas and judgements (illusions) that are creeping in.  It is those lies that keep you in toxic relationships and away from feeling good and living your Dream.  Start to differentiate pain from loss.  Loss is okay.  Loss shows us where we felt attached.  It gives a decision to choose our Spiritual Relationships.  It points a way to multi-dimensional living (I will go into this later this week.)  Pain, in one way, tells us to “unattach” to the object giving us stress. (mental detachement can be harder than physical detachment ) Deal with painful thoughts – there are not any painful people, just people with painful thoughts…and that includes everyone.  See yourself as a person who knows their own life losses, and you will know all others painful thoughts and unthoughtful actions as your own.  When we find this “oneness”  – we can move in alignment with the Universe and attract everything we need to provide our service and gain JOY.  The law of attraction will only take hold if you are aligned with the universe – how do you know if you are in alignment?….good question.  keep asking yourself that everyday.  In meditation.  In exercise.  In conversations.  In the moments before sleep.  Am I in alignment?  There is no right answer except for the one given to us in the moment it is asked.  Never stop asking the question.  The Universe has always loved this question…it is the way we show God our love for all.

 Your “Dream” has to stand the test of judgement and doubt.  Judgement is so subtle.  Yet so toxic.  It actually feels good sometimes to judge.  It feels good to compare.  It feels good to be “right.”  Sort of like eating a Big Mac.  (there is nothing wrong or right about eating a Big Mac, in my opinion.) The situation we get ourselves into is that these indulgences sometimes come with a shit load of guilt.  Can you imagine going up to the counter at McDonalds and asking, “Hi, I would like a Big Mac and can you please add a Shit Load of Guilt with that?”  But that is exactly what most of us do in our minds.  We are all a little crazy that way.  I was a lot crazy that way. 

We hand ourselves guilt and it takes away any lasting pleasure.  Why? I don’t know.  Maybe we know better when we are physically doing something that isn’t right in our heart.  The relationship or job appears “good” or “decent” but we are dying inside.  Instead of continuing this pleasure/guilt illusion-filled life, why not start doubting our style?  Doubting our thinking style is a first step to fulfilling our DREAMS.  The first step is so easy because nobody knows we are doing it.  Fulfilling our Dream can be very subtle.

First drop the judgements.  We eat, we drink, we smoke, we gossip, we think we are “right,” we think they are “wrong” – and all of these are the samething…when it separates us from our spiritual relationships and accomplishing our DREAM.  A thought or a judgement and a combined action that is out of alignment can be more toxic and more addictive than heroin and it is more subtle.  Negative thoughts and out of alignment actions do not always land you physically homeless, but mentally you are right there on the street corner at 2 am in the pouring down rain, shaking and digging for a Big Mac out of the trash.

It is more lonely to think you are right, then to be homeless.

Nothing is more lonely than righteousness.

There is only one thing I am afraid of – judging others.

I can own all the land in the world, but the space in my mind is worth ten times more.

The Dream is nothing more (nothing less) then the innate calling to be in alignment with the Universe.

What is Yoga?

Yoga is not in America.  Yoga is not in India.  Yoga is anywhere that can hold space for a student to encounter a teacher, for a soul to encounter a spirit, which uniquely influences and inspires their human potential.  Yoga is an inner energetic system, referred to as chakras or nadis, which are unlocked through the eight limbs or many other various practices.  Yoga is defined in Sanskrit as “Union with God.”  To reach this union of body, mind and spirit connection, One must practice physical, mental, emotional and spiritual exercises.  There are no attachments to the results of a Yoga practice, so the fruits are in the practice.  Samadhi, or ultimate Bliss, Freedom and Absorption can happen when we burn away our external attachments from the inside, out.  In practical terms, we will only absorb what we are physically, emotionally and karmacly ready to take in fully. 

One of the concerns with Yoga in America is our cultural attachment to the end result.  This could be “wanting” flexibility, strength or stillness.  In our “wanting” or “craving” for something, we miss the genuine teaching of Yoga.  Living in the essence of your being in this moment, with all the quirks and imperfections, and surrendering around the external circumstances we face is the heart of the practice.  Humor and Humanity go together – our transformation happens only when we let ourselves be with what is true now. 

Yoga gives us a glimpse (short or long-lasting) at the meaning of duality.  In America, we use language everyday that sets us up for perceived failure.  Words like “good” and “bad” or “pretty” and “ugly.”  When we put ourselves into these closed spaces, we separate from Yoga, from the union with ourselves, from the union with others – including our enemies.  We separate from God, Mother Nature, The Universe, and Divine Energy.  When Yoga is embodied, even for a beginner, the judgments, opinions, and belief systems with in the individual all start to die. What is born, or remembered, is that we are “seers” not “doers.” We are human beings.  Not human doings.  What we “do” is live presently and allow for our interconnection with the natural love and order of things present to us our invitation for action.

 In the Yoga Sutras, Sutra meaning “thread,” we are given information that can only be embodied or understood fully by our willingness and devotion to practice.  Here is the contradiction – Yoga can and can not be taught.  We can develop resonance with a particular place or person, and through this space, like walking on a path or floating through familiar air; we can find our own wisdom and grace.

This breath.

What is here?                                                 

This breath.

What is here?

This breath.

What is here?

Yoga is not an ideology, dogma, set of beliefs, constant rituals, anti-religious, or all factual or all mythical.  Yoga is an experience with our highest consciousness, whether we are in a studio, a school, a church, a park or taking a shower. Yoga is in America, or in India, or on a dirt road in the middle of nowhere.  Here is the contradiction of life.  (Read the first line of this article again.) 

In the ancient text, the Bhagavad-Gita, a young doubter incarnated as a boy named Arjuna speaks to his inner spiritual self, or God, incarnated as Krishna, to ask which the best path is; they all seem connected yet separate.  This is where so many philosophies and religions have met battle – imagine the Tao – yin and yang blended by a soft curve, each essential to the whole circle.  As doubters, as humans, we are constantly battling our minds for the “right” answers.  Rumi, the great poet once wrote, “Beyond Right and Wrong, there is a field, I will meet you there.”  (Think again about duality, separateness and results…these are keeping us in battle with ourselves and others, and ultimately, with God.)

Yoga is innate.  It is our birthright to be free from internal sufferings.  Through the practices of Yoga – Ethical, Moral, Physical, Mental, Emotional, Psychological and Spiritual we can grow our own awareness of how we are human. We will be pointed in the direction of our highest potential, we effortlessly change our environment or adapt to the one we have, by gaining the clarity and knowledge through our devotion and practice.  Even with the amount of suffering in the world, our act of prayer and practice can extend farther then we know.  We all carry a spark.  A cave can be dark for one night or a thousand years, and it would only take one spark to light it up.

We are our greatest teacher.  When a yoga practitioner starts on the path of inner remembrances, it is already an awakening moment.  For some the moment is fleeting, and for others it never leaves.  The ebbing and flowing of our practice whether it is a change in style or teacher, or a change in our physical body or emotional state, it is the juice, the nectar, called Amrita that keeps us knowing Truth.  The nectar is always sweet, even underneath days or years of rotting or stagnation, the tenderness of Yoga, (God, Universal Energy, and Love) is at the center of our sorrow and our joy.  Think of the Tao again – the yin and yang – the joy and the sorrow together complete our understanding of human incarnate existence.

Yoga is our own experience.  Yet we support everyone else when we practice or teach.  We are at the same time, a student and a teacher.  We are Arjuna and Krishna.  We are self and Self.  Feed yourself to plug your light in and shine as bright as the stars…remember the impermanence of all things, and also the infinite in all things.  Enjoy the darkest, emptiest, coldest places…because you are Yoga, you are the light, you are the nothing that is everything.

“We are not human beings having a spiritual experience, we are spiritual beings having a human experience.”

                                                -author unknown

Written by Sarah Ann Davidian

sarahdavidian@yahoo.com

www.sarahdavidian.com

Yoga Teacher E-RYT

Portland, Oregon

(this excerpt is taken at a point in the story where Agnes, a Native American Medicine Woman, is sharing her wisdom with Lynn, a white woman who is searching…)

“If it is meat you are hunting, you must never waste any of it – not even the bones.  Hunted meat has a spirit.  It has a big spirit that will make you strong.  The sweet meat of the slave animals holds no responsibility to you.  It tastes sweet, but it makes you fat and indolent.  You have to be balanced in the physical world and balanced in the spiritual world. Then those two balances have to again be balanced…You can see a people by what they eat.”

See where your heart is closed. (when past experiences affect your happiness today, when eating unconsciously ignores the unnecessary suffering to animals, when carrying an opinion to the point that you believe you are right, when you don’t look people in the eye…)

See where your breath stops. (becomes short, voice turns to a yell)

Practice being OPEN, and letting GO.

Balance in nature is balance in ourselves.