10/17/2019 0 Comments Go Forward Brave Soul and TrustTrust that life loves you …even when your reluctant mind refuses to believe it Trust that life wants the best for you …even more than you do Trust that you will be guided …even without all your fussing over hearing it “right” Trust that life is smiling at you …even when you believe with your whole self that you’re alone Trust that life will buoy you and sustain you …even when your pockets are empty Trust that life holds a light for you and responds to your deepest inquiries …even those ones that you can only share with the stars Trust life’s presence in your ups and downs, in all the challenges and glories …that presence that remains through all that will pass Trust life’s loyalty to you …even when you swear you’ve been betrayed Trust those feelings of humility that come when your sanity comes back around again …and you see that Life never left you Trust that life is what you can count on more than any other thing …even when you've made your oath that this is indeed the time that you’re throwing in the towel Trust that life will be there in the end …even when you’re too weak to even stand up for now…remember, it’s just for now Remember to read something inspiring Remember to think, and remember to feel Remember your own brilliant light Trust that life knew your name even before you knew it yourself. Trust that life will show up as those finest moments of Grace Trust that you would never know the strength of who you are without any given challenge Trust that with life and only with life, you do know how to do this Trust yourself enough to slow down, and to hear those decisions made from such a centered inner space Trust yourself to be able to learn to use that inner voice Trust your strength of compassion Trust those feelings of generosity Trust what you have to give to this world even if you haven’t defined it yet Trust in the power of your presence of who you are And remember, that your own soul has a voice and you’re the only beloved one who truly needs to hear it. --Letters In Yoga
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Sweeping the front walk, getting our hair trimmed, watering the houseplants, and having our daily shower, are all elements of Saucha. We can even begin to experiment with organic vegetarian diet, or a seasonal cleanse of the body…Spring-cleaning of the house in fact, is a deeper ritual of freshening up and lightening up. These symbolic actions of Saucha (the first Niyama of purity) toward a lightened, healthy body and mind leads to the deeper experience of the quality of Saucha. Its quality of purity makes this a Niyama that settles in and permeates us and our way of life, more than it is something to practice. As we grow increasingly familiar with its quality through our more symbolic actions, Saucha starts to find its own deepening path within in us, and it becomes a very intimate experience. When we choose to live clearly, purely, we meet ourselves in a different way; we’re meeting ourselves and our life honestly, meaning we meet it in the moment. We may have been living our lives for fifty-two years without realizing that we’ve never really made contact with the life we’re living. And we can feel kind of mind-blown when we realize this. The way we breathe is a beautiful indicator of where we’re really living. Rapid breathing, shallow breathing, belly breathing, are all transmitting information that we’re obliterating the present moment with tensions from the past that we’re not letting go of, or a future we’re anticipating. Like the breath, Saucha leads us to feel into our very honest selves, and there is no hiding there (which ends up being a good thing). In contrast to the endless flow of distraction, the present moment can feel like a blunt awareness, because it will instantly reveal to us the nature of our mind. It shows up in the squeamishness, it doesn’t take years of therapy to feel it. Our myriad tendencies and reasons for living in either time-warp of “future” or “lagging behind” (or both, in some cases) come tumbling forward. The discomfort can begin to crawl all over us…fears, control, what-if’s, etc…they all arise instantly. To continually draw ourselves back into the moment, from either the future or the past can feel literally, like being tugged by two children who are actively playing on a seesaw. But once this moment passes, Saucha is beautiful(!) as we experience (maybe for the first time) the exquisite softness of our nature. Drawing ourselves back to the middle of that seesaw, reorienting ourselves in present time, we experience Present Time’s lack of expectation and its gentleness. It can feel foreign to remain balanced in that center, actually feeling quite comfortable to instead follow ourselves forward or back in time. It’s a challenging task to rest in the present moment as it is, to honestly see ourselves for who we are and what we’ve become. This doesn’t necessarily mean that we think we’re a bad person, but fears can come tumbling into that moment with any arising notions of letting go. But what are we letting go of? …of our assumptions of how and why we should do things, of expectations of what’s going to happen if we don’t drive our life forward…because hey, if we’re present in the moment, we can’t be pressing forward can we? This concept can feel threatening to the construction site we’ve made in the mind….threatening to the assumptions that we’re lazy, that we won’t live up to the pressing demands of our culture. But Saucha’s requirement of purely being in the moment, devoid of distraction, is being truly purposeful and it’s really quite gentle. This quiet of the moment tells us about what we really need to be doing, it tells us about what really matters, and if we want to hear that then we’ll naturally prioritize what we hear from that moment. This meeting of ourselves intimately is such a brilliant first step toward the rest of the Niyamas. No wonder it comes first! Such an exquisite mind was Patanjali, to have laid out the framework for our liberation in such an unexpectedly perfect way.--written by Vanessa Webb; LettersInYoga *Artwork copyright by Heide Presse |
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