Tuesday, January 21, 2014

We Want to Shine Our Lights in Joy

Everyday we face the mundane, ordinary challenges of life. We all have our own “stuff.” It might be getting through the frenzy of the work day, communicating with others, fulfilling family responsibilities, paying the bills, or preparing meals. Superimposed upon the mundane, there may be even greater challenges such as sickness, divorce, or loss of loved ones.

How do we cultivate acceptance and an open heart when it is hard enough just to get through a day without tension and judgment? The difference between facing those places with peace instead of frustration, with joy instead of boredom, with interest instead of indifference, and with optimism instead of pessimism is by allowing the fire of spiritual practice, commitment and consciousness to permeate every circumstance we encounter from morning until night, day after day.

The decision to do this is one of the most profound choices we can ever make in our lives. From that moment on, we begin to burn through resistance, suppression and karma. Every encounter and every interaction becomes the fuel for deeper spiritual awareness. Every moment holds the potential for clear insight and pure awareness.

Tapas, one of the advanced inner practices of yoga, is the cultivation of enthusiasm for the spiritual path. It is the willingness to do whatever is necessary to reach a goal with discipline; it is the determination to undertake sadhana, daily practices that will “burn” the unconscious activity of karma. If this unconscious activity burns instead of being expressed, then the energetic process of catharsis begins. This is the door to transformation and conscious awareness.

Before this choice is made, we may face our challenges with resistance, negativity, martyrdom, victimization, or at the very least, disdain. Because it requires us to take responsibility for ourselves and for everything about our lives, this choice is momentous. When we do not take responsibility, we hold our reactions inside, allowing an internal struggle to set up camp in our bodies and minds. Our minds engage in ongoing chatter as we defend or justify our thoughts and project them onto a situation or person. Each thought is designed to entrench ourselves in righteousness concerning our own feelings.

While the mind is busily engaged in self-terrorism (terrorizing others as well, for our thought forms are real and affect the objects of our focus), the body is also under attack. The intensity of reaction can result in muscle tension, stomach ache, a tight chest or a lump in the throat. The longer we engage in suppression, the more serious our physical problems become. Without the ability or choice to let go into the light of consciousness, we are in the full ravages of suppression. Repeatedly indulging in our reactions to life causes great pain physically, emotionally and spiritually. Yet, most people continue to do so.

 

That Which We Truly Yearn For

 
The commitment to spiritual growth and the decision to bring more consciousness and awareness into our lives can purify and transform these reactions into a more subtle response which allows our energies to continue flowing in our bodies and allows our minds to retain an emptiness or space for awareness without judgment. From the compost of our challenges emerges the fertile soil of awareness, communion and growth. This is the “stuff” in the deepest part of ourselves, the stuff that we truly yearn for. We want to see and feel the beauty all around us. We want to shine our lights in joy.

In our conscious awareness, we witness or watch everything. We witness our emotions rolling through the body. We witness our thoughts streaming through the mind. From the place of witness, we experience everything while practicing becoming nothing.  When there is no holding of an emotion or thought, it is free to flow through.  Paradoxically, we see and feel everything, but we hold nothing.

Through this ever deepening practice of allowing life to move through us, all of the holding of the past starts to melt and release, making room for more awareness to meet every moment more fully.

Peace and serenity result from a willingness to engage in surrender—surrender to the situation, surrender to the thoughts and feelings, surrender to the moment. Ishvara Pranidhana, one of the practices which is observed in Yoga, is the practice of surrender and service to God. It is the practice of allowing spirit to do its will through us. We can practice this by surrendering to the situation, surrendering to the thoughts and feelings, and surrendering to the moment. While we may be feeling the charge of reaction and anger inside, we can simultaneously allow ourselves to witness and not hold. This practice becomes the fire which burns through our suppressions and holdings and purifies our being with its heat. This is the fire of tapas.

With commitment and practice, we begin to grow the seeds of allowance, acceptance and peace within our hearts and minds. Knowing that the everyday stuff we face is the fuel for transformation can spark the willingness to accept, look forward to, and even be thankful for every single moment of every single day.

 
The Seeker
 


An old story tells of a spiritual seeker who had been meditating in seclusion in the mountains for 20 years.  When at last he felt he had achieved his goal of liberation, he  was ready to return to the village to see his teacher. On his way down the mountain, he met a woman on the path. “Please give me some water,” he asked. “I am very thirsty.” 

“Go find your own—I have barely enough for myself!” she snapped back. Filled with indignation and rage, the seeker slapped her across the face.  Later, when he had arrived in the village and had found his teacher, he spoke with great remorse. “I must return to the seclusion of meditation, for I still carry the seeds of anger within me.” To this his teacher replied, “No, you must not return. You must stay here and learn how to find peace in your heart when you are in the world with other people.” Like the seeker, we must first integrate our spiritual principles into the stuff of our daily lives before we can become truly free.

 (February 2001)


 

Maresha's next blog will be published January 28. 



Messages of Light is published by the Sanctuary of Universal Light on Snow Dragon Mountain in Meredith, New Hampshire. www.snowdragonsanctuary.com.