18 March 2017

Healing, Light and Yoga


Healing

The healing process is perfectly built in to our bodies and minds.

When we have been injured, heartbroken, ill, or brought to our knees in desperation, all we can do is support the process, observe it happening with a gentle reverence, and be patient.

I was a completely broken person in 2010 after Mark’s death. Over the following years, I went through my own death process – body and mind had been shattered.

It’s wondrous to look back and see the process of healing at work.

So here I am, just over 6 years later – this body has been gradually ageing and morphing while healing; this mind that was once shattered and confused, plagued by nervous breakdowns, post traumatic stress and anxiety, has matured and healed, and led me on to new horizons that I may never have seen if events had unfolded differently.

So often we must be broken down and forced to let go of everything we know, before we are open enough to receive the Truth.

Non-duality

I recognise now that the spiritual search of the seeker is what keeps him/her from finding what they seek. It’s a cosmic joke, but a frustrating human conundrum.
And would we get to the point of ultimate realisation if we didn’t embark on an ardent search? Each journey, each lifetime, each destiny is different.

Jesus said ‘Seek and ye shall find’.
TS Eliot eloquently spoke of the exploration that takes us full circle - we return to where we started, and ‘know’ the place for the first time.
Suddenly there it is. It was always there, inside of us.
We are that which we have been seeking.
We are not individuals with separate minds. Only one consciousness/awareness exists and it animates every human being.

As I look back on all those years of spiritual enquiry and practices, meditation, yoga, searching for ultimate peace and ‘enlightenment’, a soft, gentle smile arises, like that of a mother who has watched her wayward child grow up. It is all being seen through the eyes of that infinite awareness/consciousness/source/God…and now life has no beginning or end.
Relief.
Alignment with Truth.

Life goes on

Yet paradoxically, life does go on in this phenomenal world. There is a body to attend to, grown children and dogs and a house to care for, responsibilities and work. The individual ego is still present and functioning – it still has to be in the world. Many preferences have been abandoned, some have remained, but there is no attachment to any of them.
Relationships have changed. Love is present but with no attachment, no desire.
Occasional moments of frustration arise, but they dissipate immediately and dissolve back into love. 


And yoga goes on 

Yoga practice is a now time to nourish the body and mind, to fine tune the instrument. After years of struggling with mental and physical ailments after Mark’s death, and years of struggling with an on again/off again yoga practice, the practice is now a loving prayer to the beauty and wonder of life. It is a joy to stretch out in Utthita Parsvakonasana, find pin point perfect balance in Utthita Hasta Padangusthasana, breathe deeply in Utkatasana, curl up in Karna Pidasana, blossom open the heart in Urdhva Dhanurasana, float legs up to Sirsasana.

So many of these poses my body couldn’t do during the years of healing. 
They are returning.

Stop seeking, stop trying to get to a better place, or get anywhere.  
Simply let go and surrender, then open up - it shall flood in…


7 February 2017

Quietness

Inside this new love, die
Your way begins on the other side.
Become the sky.
Take an axe to the prison wall.
Escape. Walk out
like someone suddenly borm into colour
Do it now.
You're covered with thick cloud.
Slide out the side.  Die,
and be quiet.  Quietness is the surest sign that you've died.
your old life was a frantic running
From silence.
The speechless full moon comes out now.

- Rumi