For each part of your self that you accept completely, that you allow to live without hindering its expression, you help complete the fullness of the flowering of your Self.
Each foul mood, each vicious thought, each bad tempered moment. They are all petals on the expression of you. Each time you accept each and every part of yourself, it is allowed full expression, and it comes in close and folds itself in to create the beauty of You. You can not flower until all the petals are acknowledged and deeply allowed.
Yes the beauty, yes the love, yes the delight in life. And yes the judgement, and yes the comparisons and yes the depression. There is still more. Beyond all of that.
Ok, so we all feel great after a meditation and within a controlled environment. What happens to our awareness on the field. When we are placed in situations that have always tested our patience?
Yesterday I went to pick up some groceries from a local co-op. It's a small organic and free trade place. There were two men behind the counter and one woman being served. I glanced at the clock. It took them 7 minutes to attend to me.
The Seven Minutes: during those minutes I experienced what I always experience in these situations. Frustration, anger, intolerance, judgement. I felt my body go hot and cold and tingling under my arms from the sensation of pure injustice.
The Difference: I allowed the sensations. I let them come in. I watched them. I did feel a resistance to them. But I also allowed that. I had a sensation of guilt (how can I feel so negatively after such a beautifully spiritual morning), but I allowed that too. And the body moved and changed and the feelings came and went and I watched and stood firmer in awareness than ever before.
Every judgement that came up I felt my initial resistance to feeling negative emotions, and then I deeply allowed and let it go out of the system. The mind didn't hold on. It truly came and went like clouds passing. But the awareness, or the clarity of the vast sky remained.
And I walked home, and all traces of the 7 minutes of emotion dropped away. There was no energetic imprint. It was gone. There was no repercussion.
No guilt, no 'should', no resistance. Just awareness, accepting and deep watching. One moment at a time.
Adya reminds us that this is not the 'final place' to rest. But it is the foundation. The first part was touching upon Awareness itself. The second part was consciously spending more time with it. The third part is bringing it outside of the controlled environments and meditation practice and into real life situations.
I'd been chasing the 'one' experience for twenty years. It had changed my life and turned me from rebellious late teenager into spiritual seeker. I wanted to find that experience again, when it was all so easy. When I was swept away into the eternal.
And then, just a couple of months back, I sat on my sofa and looked out across the park. I love the sun. I love light. I let my eyes rest upon the brightness of the sky and it began to shift. The light moved towards me in particles, I could feel its motion, I could see its emanation.
The light entered into my eye and into my flesh and it was the same as me, just a different expression of me. It merged into my being. It was my body. I followed it further, deeper into my eye and mind until it hit - the One who was aware. Then there was stillness and I began to feel wetness stream from my eyes.
I was not that which I looked at. I was not that which I perceived. I was not that experience I so longed for. I was nothing. I was all things. I was life itself. I was tiny particles/cells of energy or conscious energy interacting with myself.
The question became 'How to live life from the awareness of Oneness'. How to embody transcendence?
On Sunday I experienced a shift in awareness that bought on migraines and pain in my upper back. All I know what to do is move the body. The only message I am getting is to practice asanas more and do the chi ball exercise daily. Remain for longer and longer periods in full Awareness.
My mind wants to know 'and what next', and all I get is 'dwell in Presence'. Full stop.
(As a side note, my computer screen is playing up (I can only see two thirds of it), my space bar is stuck and I need to strike it heavily to create a 'space' and the sound connected to the speakers is fading in and out. Seems typical, yes? Also some of my English students have decided to take yoga with me next week. When the teacher is ready, the students appear. )
