“When we are at peace with other people in our lives, we can be at peace with ourselves.” - Sharon Gannon, from the book The Magic Ten and Beyond
Don’t you agree that we spend a lot of our time and energy focused on how others have treated us? We are affected by what others say about us or to us. If someone acted in a way that hurt us or undermined us or caused any disturbance in our lives, we often feel the need to react. We think they are making us unhappy. We think if only they are out of our lives or if only they would change, then my life would be okay. We can respond in healthy ways or react in unhealthy ways— the healthy being having an honest-to-goodness talk with them, trying to see things from their perspective, forgiving them and being compassionate towards them, and the unhealthy being gossiping about them, badmouthing them to other people who know them, seeking revenge, holding on to resentment etc. My teacher Sharon Gannon suggests one other way to deal with people. And this is the path that will free us, this way is to give blessings to them. That means, we change people in the safety of our own minds, without even having to confront them or ask them to do anything. It’s like a secret prayer. As long as we do the practice, it will work. We don’t have to go around telling people out of the blue, “Hey I’m giving you blessings.” We don’t have to call our ex whom we haven’t spoken to in 5 years and say “Hey, I’m being the big person here.” We don’t have to ask for a meeting with our boss to declare “I now see you as a holy being. I am giving you my blessings.” Not only is it weird, it’s not sincere. Blessings don’t work when it’s insincere. We cannot fool the universe. We give blessings, drawing from pure sincerity, in seeing that the people in our lives deserve love and happiness, kindness and compassion, freedom and liberation. We don’t have to declare anything to them. It can be your own secret prayer to them. In fact, it may be best that it is your own secret prayer that you keep to yourself. Want to resolve a difficult relationship with someone? Well, as Sharon-ji says, “The power is in your hands, actually it’s in your mind.” Give blessings. Include this in your daily practice. Repeat. And allow the magic to arise.
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Jivamukti is a bit cooky, a bit different from yoga practices, it’s a bit, well, eccentric. When I was in Jivamukti Yoga Sydney, I saw that amongst the yoga mats and yoga clothes they were selling were bottles of Jivamukti-branded bird seeds. I don’t know, but I have a feeling not a lot of yoga studios sell that.
You see, the founders, my teachers Sharon Gannon and David Life, are big proponents of saving lives, including but not limited to wild life. Where they live now is a land they bought when a real estate broker friend told them that a developer was about to buy that piece of land. That piece of land was going to displace a lot of wild animals, so they gathered all the money they could, and even though they couldn’t really afford it, they bought the land so the animals will continue to keep their forest home. They built their own home within a small fraction of that land so as not to disrupt the animals who were living there before them. And so, yes, Jivamukti is a little bit different, because while it may be common for other similar practices to teach breathing exercises and yoga poses and meditation, Jivamukti is the only practice I know of that explicitly teaches feeding the birds. My teacher Sharon Gannon just published a book called Magic 10 and Beyond, and yes, one of the practices there is to, you guessed it, feed the birds. I think it’s rather kind that when most practices are focused on what we can get out of something, this is all about giving, providing, supporting, nurturing, protecting, and caring for someone from whom we want nothing in exchange. If you have a garden, put out bird seeds, feed the birds. If you’re like me, and you live in a building and don’t have access to wild life so much, we can still practice by feeding other animals, we can feed stray cats who are often out in the streets; we can feed homeless human beings; we can donate to feeding programs. It’s a wonderful thing we can all do to nourish other beings, and keep our own spirits full. I’ll be the first to admit that I got into the yoga practice for myself. I knew I had an anger problem. Others also knew I had an anger problem. I’d scream and throw and break things when I was angry. I didn’t know what to do with all those pent-up emotions that felt like they were erupting unexpectedly. I was out of control. I practiced yoga initially as self-care. There were things inside of me I needed to nurture and accept. And yoga helped me do that.
But what I didn’t expect— and what is perhaps even more beautiful— is that yoga taught me that at the end of day, it isn’t about me. The practice isn’t just about me. The life I live isn’t just all about me. Why I’m here isn’t just all about me. As our practice evolves over time, we begin to see yoga as a conscious spiritual practice or “sadhana”. Instead of being focused on the self, it starts to be about getting over the self. Now, this I find is where it gets tricky. Yoga can be so healing that we get stuck in that phase and it can almost feel very addictive. When we are stuck here, then the deeper teachings of yoga are either consciously ignored or we make ourselves incapable of truly understanding them. It is like spraining your ankle, and instead of giving yourself the 2 weeks you need to let it heal, you like the healing part so much you spend the next 30 years on a crutch. Case in point, the concept of ahimsa or non-harming in the yogic teachings is often misinterpreted. Non-harming refers to causing no harm to other beings, in our thoughts, words, and actions. It means we start to examine our biases, or prejudices, our discriminations. Do we think of someone else as lower than us because they are, say, from a different socio-economic class, didn’t go to the same elite schools that we did, the color of their skin is different, the way they speak, their accents are different, they have a different religion, different sexual orientation, different species etc? Everything stems from the way we see others. If we see others as “lower”, our words will reflect this, our actions will reflect this. But “ahimsa” to those who are stuck in the self-focused phase is interpreted still as what they find comfortable and familiar. So “ahimsa” then is used to justify violent behavior or lack of discipline or even laziness, ironically. We are not meant to be nursing our wounds forever. When we are whole, we must let go of our crutch and we must use this wholeness to look out into the world, and not be trapped within ourselves. Sadhana, conscious spiritual practice, is the beginning of getting over ourselves so we may find our true connection with all of existence. During the early years of my yoga practice, I did not quite understand how the physical and mental and spiritual aspects of it all fit in the big picture. What I knew was simply my own experience, that I felt yoga has some effect in recalibrating my body and resetting my mind. Even while there are times during the practice when it feels tough or even unbearable, after practice it always always feels great.
On the physical aspect, the first time that I encountered side leg lifts, I stopped to look around the room, because I did not believe that it was physically possible for the human body to do that. But through time, I learned that that range of motion is possible. I learned through practice what my teacher Sharon Gannon often says: Through repetition the magic is forced to rise. This “magic” arises with two elements present; Abhyasa which is to sit with something for a long time, and vairaga which is detachment. Every time we show up on our mats, we practice getting deeper into these two aspects. It doesn’t mean it’s perfect, there are times we think, what, side leg lifts again? What, handstands again? What, it’s the same sequence? But every time we show up anyway, we humble ourselves to the humility of the practice. We humble ourselves to the discipline, to the commitment, to the predictability and yes, even to the unpredictability. Even though it’s basically the same repertoire of poses, you’re not quite sure if the day’s practice is going to be your thing— your favorite poses— and when it’s not going to be. You persevere just the same, and many if not all of us are already reaping the benefits. So today, let’s continue to work the magic. Let it arise. The Jivamukti focus for the month of May is about parents. Parents are providers, and yet when we think of the word provider, there are two immediate associations. First is that providing has to do with money, and the second is that the father is the main provider. We seem to hold deeply-ingrained parental roles, and gender roles for that matter.
I was pushed to think about these issues when I watched a documentary called “The Red Pill”. It challenged the way that I thought about gender roles. I had to think long and hard about things that I took for granted in this society we live in. For example, when a mother chooses to have a full-time job, that is widely accepted. And yet when the father decides to stay at home to be the main caretaker of children, it carries a lot of stigma that he is not doing enough or fulfilling his role. In situations such as a shipwreck, there is a policy of women and children first on lifeboats, automatically deducing men’s lives as somehow less important, or even disposable. And not only that, it is men who are drafted to fight in wars. Domestic abuse, depression, suicide etc are largely labeled as women’s issues when in reality they also affect men. And so this invisible norm of seeing men as disposable and only worthy when they are able to provide is the kind of pressure that fathers are subject to. It’s a lot, and it is unfair when you think about it. Bring to mind your father or someone who was like a father to you. Perhaps there were times you didn’t agree with each other, there were times you didn’t see eye to eye, there were times you wished he could have acted differently. Consider that he too is a product of this society that pressured him to fit into a mould. Consider the possibility that he might have given up a part of himself to fulfill the role he felt was expected of him. Consider the possibility that much of the burden he carries is invisible to you. When you were little, he would have done anything and everything to protect you. As you grew up, your relationship became more complicated, but that protective part of your father is still him. See that in him, and peel away the layers of armors and defenses. See his intrinsic worth, one that he may not even see in himself. He did the best that he could, within the mould he felt he had to fit into. He is full of love, even during those times he didn’t know how to show it. Lokah Samastah Sukhino Bhavantu. This mantra reminds us that on a practical level, we are not looking to win our battles at the expense of the losses of others. If we are feminists fighting for equality, let us also acknowledge those times that inequality is tipped to our favor, let us also do what we can to equalize that. Let us offer our practice to fathers everywhere, and recognize that their worth is not dependent on what they can provide or how much money they make or what titles they have or how “disposable” their lives are, but that they simply are worthy, deserving of happiness and freedom as a birthright, as all sentient beings are. |
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