During Jivamukti Teacher Training, we practiced teaching in small groups of 3 people. After I taught my first Jivamukti class to my practice group, Adrian who is from another group approached me, and he said that he was listening to my dharma talk from where he was, and he loved it and wished he were in that class. His words uplifted me, because I was so new to teaching and was not very sure about myself. I found myself asking him what time he was teaching, and I attended his class even though my body was tired from having already practiced three times that day. I had wanted, in some way, to be able to give him the same kind of encouragement that he gave me. I think that if we focus our energy on giving back any uplifting word or action freely given to us, the world will have less wars, less conflicts, less negativities, and have more love, more peace, and more kindness. How distorted our world is that most of the emotions and actions that we want to pay back are rooted in anger. How twisted it is that vengeance is a shared story amongst those who are hurt instead of healing and forgiveness. How backward it is that despite all of the technology humanity has created we have lost our basic connection to be here for each other. Let today's practice be about giving back. Think of someone who once offered you some kind of encouragement, either through words or gestures. Offer your love and blessings to this person. Keep repeating this offering until you are ready to expand your offering to others. Yoga is a practice. A war-less disposition is a practice. Keep including more and more beings into your offering of love, until you find yourself embodying the mantrah Lokah Samastah Sukhino Bhavantu, may all beings be happy and free. As my teacher David Life said, "Make Yoga, Not War." In memory of Adrian.
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The Bhagavad Gita is a holy book in the tradition of Hinduism, and it is a story of Yoga. In this story, the main character is Arjuna, and it is set in the midst of a war. It almost seems contradicting that a book about spirituality is a book set in war, and the dilemma for Arjuna is that he is hesitant to fight in the battle. He is conflicted because he feels that fighting is violent and is a contradiction to the principle of ahimsa. His God, Krshna, tells him that if he does not fight this war, more damage will be done, more casualties will occur, and that it is his role to fight in this war. The reality is that in this life, there will be many battlefields. Ahimsa or nonviolence is not an impossible perfection. It is choosing to minimize the harm that we cause in the world. While acknowledging that even as we may not be able to stop all of the wars in all the world singlehandedly, we can choose to act instead of turning away from it all. We can choose always to do something over nothing. Furthermore, nonviolence is not inaction. Nonviolence is the conscious active decision to participate. All spiritual teachings teach nonviolence. Religions may have different ways of expressing them, as Christianity has the 10 commandments, Buddhism has the 8-fold path, and Yoga has the 5 yamas. But these are not just sets of rules that one must follow because we are told. Rather, they become a natural progression of how we live in this world when we are truly connected with the deepest intentions of our heart-- to stop war, to have peace, to let go of separation, and to be connected to the intricate web of life that we are a part of. A friend recently confided in me her dilemma of her undefined relationship, and it inspired me to think about the subject of love and relationships and how they relate to everything impermanent. Most of our conventional understanding of romantic love is rooted in attachment. How do we label what we are? Where are we going? What is our future? Beneath these questions is the underlying theme: What is in this for me? What am I going to get out of this? I think love is something that does not have to be guarded so closely. Love is not a habit in which you have to follow for fear of falling off the wagon. Love is not a chain that ties you up. Love is free. It is not earned as it is not worked hard for. It just is. What love looks like changes over time, as with all things that grow and evolve. To expect that love to remain the same is not love; it is holding yourself and the other person captive. There is nothing to get out of it except to feel that love and hold the joy of that love in your heart. Anything less than that-- or more than that-- is attachment or possession or addiction. Full love, complete love, unconditional love happens when there is a willingness to show the complex parts that make up who you are, and in return, the vulnerability of accepting the other person even as you cannot change or control or even completely understand the other person. Initial feelings of excitement are just infatuation, but it is the tenderness and gentleness and kindness that remain long after that excitement that breeds the ground for love. To be in a state of love is to acknowledge that what you feel is yours, and if you so choose to express it, is a gift you give without expecting anything in return. To be in a state of love is to hold this person kindly in your eyes, and to allow this person to freely choose how to accept your gift. To be in a state of love is to be able to allow that love to stand on its own; words or actions are welcome but not always necessary. Love is not demanding; only possession is. Commitment and love are two different things. One can love without commitment, as one can commit without love as well. They are independent, and in some circumstances interdependent-- sometimes, but not always. How is it that relationships come and go, and what once felt like love turn into bitterness or indifference? How can one feel so much and have that intensity transform into nothing? Perhaps it was never love. It was an attachment disguised as love, a contract of terms with conditions, a possession holding the other person to one's expectations. To be in love-- in the truest sense of the word-- necessitates that the giver of love is filled with love, needing nothing, clutching on to no one, hungry for no one's attention. Otherwise, what we mistake as love is only a number of things: an unconscious game to win over someone's approval, a band-aid to patch up one's emptiness, a distraction to keep one from looking into the difficult questions of one's own life. All dysfunctional relationships are not love; they are the opposite of it-- a relentless taking centered on one's own selfish desires to possess. Love is impermanent in its form. People change as feelings waver and life happens. Love can grow or diminish or change roles or intensify or mellow down. Much of our dilemma is about wanting things to remain the same, or turn out according to our own desires, or contain it into a mold that does not fit. Most of our energy is spent focusing on the object of that love. We so easily forget that the love comes from us, that because we are capable of it, we will never be without it. We will not be incapacitated when our expectations are not met. It is brave to love at a time when everyone else is asking: What do I get in return? To feel love itself is the return. Very few of us get that love is not about possession. But when we do, we will realize we need nothing from anyone, not even and most especially not from the object of our love. And then, our love will truly set us free. It means we are alive with the fire of life and the tenderness of our heart. The focus of the month in July is called "Why We Like War". Well, do we like war? As a concept, we would say we do not like war. But in practice, do we not like war? Do we not feel satisfaction in revenge? Do we not hold grudges? Do we not take things personally? Do we not want to control others? Do we not want to get what we want? Do we not think of ourselves as separate from others? Do we not want our interests to be more important than the interests of others? If you made an honest assessment and realized you do want those things, then you at least like the foundation of what builds a war even if you claim not to like wars per se. How is it that there is a disconnection between our perceived values and our actual inclinations? Or more importantly, more than asking why it is so, what can we do to practice satya or truth, so that we can say what we mean and mean what we say? The key lies in observing ourselves. What are the building blocks of war that we are holding on to? What is the "reward" to keep holding on to them? To feel safe and comfortable and familiar and avoid doing the work of looking at ourselves? What is the price of holding on to them? To continuously have that internal conflict and to keep ourselves trapped and to continue to suffer. If we want to practice satya, and we say we do not like war, then we have to start to break down those building blocks of war that we ourselves possess. We learn to forgive. We practice letting go. We root in our compassion. As Gandhi said "An eye for an eye makes the world go blind." So our anger and resentment and vengeance will only cause war. Any feeling of self-satisfaction and justification are short-lived and do not contribute to any meaningful sense of peace. War or Peace? Everyday, we get to choose with every thought, word, and action. Every moment, we get to observe which case we are building up for. Every breath, we get to practice taking one path or the other. |
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