A daily Practice

So I just watched Enlighten up. And honestly to say it has given me a sense of ease. It had a beautiful part in it where an Indian man says to the main character who is looking for answers, that you are the practice. That you are the most important person under the sun. For you truly will always be the center of your universe. Another man says, that the channel is open on both ends.

We practice health, friendliness, fortitude, compassion, and honesty on our search for truth. Yet do we truly practice the sides of ourselves that we fear. Is it the fear of these sides that make them so magnificent? Is it really that if we practised our hatred, anger, and sadness with as full devotion as we do our happiness that we would feel it blissful? I think this can not be answered. I have experience these last few days as a cathartic state throbbing out of me. One of anger, hatred, loneliness, laughter, smiling, and crying. In this expression, I have been able to observe myself deeply. And I noticed the times I had the “hardest” with it, was when I resisted, that it was when I clung to an idea. That when I gave importance to the time and my surroundings in a way that wasn't real, like the people who may hear or observe me, may think I'm crazy. But I said crazy, not them!!!

And so I shook and shivered, laughed and slobbered. I watched myself do exactly what I wanted to do and I felt free. Now don't take me wrong, I'm not talking about enlightenment, I'm not speaking of Samadhi. More and more these past few days I have realized an insignificance of “higher” states. That they to are still just an idea that we have placed far away from our fears and made them the goal. So find yourself free, find yourself here. Everything can be exciting when you listen deeply and truthfully to what you believe.

The Miracle

Such is this peace we share so often, that we have disregarded it presence. An ingrained urge to search, a wanting for understanding of not only ones self, but of its surroundings and relation to love, our ultimate state.

I believe that this urge has come from our dissolution of ourselves, of our surroundings. We have come to call so many things, so many names. We have connected stories that have solidified our reason for understanding “whats going on”. We have created a million books to see the different ways that have been able to put these stories into different context, and box them up and say AH HA, I've got it!!! But whats an it?? really?

Reading from a book called “I and Thou” by. Martin Buber. He explains that the I-It separation is only a way in which we process thought to distinguish our “selves”. So really, anything that you may have figured out, is really just an expression of yourself. That really, we have looked for the distinguished parts so far that we have surpassed our own sight and true depth of touch. With what? I would say with what Deepak Chopra calls “the gap”. Whats in between. Why should we draw outside the lines? What fascinates us so much with defining the edges of our existence? Maybe in my own way it has been a search for perfection. But a search of perfection according to whom??

So say I finish a page in a colouring book, I've drawn in all the lines, coloured all the colours according to memory, that create what I think is it. But who created the book? Who created the colours?? Who created the memory? Even now I am finding myself being bound by the boxes of my mental complexities, but here we can find some truth. The existence of the “black space”. The spots in our mind where we seem not to be able to answer questions, but rather come up with new ones to avoid the realness that we actually know nothing. This gap can be called silence, and maybe a place in which the observer can be observed. Because here, we see further then what we have put outside ourselves. This is where miracles are born.

So we find that the human body is a microcosm of the universe. That now we know that a single molecule holds the same density of mass as the entire universe!! Where do we go from here?? We have found ourselves maxing out on our intellectual capacity. We have gained so much knowledge that we have now created a thought process that can only limit us.

But wait! There is a “solution” per say. What if you accepted that the search was no further away from you then your own heartbeat! That inside of you, there is all the information that you “will” ever want or need. You will find the truth about life and death. And that within these elements we find an equilibrium of peace. That death is needed for life, and life is essential for death. That the transformations of one thing into another is the truth of ourselves. That essentially the consciousness and acceptance, made by each organism, to give unto another so that it may continue is our love. That here we find we can use our mentality to rather understand, that we are not unconscious to the evolution of energetics. We are the observer who sees the beauty of the exchange and makes our experiences unique from our own physical perspectives.

RePost from My Dear friend Carolyn

“…God loves the soul more than anything, but he can’t rescue her alone. He needs the help of the son of the wind-the breath. When God and the breath become allies, they’re able to free the soul. Calming the breath makes the body calm down, and then the mind becomes calm. When the mind is calm, you are able to sense God’s presence in your heart.”

“Intention, commitment, sacrifice, faith, and devotion-together these produce real effects. Too often we underestimate the power of thought. Thoughts manifest. Your life is what you think it is. That’s why meditating and disengaging from the thought process helps free the self.”

“Power will eat you. It will burn you, and it will dry you up. It will suck out all your juices. Power will destroy you unless you have a pot to hold it in. The pot is your spiritual practice. And when your pot overflows with loving kindness, your spiritual practice is real.          Real spirituality isn’t about getting high; it’s about getting down. We’re already high and we’re already spiritual-we just need to get here. We need to arrive in the present. That’s where faith is; that’s where devotion is.”

What are you ready to welcome into your heart from your teachers? Will the lessons enter with struggle and pain or freely with ease and laughter?  When in doubt, keep it simple. Keep it feeling good

Thank you Carolyn for your beautiful words of wisdom. 

Confrontation

Facing the part of yourself you've not only been trying to ignore, but silently fighting. Your not happy, your bored, you feel like your not even comfortable in your own body. Uncomfortable in your own expression. Angry that this feeling still exists. Angry that you, knowing full well that you're the most powerful person in your life, haven't been able to overcome this. Your body is in pain, you feel and experience glimpses of beauty, of reality, and then it throbs back in. You try everything on your own and then you realize that your nothing but afraid, afraid to be real, afraid to be sensitive. Afraid to cry into a friends shoulder and feel supported.

Surrender

My wonderful friend

Here is the blog from a wonderful woman by the name of  Csilla. She regularly attends my saturday morning classes at the Robert Lee Ymca (10-1115am if your interested) She has been eloquently bringing the teaching i choose into a short read of inspiration. Love you lots and Thank you!!

http://csillamoffat.com/

Re-runs

Talking about those black tide pools, I was laying on my living room floor the other day with my hands on my chest, and had this unfamiliar feeling go through me. As if I didn't really know who I was. Remembering all the people who I used to be, all the roles I had played, and feelings conveyed. And I became overwhelmed with joy in the realization of the observer. And I wrote this :

Untitled

I am an Idea
Made up of all the ideas I have ever had
Thats why Im never changing
Thats why I never recognize "myself"
Behind my eyes
There is a place
And maybe this place
Is everything I've been searching for
The dark pool of mystery
The unkown desires
A full hearts fruition
And a mirror of truth.
I can never lie to myself
I've always known whats right
Like I'm watching a re-run
Of my own life

09/03/10

The Beginning

Ground Zero

So a blog? I'm thinking, what could I do here? Well lets see. My name Is Daniel Shaw. I'm in my twenties and have just begun a wonderful journey as a yoga teacher. I can't help but relate my journey here as the lotus flower and the path it takes on its way to blooming into its beauty. So much of my life I have perceived, and rightly so, as real shit. For many years I could think in no other way then anger, sadness, and jealousy. But these days I am reminded of my teachers words "All the things you have gone through, all the pain and suffering is like compost, and this feeds you, so much that it will help you grow into a beautiful tree that will bare fruit for others." Now I feel this, I feel myself rooting into the realness of my creation, of my expression, and loving the depths that come from pools of mystery. This blog is here for me to share, to give and believe.

 

I am with you.