End-of-the-Year Wish
By Laura Mills
Today I’m feeling that life and the world are heading out of control. I don’t think I’m alone; even if one hasn’t been paying attention to the news of late, it’s normal, I believe, for many to feel this way in December. At the best of times we run around finishing holiday shopping and other errands; our routines flip-flop for better or worse as we schedule and attend parties and host out-of-towners; we overindulge to the point of actually believing we’ll never touch a sweet or cocktail again. But this isn’t the best of times. The usual “December frenzy” seems ridiculously irrelevant in the shadow of the state of the world today…thus, I feel more than ever that life and the world are careening into an unspeakably frightening tailspin.
It was at times like this that I used to go to my yoga mat looking for answers. “When will this end?” “Why do these things happen?” “What can I do?” And I was always disappointed, as I never stepped off my mat at the end of a practice with any more answers than I had at the beginning. With time and reflection I came to believe no answers exist…at least none that any of us can fathom with our human understanding. If we keep searching for answers we will search all our lives, asking the same questions over and over while the world continues to careen ahead.
Each of us has an inner light. When things happen that set our world uncontrollably spinning, fear, confusion, sadness and grief smother our light. Today, I believe the power of yoga exists not in showing us answers but in reigniting and reclaiming our light. And that’s all we can do—reignite and reclaim our light, and then shine out, for the brighter our light the more we are able to sustain ourselves and support each other.
May we all find peace in the new year, and may we now more than ever let our lights shine to illuminate the way forward.
LET IT BE - WHY DO WE NEED TO QUESTION EVERYTHING?
SEPTEMBER 20TH, 2009: When I was a girl I’d get together with my friends and we’d use the ouija board. When it was my turn I’d ask serious questions, they’d be things like “Does Craig like me? Will Chris ask me to the dance? Will Ben love me forever so we can get married, have babies and live happily ever after?” The ouija board had no chance in impressing me. I was relentless in my questioning. And I was only 15 years old.
Now just a few years later it has taken a lot of spiritual maturing to realize that as yoga teaches we experience life not with our mind and all its questions, but with our soul. That we are something beyond the mind, beyond thought. And why do we need to question everything?
Putting all questions aside today can we in the words of my favorite band, The Beatles, “Let it Be” Or as Tantric Scholar Christopher Tompkins said during a lecture in
Hmmm, ok I have to say I kind of get the feeling of that on a gut level. It is also helping us to just be present. So easily said but to actually BE has a learning curve. The mind wants to question every little thing, rewrite the past, write out the exact detail of the future. In a way a better understanding of consciousness could be to let go of what we know is NOT consciousness (like what we see, what we think, the numbers of shoes we have, what kind of jeans we wear, etc). Consciousness, a real awakening to this moment being presented is felt with our soul.
This is why fundamentally Yoga is for the Mind, to help us focus and find ourselves more present. I know we do stuff for the body but that is the gateway and totally enjoyable as well. Eventually the path of yogic teachings is taking us deeper inside than perhaps we’ve ever been, the Home of our Heart. May you live in love and today give yourself a break, STOP QUESTIONING EVERYTHING. Just Let it Be. Love and light, Silvia
RELAXING OUR EFFORT: QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS
JULY 24TH, 2009:
Relaxing effort and fixing the mind on the infinite (asana is perfected). Yoga Sutras 2.47
To me this sutra is about how we relate to the questions and answers seeking in our lives. In class it is that opportunity to stop working so hard at finding answers for life (why things happened in the past as well as reassurances for what is going tO happen in the future) and just be in a state of now. Some psychologists call this “easy speed” This is that place of just pure awareness of the questions of our lives instead of the constant striving for the answers. This is the advanced practice.
A right effort an effective effort and why the poses need not be exotic to effective. I want the poses to be familiar enough that we can find the ease and all the technique becomes effortless so we can be here right now on all levels (emotional, mental, physical, spiritual). So let the poses be the questions, be the breath and unite your focus to breath and move. This then allows us to love the questions as poet Maria Rilke says in her poem:
From "Letters to a Young Poet" by Maria Rilke
I want to beg of you much as I can to be patient
toward all that's unsolved in your heart,
and learn to love the questions themselves,
like locked rooms, or like books that are
written in a very foreign tongue.
Do not seek the answers, which cannot be given you,
because you would not be able to live them,
and the point is to live everything.
Live the question now,
perhaps you will then, gradually, without noticing it,
live along some distant day into the answer.
When we find this infinite state then the unknown becomes less scary. We are in the isness of now (as Eckhart Tolle puts it so well). So let yourself feel your emotions around the unknown. Remember all of us are wondering about the future (it’s a trick and delusion of the human psyche). The thing is none of us know the outcome of any given day, the future is an illusion. Einstein said, “The most beautiful thing we can experience is the mysterious…” The way to avoid suffering is to learn to be present in the isness and be less afraid of the unknown so we can relax our effort and simply enjoy being here and seeing what is real and beautiful! I love you all, Silvia