LOST AND FOUND
SEPTEMBER 2010. The theme tonight was LOST & FOUND. Really this gets to the heart of what nondualism means in seeing the world holistically, its challenges, and its ease. In yoga can we be sthira and sukhum at the same time instead of pitting strength and flexibility, effort and happiness against one another. We can apply this to all aspects of our lives: for instance how do we forgive when we are hurt, how do we balance strength and flexibility in the poses, how do we stand bravely but with heart?
It’s as Einstein said: “The rational mind is a faithful servant. The intuitive mind is a sacred gift. We have created a society that honors the servant and has forgotten the gift.”
In this example even Einstein is saying to us that we shouldn't be all or nothing, a dualistic philosophy. Instead as much as you engage your rational mind stop being mindful of the gift of your own intuition. Tap into both at the same time and realize one is not better than the other and we need not pick only one. The same then can be applied to what happens we get lost. And if you're honest with yourself we ALL get lost sometimes. We lose track of where we are in our lives and why we are doing the things we do. This is also what Elizabeth Gilbert comes to play out in her book Eat, Pray, Love. She has everything she could want and is lost within herself. The difference between those of us practicing yoga, meditation, mindfulness is that we are seekers. We see we are lost and want to be found. We don't punish or judge ourselves when we get lost we simply do the work for reconnecting to who we really are.
You see being lost is not bad in and of itself. It is just part of the whole spectrum of who we are. Perfectly imperfect and simply amazing human beings! So take the time on the mat to help you find your own balance - more ease, more playfulness, more discipline, more strength....find both. Love yourself, love your day, love your life! Silvia
Music tonight 6:15pm Yoga included: Dream Machine by Mark Farina, Ancient People by Nas, Damian Marley, In Another Time by Sade, Outre by M.Ward, Salsoul Nugget, even some Blue Scholars and Trevor Hall.
THIS OR THAT? ALL OR NOTHING?
OCTOBER 21, 2009: Just like you my every day provides endless opportunities to make healthy choices. Recently I have been trying to decide whether I should sell my house or not and I could see myself weigh out the options in a growing dualistic way of “This or That”. My thoughts started to overdramatize my reaction to this potential change. I was seeing the change as an All or Nothing scenario where selling my house was going to mean something was taken away from me and I’d end up with nothing.
Well as a result of my yoga practice I came to the realization that LIFE IS ABOUT ADDITION, NOT ABOUT SUBTRACTION.
Every change we encounter whether difficult or easy ADDS to what we already know and we get progressively smarter. Thank goodness for our humanness whereby each day, each moment adds to our life’s blessings and our story gets richer. We see this in class in how we grow our knowledge of a pose, even something as fundamental as Downward Facing Dog. Yes Dog pose is challenging yes it does get easier but the real blessing is how precious the learning is as we evolve our consciousness in this pose. And to think every pose is like that.
You see I was getting stuck thinking I have to keep subtracting stuff from my life when making decisions and the concept of “All or Nothing” was weighing heavy on me. But every experience every choice we make just adds to the All. So in reality, it is not All or Nothing….in a nondualistic way it is always ALL or ALL.
I shared this epiphany this increased awareness with a friend and they said this to me in response, “I think you are making progress in your thinking regarding adding things to life...I mean, it is not about complicating so much as enabling more growth.” It is about having the courage to face our lives directly and not make it all this or that but embrace more. That practice of saying to ourselves I will be 10% kinder today or 10% more peaceful or 10% more loving or 10% better Downward Dog. As my friend reminded me “at some point, one would think that you would hit the maximum limitation for kindness, but no, you can keep expanding, growing, increasing.”
So today with warrior spirit face your choices, make your decisions seeing that they will only ADD to your life. Even our pains, our limitations and those things that scare us are opening us up to more possibilities. So keep adding, keeping living, keep breathing bigger! Big love in ALL ways, Silvia