Namaskar - Oct 09
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means to stay awake. But reveiller means to wake up or awaken. This came as a little<br />
revelation! To awaken is to awaken to something that is already there. Perhaps to awaken is<br />
to reveal something that is already there!<br />
In the region of the spiritual heart, a wonderful balance can be created between the<br />
transcendental and the mundane. The anahata chakra and the deeper, mystical spiritual heart<br />
lie mid-way between the three higher chakras that seem to have the power to transport us<br />
beyond the mundane world and the three lower chakras that keep us stuck in the mundane<br />
world. Over the years, in my own spiritual practice, I have found often when my aspiration<br />
for the Divine has been strong, some kind of hostility or, for want of a better word, ‘fedupness’<br />
has developed towards the world I inhabit and towards some of its denizens.<br />
At other times, I seem happily caught up in worldly activities and my aspiration for the<br />
beyond seems weak. The Hridaya meditation showed how a balance can be created between<br />
the two worlds till unity between the two worlds is experienced, a balance that reveals the<br />
mundane is not devoid of the sacred and ultimately, that the mundane is sacred. Life is<br />
worth living because it is already and completely infused with the Divine, with the sacred.<br />
Perhaps nothing from Shakespeare’s opening quote refers to ‘no thing’, no substance or no<br />
form, all of which point to the divine essence that is formless yet pervades all, all beings<br />
and all things. So, life, though an illusion, no matter how dark or badly lit it may seem,<br />
points to the Divine. If we could remember this every moment of our lives, this illusion,<br />
dream or movie of life would become a song and a dance, a sacred celebration, to be lived<br />
with honor and reverence, mirth and joy, intensity and passion. The following Sufi words<br />
seemed to point to this truth - when you possess nothing, nothing possesses you.<br />
The Hridaya retreat was truly heartwarming. These words came up during meditation:<br />
The mind thinks. And the heart? It sings.<br />
As in Buddhist retreats before, unresolved<br />
mental and emotional stuff came up<br />
constantly. Claudiu’s observation that the<br />
ocean doesn’t say damn, that weed is still<br />
there, rang true. There was recognition that<br />
the mental and emotional stuff had every<br />
right to be there. Above all, plumbing the<br />
shadowy depths of my psyche didn’t seem<br />
scary any more. The retreat transformed my<br />
meditation practice from a self-imposed<br />
chore to a game of discovery to be<br />
approached with a sense of wonder.<br />
For more information: agamayoga.com/<br />
hridaya (66) 89 233 0217 or<br />
info@agamayoga.com<br />
Tia writes from<br />
Dharamshala in the<br />
Himalayas, where she is<br />
studying Buddhist texts,<br />
Tibetan and scripts at the<br />
Library of Tibetan Works<br />
and Archives, completing a<br />
writing project and<br />
painting mandalas.<br />
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