Grounding

"Don't think you can attain total awareness and whole enlightenment without proper discipline and practice. This is egomania. Appropriate rituals channel your emotions and life energy toward the light. Without the discipline to practice them, you will tumble constantly backward into darkness."   

-- Lao Tzu

It has taken a while to get grounded this trip to Mysore. I had a year of go, go, go, and when given the opportunity to truly power down, for the first time in my life, it has been a challenge. Consciously, I have chosen not to hang in the social scene as much. Which has proven invaluable. I like my time! I need to recharge. 

Sharath has spoken on several occasions in regards to conserving energy when it comes to idle talk and excessive indulgence in any one area. I can appreciate this, and at the same time, I have come to realize there is a season for everything. There are instances when I feel more active and social and others where I feel more withdrawn and silent. I think it's good to honor both sides and be truthful with what is needed at any given time. 

As I keep watch over my energy I am learning how easy it is to become distracted and scattered. Lessons that hold significant value. More and more, maintaining my center holds greater importance versus grasping for external confirmation and/or validation. Constant striving becomes a bottomless pit of reaching outward for value and we all know it doesn't start there. 

Maintaining a peaceful equilibrium teaches what is truly important in life, and how that connects to my own internal state. The mind has a way of making things more complicated. The heart just wants to feel and be true to what arises in the moment. Acknowledging the part of myself that adds complication, as well as separation, strengthens my awareness to transform back to truly seeing things as they are. 

I welcome this, and honor how the daily discipline sharpens the saw, cutting through illusions and delusions, that in turn, create further separation. We live in a time where joining together and abolishing illusory hierarchies that only lead to more suffering, not only to ourselves, but into the larger scope of humanity is of utmost importance. What is it all for? The time is ripe. We need only work this paradigm to its fullest. To trust and to experience what yoga is all about. Union. It's a choice. It doesn't matter if we practice for 1 hour a day or 10 hours a day, what difference does it make if we further divide and put ourselves on top of others? 

No label, status, or pecking order comes even close to the truth of who we are. We must drop everything. We must shed the layers that have been built through generations and get back to the bare bones of what it means to live a life as one. We can't deny this truth any longer. What are we afraid of?