The universe is timeless, eternal. On earth, this timelessness is expressed as the illusion of linear time, expressed in single moment awareness. Breaking reality down into moments gives us the illusion that things are separate. People are born at different moments, so we sometimes have the illusion that they are separate from us rather than facets on the same gem. This is one way that time hinders us. But we also use this separation as a blessing. It is what creates manifestations of life (or as Erich Schiffman would say, eruptions of infinity), plants, people, weather. It is what helps us understand process as we interact with the manifestations of life through art, cooking, relationships, work. The separation is a tool for us to understand unity better. The physical nature of earth is dualistic. So all earthly conditions have an equally true opposite.
Yoga means union. Suffering is caused by the illusion of separation. The technology of yoga practices (for the sake of this article I just mean the 8 limbed practice which includes: restraints, observances, postures, breathwork, withdrawing senses, concentration, meditation and absorption), are designed to dissolve the separation that linear time creates. In turn a deeper connection to the progression of every moment is felt and more synchronicity is experienced. The natural flow is there waiting for us to experience it, but we hold ourselves back by tricking ourselves into thinking we are separate. "Unpleasant" things get resisted rather than revered as teachers. The 'teaching' patterns occur over and over again until we can learn them. But resistance is the cause of suffering and therefore separating. Yoga brings attention to what these hot spots are and my hope is that my blog equips you to do the letting go you are ready for as it comes up through your yoga practice.
One thing yoga does is to help us be in the moment more, through the illusion of the koshas (body, breath, emotions/thoughts, higher self, bliss). In other words, to really feel what's happening in each moment, through the experience of those layers, more can be experienced. Through these ways of experiencing reality, we can come into contact with what is ready to be let go, whether it is a memory being held in the body or a belief that we have held about ourselves. These old practices are designed to help us see our inner experience more closely and when we can see it we are more likely to understand what we've been unconsciously carrying around this whole time. We can begin to see just how intricately the 'outer' experience is really just a reflection of what is happening inside. There are lots of wonderful authors explaining to us the power of our thoughts and how we create our reality with our thoughts and this is true. But what about the unconscious patterns we hold? Those create our reality too. And yoga can bring light to those unconscious places. Being with the fullness of self is empowering.
By increasing awareness of the inner experience, attention expands and clarifies. Each moment has more spaciousness as a fuller attention is cultivated. Time expands. When I feel small, time drags. When I feel empowered, time feels timeless. Have you ever been at job that didn't work for you and it just felt like time was moving in slow motion? Have you ever been 'in the flow' at work? Did time fly?
Saturday, December 15, 2012
Time
Time has actually been on my mind quite a bit in the past few years. Often I experience yoga as a means of increasing the ability to play with time.
Six years ago or so I had a very strange dream in which I was drinking a new flavor of Yogi Tea. It tasted strange, but it wasn't the flavor that was strange it was the feeling. I looked down at the package and the tea was simply called, "Time". I looked at the ingredient list and it was made of mice. That dream definitely left a taste in my mouth.
Then in 2008 right after I moved to Kripalu I quickly found myself aligned with Jeff Triplat, a shaman/teacher who was traveling through to do some teaching and healing. I had serendipitously arrived at Kripalu a month early and I don't think I would have been exposed to him had I arrived at the normal time. A portion of the program that I took with him was a discussion of what 2012 is all about. He explained the precession of equinoxes putting everything into a much larger (26,000 year and beyond) perspective and how time has been speeding up since the harmonic convergence in 1987 (which we may interpret as the dramatic increase in technology). The moment I started working with him things internally moved very quickly and I noticed that all this information I was being given was unlocking me in a way. I found myself rapidly seeing and letting go of past trauma and pain, some of it belonging to other people in my family. And in that letting go I opened up to a new way of being that felt much more empowered and alive.
Anyway one thing (of many) that he said that stuck with me is that starting on 12/21/12 we are letting go of the concept of time as we know it. And I felt that yesterday as I was talking with a friend. Right now we use linear time as a way to agree upon reality. But that's using time to support the illusion of separation. (This is where yoga and time come in because from my experience I believe the practices of yoga are designed to dissolve the illusion of separation.)
Here's the thing. If in this new consciousness we are coming into a time where we are present in our fully empowered truth in our hearts in every moment, then won't each moment be exactly what it needs to be? Would time and appointments really be necessary? If everyone is fully present to serve and experience in each moment, then the people who meet will be exactly who needs to meet each other.
More and more people are forgoing watches and just checking time on the cell phone instead. If we didn't have cell phones we'd be lost. But if we are fully present in our hearts, then whatever happens will happen as it needs to, say if all of a sudden the invisible technology holding us together were to break down and stop working for some reason. I think this is what I mean when I say, "The internet is training wheels for our psychic futures." It's just getting us used to being open and available to thinking big.
So when I looked up the dream symbol for mice, one definition that stood out to me was that they represent small ideas that hold us back. I wonder if the dream was giving me a premonition about time, how we'll let it go to take ourselves further into a more ecstatic reality.
Anyway, that's just stuff that floats through my awareness at times and it occured to me yesterday, so I wanted to bring it up.
Six years ago or so I had a very strange dream in which I was drinking a new flavor of Yogi Tea. It tasted strange, but it wasn't the flavor that was strange it was the feeling. I looked down at the package and the tea was simply called, "Time". I looked at the ingredient list and it was made of mice. That dream definitely left a taste in my mouth.
Then in 2008 right after I moved to Kripalu I quickly found myself aligned with Jeff Triplat, a shaman/teacher who was traveling through to do some teaching and healing. I had serendipitously arrived at Kripalu a month early and I don't think I would have been exposed to him had I arrived at the normal time. A portion of the program that I took with him was a discussion of what 2012 is all about. He explained the precession of equinoxes putting everything into a much larger (26,000 year and beyond) perspective and how time has been speeding up since the harmonic convergence in 1987 (which we may interpret as the dramatic increase in technology). The moment I started working with him things internally moved very quickly and I noticed that all this information I was being given was unlocking me in a way. I found myself rapidly seeing and letting go of past trauma and pain, some of it belonging to other people in my family. And in that letting go I opened up to a new way of being that felt much more empowered and alive.
Anyway one thing (of many) that he said that stuck with me is that starting on 12/21/12 we are letting go of the concept of time as we know it. And I felt that yesterday as I was talking with a friend. Right now we use linear time as a way to agree upon reality. But that's using time to support the illusion of separation. (This is where yoga and time come in because from my experience I believe the practices of yoga are designed to dissolve the illusion of separation.)
Here's the thing. If in this new consciousness we are coming into a time where we are present in our fully empowered truth in our hearts in every moment, then won't each moment be exactly what it needs to be? Would time and appointments really be necessary? If everyone is fully present to serve and experience in each moment, then the people who meet will be exactly who needs to meet each other.
More and more people are forgoing watches and just checking time on the cell phone instead. If we didn't have cell phones we'd be lost. But if we are fully present in our hearts, then whatever happens will happen as it needs to, say if all of a sudden the invisible technology holding us together were to break down and stop working for some reason. I think this is what I mean when I say, "The internet is training wheels for our psychic futures." It's just getting us used to being open and available to thinking big.
So when I looked up the dream symbol for mice, one definition that stood out to me was that they represent small ideas that hold us back. I wonder if the dream was giving me a premonition about time, how we'll let it go to take ourselves further into a more ecstatic reality.
Anyway, that's just stuff that floats through my awareness at times and it occured to me yesterday, so I wanted to bring it up.
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