Om Namah Shivaya

I participated in a 'kirtan' last night as part of this study to become a yoga teacher. It actually is based in a form of yoga called bhakti that is devotional in essence...boldly musical and joyful in manifest. I was told it would be like the best live rock concert I'd ever seen - primarily because your in this small studio with a bunch of musicians and a slew of other people that are there to pretty much just bliss out. Yes, for those of you who don't already know...I am a yoga-practicing hippie and I dig this channeling of spiritual energy shit. (No, I do not wear patchouli.)

But I'm definitely finding a sense of 'centeredness' in my study of the integration of mind, body, and spirit. I've never been an overtly spiritual person - to be honest, churches and religious ceremonies (the external manifestations of spirituality) have always kind of creeped me out. Whenever I needed to feel in touch with some universal energy or sense of the divine, I would automatically head for nature - mountains...trees...water. But all of a sudden last night...in the darkness of a room illuminated primarily by sound...I felt myself stand up and start dancing. I don't remember making a conscious decision to do it - it kind of just happened...and dare I suggest it was a spiritual experience?

Now, I don't normally like songs with really repetitive lyrics - frankly, they bother me. The songs and chants I heard last night were primarily a series of Sanskrit words repeated over and over - sometimes in verse - mostly in a call and response fashion - but after getting over the initial emotionally irritated reaction to this repetition...I allowed myself to sing. I closed my eyes, took a deep breath, opened my mouth and I'm pretty sure sound came out - I mean, in any other setting I would have been at the top of my lungs - but in a room with a hundred other voices at the top of their lungs, I couldn't be sure. And after a little work letting go of the ego and conscious mind that might not allow me to consider the possibility of this sort of energy...I think I encountered it.

For those of you who have studied yoga at all, you probably know that this theme of universal consciousness and divine energy is understood to be found in all of us...that we are all connected and that we all have the ability, with discipline and practice, to tap into that energy and raise not only our level of consciousness, but inevitably the consciousness of those around us. Yes, those are pretty heady words...and in order to live according to that notion, we have to take a hell of a lot more responsibility for our actions than we typically like to. Living with our hearts - being aware of and paying attention to what our hearts reveal - is possible only when we practice quieting the constant chatter of our minds. And that's hard, hard work.

Science, most notably quantum physics, has suggested that we are all the same. Obviously, all of our experiences are different - and we are grouped around the globe into similar experience by language, physical attributes, religion, economic and political states, local communities, gender, family, etc. The list goes on...we really like to categorize things neatly into notions we can identify with. This makes sense - identity aids our most basic survival, in our psychological development, sense of community, it can breed compassion, create revolution for the greater good, etc...But it also has more negative byproducts - ideas about superiority, competition for resources, harmful stereotypes, as the root of genocide, war, etc. Our most basic human experience - the emotional need to give and receive love, to feel part of something larger than ourselves, to care for our elderly and our children, to seek knowledge, answers for inexplicable events and impulses, to feel joy - these things we share.

If we look very closely at ourselves and the things around us - and I'm talking at the atomic level, now - we can find protons, electrons, neutrons...forming atoms...all of which are in motion and contain energy in some form. This energy is all around us - in us - we are constantly cultivating and emitting and receiving it...sharing it with the people we encounter and the earth on which we tread...through the air we breathe...sounds we produce and hear...objects and ideas we create...it flows naturally, like time. It is a simple and powerful idea. Our minds like to make it complex.

As I look over the past year of my life, I can't help but notice that I seem to have shed. Some of the layers were tangible - clothes, furniture, etc. were purged just before I physically removed myself from an environment...others were more intangible - moving past one period of exploration of 'self' and into another. I noticed at one point that I was kind of withdrawing from everything I had chosen in creation of my young adult life...that I was paying more attention to what was really important to me in the most fundamental ways and what I really needed in my life. I found it wasn't much - hell, I've lived in Salt Lake City for almost 8 months now and still don't own a chair to sit on! And I don't know where I initially got the idea, but when enough things are going wrong - or not congruent with your personal truth and highest good - you notice. Like a slap in the face, I noticed. When I was sitting on the couch one day last year thinking, "what else have you got for me, Universe? Give it to me now, just drop it in my lap because if I move I might not be able to handle any more..." - it suddenly occurred to me that maybe things weren't 'happening to me'...that maybe I had a choice about those things. Certainly, I can never control what other people do or say - but I can definitely control what I do and say. And that comes from inside - no one could tell me what would make things right for me - what would be right in my mind and in my body. I was going to have to shut all that external stuff down and listen...become aware...pay attention to what came out from within. And with that first realization, things started to change. Intuition is powerful and true - and I believe that if you can trust it, you can't go wrong. The hard thing for me is making decisions...but I noticed they became easier when I paid attention to how my body physically reacted to my thoughts. It's really subtle sometimes, but always there...energy transforming and flowing...

So here I sit - at times overwhelmed by this journey...inspired by ideas that transcend my reality and experience...intrigued to begin to understand that the things I've always wondered about and wanted to know, well, maybe I already know them on some level...working hard to allow myself the profound joy and grief that life brings while detaching myself from that emotional experience enough to find peace. And it all becomes so complicated! In my effort and yearning for a simpler, truer life, my mind has discovered extensive complexity in so many more layers of depth...

...but I'm definitely acquiring this sense that fundamentally, it's simple. True in a way that liberates and empowers us. Pure in a way that we can all identify with, because it is the good in us. It is steadfast and responsive in a way that refuses to be silent if we make a choice that is incongruent with it.

It is the impulse that...in the darkness of a room illuminated primarily by sound...quiets the mind that might prevent its manifestation...projects the voice that releases its song...lifts the body of a humble girl off the floor and initiates movement that has no reason...except to demonstrate the connection this body shares with every other body, movement, voice, and sound in the room...