Do Right, Fear No Man

All the translations of the Yoga Sutras I come across link brahmacarya, or moderation, with courage. The connection makes sense when we consider the state of intemperance. Nothing is more debilitating than the dread associated with immoderation in any area of our lives. The state of active addition is accompanied by an overwhelming sense of doom. Even in less extreme situations, that fear is profoundly destructive to our belief in ourselves.

At the core of intemperance in any form is the mistaken belief that we are not OK as we are. Convinced that we are imperfect, we carry real pain. The cause of our suffering, however, is not our imperfection but our mistaken belief in our imperfection. Acting under the erroneous assumption that we are imperfect, we reach outside ourselves to create balance, to end our suffering. Naturally this is unsuccessful, so we redouble our efforts and demand even more. All our effort, all our striving, merely worsens our situation and deepens our conviction that we are somehow flawed. Caught up in this cycle of chronic suffering and misguided attempts to relieve our pain, we spend our days out of balance and in conflict with ourselves.

The solution is twofold. To begin with, we have to stop whatever it is we are doing that creates imbalance. When you are stuck in a hole, stop digging. The second step is to examine the beliefs that drive us to intemperance in the first place. Brahmacarya concerns the first step, summoning the courage to step away from the downward spiral. We discover that there is a power in nondoing. As we practice moderation, a wind begins to fill our sails. We find that the ever-present anxiety that accompanies immoderation evaporates. We realize that our fear, which grew out of a specific behavior, had contaminated every aspect of our lives. And as we finally walk away from the food, the sex, the alcohol, the debt, the fill-in-the-blank, we leave our fear behind as well. Suddenly we can begin to meet people's eyes again. We are no longer making up excuses for our reality. The colors of our lives become brighter and bolder. We find that when we do right, we fear no man.

--- An excerpt from Rolf Gates and Katrina Kenisons' Meditations from the Mat 

Follow the Sun

What a beautiful day to be alive! Cherish this moment, cherish this breath. namaste :)

somewhere i have never travelled, gladly beyond

somewhere i have never travelled,gladly beyond
any experience,your eyes have their silence:
in your most frail gesture are things which enclose me,
or which i cannot touch because they are too near

your slightest look easily will unclose me
though i have closed myself as fingers,
you open always petal by petal myself as Spring opens
(touching skilfully,mysteriously)her first rose

or if your wish be to close me, i and
my life will shut very beautifully ,suddenly,
as when the heart of this flower imagines
the snow carefully everywhere descending;

nothing which we are to perceive in this world equals
the power of your intense fragility:whose texture
compels me with the color of its countries,
rendering death and forever with each breathing

(i do not know what it is about you that closes
and opens;only something in me understands
the voice of your eyes is deeper than all roses)
nobody,not even the rain,has such small hands

---e.e. cummings 

Impermanence

What does it mean to ‘have’ instead of to ‘be’? Our experiences are forever fleeting. Nothing is permanent and no matter how much we grasp, the sand will always slip through our fingers. Our time is a culmination of present moments. Impermanence is the only constant.

Lately I have been thinking about how so many of my struggles come from this age-old powerplay between perceived time and consciousness. It is becoming clearer to me that my urge to collect, take hold of, grab on for dear life—things, people, experience—instills a great fear of loss within me and jades my choices. The more I try to establish a grip, the quicker I am alluded.

Fully embracing this concept of impermanence means living with faith—faith that the universe will provide for me all that is necessary. And those that I love I have to set free.

It is an interesting thing in our culture, this concept of ‘having’ someone. I of course am alluding to romantic relationships in which you have metaphorically lassoed one another into a mutual contract supposedly to support growth, intimacy, and happiness in each other. It is no surprise when people in monogamous relationships report frustrations—no freedom, too much pressure, expectations are off, things aren’t what they used to be, this feels like emotional prison—because we are trying to grow in a soil tainted with fear.

How do we have relationships that support autonomy and passion alike? There isn’t a problem with passion, this is a gift—where we go wrong is when we kindle a fear of losing this euphoric feeling of belonging. For most women, myself included, infatuation is like a warhead candy—the sweet quickly turns sour once we start worrying about the void this magical drug is going to carve out in our brains and hearts. We habitually poison new wells because of a conditioned fear, internally and externally.

My tendency to want to ‘hold onto’ things in life inhibits me from experiencing fully, loving fully. If and when I surrender to the fact that everything is impermanent—that I can never truly have anything or anyone—I can build a life based on genuinely grounded content, there is an empowering freedom in that.