Let's Get Naked

Love is your Self. It is your real name and the name of every living being. But, you will not truly know and be this Self-love until you are willing to exchange your identity for Truth.

- Mooji

 

In the Bhagavad Gita, Lord Krishna explains that our physical identity is like a suit of clothes that we shed at the time of death only to don a new suit in our next rebirth.  I remember coming across this passage as a teenager and the tremendous impact it had on me.  The importance of this information is not so much about “reincarnation” which we may or may not believe in.  It is about the nature of our inner, deeper being; the soul or atman.  The teaching points to our inner core of being which is timeless and all-pervading.

In the yoga tradition we regard both body and mind to be instruments or vehicles of consciousness.  They are forms that our formless essence assumes for the sake of human experience.  They are wonderful forms through which we can dance, sing, create make love and stand in awe of nature as it is presented through the mind and senses.  When we are attuned to our inner being we experience life as joyful play.  We incarnated in these forms for the sake of expressing our joyful, loving essence.  Perhaps it seems that somewhere something went wrong.

What went wrong is that we fell into avidya, ignorance.  Remember that ignorance in this sense doesn’t mean a lack of intellectual knowledge.  Instead it means that we have mistaken the unreal for the real.  We have become identified with body and mind and have forgotten our true nature which is pure, loving, “naked” awareness.  Naked awareness is pure awareness, without thoughts, opinions, judgment, or analysis.  It is pure presence.  The whole point of Yoga is to overcome ignorance and once again rest in our intrinsic state of being. 

As we explored in previous posts, our basic nature as pure awareness is obscured by our attachments based on our own mistaken identity.  Our self-nature is love.  We don’t need to seek love, earn love or fear losing it.  Instead we need to relax deeply, surrender our hopes and fears and allow ourselves to be – not this or that, but simply to be.  The spiritual work, sadhana, we do is simply a means of clearing away everything that obscures the light within.  We need to get naked.

Getting naked physically implies a vulnerability.  We have been conditioned to be ashamed of our naked bodies.  Actually getting naked with a group of supportive people can be very liberating.  I went to a Tantric retreat for my first time decades ago.  Honestly I was expecting meditation, talk, mantra and yantra, etc.  I found the retreat center, a large cabin in the forest, walked up the wooden steps onto a beautiful deck with a group of nude strangers lounging in the sun.  All of the sudden I was embarrassed to have clothes on!

In the Tantric tradition nakedness is seen as an expression of one’s deeper nature.  Naked Tantric yogis aren’t out to shock or seduce anybody.  Instead they are present with the body as it is, unadorned, unapologetic and absolutely pristine.  It is a symbolic vehicle of our deeper selves. 

We are beings of consciousness and energy, formlessness and form.  Neither can be denied.  All forms however arise and dissolve within the formless expanse of consciousness, of awareness.  The Yoga Vasishta tells us that on the immense scale of the universe which comes into being through what we now call the Big Bang, expands and collapses after billions and billions of years, there is an underlying consciousness that exists before, during and after.  And, yes that consciousness is present within us.

When I was second or third grade I had a favorite shirt.  It was a forest green (which I called “army green”) corduroy shirt.  I thought it made me look military and badass though I suspect no one else was fooled.  It was also very comfortable.  I wore it so much that it became worn out.  The ribs of the corduroy became worn down and the color faded away.  Still I insisted on wearing it until one day my mother, who was embarrassed to send me to school in it, threw it away.  Although we did find a new shirt that was very similar, I lost my attachment to it.  I was not that shirt!

Similarly we adopt beliefs, roles, and identities that are not who we are on a deeper level.  Our awareness is obscured by our conditioning.  At some point these no longer serve us and may even be ripped away by life circumstances.  Let Mom take your shirt.  Revel in naked awareness!  Awaken to your true nature as Love.  When we let go of concepts, beliefs and descriptions of ourselves and the world we can enter into the abiding peace and joy of our natural state.  When we step out of our minds and open our hearts we can experience the radiant love at the core of our beings. 

Gratitude and Forgiveness

 

 

Perception is a mirror not a fact. And what I look on is my state of mind, reflected outward.

-          A Course In Miracles

 

There is an interesting aspect of quantum mechanics called “entanglement.”  What this means is that two electrons that have become connected through interacting continue to be connected even if they are several thousand light years apart (or several billion for that matter.)  Albert Einstein found this discovery very disturbing and tried to prove that it was mistaken.  However subsequent experiments have proven that it is very much the case.

What this means is that on a basic level we are all interconnected.  What we think, do and feel effects the rest of the universe instantly.  Humanity is deeply interconnected on the level of our DNA.  We vibrate, rise, fall and suffer together.  When Jesus taught us to take care of the poorest among us, he meant that they are us.  We don’t have to invoke some mystical spiritual level of being; in terms of the basic construct of matter, we are one. 

The individual ego, or “I am” is a concept based on false premises.  I might have a local, individual identity, but it is entirely relative and based in a substratum of universality.  The universe is conscious and alive experiencing itself in and through our particular vantage points.  When we cling to the ego’s perspective exclusively we wreck havoc on our souls and create suffering for ourselves and others.  When we expand our view, allowing others under our umbrella of care and concern, then we promote peace and healing.  As the Dalai Lama has said, “All suffering is caused by ignorance. People inflict pain on others in the selfish pursuit of their own happiness or satisfaction”

One way that the ego holds onto its illusory reality is through emotions such as resentment, guilt, contempt, jealousy, disgust or pride.  When we hold on to this kind of energy we shut ourselves off from the universal life force, or prana.  In turn it creates imbalance and illness within our psycho-somatic beings.  Often we try to justify our position through various rationalizations.  I have met so many intelligent people who use their intelligence primarily to defend their suffering.  We create a mental prison for ourselves and argue against the one who would release us.

Gratitude is a profound stepping stone on our path to authentic love.  Instead of nursing past grievances we can try remembering instances of positive experiences.  Even in those instances where we might have been truly and maliciously harmed, we might consider what lessons that teacher (albeit unconscious) had for us.  This doesn’t mean telling a bully who has hurt you “thank you may I have another.”  It means accepting life lessons.  It means refocusing, reframing and reorienting ourselves.  Appreciate what is good in your life experience right now.  If nothing else you are alive to have this experience.

Practicing gratitude changes the brain and lifts us out of depression.  It opens the door of our mental prison and allows us to step out into the sunlight.  Although we can be grateful for past experiences, it is also possible to simply let the past go and open to the joy of this present moment.  This present moment is always something to be grateful for as long as we aren’t comparing it to some past or imaginary experience. 

Forgiveness and gratitude go hand in hand.  It is hard to feel grateful when holding on to grievances.  Sometimes it is difficult to let go.  However we have to remember that we are imprisoned by our thoughts of resentment not the other person.  We poison our bodies with toxic emotions and close ourselves off from healing grace.  While anger, resentment and fear separate us from love, forgiveness reconnects us with the wholeness of being.  It is an internal state.

Forgiveness doesn’t always mean that we give someone the opportunity to hurt us again.  Trust, once broken, takes time to repair if it can be repaired at all.  Forgiveness on the other hand means letting go of anger, resentment and desire for vengeance.  It means letting go and moving forward with life.  The reality is that we can always be hurt when we allow ourselves to be vulnerable.  Worse than the pain though is inner deadness because we have closed ourselves off from others and the world. 

     If we are honest, we might see that much of our anger and resentment is based on our own expectations of others.  Gratitude and forgiveness mean accepting others and things as they are.  If we open to the world this way we are not likely to get hurt – because we are free from attachment.  So the first step in practicing forgiveness might be recognizing how we ourselves have manufactured our grievances.  Then, of course, we have to forgive ourselves!

Looking For Love in the Wrong Places

 

Between individuals, true unadulterated love or fondness is impossible. Where love or affection has grown perfect this question cannot arise, for in such a case, who is the beloved? God and God alone.  – Sri Anandamayi Ma

 

       Romantic love necessarily implies a tension between egos.  Even the love a parent has for her children is generally contaminated by ego-aspirations.  One’s partner and children can easily be mistaken for extensions of one’s ego.  Then when they inevitably violate one’s expectations there is trouble.  When we try to control another; when we criticize, judge and manipulate we have stepped out of love and into ego.  Ego is based in fear and hatred.  It is always about “me.”  Of course we need to find balance in our relationships.  We need to stand up for ourselves and not let others walk all over us.  However these are all strategies of ego which is based in ignorance.

      Opening to and rising in love requires an inner aspiration and willingness to let go of our petty ego-centric concerns.  Not an easy task for any of us because we have been conditioned to believe that we have to defend ourselves.  When we surrender to love we become utterly defenseless.  Our ego boundaries dissolve and we become open to authentic being.  We can’t say “I love only these people (i.e. partners, family and friends) and I don’t give a damn about the rest.”  Once we drop our ego-defensive boundaries we realize that everyone and everything is part of us.  There is nothing to fear and no room for hatred.  Remember as Krishna tells us in the Bhagavad Gita, “The realized being sees the same Self in all beings.”

      Of course, most of us struggle with our less enlightened states of emotion and attachment.  Often the best we can do is to remember to accept and to be mindful of ourselves in relationships.  In this way we can bring higher awareness to all levels of our being, loving and forgiving ourselves and each other.  Intense personal relationships certainly gives us a challenge which can lead to potential growth and awakening.  The key is to be able to detach ourselves from our investment in our ego-generated illusions, to see ourselves objectively and to laugh at our follies.  The regular daily practice of yoga including meditation supports us in this.

      We are conditioned to believe that love depends upon some object.  We think that we will find it somewhere in the world of form, i.e. the right person or relationship (or maybe the right car or shoes).  The problem is that we are looking for love in the wrong places.  Love is a unifying field of awareness which begins with self-love and expands infinitely.  It is the deepest reality into which all our cognitions of separateness dissolve.  We are afraid of love because we believe it will destroy us.  The truth is that it will restore us. 

      Real love means moving beyond attachment, sensual experience and even intellectual experience.  Attachment and clinging originate from our unenlightened root chakra, from avidya.  We can become very sophisticated and refined in our attachment but we are still rooted in ignorance.  Avidya locks us into our ego-identities which are based in fear.  The ego is afraid of waking up because it knows it will discover that it doesn’t exist – at least not in any fundamental way. 

       Real love requires a level of austerity and commitment, refraining from overindulgence in intoxicants, taking care of ourselves and others.  Austerity or tapasya in yogic terms means refraining from those things that seem pleasant but bring misery.  It also means engaging in those things that might seem difficult but which bring happiness.  Get up early enough to practice yoga before you start the rest of the day.  Spend time with someone who needs you even though you’d rather do something else.  Clean up after others without griping from time to time.  Offer a silent blessing for everyone you meet and a sincere smile.

       The concept of separate self and other is avidya, ignorance.  We are all individual expressions of a unitary field; a field of Love-Awareness-Bliss.  Because of the infinite creative potential of this field each of us is truly unique but never separate.  Ego arises out of over identification with our unique individuality to the point of forgetting our universality.  Love is the consciousness of both aspects. 

      One of the biggest traps that we can fall into is the belief in our unworthiness.  When we hold this belief we not only seek for love and approval outside of ourselves but also refuse to accept it if offered.  Someone compliments us and we are sure they are either manipulating or delusional.  We can never be successful enough to overcome it.  We identify with our limited self-definitions and then find ourselves sadly lacking.  It is only when we encounter the unconditional love at the core of our being that we can dissipate this illusion and the suffering that goes with it.  It evaporates when we awaken to our true Self-nature and realize our inherent perfect wholeness.

      It seems paradoxical from the ego-perspective that we can only truly love one another when we truly love ourselves.  From the soul perspective there is no paradox because we are just one Self.  To truly love yourself is to love the entire universe.

Karma and Awakening

The unconscious reservoir of karma within gives birth to our experience: past, present and future.

-          Patanjali

 

The understanding that many of us have of karma is over-simplified at best.  We sum it up in statements like “What goes around comes around,” or “You reap what you sow.”  These are true but we might have to look a little deeper if we ever hope to disentangle ourselves from samsara, the cycles of suffering.  Samsara is perpetuated by our long-standing habits of thought and belief and the actions we take based upon them.  The Buddha made this clear in the opening statements of the Dhammapada:

1. All the phenomena of existence have mind as their precursor, mind as their supreme leader, and of mind are they made. If with an impure mind one speaks or acts, suffering follows him in the same way as the wheel of a cart follows the ox.

2. All the phenomena of existence have mind as their precursor, mind as their supreme leader, and of mind are they made. If with a pure mind one speaks or acts, happiness follows him like his shadow that never leaves him.

It all originates within mind.  Karma is not a law to be discovered “out there.”  Instead it operates from within us as our thoughts and emotions, ethics and motivations.  In fact, the idea of a world “out there” is at the root of the whole system.  As we awaken we understand more and more that the world we live in is a projection of our psyches, both individually and collectively.

Yoga psychology teaches us that our karma is rooted in deep collective unconscious patterns.  These are five-fold: ignorance, ego-identification, desire, aversion and the fear of death.  We are present in this experience because we have forgotten that we are spiritual beings having a temporary human incarnation.  As spiritual beings our nature is light, love, joy, freedom and immortality.  Because of our spiritual amnesia we experience ourselves as ego-beings whose illusory nature is darkness, fear, bondage and limitation. 

We can modify our karma by doing good deeds, however if there is ego attached to these they become contaminated.  This seems very tricky but through meditation, discernment, devotion and acting without attachment we have a chance. 

 

               

Mind-Body Healing

 

Human beings are made of body, mind and spirit.

Of these, spirit is primary,

for it connects us to the source of everything,

the eternal field of consciousness.

-    Deepak Chopra

 

     We live at the end of an age where we believe that everything is basically material.  We are beginning to awaken to the fundamental reality of mind.  This awakening is dawning as scientific investigation pushes beyond the sphere of the physical aspect of the universe.  As one of the founding fathers of quantum physics, Niels Bohr, stated in 1922, “Everything we call real is made of things that cannot be regarded as real. If quantum mechanics hasn't profoundly shocked you, you haven't understood it yet.”

     That was back in 1922, however, we are still struggling to awaken from the spell of materialism.  It is at the basis of the world-view, the paradigm known as scientific-materialism, and it is hard for some people to release.  We live in what another seminal quantum physicist, John Wheeler, described as “a participatory universe.”  This doesn’t mean that we only participate on the level of physical activity, i.e. “elbow grease.”  It means that our thoughts and emotions, our level of consciousness effects the universe at large. 

     It means that our thoughts and feelings determine the reality that we experience.  There be some fundamental reality-out-there but as conscious, experiential beings we live in a universe of our own experience. We are beginning to awaken from the trance of materialism to discover the inherent power of mind.  Everything that we know, that we perceive, that we trust exists within our minds. 

     The first and foremost way that we can experience this is within our bodies.  We can heal our bodies through our beliefs.  There is measurable, scientific evidence to demonstrate this.  As Joe Dispenza writes in You Are the Placebo, “A wealth of research now exists to show that our attitude does indeed effect out health, including how long we live.”  His book explores the many studies which document the placebo effect, the ability of the mind’s ability to heal the body, as well as the nocebo effect, or the mind’s ability to create illness or even death in the body. 

     I have long thought it suspicious how medicine dismisses the placebo effect.  The fact that someone can overcome disease because they believe they have received a treatment is astounding.  It tells us that the power to heal is within us.  The medical establishment wants us to believe that we need some outer intervention, a pill, shot, surgical procedure or other treatment.  The placebo effect indicates that the power to heal is due to our own beliefs.  The question is where do we put our faith?

     We are conditioned to believe that we need something or someone who is an authority to make us better.  The truth is that there is a powerful pharmaceutical industry that is willing to sell us just about anything for a profit whether it heals or kills us.  It’s not that we should abandon modern medicine but we should wake up to our own healing potential. 

 

 

Maithuna: "Sacred Sex"

According to tantra, sexual life has a threefold purpose. Some practice it for procreation, others for pleasure, but the tantric yogi practices it for samadhi. He does not hold any negative views about it. He does it as a part of his sadhana. But, at the same time, he realizes that for spiritual purposes, the experience must be maintained. Ordinarily this experience is lost before one is able to deepen it. By mastering certain techniques, however, this experience can become continuous even in daily life. Then the silent centres of the brain are awakened and start to function all the time.  – Swami Satyananda Saraswati 

 

Maithuna is a tantric term for a particular spiritual practice or sadhana which involves the union of masculine and feminine principles.  The masculine principle is consciousness and the feminine is creative energy.  The universe of our experience is created through the interplay of these two.  Neither can exist without the other.  If we consider our experience we find that we are always enjoying the alternations of pairs of opposites: day and night, hot and cold, male and female, happiness and sorrow, pain and pleasure, birth and death.  Our home is unaltered peace and joy but we entered this world of experience for other reasons.

When the two poles of consciousness (Shiva) and energy (Shakti) are in balance we experience absolute bliss, love and deep peace.  This state is referred to as samadhi in yoga.  It is the state of spiritual union beyond ego.  Amazingly enough Tantra says we can enter this state through one of our favorite activities: sex.  As the Vigyana Bhairava Tantra tells us, “When you practice a sex ritual, let thought reside in the quivering of your senses like wind in the leaves, and reach the celestial bliss of ecstatic love.” 

Ordinarily sex is problematic for us.  As ego-beings we feel ourselves driven by our libidos.  Religion has conditioned us to feel that sexual pleasure is wrong and sinful.  Tantra is a spiritual philosophy and methodology which is beyond religion.  Tantra does not believe in judgment, sin in the ordinary sense, or some antagonistic relationship between spirit and nature.  Every aspect of experience is sacred.  Everything and everyone is an expression of divine consciousness.  It is our job to realize this within and through every experience of our lives.  The violence, violation and pain inflicted within our world is a reflection of ignorance.  Fear, guilt, jealousy and resentment are reflections of ignorance. 

Most of us have been lead to believe that love is some mixture of sexual desire and emotional attachment.  Tantra says that we can rise above these through the power of awareness, of nonattachment.  Nonattachment means that we can observe our physical, emotional and mental states without judgment or identification.  Whatever we experience on these levels is temporary.  Our essential Self is the ever-present observer.  However this inner divine presence observes with unconditional love and compassion.  We enter this world of form through the act of procreation.  Tantra says we can liberate ourselves through the same act.  “We rise by that by which we fall.”

Maithuna is the name of a specific Tantic ritual which includes sexual intercourse on either a literal or virtual level.  It is a ritual of offering and surrender which includes offering the five elements of our existence to the Divine within.  The five elements (tattwas) are earth (pritvi), water (apas), fire (agni), air (vayu), and ether (akasha).  Earth is the solid aspect of material experience, water the liquid, fire the thermal, air the gaseous, and ether is the zero-point field.  So symbolically the ritual involves sacrificing every material aspect of our beings, from gross to subtle, to the formless absolute within. 

In the ritual these elements are represented by various aspects of the performance.  As Swami Satyananda says, “The five tattwas, or elements, of tantra are madya (wine), mansa (flesh), maithuna (sexual union), mantra (the chanting of stanzas, scriptures, or psychic sounds) and mudra (practices like shambhavi mudra, yogamudra, etc.). If you have been to church during the communion, you will have seen the flesh, the wine and the chanting of scriptures. It is a tantric practice.”  (Very few Catholics realize the true origins of the Mass.)

Celibate yogis are said to internalize this whole process (and we are not talking about masturbation.)  It is a union of the feminine and masculine energies within out body-minds.  However many of us feel the need to connect with another on a physical, emotional, mental and spiritual level.  However this takes discipline, patience and karmic fortune.  The first thing is to find a suitable partner.  The next is to be involved in a mutual practice of yogic discipline.  You cannot practice Tantra without yogic training.  Otherwise everyone who got drunk, ate meat and had sex would be enlightened.  Somehow this doesn’t seem to be the case.

 

     According to the tradition people have sex for three different reasons based on their level of consciousness.  The most basic level is unconscious instinct for procreation.  This is considered the animal level.  The next level is pleasure and this is the ordinary human level (on which we get trapped.) The third level is when we use sex as a means of transcendence.  It is a matter of intention, focus and desire.  Maithuna requires a postponement of orgasm.  It requires that we enter fully into the moment of pleasure before release and maintain it for as long as possible. 

     "Maintain the fire and avoid the ashes."

Form and Emptiness

They call Him Emptiness who is the Truth of

Truths, in Whom all truths are stored!

There within Him creation goes forward, which is

Beyond all philosophy; for philosophy cannot attain to Him:

There is an endless world, O my Brother!  And

There is a Nameless Being, of which naught can be said.

-          Kabir

 

 

Form is known to us through the mind and senses.  We live in the world of forms and become attached to them.  However we forget that all forms exist with the space of emptiness.  Form is the surface level of existence.  For example, you find yourself attracted to a person who is physically beautiful but once you get to know him or her you are repulsed.  Form is the package, presentation and veil which appears to hide a deeper truth. 

Does this mean that form is bad?  Of course not, we might be attracted to someone’s beauty and come to know how wonderful they are as a person.  Form is simply superficial and if we get stuck on this level we might be in for trouble.  We might actually feel we are bitten by the rope we mistake for a snake!  When we become attached to form we suffer because all forms are transitory.  As the philosopher Heraclitus put it, “Change is the only thing that is permanent.”  Try as we might we can’t cling to anything in this phenomenal world.  If we are deeply attached this thought in itself might cause us anxiety or despair.  As Ram Das says in Be Love Now:

When we realize how finite are the limits of gratification or possible fulfillment within the play of forms, then despair arises.  That despair is born of the world-weary understanding that nothing in form can provide ultimate meaning.  It also forces and demands awakening and seeks transcendence of suffering.

Transcendence comes from both accepting impermanence in terms of form and realizing the changeless essence of things.  This changeless essence is also the essence of who we are.  It is our own essential nature, svarupa, the formless-form of our inner being.  It is consciousness itself apart from its content.  Of course we never actually experience consciousness without some content although we come close in deep sleep. 

In terms of Yoga there are three major states of consciousness: waking, dreaming and dreamless sleep.  There is also a fourth state which is present in all three.  It is referred to as turiya, the fourth, which is awareness of awareness itself.  It is a transcendent state of consciousness revealed through contemplative practice.  This “transcendent” center of awareness is also completely familiar to us.  It is the ground of our experience, the underlying presence that has always been and will always be here.

“Emptiness” sounds dismal to some.  We might imagine it as a state of nothingness, of emotional void.  This is not the spiritual meaning of emptiness or shunyata.  Instead it is the open presence which gives birth to and embraces everything.  It is the mirror in which the universe appears, the pond which reflects the moon.  Form arises spontaneously within emptiness as an expression of love and joy.  As William Blake wrote, “Eternity is in love with the productions of time.”  We are temporarily housed in the productions of time but our true home is in eternity. 

When we enter into a profound state of meditation we rest in the embrace of eternity, of emptiness.  At the same time we are not rejecting the world of appearances.  We are not seeking to escape but to gain perspective.  We can neither cling to form nor emptiness, but we can seek to harmonize both.  When we are under the sway of a powerful emotion such as jealousy or anger we can use emptiness to create space around it.  When we experience positive states such as joy or love we allow them to expand into the infinite space of being.

In Buddhist terms emptiness also means that nothing exists in and of itself.  All form, perception and mental states are mutually interdependent.  Take away one aspect and it all comes down like a house of cards.  Within emptiness there is complete freedom and it is a creative freedom.  From within emptiness a fresh view arises and with it a new world.