So periodically I just pick up a seemingly random book and open it and read the page that pops up and see how it's relevant to my life at that moment. I really do this a lot, not the same book all the time, but once a day at least.
Tonight, just before I meditated I picked up the Yamas and the Niyamas by Deborah Adele, really one of the most accessible accounts of these ancient yogic principles I've ever read. Opened it to a passage on Aparigraha, which many would translate as non-attachment, but R. Sharath Jois, the current guru of the Ashtanga Yoga Method puts it this way: Pari means around, Graha means to grasp, a A means not. Aparigraha means non-grasping of things around you. When expectations are high, one becomes greedy, and ocne you allow the greed to grow, it is difficult to get rid of it.
So, the passage was about how as a trapeze artist one must trust completely in the process by letting go of the first trapeze trusting the the other will be there, hanging in mid-air for a moment, then taking the next one as it comes to you. If you grasp for it it will offset the timing and the flow of the performance will be thrown off. If you hold onto the first bar until you can get a hold of the second bar, it will throw both bars, and you, off balance and the performance will be thrown off. These are my words summarizing the point she is making, not hers.
Here is a quote from the text though..."I'm not a trapeze artist, but my experience of letting go feels very much like being suspended in mid-air with nothing to hold on to. It is raw, naked, vulnerable, and uncomfortable. I would much prefer to let go when I know for sure what is coming. And when I have let go, I want to somehow stay connected, just in case I want it back. To let go completely feels like a suspension in the void."
"The practice of nonclinging is as free as swinging from bar to bar effortlessly, in perfect trust and perfect timing. Any kind of holding too long or grasping too far forward in an effor to maintain a sense of security is deadly to our spiritual growth and the natural unfolding of our lives."
This is where I am in life, learning to let go, and not in anticipation of the next thing, but in complete trust that the next thing will be there and it will be the next stage of my journey. It will most likely be bigger and better as well as long as I'm not attached to it being so.
Abraham (who I'll be visiting with on August 31, yay!) would say that I've filled my vibrational escrow (even thought they're calling it our vortex now) account with things put in there out of my experience of contrast within my life, this one and many others as well, and so as long I am able to allow it in, read let go and trust, then the next thing will come and it will be closer to what I want, if not exactly what I want. But we are built to keep refining and keep refining, until what we want changes again and again, so even in the receiving of it we are meant to let go so that the more refined version can step into our lives.
Lots to think about, for me, hopefully for you too.
Let go...
Allow...
Trust...
2 comments:
Good one! That's pretty much how so far(60 yrs.)I've led my life. I'm so grateful for that insight! <3
Good one! That's pretty much how so far(60 yrs.)I've led my life. I'm so grateful for that insight! <3
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