Or should I say, a part of us knows--a part that resides deep inside us. It is the seed of our existence.
For most of us, we may never tap into that place of knowing and are destined to work out lessons in the external world - again and again and again and again and again ad nauseam. These lessons are compounded (again and again) with external garbage that litters our path along the way. Nature versus nurture comes into play. Our true nature and the essence of why we are here grows farther and farther away from us.
Yes, Existentialists and whatever other philosophies beg to differ and I'm fine with that. I come from a place of feeling there is something else. I can only speak for myself. And whether that feeling was brought about by my brain, how I was brought up, or that I just was born that way (my earliest recollection of this feeling goes back to three years old) is up for debate. However, if you're with me on this or at least open to going on this particular verbal journey with me, keep reading.
My mother used to always use a quote she credited to Voltaire (though I've not been able to verify the author) "The more you own, the more owns you." Anyone who has some "thing" in their possession: a car, a house, a washer/dryer, an oven, a computer, knows what the quote means eventually. It takes head space to own stuff. We have to be responsible for its care and upkeep. We have to deal with it when it stops working. Therefore, the lessons we are here to learn get compounded by what we add to the pot. When our pot is overfilled with other stuff, getting to the bottom of it is a lot harder.
There are many spiritual references to the idea of becoming an "empty vessel". It's been used as a great propaganda tool as well - empty yourself and be filled with the crap I believe. Needless to say, we over stuff our vessel with more than just material things, we fill it with food, habitual thinking, ideas, assumptions, intellect, supposed facts, theories, pride, fear, anger, resentment, lust, desire, attachments to people, pets, places, presumptions, problems, poor health and principals, just to name a few. It's as if the seed of our existence is a huge magnet at the bottom of our pot or vessel drawing stuff after stuff, filling us to the brim with not an angstrom of space for air.
This magnetic seed, I believe, is our life's yearning to learn what we are here to learn --yet our over-materialized external world puts us so far away from finding our "north" we end up filling ourselves with the wrong fertilizer and branching off in all kinds of directions. You've seen those trees that grow oddly to avoid power lines. On my walk the other day (without my son --insert frowning emoticom) it became abundantly clear how much noise interference there is -- all in the name of "progress". Add to that all the other sensory interference there is around us and you get a glimpse at how many "weeds" and "stones" are getting in the way of right actions and aligned growth.
If we go on the theory that this is God's playground (or "The Source" or whatever word works for you) and we are his/hers/its "hands and feet" to help experience willy nilly as many experiences as this world will allow, then over stuffing the vessel may be just collateral damage. You're stuffed and then you die (this takes the obesity and hoarder epidemic to an interesting place, huh)
If we go on the theory of reincarnation and an individual soul's quest for new growth to raise the vibration of the "source" (which is the one I'm going with here, though I am aware I'm over simplifying) then keeping an empty vessel might be useful. To figure out what that "new growth" needs to be we might have to shut the magnetic seed down completely. Let everything fly out and start over. Sounds easy enough, right?
Well, no. If you read my earlier blog on the Manouso Manos workshop you learned we've grown attached to our stuff, we hold onto it in our bodies, not just in our thoughts. Shut the magnet off or not it's hard to get rid of everything. Some of it is stuck. Some of it may have even procreated with other parts of us. What can we do?
That's where yoga comes in handy. Through the eight limbs of yoga we can begin to dig deep down within ourselves -- first (re)connecting our mind to our body, which most people have become very detached from; and then eventually connecting to that seed of our existence. To do that we have to weed out the stuff we no longer need. BKS Iyengar in Tree of Yoga (click)says:
"Yoga is meant for individual growth and for physical, emotional, intellectual and spiritual defects to be removed. It is designed for the removal of fluctuations and afflictions, pains and sorrows."
It's nice to think we can immediately transition into an empty vessel and embrace the Zen Buddhist idea of keeping a Beginners Mind (click), but in reality it takes a tremendous amount of work to get there. In the Yoga Sutras of Patanjali, we are given a 196-step-by-step process for getting to the "empty vessel" state. Each one of the 196 pithy threads have a myriad of layers. Therefore, the deeper we get the deeper we can go.
My mom used to use the idea of fake it til you make it to help us with our studies. "Pretend like you are very interested in learning everything your history lesson is teaching you and eventually you will be." I have to admit that trick can get you to a beginners mind pretty quickly. However, it doesn't give us the depth of understanding we need to sustain it. We still have to do the work.
We can learn a lot about ourselves and get into a nice zone with music, dance, mountain climbing, running, tennis, golf, and more -- but my personal realization is that these things end up turning into escapes, because they involve an external factor that takes you away from yourself. The answer isn't out there. It's inside you. Unfortunately, we avoid going there at all costs, which is why all these diversions (and more than I could ever list here) are so successful.
It is also why we need a teacher to guide us inward. A beginning yoga student isn't likely to be walking into the studio with the goal of learning to connect with the self. Even many advanced practitioners don't have that intention. But yoga has a way of getting you there eventually. In Tree of Yoga Iyengar says:
"Experience is real; words are not real. They are somebody else's words, but it is your own experience. When stability in experience is sustained and when the feeling of experiences does not waver, it is samadhi." (click word)
Sitting in meditation is a way to discover the self. However, most of us need to make the necessary connections through the limbs of yoga to get us to a place where we can actually sit still. I know I did and will probably always need it. It is from my yoga practice that I have been able to be open to going deeper in my meditations (along with the guidance of my wonderful meditation teacher).
We've heard all too often that life is a journey, but so many of us have gotten stuck on the curb feeling stiff and stuffed with things we don't need. Others have become a dumping ground for cigarette butts, beer cans, and other trash. When we finally realize we are not getting anywhere that way, we might decide to become an active student of life. The cool thing is that once we are honestly ready to be a student, our teachers will come.
And eventually we begin to be a teacher for ourselves.
To be continued....
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