Time away

ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls, my dear readers, I am taking a break :)

taking a little trip to the beach, and a little down time in my home, so I'm taking a holiday from technology.

Enjoy your days, be loving and kind to yourselves, keep moving and breathing and seeking out quiet moments to hear that beautiful wise inner voice.

See you in a couple of weeks!

Shanti.

all you need is love...

it's true.
but I'm not talking about mushy romantic "you complete me" love.
not at all.

I'm talking about love that rests in your heart, that flows from the Divine, that vibrates deep inside you when you sit quietly in meditation, or see a rushing river or a precious baby or your dearest best friend, or hear a piece of music that makes you weep.

I'm talking about deep love for yourself. Not cockiness or arrogance, but a deep, respecting, honouring love for who you are. Perfectly you.

I'm talking about love that swells in your heart, without any effort, when you know that you are in the right place, the right moment, that everything is coming together exactly right, right now and you know that your life is perfect.

I'm talking about the love that pulses in your heart when you slow down enough to realize all the amazing things in your life and you are overwhelmed with gratitude and you know that you are so so blessed.

I'm talking about the love that quietly sneaks up on you, when you hang out with a friend for long enough, and you share quiet moments and kindnesses, and you realize that there is love there.

I'm talking about the love that binds all living beings. Love for people you'll never meet, across the world, when your heart feels broken that they are living such lives of struggles. Love for animals that are losing their habitats due to human greed and insensitivity (polar bears and gorillas make my heart swell, personally). Love for your parents and siblings and aunts and uncles and cousins and friends and lovers and cats and dogs, that swells up, every so often, unbidden.

An understanding that we are all connected. That a beautiful spirit flows through each of us, connecting us with each other. A knowing that our lives are not really that different from each other - that we all experience joy and sorrow, happy times and deep struggles, light bright times and dark scary times.

Oh, if we could think on this. And remember that life is really hard for all of us at times. And all we really need to do is be kind to each other.

Let your love flow. Take time to be quiet and fill up from the beautiful Source of Love, open your heart and allow it to be filled by all things beautiful, and let the love flow. Cause THIS is the love that lasts, that fills, that satisfies.

Namaste, beautiful ones, love to you all!

contentment

I have to confess, I'm struggling with this one this week.

Santosha, contentment, is one of the precepts of yoga. Pantanjali, the man who compiled the Yoga Sutras, defined santosha as "satisfaction; satisfied with what one has; contentment". Nischala Joy Devi, author of The Secret Power of Yoga, paraphrases Pantanjali's description in the following way:

"when at peace and content with oneself and others (santosha), supreme joy is celebrated"

She goes on to say that if we have faith, we will find

"the peace that abides in our hearts, no matter what the fates bring...With this attitude, all things that come and go do not have the opportunity to override our joy. Instead, they metamorphose into stillness and peace."

Well, I'm struggling with that this week. For me, it's not a sense of wanting material things, being discontent without those material things. It's a sense of being discontent, peace-less, when things are uncertain. I've written about this before. This week, there is a certain uncertainty in my job, I have a busy schedule and am therefore not taking enough time to rest and fill-up, I am physically tired cause my sleep has been interrupted regularly by bad dreams and tossing and turning, and I am finding it difficult to hang on to that santosha. Instead, I observe my thoughts of escape, running away, telling myself the stories I do, where I'm going to move away from this town, leave my job, go find greener pastures, etc. I am an escape artist, in my mind, at least :) that's my way of coping.

But what I'd like to find, is that way to embrace and live santosha - to be able to keep that peace and stillness and joy, regardless of the circumstances, the uncertainty.

One way is to hang on to that faith, that all of this is temporary and will pass, that there is a wonderful purpose and path to my life, that everything is perfect, as it is. This is not easy for me this week - my negative, unhappy, dark thoughts are crowding out that faith talk. But at least I recognize it :)

One way is to build my life more carefully, so I can get the rest, the quiet time, the space to cook and eat healthily, so that the uncertainty doesn't rock me the way it does when I'm exhausted and a little physically unbalanced.

My practice helps with this. Somehow, I am still getting up each morning and doing my practice, which I feel may be the only thing that is carrying me through this, when all I want to do is run (or crawl into my bed and stay there for a few days). I am able to find moments of stillness and joy, even amidst the spins and discontent. I will notice those, I will celebrate even those tiny moments, and trust that more will come.

Nischala Joy Devi writes:

"For most of us, the subtler aspects of santosha elude us from time to time. Everlasting joy cleaves to us through cultivating the understanding that we hold the power to our happiness. Even if temporarily lost, our joy will soon return, as it is the lifelong reward for attaining wisdom."

I will trust. I will breathe. I will have faith, that that joy will soon return :)
Namaste.