The month of LOVE. If you have been reading and following my newsletters over the years, you may now know this is the time of year I love to bring conscious reflection on LOVE. All things LOVE. Love as all encompassing. In yogic texts, love, bliss, and ananda are all used to refer to the nature of all reality. The Taittiriya Upandishad says, “All things are born out of bliss. They live in bliss and dissolve into bliss.” Bliss, ananda, is present when things are going well for us and when things are falling apart. This love, bliss, ananda is in our nature.
A couple of weeks back I spilled scalding hot water on my hand. Blisters soon formed and I felt the pain of my non-attentive pour for days. It certainly felt like the universe was calling for me to wake up and focus my attention as at the time, I was trying to do too many things at once. A few days into the healing process, I was sitting next to my son at dinner and I showed him my scarring.
“Look, there is a heart!” – I said excitedly to my son.
My son looked and responded with, “At least it came in Peace.”
I smiled, nodded, and agreed. I have taken that conversation and sat with it for a while. At least this whole life comes with peace. Sometimes experiences feel so far from love and joy, but, ultimate reality is non-discriminatory, all encompassing. The good, the bad, the dark, the light, it is all welcomed and seen as divine.
The practice of yoga will not make you happier in the sense that you will always be elated, laughing, and full of vibrancy. The practice of yoga gives us the tools, teachings, and practices to help us understand that at the core of our experience is an unwavering love. A love that welcomes all experiences we come across on this wild up and down journey of our life. The practice gives us tools to witness when we are going up and going down, and teaching us to remember that we are LOVE and nothing less than. Our experiences, our emotions, sensations, and even our bodies will shift, change, and ultimately pass.
“The love you feel – any love – is, at its core, divine love. It the substance of everything, the inner ground of our experience… Though different traditions give it different names and attributes, most agree that the nature of the ultimate reality is love or bliss.” – Sally Kempton, Meditation for the Love of It
Let us help you remember that you are nothing but love. You, your neighbors, your friends, even those who cut you off on the streets, they too are filled with love. When we truly understand this essence, we start to understand the deep web of connection for all living things. We are here as one love. Come be love with us!
“It is my nature that makes me love you often, For I am love itself. It is my longing that makes me love you intensely, For I yearn to be loved from the heart. It is my eternity that makes me love you long, For I have no end.” – Mechthild of Magdeburg
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