Befriend Your Body

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    love and intimacy

    Love Is a Practice

    Love is an energy, a Shakti, that calls us to unify ourselves internally, merge body and soul, and form a relationship with another being. There are many forms of love: the kind of love we have for a friend, a sexual partner, a family member, and the profound, unconditional love we share with a pet. 

    Great skill is required in every moment of love. Each relationship asks to be cherished and held in our awareness in a particular way; it requires balance of a specific kind, and uses different emotional muscles. A love relationship is a type of asana flow. 

    Love is a particular practice of yoga – complex, demanding, and exhausting. It can also be the most meaningful and rewarding practice in the world. When we give our total attention to someone, a special quality of spaciousness and tranquility can emerge. 

    In the love song between Shiva and Shakti called The Radiance Sutras, we hear:

     Love is particular.
    When you love someone,
    A tangible, touchable someone, 
    The whole world opens up. 

    If you want to know the universe, 
    Dare to love one person. 
    All the secret teachings are right here— 
    Go deeper, and deeper still. 

    The gift of concentration
    Is the spaciousness that surrounds it. 

    Focus illuminates immensity.

     

    vastvantare vedya māne
    sarva vastuṣu śūnyatā
    tām eva manasā dhyātvā 
    vidito 'pi praśāmyati

    Constructing an approximate pronunciation:

    vastu–antare vedya–maane
    sarva–vastushu shoonyataa
    taam eva manasaa dhyaatvaa
    viditah api pra-shaamyati

    Consulting the Monier-Williams Sanskrit-English Dictionary, we see:

    Vastu - becoming light, dawning. The seat of any really existing substance or essence. In philosophy - the real, opposed to that which does not really exist, the unreal. The right thing, a valuable or worthy object. In music, a kind of composition. The essence or substance of anything. Antare - amidst, among, between. Vedya - notorious, celebrated. To be learned or known. To be recognized. Relating to the Veda. To be married. Sarva - whole, entire, all, every, everything, all together, in all parts, everywhere. Sunyata - emptiness, loneliness, desolateness, distraction. Nothingness, non-existence, non-reality, illusory nature of all worldly phenomena. Sunya - void of results. Bare, naked. Guileless, innocent. Space, heaven, atmosphere. Tam eva - that indeed. Manas - mind in its widest sense as applied to all the mental powers, intelligence, understanding, perception, sense, the faculty or instrument through which thoughts enter or by which objects of sense affect the soul; the breath or living soul which escapes from the body at death. Thought, imagination, invention, intention, affection, desire, mood, temper, spirit. Dhyana - meditation, thought, reflection. Mental representation of the personal attributes of a deity. Vidita - known, understood, perceived. Information, representation. Api - and, also, assuredly. Prasam - to become calm or tranquil, be soothed, settle down. To make subject, subdue, conquer.

    The imagery in these definitions suggests the poetic truth, a language of the heart:

    Love is light. This is real. This is essence. This is to be known. To love is to know. Everything is right here. The world is not real. This love is real, right now. My mind, my heart, my very breath, are focused on you. I am naked before you. I surrender, I am conquered by this love. I die into this love, I let go. The spaciousness around us is heaven.

    This verse hints at the idea that when you love one tangible person or thing, everything else melts into nothingness. When meditating on that spaciousness, the mind is able to rest in tranquility.

    These are experiences that lovers know in the intensity of love’s flow. When you are with your cat, dog, boyfriend, girlfriend, mate, or child, and love streams through you, body and soul are united in loving attention. This yoga of love is a practice that occurs naturally to everyone who loves deeply. 

    When you focus on something that engages your entire interest, the mundane world dissolves and all your troubles are forgotten. You melt into the spaciousness that is holding you both. This is wonderfully peaceful. You are walking on air. This tranquility, however brief, is a nectar, a magic food that soothes the nerves and gives strength to keep on loving. The total involvement of our full capacity to perceive opens the doorway into the surprising moments of communion when the outer world fades away into an illusion and we realize, “this is heaven.” 

    In order to love fully, we need to utilize all of our senses – vision, hearing, balance, motion, touch, smell, and taste. For example, our bodies are permeated with sensors—stretch receptors that inform us of how far we are extending as we move. We also have a sense of heart-stretch, and through this sensation, we are called to say ‘yes’ to the ache of loving. The heightened sensory appreciation we cultivate through practice lights up our inner pathways, so that we learn how to go inside and draw on greater reserves of strength and forgiveness. Savoring the moments of tranquility soothes us, so that we can practice graceful responses beyond mechanical reactivity of fear and anger.

    When we adore someone, we even love their idiosyncracies, all of their weird but charming quirks: the sound of their laughter, the way they want to be touched, the way they perceive the world. We delight in their ever-evolving soul expression. 

    Love is a perpetual meditation as we cherish those we love and hold them in our hearts. In this sutra, Shiva is pointing out that any object we love and attend to wholeheartedly is a worthy mantra or doorway into practice. The tools of yoga meditation can be used with any perception – shift from the outer physical level to the subtle essence and then into heavenly spaciousness.

     

    *This approach to Sanskrit, of listening to the poetic resonance inside it, could be termed a “semantic field” (SA) analysis, as contrasted with a grammatical analysis (GA.) A GA analysis of this verse might be, “When you perceive a particular object, all other objects will melt into nothingness. Meditate on that nothingness and rest in tranquility.”

    **Thanks to Dr. John Casey for consulting on the pronunciation.

    Love Yoga

    Each of us is a combination of many elements: body and soul, flesh and spirit, animal and human. The purpose of meditation is to provide a meeting ground where all the elements of your being can come into a harmonious relationship. When our disparate elements meet, they can become friends, mates even.

    Every relationship we have is structured around opposites. Whether it is your relationship with life, with yourself, or with another person. There are many opposite elements to integrate: time together and time apart, work and play, listening and speaking, safety and adventure. Additionally, we have to learn to balance our own needs with those of others.

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    Conflict between any of these opposites can tear us to shreds and ruin a relationship. Whenever one side represses the other, or excludes the other, the polarities go to war. Meditation turns the war dance into a mating dance.

    The polarities need each other. On the most basic biological level, you breathe out in order to breathe in. If you don’t breathe out, there is no room in your lungs for the fresh air. Love relationships are about giving and receiving different elements that we crave. We can be overbalanced on one end of the continuum, more adept at giving than receiving, for example. A healthy relationship is one in which there is a flow between the opposites. We need to exercise both ends of the continuum, create more flexibility and fluidity between them.

    Meditation is the perfect place to get used to both giving and receiving love. Meditation lets us turn the conflict between opposites into a continuum, or pairing of opposites. Meditation itself is a mating dance, because the dynamics of relationship are present in the experience of meditation. When you meditate, you give yourself a time and place where you can allow the opposites to dance around inside your being, approach and learn to like each other, make friends and even get engaged.

    When opposites come into conjunction, it is called “syzygy,” (pronounced siz – a – gee) from a Greek word meaning union or marriage. When the sun, the earth and the moon line up, it’s called a syzygy. All those y’s in syzygy (Who ever heard of three y’s in a six-letter word?) -- are because it comes from the same root as yoga.

    We need to use this special term because we are talking about a special form of attention, inclusive of the opposites and the continuum between them. This “continuum perception” is one of the great secrets of meditation and is what allows it to be a meeting place for flesh and spirit, for example. During meditation you learn to perceive flesh as a condensed form of spirit and spirit as a refined form of flesh. We call this principle “love yoga”, or the union of opposites.

    Yoga of Love and Devotion - Sutra 98/Bhakti (Audio meditation)

    Yoga of Love and Devotion - Sutra 98/Bhakti (Audio meditation)

    This is a meditation on yoga of love and devotion

    Loving someone, opening your heart that deeply, can feel like dying. We surrender beyond our control.

    Love is the manifestation on a personal level of the forces that attract atoms to each other, and call Suns to coalesce and spark into light. Love in all forms is a power that calls us into the adventure of life.

    Secrets of Intimacy: Loving Touch

    Secrets of Intimacy: Loving Touch

    Touch is a world of sensuality, with an infinite variety of pleasures. In meditation, because your eyes are closed and visual stimulation (except for your mental images) is reduced, the tactile dimension becomes very strong. It is this rich sense of touch that makes meditation so enjoyable and healing. This aspect of meditative experience is often overlooked