Last week, we came to the 7th gathering if the Kundalini Yoga Teacher Training at Northern Light Yoga. It brought us to the subject of the mind.
To speak of the mind can only be done as an exercise of awareness. Otherwise, you get the mind to analyse itself. It would be like observing the ocean from the perspective of a wave. To speak of the mind is to sit at the shoreline and to listen to the waves. Risking to get swooped up by the tide, always coming in quicker than expected. Are you aware of your mind? Do you see it flowing and streaming in thousands of directions? Swooping up a rock and turning and twisting it 3 times around the basin before throwing it ashore, neatly polished. What part of your mind was acting there? Which corner of your mental landscape was eroding the incoming? To speak of the mind is to see the process. The patterns and circles of repeated walked pathways. To speak of the mind is to very quickly make the observation:
I'm not my mind. I'm the observer.
Then, who are you? Who is the observer? Freely above the learning school of childhood that shaped the patterns of the mind.
Free above the ancestry you chose to work.
You are free, always, to connect with what lies beyond.
To speak if the mind is so often done in the negative. Especially in the re-invented spirituality of positivism. It is to blame the mind for the times we live in. It is to pity the heart for being neglected. But it us time to bring back power and responsibility to that conversation.
The mind never stood in the way of your heart. And you don’t have to choose whom to listen to. It is time to take up courage and untangle the painful scars of your mind. Untie the knots that bind it, that make reality seem so constricted, so bend out of shape. Open up its beautiful sails and the ocean will guide you through the portal of the heart.
To speak of the mind is to bring the attention and awareness to the now. To take a step back from past scars, from shoulds and important tomorrows. To step out of the raging water and to just watch it. To just let it stream. To know that that water could bring you anywhere. But at the same time, to know that if you take a step back, you are out of time.
I can quote the wisdom of our teacher Anand Raj here:
"A balanced mind is a servant of the soul and creates a permanent link between your origin and your destiny."
Ha! Now we can talk about meditation. The tools to bring about that link, that connection. Meditation is the tool to open the pathway of the mind. It is the sailing ship, made to capture the wind of infinity, while sailing the ocean of life. There is so much resistance towards meditation.
'It is nothing for me.'
'I can't do that.'
'It makes me more nervous than calm.'
It is true that what you resist, is what you also need. No carpenter was born with the knowledge of how to build a boat. Competence is something learned. The less you know how, the more potential is still open.
Just as we have to free the heart from the mind, we have to free meditation from its box. You really don't have to sit on stone with not a thought passing by for long stretches of time. You could. Or you could use a cushion. You could also use a mantra as a specific navigation tool. Or you could do a walking meditation.
For me personally, drawing is one of my meditation tools. When I draw, I am completely consumed in the lines I’m drawing, all my attention is in the present moment. The result is calmness and connectivity. To myself and my purpose.
Find your tool! What makes you completely absorbed? What makes you stand still in time? You have the potential of drawing your own map, or to use the tools of thousands and thousands of navigators and sailors who came before you.
Just as with your body, your mind is unique, whatever memories it is built upon.
Accommodate it.
Get personal.
Use yourself as the way to yourself <3.
