Okay okay, someone has brought to my attention that in my last blog post, sadly to say 1 year ago now, I mentioned that I was planning to write and post more often. Oops! Well at least going forward from now, if I post more than once a year I’m doing a hell of a lot better than my track record.
While you haven’t seen any posts or new works from me this past year, I have been a busy little bee teaching yoga and philosophy, as well as simultaneously writing two new books (insert palm to forehead). One of these writing projects is now moving towards publication - Auspicious Openings: A Collection of Invocations, Blessings + Poetry for the Modern-Day Yogi.
Hope you enjoy the intro to my new book posted below. It’s a little something to tide you over until my next post, which hopefully will be sooner than Navaratri 2019. But hey! No promises (wink!).
Auspicious Openings:
A Collection of Invocations, Blessings + Poetry for the Modern-Day Mystic.
In my opinion, anytime we are faced with uncomfortable, devastating or life-altering experiences, it is actually a call to start living from a more awakened, connected and alive space within ourselves. The unwanted and uncomfortable circumstances that inevitably unfold in our lives, aren’t a form of punishment but rather an invitation into something beautiful. This invitation is an opening that actually brings with it the blessings for a greater sense of fulfillment and meaning than we are currently living with.
Please don’t misunderstand me…by no means am I suggesting that when things are F*CKED that it doesn’t hurt like hell and make absolutely zero, logical sense. But what I have found to be true along my own path, is that every time I journeyed (more like initially being dragged kicking and screaming against my free-will) into a “Dark Night of the Soul,” when I finally emerged on the other side, my heart was radically more open. My eyes brighter. My understanding both deepened and expanded. My availability to others, the present moment, and myself all had incredibly increased.
All of these things automatically elevate levels of joy, inner peace, productivity, connection and fulfillment in our day-to-day lives. They also refine our expression and offerings of love into something deeper, wider, and with a greater potency behind it.
In a way, the “Dark Night” always sets us free in the places we didn’t even know we were bound.
When these periods of darkness surface, it’s important to be willing to see things differently than how we immediately perceive them to be. I cannot emphasize this enough! Whatever one’s spiritual/religious views are, we can all agree that there is something going on behind the scenes and underneath the surface that we are not privy to or perhaps is far beyond our own intellectual conceptualization. Truth is, we don’t know what’s really going on here! And we can’t either from our limited brain-space of mental thinking, analysis and hypothesizing. Acknowledging that we can’t see the big picture opens us up for a profound revelation and/or awakening. This is the auspicious opening that changes everything. Even Einstein said, “A problem can’t be solved by the same level of consciousness that created it.”
This is exactly what is happening during a “Dark Night of the Soul” – we are being asked to problem solve by expanding our current level of consciousness rather than retreating into the mental realm to seek answers, meaning and a solution to free us from our suffering. A “Dark Night” invites us to grow internally in the places we believe we can’t grow anymore. To let go where we are clinging. To open when it hurts. These periods have less to do with all the drama in the physical world and more to do with what is happening internally at our level of consciousness.
This is why most people get stuck in despair for years (Which won’t be you now that I have a dog in this fight, WINK!) because they are focusing their energy in the wrong place – outside of themselves. Fixating and focusing on the details of what happened in the physical, ends up distracting ourselves from the greater meaning behind life’s unfolding situations.
Eventually we all must be brave enough to stop turning away from our inner worlds and distracting ourselves with the drama of our external lives. Perhaps this moment comes when the pain of not looking has become greater than our own fear of looking within. When this time does come (either this life or another) we will discover that it’s really not about what has happened in our outer lives, but the true purpose behind all the painful/chaotic/uncertain series of events has always been to free something within ourselves.
Remember, all your potential lies within the darkness! When you find yourself in a “Dark Night of the Soul,” it is not a time to curse the darkness, but to bring the light! When you do so, in a split-second things will change. I promise you that.
Time doesn’t change things, inner illumination does.
Inner illumination is like striking a match in a room that has been dark for a thousand years…in a single moment all darkness is eradicated. This is the power of choosing to bring the light – the power of shifting internally rather than focusing externally. Inner illumination changes everything. Anger diminishes, depression lifts, clarity returns and ultimate peace is restored. From this place, anything is possible.
There is a new beginning that awaits you that holds tremendous meaning, beauty and of course, love. On some level you can sense it. Feel into it…the opening is already here. As things play all the way out and the truth is revealed – which I assure you it will – you’ll come to agree, that while all of this was not what you would have initially chosen for your life, it did have to be just so.
My only wish is that something within these pages inspires you to see the real value of "turning within" during dark and/or uncomfortable times. May these invocations, blessing and poems help you to open as wide as you can to the promises and gifts embedded within these auspicious openings.