Open

The moment we become open, either in the mind or the heart, the world around us takes on a different form. As I chatted with one of my dear friends recently, we spoke of what it was that we received while being in each other’s presence. There was a force of an open mind meeting the force of an open heart experiencing each other in separated form. Living on a Tantric ashram for those months was a form of practice that became accessible for my mind and for the process of embodiment.  In yoga, tantric is often referred to as something sexualized while in the ancient texts sexualized tantric practices are only a small fraction and the rest is referring to the webbing of life. Embodiment of the ancient teaching is by far the most challenging practice which has been mentioned throughout time and from practitioners of many traditions. Living in solitude and rejecting all that is not the Absolute reality has been seen as a direct path and is how ancient teachings like yoga get passed down through thousands of years. While it is also not the only path, as my teachers would say “tantric is a path that looks like vigorous scribbles on a paper without a sense of direction.” The path of a Tantric is to not just intellectually understand yoga, it is the consistent practice to embody the union in all things, here and now.

In this union there is a realization that the world is not the Absolute reality while it is a limited manifestation of it. Tantra literally means “web” referring to the nature of the physical reality as a connected fabric of everything, at the center of this web we find “I” in the subjective middle. Embodiment brings us to recognizing the play and dance between the subjective and objective reality, we become like a open doorway, both in the mind and body for the flow of all things to mingle. There are many words to describe this in our yogic vocabulary, surrendering, letting go and possibly many other terms that we hear or come across. I’m here to mention that there is a world of a difference between the taste of the words and the actually unfolding present moment of these terms. A moment that something shakes your world, whether it’s little or huge, how open are we to see things through? What shows up is possibly the past behaviors that now has the chance to have a light shined upon them, are we open in the mind to see the gap of the chance to self corrected our unconscious behavior? Can we feel in the body when we become closed, the tightness and pain that is stored as a reminder? Does our behavior off the mat match our intentions we set and when we step off the mat how do we face the separation?  The connection and embodiment of this openness brings us out of the past with no sight of the future. Opening us to see/feel separation as what it is while seeing through to layers that we have traveled through. As a simple reminder, many people walk this planet, many people are waking up from unconscious behaviors within themselves, Yoga is merely a tool, a tool with many facets for us to practice, study, learn and become. I have heard many stories of waking consciousness from sudden events in everyday life. The practice of yoga is adapting the mind and body relationship to create the openness necessary us to live from our highest space, both connected and aware of the webbing nature of our existence.

Love,

Resa