The Seamless Dance #05

Surrender and Engagement                                                         September 04, 2017
Surrender and engagement is not synonymous with complacency and will.

Paradox is rampant throughout yoga, throughout life: go/stay, expand/contract, surrender/engage, stillness/movement, silence/roar.  Please make up your mind!  There is something about commitment to what is, the ability to firmly root while still seeking the refinement necessary to move in ever increased expansion; the desire to dance skillfully between the two, that calls to the human heart and mind.

Moving From The Surface To the Depths.
Tradition says to truly know we must experience.  First we go in, melting the restricted limited sense of identity we hold so close, surrender.  As we turn inward, awareness traverses ever more subtle bands of reality, coming to rest in the silent, yet dynamically alive source space of deep meditative absorption spoken of in the Yoga Sutras.  The inner source of self moving in the cave of the Heart.  Here the ordinary triad of awareness: knower, known object and means of knowledge, collapses in the introversive state of deep meditation and the individual consciousness faces absolute Consciousness alone, unmitigated.  We are truly ourselves, temporarily released of all persona facing Self.​

The fire of meditation burns and all objects, held in tight, limited composition and understanding, are devoured as prakriti (mind-body) is purified and alchemically transformed.  This fire is not destructive in nature but rather extractive, and what is extracted is the nectar of light that permits the yogin to taste bliss, the truth of her own consciousness.  We are truly, deeply, madly, loved.  And we are always transformed and expanded by love.  

This alchemic transformation, which is the hallmark of Śaivite-Tantra, permits a second phase to be set in motion.   Now awareness, full and brimming over, brings this light of knowing back out into the world, and as it streams through the transmuted senses, life is expanded and we are moved at the deepest level.  We bring the light of love out with us and it momentarily reveals the truth: every thing, every where, is this Supreme Light.  

The yogin sees with softened eyes, a sort of double vision.  Perhaps this is the ‘look of love’ spoken of in poetry?  Ever more stabilized in this introversive state, as she moves through the world, she knows, sees with an unprecedented clarity, in her moment by moment experience what the object/person/circumstance is, what it represents, AND the Supreme light that is its true essence.  Light that is nothing but love.

Enlightenment is not an on/off switch.  As in all things there are stages and states.  We do not love someone once but again and again as their true essence opens to us and ours is known to them.  We are, as my teacher says, naturally “heart attracted.”

We welcome our Self as we do those we love, with open arms, ready to embrace the totality of humanity; our eyes soften, every fiber of our being opens as we surrender, not with complacency but the willing desire to merge.  Naturally we embrace, we know how to engage efficaciously, lovingly, without over extending, while we settle and acknowledge the truth of what is and in that, become more present to its possibilities, and gifts.

​We move through the world not from some brittle stubbornness borne of a limited will, but in perfect unison with the highest Self.  To partner as one, engagement and surrender is paramount.  This is the wild dance of life, the ‘ananda-tandava’  depicted by Natarja.  We mirror his cosmic dance on an individual level, moment by moment, and the efficacy and beauty we so yearn to display is made ever more skillful in daily practice. 
In order to bring the light we must first know the light.
Bring The Light!