Vote. Please Just Vote. # 63

Vote.  Please Just Vote.     # 63                                      October 30, 2018
What has exercising our right to vote got to do with the practice of meditation?  In a word, freedom.  

It may seem that one vote means nothing.   There is a real chance, in some places and under certain circumstances, that it may not even be counted and even if it is, no one is listening.  So why bother?  

It is our birth right.  Don’t let any one take any of your rights as a human away from you.  When we do not stand up to be counted, we acquiesce, we turn away; we stay hidden in the shadows.  Of course, you may not know what you really and truly think or feel.  You may not know your own heart and mind.  That is indeed a tragedy of great magnitude. 

There are many ways to educate oneself, but whatever method chosen, it must be enacted by the individual. It cannot be spoon fed, regurgitated via the digestion of others and then poured into our brain and heart.  We must do the work.  And to do it well, the vessel we take information into must be refined, opened and made optimal; the mind clarified and sharp, the body supple and strong; the sense of self, healthy and secure.  We must come to know who we are at deepest core and in that, we naturally gravitate and engage with those things that support the growth of Self.  Then, any and all expressions on the surface of life are also supported and given the best opportunity to blossom.  We must know the light in order to bring light to bear in any circumstance.

This is where yoga, in all its forms, but most potently deep meditation, excels.

When we fail to see, understand, recognize, appreciate, open to, accept, merge with and eventually take full radical and complete possession of our own highest, deepest, most extraordinary light, we are incapable of truly seeing that light anywhere else.  And in our own failure to do so, what are the consequences?  How have we lived those consequences?  How are we continuing to perpetuate the consequences of that refusal, that resistance?  How is it showing up in our lives?

Fundamentally we are bringing the light to bear at root; we are not just counteracting at surface, though this indeed necessary.  We are householders, people fully immersed in the world and we need a practice that permits us to engage in every and all circumstances.  We yearn to bring our best always;  when the world is harsh, painful and tragic as much as when it is bright and pleasing.
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With deep meditation, we are creating the condition more and more where the darkness and construction of circumstance is met with the counteracting natural force of light that has been expanded into our awareness vis a vie deep practice.

Light naturally arising from the depths to dissolve contraction in any and all forms. Eventually it is eradicated at root and because the light is full and all pervasive, there is no potential for darkness to come into being.

Kula, has many meanings in the context of yoga.  It is the group of individuals who have received the same initiatory teachings or the same set of initiatory practices; it is the embodied cosmos.  On an individual level, it is the prana or life force, the senses and 5 elements, i.e.the mind/body; and it is family or blood relatives.
There is also kula as body.  In this sense, we understand that the health of each individual cell fuels and contributes to the health of the whole being.  This is not just true of the individual but of that individual in various groupings and society at large.
You matter.  What you do matters.  Your actions, including the decision not to act, to stay out of “politics” has consequences.
 
Vote, Please just vote.  And then come home and bask in your light.