Aligning with Grace

This morning, as I sat down with my first cup of coffee, I pondered these questions, and then, I sent them to a select few, telling them, that I didn't expect answers from them, but I got some incredible insights and responses back from pretty incredible people anyway. Perhaps my first "mistake" was deciding to have a cup of coffee before sitting down to meditate: "So many great teachers - Byron Katie, Adyashanti, Buddhist practitioners, and Hindu sages - instruct that the key to happiness, well-being, and so forth - is accepting what is - and letting go... But, while I believe this on some level, it also does not resonate on other levels... If we accepted what is, all of the time - we would not change philosophically, ideologically, scientifically, or spiritually... If someone didn't think outside of the box - great discoveries or advances would not have been made. If we accept what is - do we fully awaken? Or - maybe it is possible that we awaken when we accept...

Sometimes messages hit you over the head. Hard. Sometimes messages come from unexpected places - like "cyberspace" or the "cloud" - wherever that is! Yesterday, I wrote about Adyashanti's book, Emptiness Dancing . And I included this quote toward the end of the entry: "What is born in awakening - is a love of what is." I must have repeated this to myself dozens of times yesterday. Such a simple statement. And so hard to embody. It reminded me of Byron Katie's book, Loving What Is. This is truly a practice that demands everything - and one that cannot be simply "intellectualized," try as one might. Today, I came across a couple of reminders of the role that grace plays in our life: "You cannot be bitter and unforgiving and be a conduit for grace." ~ Carolyn Myss And then, in the new SoundsTrue catalogue I received last night, I read this excerpt from Adyanshanti's newest book, Falling into Grace: " Grace is something...

I shared in one of my recent posts, that I have been journeying through the attributes of the Divine as themes for my yoga classes of late. This week, my focus is on "ananda" which means bliss, and I am working with "Inner Spiral" - one of the Anusara Yoga Universal Principles of Alignment, as a way of creating more expansion in the body, (more specifically in the hips) and thus, a greater container for the embodiment of bliss. The implication is also to let go of what stands in the way of embodying more bliss as well. I have also been teaching a short course titled: "The Art and Yoga of Happiness," so needless to say, I've read quite a number of books on the subjects of joy, bliss, and happiness in the last couple of months... One of the books I recently reviewed is: Unconditional Bliss: Finding Happiness in the Face of Hardship by Howard Raphael Cushnir, and like Byron Katie, he too proposes two questions to ask oneself to get at the heart of the ...

Yesterday morning, I had a long conversation with a dear soul friend while I was out on my deck, under a cloudless slate blue sky and gentle fall breeze, during which we shared so much on so many levels - particularly insights - right down to personal aspects of our respective meditation journeys. It had been a while since we had shared in this way, and I enjoyed the experience of every moment fully. I was totally present and in the moment... I shared with this friend, some personal struggles, and more details of my recent private lesson with a gifted yoga teacher - who is her own life-long, dear friend. In fact - it was this precious soul I was speaking to - who led me to this just as equally wonderful soul and gifted teacher at a very opportune time in my life. As a result of working on the practice I was given during my private session, and embodying it more deeply, I was gifted with profound insights about my life, my body and my practice, leading to breakthroughs in my meditation ...