Parinama

  One way to think of the ego is as a defense against pain, particularly the pain of being no one. It shores us up, reminding us that we are somebody…And yet, deep down we may sense that we are still seeking to plant a flag in ground that gives way under our feet. Tracy Cochran, Parabola 2017   The journey from fear to fearlessness often passes through the land of grief.   We are naturally afraid of so many things that might cause us pain, disruption, loss. While it is prudent to take as good care of things as we can like our health, finances, relationships, all that we control is minuscule in relation to the great principle of change that is happening all around us.   Everything is always in a state of flux including our bodies, our feelings and emotions, our material circumstances.     The ego part of consciousness is most threatened by change because the ego establishes a sense of self through the material world, what is owne...

  Practice is a lifelong endeavor. It is an inner pilgrimage of the soul.   …daily practice is the most essential ingredient in the alchemy of self-transformation-it reveals the answers to many of our questions and consistently invokes a movement towards positive change. Gita Bechsgaard, The Gift of Consiousness   I was recently watching the new Netflix series “How to Change Your Mind” which is about psychedelics and their potential for opening us up to transcendent experiences.   In this series, Michael Pollan shows evidence that these drugs taken once or twice in a lifetime may provide profound and long-term healing from addictions, depression, and anxiety.   For cancer patients near death, one experience provided peace from the fear of death and even brought calm in knowing that death was a transformation into greater union with what is divine or immortal.        The key to this healing and recovery comes throu...

    According to the yoga sutras, yoga practice is to be applied with abhyasa (devoted effort) and vairagya (surrender/non-attachment), the two wings of practice.   Effort makes sense but how does surrender fit into practice? What is it we are to surrender and how?   Nichala Joy Devi translates vairagya as “remembering the Self” where the Self is defined as the deepest innermost part, the soul.   This is the part our ourselves that remains untouched by the outer world, by whatever life has done to us.   It is the part that has been accompanying us on this journey.  It comes through us but it is not of us. It is the part of consciousness that comes through a divine source.  This capacity for self-reflection makes us uniquely human.  In some contemplative traditions this depth of consciousness, presence is named God pouring through us.  It is God coming into being through this flow of consciousness.  Some call...