This month our Moving into Meditation class continues study of the Yoga Ethic of Saucha.  Saucha inspires us to cultivate clarity, light, purity and simplicity.  Today we explored these qualities inspired by Rumi’s beautiful poem, The Guest House:

This being human is a guest house.
Every morning a new arrival.
A joy, a depression, a meanness,
some momentary awareness comes
as an unexpected visitor.
Welcome and entertain them all!
Even if they are a crowd of sorrows,
who violently sweep your house
empty of its furniture,
still, treat each guest honorably.
He may be clearing you out
for some new delight.
The dark thought, the shame, the malice.
meet them at the door laughing and invite them in.
Be grateful for whatever comes.
because each has been sent
as a guide from beyond.
— Jellaludin Rumi,
translation by Coleman Barks

Guided Relaxation

Welcome. . . . and relax into this present moment . . . . newly arriving with each breath . . . awake and aware . . . in your body . . . your mind, your thoughts, feelings and sensations . . . “This being human is a guest house.”

The life of each in-breath . . . the life of each out-breath . . . wholly different and new . . . bearing its own energetic signature . . . radiating inside and outside your skin . . .

Sensing what surfaces . . . “A joy, a depression, a meanness, some momentary awareness comes as an unexpected visitor.”  Even the anxious hardening of resistance . . . or the soreness of unrequited longing . . . . Here in the sacred space we create in our practice we have room for it all . . .

Philosopher and social activist Margaret Wheatley writes:

I know that we notice what we notice because of who we are.
We create ourselves by what we choose to notice.
Once this work of self-authorship has begun,
we inhabit the world we have created. We self-seal.
We don’t notice anything except those things that confirm what we already think about who we already are. When we succeed in moving outside of our normal processes of self-reference and can look upon ourselves with self-awareness, then we have a chance at changing.  We break the seal.  We notice something new.

We come together in order to break the seal . . . to shine the light through the cracks of our conditioning and ignorance . . . to courageously consider the realities beyond our preference and security. We welcome everything with our presence and open hearts.

Like the yogic principle of Saucha we draw on our inner resolve and mutual support to awaken and welcome the light of what is true. Most literally translated as purity – clear of all that clouds our inner light. . . . Breaking open what seals us inside the darkness of conditioning, habit and ignorance. In the light of our practice we can notice something new . . . again and again . . . Each time we choose to move outside of our normal processes of self-reference we can look upon ourselves with awareness – we have a chance at changing . . . we can realize our consciousness as the light of pure awareness.

Why are we here?  Doctor, teacher and writer Rachel Naomi Remen says that the purpose of every life is to grow in wisdom and to learn how to love  better.  In his book, The Five Invitations, Frank Ostaseski writes:

. . . A good question has heart arising from deep love to discover what is true. . . . . We look to Being to point at that which is deeper and more expansive than our personalities. . . . This Being is our most fundamental and benevolent nature. . . .

We can reflect on how the light of life inspires our being – our bodies, hearts and minds . . . We can open our selves to inner clarity and intuitive awareness . . . we can recognize and be willing to receive guidance . . .

With this orientation we can enter the experience of our day . . . welcoming each moment as a friend . . . a teacher . . .

I deeply appreciate the heartfelt openness within our circle of support.  It is quite a challenge to being called to welcome everything.  All of us have been touched by life altering grief and loss.  Yet we do share Being – our fundamental benevolent nature.  We break the seal and reach out to each other.  As my teacher, Michael Stone, once said “love is what emerges when we give each other our faces.”