Come on, I know you're God, quit playing around.

Did you ever have semesters in college where you would pick out the most diverse classes imaginable and, yet, they still ended up complementing each other in some capacity?  Your French Conversation class and your International Politics lecture ended up providing a new and informed view in a topic that came up in your Haunting & Healing class?  So, maybe you didn't switch majors 8 times, and maybe you didn't end up with a degree in three different subjects because you couldn't pick just one; bear with me.  A similar instance being when you pick up a newspaper, read a random article and it then later comes up in conversation.  That eery feeling of everything being interconnected is one of my favorite things ever.

Incidentally, it's happening to me right now!  (Ok, seeing as how this is my blog, it's may not be entirely fair to use the term "incidentally.")  I started reading Steve Ross' book, Happy Yoga, a few months ago.  I would pick it up and put it down and pick it up and put it down and the cycle continued for a few weeks.  Then, I finally had some time to really delve into what it was saying and it has been incredibly transformative.  The eery coincidental part is that it is now backing up everything that's happening in the teacher training.  Like some sort of user's manual to all the in-between-the-lines stuff, it has allowed a larger shift in my personal reconstruction.  Plus, it gives me something to grin at when my teacher says something the universe has just prepared for me to receive.  

The book revolves around seven reasons why there's nothing to worry about: 

1) You can't get happy, you can only be happy

2) You can have true love

3) You're not fat

4) You're not your daily grind

5) You can change your world

6) You will never die

7) You can be yogic, and to the yogi, everything is bliss

It may sound a bit too self-helpish or perky at first glance, but it is astonishingly eye-opening and grounded.  While I don't want to give all the secrets away, I will comment briefly on the section regarding love.

Going back to that college experience - and before... and after - I have always strived for approval.  Approval of my intelligence, approval of my talent, approval of my image, approval of my choices, approval, approval, approval!  Much to my surprise, I realized I'd never actually approved of myself;  which made it a lot easier to make poor decisions, as I didn't approve of myself anyway. Though I've worked for many years prior to reading this book on loving and respecting who I am, it was not until I read Ross' words on the subject that I had a real, tangible clarity about who exactly I'm trying to please and, in turn, from whom I'm trying to garner love.  The idea is, if you just stop wanting love and become love, emanating love for yourself and everyone else, the need for approval ceases and allows everything to unfold as it should.  I cannot do justice to the concept, which is why everyone should read the book.  Suffice it to say, it's really lovely to be a student in a position where there's no worry about whether my questions or my answers or my practice will be the right ones.  As long as I'm being genuine to myself, doing the best I can, I already have love.  Because I am love.  All of this makes me more open and receptive to what's being taught, which is, perhaps, the biggest gift of all. 

It's also refreshing to rediscover Buddhist and yogic principles that reawaken my mind to forgotten lessons.  It's a relief to remember that I am, we all are, God.  We aren't, in fact, learning anything outside us that isn't already inside us (except maybe plank pose.  We have to be taught plank. I don't think any ethereal being would ever do plank pose, because it's straight from hell.)  We simply are remembering our sacredness that's been there all along.  Which is so comforting!  In Ross' chapter discussing the separation of the worldly body and the true self, he says the following:

"A yogic saint is someone who sees only the divine in the everyday experience of life.  So if a saint is throwing garbage at you, what you experience is duality: the saint and the garbage vs. you.  What the saint experiences is God throwing garbage at God, or better yet, God throwing God at God.  He sees past the periphery of form.  When a saint sees another person, he doesn't see another person.  He sees God in a form, pretending not to be God.  That's why yogic saints look at you with that twinkle in their eye that says, 'Come on, I know you're God, quit playing around.'"

What could be more galvanizing to diving more deeply into a yoga practice than being reminded that yoga is, or can be, a blissful existence in your own divinity?

Eery interconnectedness.  The universe's creepy way of giving you affirmation.