 A tree following it's dharma at Wanderlust Yoga & Music festival, 2011. (I wonder whose standing under the tree looking up at it...) I've been teaching my yoga classes with a bhavana, or theme, taken from my teacher Rod Stryker's book, The Four Desires. Here is this week's theme:
We are each a single cell in the greater body of this world, with a unique role to play in the service of sustaining and advancing the whole of which we are a part. I love this idea! I wrote a song years ago with lyrics that reflect this. The last line of the 2nd verse is "In the end, the whole is bigger than its parts" and to me, this line is saying the same thing as Rod's quote...from the other side. It's nice to think of our whole of everything as bigger than the sum of it's parts. I wrote that song lyric to minimize my contribution to the whole of everything because I felt small and sad. I shared that my unique role wasn't important. Now, I have the attitude that Rod writes about. My participation in the world and my unique role in it IS important, as is everyone else's. Everything we do counts, even if we don't feel it. Every vibration is felt, every contribution we make counts, every thing we do sustains or advances our whole. Now that we're clear on that...let's do more than sustain. Let's ADVANCE.
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Ouch. Being honest can totally suck - it's uncomfortable, it can hurt other's feelings, it can seem easier to let unhealthy situations perpetuate rather than go through the pain of telling the truth. Let's call this last process the "truch", as in truth + ouch. In the most awesome book, Bhagavad Gita, Arjuna is a warrior with big troubles. He's supposed to go to war and fight his cousins and uncles. He's so upset about this decision that he calls God to help him and down comes God in the form of Krishna. He asks how he can live his truth because he feels so terrible about killing his family. Krishna explains to Arjuna that he must fight this war because it's part of his dharma, his life's ultimate purpose that will serve himself and the world to it's highest causes. So, even war can be just, but only when this war fulfills dharma, the path to living in one's highest service. It's a fascinating concept to consider, and one that I believe in. I'm at the point of my life where I want to embrace everyone and everything that will help me fulfill my dharma, or, at the minimum, I want to do what's fun. When I'm exalted, I can celebrate people and life to their fullest. We can all live this way if we follow our dharma. I'm reprioritizing what's important to me and will make my decisions based on what feeeeels RIGHT. This may mean hurting other's feelings and I feel awful about causing that. But, like me, those people need to follow their dharma, too, and we're all responsible for our own emotions and actions. Embrace the "truch" when we need to and let's gre  Ouch, being honest hurts sometimes! |
 Photo by JimNewberry.com AuthorMia Park is a ParaYoga teacher in Chicago, IL, specializing in teaching Basic Yoga for Advanced Misfits, as well as teaching people how to cut through the junk to shine on. Archives
February 2012
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