Stay Centered In Your Spiritual Heart…

Namaste and Happy Full Moon

Michael and I have been enjoying some winter walks along the Platte River these past couple months. We found a new little trail that gets right along the water’s edge and it is good distance off the beaten path, so we rarely encounter other people.

February is the heart of winter and it tends to make me want to isolate a little more than I normally do; I am a fairly social creature, but something about bone-chillin’ cold snaps and the sunless, dreary days makes me want to retreat away from the noise of it all.

Plus, all the free-floating anxiety of our collective society is accentuated against the backdrop of winter’s frigid starkness and deep cold quiet. The angst and uncertainty of our shared consciousness hangs heavy in the ether.

Our palpable civil unrest, the lightening speed advances of technology, our over-dependency on media as our source for the Truth, the visible decline of our sacred natural world, are some of the main reasons people’s anxiety levels are at an all-time high.

Between the cold whether and all the jaded hearts that are I have recently encountered, I understand why being a homebody sounds good to me. Sometimes we just need to cocoon ourselves away from the fray and get centered in our spiritual hearts. Note, I didn’t say get away from society and let the monkey mind spin around in delirium, looping on the same negative thoughts. That is part of the problem. We make assumptions and think the worst. This causes a lot of unnecessary suffering. I said take time for yourself to get centered in our spiritual hearts-what the yogis call the Hridyam heart.

Thousands of years ago, a wise sage named Patanjali wrote The Yoga Sutras, an ancient yogic text that offers guidance to the spiritual seeker on how one may obtain abiding joy, or self-realization. I recently revisited his talk on suffering and what causes human beings to repeatedly make the same mistakes, not only within their current lifetime, but also-lifetime after lifetime.

Most of us who have studied the Yoga Sutras have emblazed upon our hearts and mind the steps one can take to reach this state of liberation. Patanjali calls these steps the 8 limbed path.

The first step outlines the conducts for our social behaviors- called the Yamas. He gives five “rules” that we should try to uphold in order to work harmoniously together in society. The first of these being non-harming or Ahimsa.

In other words, don’t hate each other and don’t hurt each other. This crucial first step, if followed absolutely, would be enough for us to all co-exist in peace. Unfortunately we do hate and hurt each other. So we can’t stop there, we need to read on and follow the rest of the guidance.

The 8 limbed path continues to lay out more “rules” in which one could live by and ultimately end their suffering; one could achieve enlightenment or realize themselves to be a divine being of eternal consciousness-this state of awareness is called Samadhi. This realization of the Self would release one from the karmic cycle of death and rebirth, and from all suffering.

I have written before about this beautiful pathway to enlightenment in prior articles, these are archived on our website, so I am not going to unpack them again in this article. Although I do love discussing each of them in depth and will undoubtedly circle back around to them another time. Or perhaps you would like to venture into the text yourself, in which case they are found in Sutra 2:28-55. I encourage you to study them for yourself.

This time I want to jump to another part of Patanjali’s Yoga Sutras, perhaps a less familiar part of his sacred text. He speaks extensively on the subject of human suffering and he lists 5 main aspects that keep us stuck in our suffering. These are often referred to as our 5 main “obstacles” called Kleshas in Sanskrit, which really translates to mean poison or afflictions.

Suffering is insidiously sweeping through the lives of many of our human family, and its right in plane sight. You can’t drive 5 minutes in any direction in Denver without encountering a freezing homeless person holding up a sign begging for help. Regardless of their story, they are suffering. And their suffering effects our lives too.

There is an old saying I once learned from my teacher Saul David Raye, “As long as one of us is suffering, we all suffer to some degree.” Its actually very similar to a quote in the Bible that says, “If one part suffers, all the parts suffer with it.” 1 Corinthians 12:26

And that is because we are not separate from one another. We all share a connecting chord of Spirit or a Divine Spark between us all- and not just with other humans but with All of creation, including our own home planet Mother Earth.

Everything is connected through the Unified Field of Consciousness. So what better time than now to bring these powerful teachings to the forefront of our awareness? Maybe if we can bring awareness to the negative mental patterns that cause our suffering, we can begin to alleviate much of the poison that we are collectively consuming-either overtly or inadvertently.

So here are the 5 big reasons for our suffering:

Ignorance

The Ego

Attachment

Aversion

Fear of Death or Clinging to Life.

Ignorance or Avidya is the misconception of our true reality. When we regard the temporary as eternal, the impure as pure, the painful as pleasant, and the non-Self as the Self. We often have a limited perspective of things. We see things not as they truly are, but how we were told they are, or how we want them to be.

One could look at this as having blinders on. If I can’t see in my peripheral vision that there is a car coming toward me, as soon as I move forward, the approaching car will hit me. If I would take my blinders off and not limit my ability to see in every direction, I could see the bigger picture, and avoid hitting the car. Hence avoid my suffering.

Without knowing it, we often limit our perspectives by only looking at reality from the lens of our televisions and media sources, our cultural or social circles, from our religious or secular associations. In fact, we rarely question authority. Most people blindly accept the proclaimed doctrine as truth. If the government says its good then it must be, or if my religion, my parents, my family, my boss, my friends, my internet browser says its true…then it must be. Just because many people follow a belief, does not mean it is true. It just means many people are following that belief. Think about how many people followed Hitler. His agenda wasn’t a truth. People blindly followed. This false and distorted representation of reality is the primary klesha. From ignorance the four other kleshas emerge.

The Ego (Asmita) is the mis-identification of our little self as our Higher Self. We create a concept of ourselves in our mind that we believe is us, but it is not us. This self-image can contain both external (I am ugly) and internal (I am not good enough) false projections. We become trapped within the projections we have created of our life. We often associate the ego with being arrogant, narcissistic, and self-entitled. But an out of balanced ego can also make us feel unworthly, insignificant, and incapable. And the most concerning thing is that the untrained ego keeps us feeling separate from everyone and everything. It is often coined the “I am-ness” ego. The ego self or the little self operates from a singular perspective and thinks it is operating all by itself. This sense of separateness often derails us from feeling our True Self or Spirit. Without connection to Source we often feel isolated and lonely and that creates incredible amounts of fear. As long as we identify with the mind/body as our only Self, we will suffer.

Attachment (Raga) is the attraction for things that bring satisfaction to oneself. Our ego desires for pleasurable experiences, which in turn often creates mindless actions and unhealthy habits. We fall into addictive patterns that chase our pleasures, and we further severe our connection to our True Self. We see the world through rose-tinted glass, which is a lot like having those blinders on again. When we cannot obtain what we desire, we suffer. When we do obtain what we desire, our feelings of pleasure soon fade because external pleasure is temporary. Thus, we begin our search for pleasure again, becoming trapped in an endless cycle of suffering.

Aversion (Dvesha) is the opposite of attachment. Aversion is the dislike or hatred towards things that produce unpleasant experiences. If we cannot avoid the things we dislike, we suffer. Even thinking about unpleasant experiences produces suffering. And when we allow hatred to dwell in our thoughts, it poisons our physical body too causing dis-ease. Plus, it further drives a wedge of division between each other and our True Self.

Hate is the repulsion felt towards any person or object that is a source of pain or unhappiness to us. Repulsion and attraction are two sides of the same coin. Seeking pleasure and avoiding pain has never been a valid spiritual path. They both keep the human being at the level of the mind (ego), grasping for what is pleasurable and rejecting what it is not pleasurable. In fact, this pair governs most of our lives, consciously or unconsciously conditioning us, and is a huge source of our suffering.

Fear of Death (Abhinivesha) is the deepest and most universal klesha. Patanjali says even the wisest hold this deep fear all the way to their last breath. But our fear of death, or attempt to cling to life, causes us more suffering. There is no need to fear death. We would know this if we had alleviated the very first Klesha of Ignorance. And we would be comfortable with our eventual return to Source if we hadn’t let our Ego cut us off from our connection to Spirit. We know, without any question, that a day willl come when we will leave our physical bodies and the person that we are today will no longer exist.

Every.Single.One.Of.Us.Will.Die.Someday. We are so attached to our identity, life, and its pleasures, and we are so afraid of suffering, that the thought of this causes us incredible suffering even though we are still very alive. We miss out on so much of our present life because we spend a ton of energy worrying, avoiding, and fearing what will come when we don’t have the body and mind as our vehicle. Seek to know your True Self in this lifetime, discipline the ego to be of service to your Great Spirit. When your body leaves, your Spirit will carry on in another form and pick up where you left off in this embodiment- kleshas, karmas and all.

Remember, to the level that you have mastered your Ego and expanded your consciousness, will be the level of awareness you come back with in your next life. We will all continue in the cycle of death and rebirth until we realize that we are not separate from God or Source, but that we are cut from the same cloth and are experiencing our Self as our self.

 

How to Remove the Obstacles

Patanjali offers the practice of what he calls Kriya yoga as a way to remove suffering. This is essentially the Niyamas, or the 2nd principle of the 8 limbed path that I started with above. Remember the Yamas were the social behaviors-or the rules for social conduct. The Niyamas are the rules for our own behaviors-there are five of these also.

Patanjali focuses on the last 3 of the 5 Niyamas, as a way to yoke (the root word of yoga) ourselves to our Spiritual heart or to ourTrue Self. The three practices to remove the Kleshas are: Self-Discipline (tapas), Study of the Self through Spiritual Teachings (svadhyaya), like what you are doing right now! And lastly, Surrender to the Supreme Consciousness or God (Ishvara Pranidhana) Sutra 2:1

In addition to these wise teachings of Patanjali, I would like to throw in a few of my own ideas for enhancing your spiritual path and alleviating our human suffering.

Be kind even if you are mad. Turn off your Television. Quit doom scrolling. Be authentic-to everyone. Fact check the fact checkers. Think for yourself. Suffocate your Hate. Do more yoga. Pray and Meditate. Judge less. Love them even if you don’t like them. Trust your intuition. Believe in Goodness. Purify your Thoughts. Do Mantra. Trade seeking pleasure on the outside, for seeking joy on the inside. Get curious. Ask the hard questions. Forgive people, including you. Love yourself and speak the Truth. And finally, stay centered in your Spiritual Heart.

Thank you for taking the time to read these ideas. It was a long one! I leave you with a mantra that correlates to the Kesha’s….

Stay warm and much love,

Katrina Marie