Namaste Friends!

Summertime is official in just a few weeks. Daytime is extended by a couple hours on each end and I love having the extra light. For some reason, the more light we have in a day, the more energy I have to do things.

Conversely, in the dark season of winter, when the sun goes down at 4:30, I am ready for bed shortly after-I often crawl into my warm bed and am resting my bones by 6pm with a good book and a cup of tea.

But now I am crawling into bed much later, around 11pm and I don’t feel exhausted.  The natural world instinctually adjusts to the light. So should we, hence it is very important that we have ample outside time in a day-regardless of what season it is-so that we can attune and align with the natural forces of Spirit. Nature Is Spirit.

The yogis call it Prakriti-its the totality of creation in either its seed form or potential or its physical form or manifestation. Its hard to imagine this, but there are many things in Creation that haven’t been “born” yet, they are energies that are held as potentials that can come into the physical plane, but haven’t been conceived yet. These are TBD-depending on our behavior and collective karmas.

And then there is all that has come into manifestation already-the plant and animal kingdom, the celestial bodies, the world we see and live within-all the inventions, the arts and music, the infrasturctures- everything we see and know as life. Prakriti is the great mother of all life as we know it. Born and unborn. She is Mother Nature.

Prakriti comes from Purusha. Purusha is more challenging to explain because it is the ALL-the yogis actually say it is the unnameable because there isn’t a word that can capture all that it is…but it is similar to what we might call Source, Spirit, Supreme Being, God.  It is all-knowing, all-seeing, and ever-present-it has always been-and it will always be-yet it isn’t an entity and it doesn’t have a form. And, it dwells in all creation-every single being carries Purusha within themselves. It does not create or manifest, that is Prakriti-but it is the essence of everything created-including Prakriti.  And it is Pure Consciousness itself. In Dr. Frawley’s book, Yoga and Ayurveda he defines Purusha as such:

“Purusha/Pure Consciousness is the ultimate principle behind the universe, which in its marvelous order reflects the workings of a supreme intelligence. Pure consciousness is the source of all subjectivity or sense of self through which we feel alive and can act independently. We all feel ourselves as conscious individuals and not as mere objects or instruments. This is our connection with the Purusha within us, also called the Atman or higher Self” (15).

Remember, as part of the package of existing as a conscious being, we have the ability to think for ourselves and make choices for ourselves- we have a Mind. And this is where we can get entangled.

Our little selves or egos, called Ahamkara in Sanskrit, give us a sense of individualized consciousness that dwells in our body, it is what makes us feel like our own person. It literally means “I-ness” and the little self arises from the ego.

Also part of our mind stuff is our ability to discern and make choices, what the yogis call Buddhi consciousness. Frawley also says, “buddhi is the power of our intelligence through which we can discern truth from falsehood, right from wrong, and the eternal from the transient”(19). I think of our buddhi consciousness as our divine intelligence or our intuition.

There are more aspects to our mind than the ego and our divine intelligence, but I am going to cap it there for this piece because I want to keep it simple so that we can jump to what I really want to say here, which is while the light is longer in a day, use your time to commune with the natural world and sync up with the cosmic forces of our existence.

Our Great Spirit (Purusha) is always trying to reroute us back to ultimate health and happiness; just as our body is always trying to rebalance back to homeostasis, so too is our Soul trying to find balance or wellbeing called Sattva in Sanskrit.

The key to success- in anything we do-is to be in alignment with our Spirit-which is Purusha. In other words, all of our thoughts, words, and actions should be in integrity, truthful, loving, compassionate, generous, helpful, and selfless.

When the ego is involved, often it is trying to keep us from remembering that you are a Spirit Being. Remember, the ego is “I-ness” or you could say “self-ish”. It wants you to feel separate from any other thing.

Being independent or standing as your individual self is not a bad thing-in fact it is a really good thing, and a healthy ego helps you to find your independent, authentic Self. But its when the ego falls prey to fear and worry, that it goes into self-preservation mode and does things to “protect” itself. “Like Self-sabotage, isolation, addictive behaviors, all of which keep us feeling disconnected and separated from our Spirit, leaving us feeling lost, confused, and anxious.

Again Dr. Frawley, “The main cause of disease is wrong functioning of the buddhi owing to the influence of the ego, which results in bad judgement, wrong values, and false beliefs”(20).

In other words, if we allow our ego to become empowered with our judgements, desires, fears, anger, greeds and lusts-we have a hard time hearing the discerning guidance of our intuition, the wisdom of our Spirit or God intelligence.

So what to do? First I am going to quote one of my favorite shows from the 90’s-Northern Exposure: “Relax O’Connell!”

This show does a great job highlighting the proverbial battles we humans face with our longing for a deeper meaning of life and our ego’s shortcomings that sabotage that longing. To give some context to the quote, Joel Fleischman is a neurotic and anxious New York Jewish Doctor who is both arrogant and vulnerable, critical and caring, who has been stationed in the wilds of Alaska in a small town. Maggie O’Connell is the female lead character who is fiercely independent, strong-willed, and defensive, and constantly spiritually inquiring about her place in the Universe. In almost every series, Joel says to Maggie, “Relax O’Connell”.  The irony is they both need to relax, but that is often his presciption to whatever is stirring up her anxieties.  So I am saying one of the first things we can do for aligning our ego and spirit, is to Relax O’Connell.

Anxiety and fear, brought on by listening to our ego instead of our intuition, is what causes most of our suffering. Carve out time to quiet the monkey mind so that you can discern the truth of the matter and attune to your High Self or Purusha. Relax both the physical and mental body by returning to nature, connecting to the sun and the moon and the stars. Listen to the early morning birds, smell the flowers that are blooming, put your feet in a creek and let your parasympathetic nervous system turn on and the fight or flight turn off. Slow down and quiet the mind. Return to your meditation practice. It is essential at this time. You don’t skip brushing your teeth…don’t skip meditation. Start with 5 minutes. If we can move past the constant chatter of the ego mind, we can attune to the wisdom of the discerning mind, and access the truth, and receive wisdom and guidance from Spirit.

My next suggestion is inspired by Carlos Santana. Michael and I recently were gifted front row seats for his Red Rocks concert a couple days ago. We were delighted to be there and so close to the stage. Santana is still bringing it- 78 years old and touring the country. He sort of shuffles across the stage, but killing it on guitar like he did when we was 20. At one point he paused between songs to speak to us about the times we are in…he said all we have to do is BE NICE

to each other. He said it is a natural way of the Universe, when we practice kindness, generostiy, and peaceful ways, our lives will flow with abundance. The energy we use to be nice to one another is like a magnet-it draws in more ease and flow for us as well. When we aren’t fighting with people, we are able to soften our edges, and once that happens we find less resistance and more peace. When we are at peace-we can hear our voice of discernment and wisdom- our buddhi consciousness is very accessible when we are content.

Santana also tossed out a Sanskrit mantra. He is very studied in many spiritual practices including the Vedas. He was talking about how much AI has come into the playing field, and he said, there is “AI” and then there is “I am That, That I am”. In Sanskrit we say “So Ham, Hamsa” -it means I am That, That I am.

The That is referring to the nameless, all-powerful Supreme Being, Pure Consciousness, or Purusha. Then he said, “I am the Light”.

We all are. We all carry the Light of Divine Consciousness within us. We just need to remember that piece.

So as we have all this extra Light around us at this summer solstice time, lets use it as a reminder of our own divine Light. Relax O’Connell and Be Nice. Create time this summer to sit on the porch of your inner peace and hum the So Ham Hamsa mantra to quell the obtrusive ego. Return to your meditation practice and allow yourself to plug back into the unified field of consciousness. You are an individual soul, but you are not separate from Source. You are the Light.

Its not too late to reclaim Peace on Earth.

I will leave you with one more quote, one that I often use from the great Native American mystic and prophet Black Elk, he received this message while on a vision quest at the age of 14.

“The first peace, which is the most important, is that which comes within the souls of people when they realize their relationship, their oneness with the universe and all its powers, and when they realize at the center of the universe dwells the Great Spirit, and that its center is really everywhere, it is within each of us.”-Black Elk

May the Light of the Sun always shine upon you,

Happy Summer!

Much love,

Katrina