.....currents

Yogis,

Our town is undergoing a total redo of the roads. Updated and added curbs, concrete work, replaced sub roads and finally paving. As I run the neighborhood I observe the slow painstaking progress.

On one road they had added a concrete curb with a drain pipe running through it around the corner and partly down the road’s hill.  It abruptly ended at the edge of someone’s front yard.  The sewer was further down the road.  I thought that was odd and was glad that was not my front yard as I envisioned everyone else’s water gathering to pool on the grass.

Jump ahead 5 months. I run by and now see new paint markings indicating yet another curb to be installed along the front of that yard.  Hello…. The families front yard grass showing distress and the edge of the road where the pipe dumped out already crumbling. Now these are engineers in charge of this project, but this humble yoga teacher knew from the beginning that there was a major design flaw. 

I teach about the five elements that form the foundation of all we are and see and I know that the energy of water is flow. Water as shapeless and formless does not resist. It will move in the direction of the energy placed upon it. Provide a proper path and it will follow it with ease. Like a stream.  A current.  Take away the boundaries and it will spread. The engineers wanted it to continue down to the drain but provided no guidance.

That same night I was reading a David Frawley book for teacher training and came across a concept I had never seen.  It has to do with our soul.  You know – that part of you deep inside which you only touch when you are alone and quiet.  That piece of you that is unchanging and at times aches for fulfillment. In yogic teachings each soul is a unique spark of the Divine (or great mystery, universe, nature, God, higher self – the power greater than you).

There exists between the Divine and your soul two magnetic forces. Two currents. One is Divine attraction where you are drawn to the inner world. Living life inspired by a merging back to who you really are. Finding joy and contentment inside. The outer world there to be loved, enjoyed and cared for but never viewed as the source of inner peace.

The other is Divine repulsion. Here the attraction is away and instead directed toward and magnetizing the outer world.  It creates the ego. Looking for happiness in our job titles, large houses, accumulated wealth, alcohol. Those quick highs of getting another ‘like’ on Facebook or purchasing a new outfit. Attachments to what lies outside.

Because so many trees have come down, more houses have gone up and we are experiencing harder rains, water runoff has become a big issue here and the street project is supposed to help. We seem to have this larger and larger gushing stream and trying to guide it without proper banks.  Much of the world seems a bit like this right now. Greed, materialism and power directing the flow and once water energy is in a flow, the groove it creates become deeper and deeper.

As any current though, we can change its direction. It takes designing and building the new path which isn’t easy. Mindfulness, silence, meditation, communing with nature and compassion are some cornerstones. And once the water shifts, the new energy becomes ‘irresistible’ and ‘carries us like a log on a fast-flowing stream’. Back toward.

Which current are you placing your raft in? I know I am not allowing those particular engineers to choose mine……..

Magnetized,
SARAH