Love isn’t always in the air. Sometimes fear, sorrow and insecurity permeate more. But I do think love is rooted in the foundation of everything. Our very essence is love and it doesn’t need to be created. But we do need to be reminded and given love. Imagine a seed that begins to germinate in the safety of Mother Earth, a process that awakens its potential to root and grow. Even after the plant bursts through the ground, the roots keep digging deeper and broader to become super connected in the unseen landscape, building a network of interconnectivity with all the other plants, fungi, organisms and soil. Above the ground, and even within, the plant is vulnerable to all the possibilities of nature and humans alike. And, it’s also from that complicated world that new seeds eventually drop to meet the fertile soil.
Not a year, month or even a day goes by where there isn’t something happening on this planet that has the potential to close our hearts against the pain and suffering. And on days when things feel so heavy, it may be helpful that we also look to see the magical ways that nature shines brightest for us and welcomes our hearts to burst open. In the same, very moments where there is tragedy and horror in one place, there is beauty and transformation in another to remind us of our purest nature. We come to witness the profound and constant cycle of birth, life and death as the way of existence.
I’ve often shared that life is a journey of our hearts breaking over and over, again and again until we surrender to the powerful and sustainable truth that we are all undeniably connected. “Truth is One, Paths Are Many” is the compassionate slogan used by Integral Yoga. And honestly, this coming to understand is one of the hardest paths to trudge, not just a song to sway to and a pink cloud to be lost in. If, and only when we become exhausted from the expectation that the material world will be able to supply all our happiness, do we turn to a spiritual life and return to our own original roots of happiness. And it doesn’t mean a complete turning away from the material world. This one of many paths offers a new way to dance with all that is.
A spiritual life has many creative ways to be expressed and usually requires a deeply disciplined approach that turns into habit. Think of something you once started and didn’t enjoy because it was new and challenging, but then it became fun and enjoyable because of the hard work! Everything from completing a huge puzzle that you were certain parts were missing, to getting through a breakup that can one day turn into a meaningful friendship. Our material world dominates a perspective of what love should look like, of what success equals and who we should be; it seduces us into thinking it’s limitless and all powerful so that we strive for more or safeguard against loss. The spiritual path offers an expansive path of liberation that while it doesn’t come easy, it has purpose and vision above anything bound by the limitations of body and mind. It guides us to look within, to root down for the truth. It’s spoken about in the Yoga Sutras of Patanjali as a “painless” state, living life that is beyond the ever-turning wheel of pain and pleasure. I’m still caught in the rise and fall of pain and pleasure, but it helps to have something to reference that can be different than that. It helps to have brief moments in practice that offer a glimpse of the painless state.
I’m humbled by life experiences. As much as I’d want to avoid heartbreak, I’ve now had enough of them to recognize how that anguish and distress can transform and even be ingredients for a richer life. It’s not that the joys and highs of life can’t also humble us and be some of our best teachers as well. It’s just that the ones that sting or deflate us tend to create more of an opportunity to search within for answers that aren’t readily given. Though we do all we can to avoid pain, once it’s there we learn that we either meet it and do the work to understand it or we likely will welcome the pain to return in another form.
I’m on a mission to access my highest potential and learn from others who love. I’m grateful to know new and longtime couples who are sharing what I see as the most loving and joyful bond. I’m also grateful to personally know and have close connections to Integral Yoga swamis, who’ve chosen a path of renunciation. Their love of spirit and life mean total surrender and service to others. I’m grateful to my divorced parents and then remarried parents for their struggles and doing the best they could when it looked more like settling than dreaming. I’m grateful to be gay and to have grown up in Cincinnati, OH without a set expectation of marriage and children. I’m grateful for the heart-break of a completed relationship which still feels raw, but I can tell how it’s helping me grow and become more of the person I must be meant to be. And I’m grateful to be open to whatever my path will be from here forward, knowing I’m rooted in love and there isn’t a cut-out of life that I need to fit into in order to be happy. I’m hoping love will help me grow up!
We learn every day how love and life’s brilliance can be taken away in an unexpected moment. There is a reason, season or a lifetime to every one of our relationships. And truly, all we have is relationship – with our own body/mind, people, animals, the planet, our dreams, spirit, etc. We fall in and out of love, we adjust and adapt, and we attempt to make sense out of our time on this planet with the tools we have. There will always be pain and pleasure, just as we can imagine there will always be stories of love and loss because it is from those heart-breaking experiences that lead us to the greatest heart-opening realizations. Let’s not spend all the hours wondering what went wrong or why things didn’t go differently. Instead, let’s dive deeper into the possibility that this is exactly what is being initiated for us to become more alive and more loving beings on this planet! That is where I believe lasting change will come from.
Being with feelings isn’t always convenient and living life without being able to express our emotions is fruitless. Going through whatever we’re going through with the safety to feel and release emotional bondage is often necessary and healing. We’ve got to be right where we can manage to be, to find the company of those that care for us and then come to accept that this too shall pass.
Sending out loving kindness this month to all the ways we exist and coexist. May we celebrate when there are moments of love and joy, and celebrate right in that moment. May we feel into this truth of our existence more than we think our way towards rigid understandings. May we remember to be grateful for all the movements and when we can, do our best to love and care for the cherished people in and around our lives.
Let’s stay connected.
Love,
Mukunda Marc
