Prepare: learning to let go

I'm tagging this as a preparedness post, but it doesn't have to be.

This is the time to learn to let go.

I was working with a client a few months ago who had been overcome by feelings of anger--anger at the idea that the righteous will have to suffer during the Tribulation also. Anger that because of other people's sins, the Saints will have to give up their homes and their lifestyles and even their lives. It didn't seem fair.

We cleared the anger, and I want to point out that the sentiment there was inherently flawed anyway. The Saints are not innocent here. We are not innocent. As far as I know, we are still under condemnation as a church for not taking the scriptures seriously enough. None of us is perfect.

Earth as a sea of glass. Image here.

But beyond that, the Tribulation and any "suffering" we go through will actually be a really good thing for us. It may not feel that way at the time, but it will be. This is how we have to learn to let go.

I was thinking about it, and it came to me that giving up the things of this earth for a celestial one will be very difficult for a lot of people. Consider how the D&C describes God's home:

Doctrine and Covenants 130:7
7 But they reside in the presence of God, on a globe like a sea of glass and fire, where all things for their glory are manifest, past, present, and future, and are continually before the Lord.

Joseph Smith taught that when the earth is celestialized, it too will be like a globe of glass and fire:

“I remarked to my family and friends present, that when the earth was sanctified and became like a sea of glass, it would be one great urim and thummim, and the Saints could look in it and see as they are seen” (Joseph Smith, History of the Church, 5:279).

When I think of that, of living on a globe like a sea of glass, I have to say the first thing that comes to mind is that I will really miss trees and grass. And water. Before we can be happy on a celestial planet, we have to remove our attachment to the things we love that are of this earth.

Wouldn't you just miss forests? Image here.

Or, consider the idea that if we are ever forced from our homes, we will not be able to take our photo albums with us. Maybe some of us will. But some of us won't. If that ever happens, which who knows, maybe it won't. But the fact is that the things of this world are fleeting, and as they say, you can't take it with you. There are bound to be things that we love that we just can't take with us in every circumstance.
It doesn't even require a crazy thing to happen like an invasion of foreign troops; we can lose our things tomorrow from a run-of-the-mill house fire. This happens. Houses flood and burn down all the time. Our attachment to our stuff is what will hurt us if that kind of stuff ever happens to us.

The Tribulation--that period of years described in Revelation, where the economy collapses and we get lots of wars and a one-world government and all that--is not meant to be a punishment for the righteous. It is a preparation. It is the quickest, most effective way to help the Saints let go of the things of this earth, so we can be given a better one.

It could take us lifetimes to learn that stuff doesn't matter if we never have to lose our stuff. It will take us significantly less time when we are forced to sacrifice everything.

But it reminds me of my kid. My little three-year-old. There was this time a few months ago where I wanted to take him somewhere fun, but to go out to the fun place, he had to put his everyday toys away and put on his shoes to go. He really didn't want to stop playing dragons. But as his momma I knew that he would be glad he did once he got to the play place, or wherever we were going. Sometimes loving parents need to step in and help their children let go of things they love, so that the same children can be open to it when something even better comes along.

The Tribulation is our chance to let go of our attachment to the things of a telestial world, so we can be prepared for the Millennium on a terrestrial one. It is a blessing. It is a blessing to be forced to let go.

But it might still be hard.

That is why it is a blessing to learn to let go sooner than that. It will be a good preparation for our preparation to learn to let go now, rather than later. The better we are at letting go before the Tribulation begins, the easier it will be on us. This includes letting go of material items, and letting go of people who die or choose not to be our friends anymore, and letting go of pre-set ways of doing things that may not be the best way for what's to come.

Sodarshan Chakra Kriya. Intense!
Picture here.

Warning: if you pray for a crash course in this stuff, you will probably find yourself having to let go of a lot of things before you feel ready. But it might be the best thing for you.

A powerful meditation to help in this process is Sodarshan Chakra Kriya. I love what Yogi Bhajan wrote about it:

There is no time, no place, no space and no condition attached to this mantra. Each garbage pit has its own time to clear. If you are going to clean your own garbage, you must estimate and clean it as fast as you can, or as slow as you want. You have to decide how much time you have to clean up your garbage pit.

This is the beautiful opportunity we have as God's children living on this earth in this day and age. We have spirits full of garbage--all of us have spirits full of garbage--and we get to choose if it's going to be cleaned, and how fast it will be cleaned. It is up to us to clean our inner garbage as fast as we can, or as slow as we want. It's all our choice. We get to choose.

I will say, I started a 100-day meditation of Sodarshan Chakra Kriya about three weeks ago, and about five days in, my life completely blew up and got horrible. I guess a lot of subconscious gunk came to the fore to be processed. Committing to working on garbage means garbage comes up to be dealt with. But better to deal with it now in our comfortable homes with plentiful food, than when we're living on beans and rice in a tent city (if it ever comes to that!).

Conclusion

Now is a great time to practice letting go. Give something away that you love. Take your deep breaths when other people disrespect your home or your belongings. Do some Sodarshan Chakra Kriya if you are feeling brave. Clean your garbage. Better now than later.

yin and yang in kundalini yoga and meditation

I am at heart a researcher. Over the past year, my research has led me to study the concepts of yin and yang, as well as kundalini yoga and meditation. In my own sadhana, or KYM practice, I have been endlessly intrigued and overjoyed to see how the concepts of yin and yang present themselves in the basics of kundalini yoga and meditation.

Yin and Yang overview

I've blogged about this before, but yin is the feminine essence and yang is the masculine essence. Yang leads, yin follows; yang does, yin is. While yang is aggressive, yin is submissive.

Kundalini and feminine energy

Kundalini is energy coiled at the base of the spine; it rises when the masculine and feminine energies are brought together. This is the purpose of kundalini yoga and meditation: to raise the kundalini from the base of the spine to the top of it. 

Yin and yang in KYM

Here are just a few examples of how the principles of yin and yang are exemplified in KYM.

• Sat nam. The phrase means "I am truth; truth is my identity." When you do meditations like cat-cow, you're supposed to think "Sat" on the inhale and "Nam" on the exhale. Inhalation is fundamentally yang, and exhalation is fundamentally yin. Similarly, the active voice, as exemplified in "I am truth," is yang, while passive voice ("Truth is my identity") is yin. The phrase "Sat nam" as a whole combines both yin and yang energies. And breaking it up with "sat" on the inhale and "nam" on the exhale... it's yin and yang, guys!

• Sat nam, Waheguru. Other KYM things have you think "Sat nam" on the inhalation and "Waheguru" ("praise be to God") on the exhalation. Just as it is masculine to assert identity, it is feminine to praise others, and particularly to praise the masculine essence--and what is more "masculine essence" than God? Another perfect example of yin and yang in KYM. 

• Opposing postures. While other forms of yoga involve long deep stretches and minimal movement, many KYM postures involve movement--back and forth, flex and curl, etc. Doing the postures can really work up a sweat! KYM is designed to balance yin and yang energies, though, in a way other yogas are not. Using opposite postures (ex: flexed spine/curled spine) on the inhalation and exhalation balance the masculine and feminine energies in a truly fascinating and effective way.

• Finite and infinite.
  
  "Kundalini Yoga is the science to unite the finite with Infinity, and it's the art to experience Infinity in the finite." - Yogi Bhajan.
  
  Infinity is yang, and the finite is yin. Just as the Heavens are yang and the Earth is yin. KYM purports to unite the two, finite and Infinity--as Yogi Bhajan says, the science to unite finite with Infinity, and the art to experience Infinity in the finite. A beautiful expression of what it means to bring the yin and yang, masculine and feminine, energies into alignment.

• Going along with the Infinite/finite idea, consider the words of the tuning-out song, Longtime Sun:
  
  May the longtime sun shine upon you
  All love surround you
  And the pure light within you
  Guide your way on
  
  Even the tune-out song unites the Infinite (the longtime sun, or Son, for those Christian practitioners out there!) and the Finite (the light within you). This is another example of KYM uniting the perceived duality of yin and yang, masculine and feminine, Infinite and Finite.

Conclusion

If you are working to balance your masculine and feminine energies, or are working to achieve any sort of enlightenment, taking up a kundalini yoga and meditation practice will help with that. KYM is a technology that uses exercise and vibration (through postures and chanting) to bring energies into alignment for spiritual awakening. 

Axis and Orbit: Halfway Complete Update

I somehow missed this challenge when it was first announced. The challenge, the Axis and Orbit Summer Challenge, is to complete 30 kundalini yoga and meditation classes by September 21, the autumn equinox. When the challenge was issued, there was enough time to complete the challenge by doing 3 KYM classes/week.

Somehow I missed this blog post when it came out, and only became aware of it in late July. I committed on the first day of August, or so, and signed up for Progressive Prophetess's Prosperity series (available here). I figured I would just do the six classes over and over. Indeed, that is what I have been doing! Any day that I can, I do two classes, to make up for the days I can't do any.

The point of the challenge is to transform your "psyche, axis, and orbit," your axis relating to your connection with God, and your orbit relating to your connection with others. If your axis and orbit are both balanced, you will be happy and prosperous.

In the past few days I completed my fifteenth KYM class (this morning I finished class 17), and I wanted to update the world on how that was going.

Feel free to buy as many copies of my
amazing novel as you'd like.
Christmas presents, anyone? ;)

The most noticeable difference, probably, has involved money. I work by donation and a lot of times people don't donate and I am too--I don't know, something--to press people on it. So a lot of times I work for free. I'm trying to figure out a new solution but in the meantime, a notable change has been in spontaneous monetary donations. It has been kind of astonishing.

Additionally, I've felt renewed senses of creativity. I've always been a very creative person; I write a lot of music and I blog and I have a novel out which you should totally buy and review on Amazon now. This year I have barely touched my fiction or written music. But since I started taking that class, I've been feeling itchy to work on my most pressing work in progress (WIP), Spidermaiden. What an awesome book, guys. I love it but haven't felt able to work on it. But that is changing!

I also have felt like it is now within the realm of possibility for me to actually make my own webinars, so I've been trying to figure that out. In the past, I just figured it was something too complicated for me to figure out, but now I feel a confidence about it that is amazing.

Physically, I've had two ear infections in the piercing on the right ear. In Chinese face reading, mien shiang, the earlobes are connected to wealth and prosperity. The bigger, fleshier, longer the earlobes, the better! So I've found that fascinating, that my earlobe associated with increasing wealth would be swelling so much lately. I'm taking it as another sign that things are working! A kind of annoying sign but a sign nonetheless. I think it's probably like how when I have started other meditations that gave me acne--I started prosperity meditations in earnest and I'm getting the equivalent of acne on the part of my face that is associated with prosperity.

I also got very sick after I started this challenge; I was sick for two weeks and have just been getting over it all. I had a moment where I realized that part of the purpose of my sickness was to help my body change faster (reorganize, consolidate, purify). So now I wonder if it was connected to the challenge.

Also physically, I've noticed an increase in physical strength since I started doing the classes. Before, it was a struggle to complete certain exercises. But every time I do them I can do them longer and more effectively.

Spiritually, I've felt transitional, but good. Things are reorganizing in my life but in a good way.

As far as connection to others, I've been noticing a lot more how the idea of separation is an illusion. I feel very unified with the people around me, even if we don't know each other very well, or even if we disagree on things. It's less of a unity of thought or ideas or something, and more of a unity in the sense that I feel like we are part of each other, and so I feel this love for them for that.

So: thirteen more classes to go before September 21. Excited to see what other changes it brings....