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Free Will

Yoga says that we all have free will. We create our own karma. This is the most loving thing the creator of all could do for us. We get to learn about our selves and our true nature on our own timing. We get to naturally come to freedom. We get to do it, and this is the whole essence and journey of our human experience.

We should be mindful on how we allow for the free will of others to naturally unfold. Yoga says if we infringe on the free will of other beings then we too are operating from the space where we feel confined and controlled. If we can relax into the experience and side step our need to control what is happening, and learn to calm our own nervous system we will find the energy becomes softer, we can find the freedom.

Yoga a Platform for Activism

My yoga teachers and fellow activists David Life and Sharon Gannon share that most people think yoga is an exercise class. They don’t see it as an underground community for activism and a platform for political change. The government just thinks we are all just a bunch of hippies getting together to stretch our bodies and minds, and do not see the growing yoga community as a threat. This is a good thing. Yoga is about shifting perception. What is realized in the attainment of yoga is the interconnectedness to all beings and all things. Yoga is a journey to disentangle self from the material miseries and to come into action of service. The yogi begins to see the soul spark in everyone and everything. The evolution of the practice awakens the devotion and desire to uplift the lives of others, and to do all that we can to serve.

The Bhavagad Gita discusses how we can get so entangled in ignorance to the truth that we start to think that we are the main controllers, creators, and enjoyers of the manifest reality. This couldn’t be farther from the truth. Yoga states that although we are part and parcel of the Divine, which resides in each heart, we must stay humble, in devotion, and service.

Being a part of the human community in America it is evident that the well being of our environment and communities are under attack by corporate interest. Corporate desire to create more wealth and the behavior towards creating more wealth has put society, safety, nature, and human health at risk. Government has neglected ethics and values in public policy, and has silenced the community.

Reclaiming Your Intuition

Have you ever gone against your own intuition? How did that work out for you?

Have you ever felt so numb to your internal signals that you didn’t even sense what your intuition is communicating to you? Or have you ever consciously overthrown your own intuition for your desire to be loved and accepted? Maybe you overrode your intuition hoping to prove that you were a perfect match for a partner, a job, a community, rather than sensing and questioning if the relationship, job, or community was a good match for you. Please remember there is nothing to prove in love and acceptance, and that true love and acceptance must begin within. We must start with ourselves.

Moving Beyond Disappointment

There is an excitement in imagining opportunity manifest. When opportunity arises and we truly believe ourselves to deserve it, we start to see and feel ourselves experiencing what it is that we want. We imagine it so completely we begin to engage our senses. We may even start to communicate to our friends that it is “happening!” Then we get the notice that we were not chosen.

It is disappointing.

Crossing the Sea of the World

Whatever comes to pass is all right.

Presence can be constantly felt. All the shocks and blows cleanse and purify us. We keep emptying self to fill with love. No sticky possessiveness, just miraculous expansion.

This is the time when we can allow our light to increase and in turn illuminate a new paradigm. What is to give light must endure burning.

It requires presence. We must presence ourselves in our lives. We must presence ourselves in every single moment!

If we loose presence we become vulnerable. We become vulnerable even to the things we think we want, just about everything.

We are not Bystanders and Our Choices will Ripple

People like the freedom of choice as it helps them to perceive that they have control. Blind obedience due to conditioning can lead to a weak sense approach to thinking and behavior.

People assume that prepared food, water, environment are safe. Yet it’s proving to be toxic and addictive. We can no longer be bystanders or expect to be saved by scientific, technological, and medical miracles.

There is a challenge between individual freedom and policy change. Most people still believe that environmental protection is up to the government and don’t pay attention to how their actions can contribute to environmental pollution, or protection.

Education, research credibility, self-reflection, emotional healing, and policy change are necessary actions that are in need of implementation.

The paradox is that we have become addicted to the very behaviors we need for survival in our current system: eating, sex, and money.

Awareness Requires Space

Most of us are too busy, too ambitious, or too stressed to take a time out, and pause, to become receptive to the insight inspired in the empty moments. The fast pace of life, if you let it, clouds clear realization into knowing our capacity, which may in turn cloud our ability to be realistic about our efforts. Many of us are biting off more than we can chew, feeling overwhelmed, and wiped out. Routine becomes an enemy of time, obligation an enemy of spontaneity, busyness an enemy of awareness. Many of us awake and wonder where the time has gone, where our health has gone, where the sparks of joy, creativity, and sanctuary that bring us back to life has gone. Stop!

Awareness requires space.

The Contrast of Karma has an Important Role for Evolution

Yoga tells us that Karma is certain. Every thought, word, and action has a vibrational energy that consciously, or unconsciously, creates our reality experience. Einstein told us that the Universe is curved, supporting Newton’s Law and the Law of Karma that everything will eventually, and inevitably come back to us. Yoga offers us several gems of metaphor to inspire magical shifts in perspective assisting us in freedom from the contrasts of the Karmic wheel. The practice of yoga inspires consciousness in the present moment, so as to allow us the willingness into the co-creation of the energy we are actually driving.

The contrast of Karma has an important role for evolution. It guides us like a treasure map to journey into the mysteries of who we are. The practice of yoga offers us clues into who we are.

What I learned working in a Psychiatric Hospital

I spent a year working in a Psychiatric Hospital post graduate school, and I had seen and learned all that I will as a Mental Health Counselor. I remember my yoga teacher Sharon Gannon stating that we all do the best we can in each moment according to each moment. I am proud of myself to state that I did my best. I did good! I was in a full time position with the Adolescent Unit, working with children the ages of 12-17. I also worked (what I would consider) too often on the Adult Intensive Unit, with adults who were diagnosed psychotic. My job was to keep people calm, keep people alive, prevent violence, and promote stabilization. I was also a leader of daily psychotherapy and educational groups. Most patients came from the ER post suicide attempt, or transported from the police station.