Two archetypes of our world can be found in this two stories. One focused, practical, afraid of risk, surprises and pain at the cost of a life of routine and lack of real wonderment for a known goal that probably will never be attained. The other a wandering existence, full of adventures and encounters, magic and beauty, sensations and suffering for an unknown future, in which the moment becomes king and queen. In these two archetypes we all live, as the yin and yang of our existence. Some will hold with all their strength and will the path to secure their lives, others will let themselves be seduced by a world of imagination to feel the meaning of life. Between the two, we wander.

Coming back home from dinner with some friends, I started to reflect whether I have been listening. Slowly, painfully, gradually I have become aware in the last years about my deficiency in listening to others. Part of this awareness is this self-reflection on my actions: did I put enough attention on what my friend was saying? Did I interrupt too many times? Did I talk too long? – so this is what I was doing on my ride back home…then I thought that perhaps the act of listening goes beyond sound, beyond words. Listening to someone else’s gestures, facial expressions, their actions, their pauses, their absences, the empty spaces. At the end, isn’t listening about the expression of emotions? Isn’t deeper listening the ability of putting our attention on other’s emotions, their palpitations?

Many spiritual practices, including yoga, see vibration as the final nature of the universe, all is vibration. As when Siddhartha listens to the river and learns to listen to the universe in Hesse’s novel, perhaps the act of listening is the ability to “give one’s attention to this vibration”, including, but far not only, the words of my friends.

So many voices in our heads. So many “yeses”, “noses”, “maybes” at the same time. Desires, whims, restrictions, principles, habits at the same time. Of all these who are we? In yoga, as in other hindu traditions there are the chakras. Overly simplifying, they are energy centres, which nature and effect is interpreted in many ways. Each of the chakras is related to different dimensions of our being – our connection with the Earth, sexuality, creativity, ego, love, imagination, divinity, etc. These we may say affect our behaviour. What we eventually do may be closely related with the state of these chakras, that is, with how the energy is channeled along them. So it is said that when our more terrenal whims for food or sex are dominating us it is because the lower chakras are unbalanced with the rest, dominating, for example, our connection with love or ethical principles. As when someone prefers to eat the last piece instead of giving it to someone else, or sex takes only place completely separated from its close connection with love or even divinity – both happening just for the direct pleasure to the ego.

Who are we then? I believe we are all and one. The chakras are all connected, thus the balance or unbalance. We are not one or all, but all and one. We’re and we’re not the person that eats the last piece of cake. For on the one hand we have eaten it, but on the other if given the chance of awareness of the consequences of eating it – for example, a person that has eaten less will feel given an unfair part of the cake – we may probably stop eating it and give it to that person.

Understanding our being as only being one of them, that is the one who eats the piece of cake, can give place to what is often felt as unfair judgement of the person – “you ARE so selfish, for you ate much more cake than others did”. Understanding our being as all of them, can give place to the impossibility of judging behaviour – “never mind he ate the last piece of cake, it is not HIS fault, he didn’t realise others didn’t eat as much.” Understanding our being as one and all at the same time allows to a non-judgement of the person and evaluation of the behaviour, and therefore to the possibility of its future correction by us – “It was a bad thing that he ate the last piece of cake, I hope that now he knows the consequence of it, others didn’t eat as much, I am sure next time he will think about it”. We are not our behaviours, or even our thoughts of it. They form part of us, but they are not us.

We are responsible of the decisions we take, deciding for the “yes” instead of the “no”, but those decisions are not us, any person judging our being for our behaviour is, I believe, making a mistake. That doesn’t mean he is stupid, he is just making a mistake that can be corrected if given the opportunity to do so.

Have a look at his video:

…and for entertaining reading you have this great book by Daniel Pink:

So 1,000 prisoners for one soldier? At first, it seems that Hamas has won this one. If we count it in numbers. But actually they have lost it. With this agreement they have reinforced the idea that one Israeli soldier, that is, one Israeli life, is worth at least 1,000 Palestinian lives. It is this kind of statements that are at the base of the conflict between both countries/people. This time Israel has done the right thing and ultimately its government is showing that they care for one life of theirs, much worth it, in their eyes, than 1,000 of the others. In the meantime, besides the joy of the families of the released and that the freedom of one human being is always good news, politically this agreement may be just one step more in no direction.

‘Asana’ in sanskrit means ‘sitting down’. In yoga it refers to the positions a yogi takes in the practice. In life, it can refer to all things we do or are done to us, our ‘life positions’.

An Asana can be more or less difficult for one person according to the state of her body, mind, heart and soul. We all have positions, asanas, we don’t like. In life, we have things we don’t like doing or we don’t like that are done to us.

This is the state where I was when I decided to stop for a while this blog and go away from Facebook. There were things I was doing and things done to me that I didn’t like. So I decided to try to stop them…

In yoga, it is normally the asanas we don’t like doing that are the ones that hide the most powerful potential of transformation. One important reason why we don’t like them is because they touch on emotions we have buried for a long time. In life, actions we don’t like touch on emotions we don’t want to feel, including those we have repressed to protects ourselves in fear.

Someone I hold very dear to me said to me once: “Life is too short to be in asanas we don’t like”.

These words were paraphrasing others from cat, one of my great yoga teachers, which in turn came from the teacher of teachers of Jivamukti Yoga, Sharon Gannon: “Life is too short to be with people you don’t like”.

These words can be interpreted as what they mean literally, that is, “don’t waste your time with people you don’t like.” Or with a much deeper meaning, a more “yogic meaning”. This second meaning changes the perspective from the external to the internal. Instead of looking at the external world as the cause of our dislikes, it points to our inside as its real origin. It would then mean “don’t waste your time disliking people”, make an effort to find the greatness of all around yourself, so you don’t have to be with people you don’t like. It means that the cause of our likes and dislikes is within us and, therefore, we can change it.

With this new perspective is how I am looking at the things I was doing or were done to me that I didn’t like. I now see how the origin of this malaise is within me and, therefore, I am making an effort to find what in me is causing it. Not by stopping my personal expression on Facebook or my blog I will find it, that’s the external world. I like to share my ideas and my experiences and both are really good platforms to do so…my malaise comes from inside, thus, I will find it but turning around and looking at myself. Not by blaming the world, be it things or people.

An ‘asana’ in yoga is very often quite challenging for the mind, body and heart of the yogi. It is by practice that it becomes more ‘comfortable’ or, in better words, more part of the yogi, more internalised in her being as part of her transcendental knowledge of her being. The path to that point is hard and painful, but also very rewarding. With the same spirit I am taking my ‘practice of life’, my ‘life asanas’. I know I will fall many times, as I do in yoga class, but the real practice comes when one gets back again into position, the ‘return to the asana’ is the real practice. Places, people, actions I don’t like have become my practice to know myself better, because the cause of the disliking is within me.

‘Asana’ also refers to our sitting in the earth, that is, our connection to it which root us. It is by practicing the yoga positions that the yogi becomes more ‘sitted on the earth’, more connected, more balance. Equally it is by practicing  the ‘life asanas’ with the same attitude as those performed on the mat that our life may become more connected, more rooted, more balance…and that is my wish.

Namaste..

“If you want to find the truths of the universe, look for paradoxes…”

Impermanence. Everything changes. Nothing is never the same. All flows. From moment to moment. Breathing in and breathing out we live all these moments, it is our life. Despite this simple truth we keep thinking (I underline, ‘thinking’) in permanents. And then when change is so great that we cannot ignore it, we are surprised. Because we haven’t seen that actually change is all, for all is impermanent.

In impermanence we are, all is. That’s the impermanence paradox. Like the river that flows and is never the same river, but it is the river – it was not or it won’t be, it just is the river. We are never the same, but we are ‘we’, I am ‘I’, you are ‘you’… We are impermanent doesn’t meant that we are not, it is in that continuous change that we are in the moment. Therefore, we can only ‘be’ in the moment. When the river flows. Being is impermanent outside the moment, in the moment is just ‘be’. It is by feeling the now, the moment that we truly find our being, thy being.

Can we then take another step to find new living-space alternatives that on the one hand let us keep our privacy and intimacy (essential for the development of the individual), keeping a good quality of life, but on the other create connections, facilitate relationships, and develop communities between us, allowing real sharing of goods, values, emotions, ideas, etc. At this moment the model is have ‘the flat’ and develop sharing in the neighbourhood. But can we think of another type of living space different than the flat, one that reflects the values of a sharing society?

Let’s say, for example, that the living room becomes a common room, that books, records or whatever is not stored anymore in our houses but in common spaces, that kitchens become community kitchens, where people can cook together. This will create more community spaces. We can also think of different degrees of ‘communitarisation’ of private spaces e.g. keep a small kitchen, for when we want to cook alone, a small library, etc. But surely, this solution will probably not satisfy everybody. Not everybody wants the same – many would still want to have their private space, that’s it -, thus they probably won’t look for the same. Perhaps diversity is the word. So if diversity is the way, let’s allow diverse models to emerge. Now governments, financial institutions (i.e. banks) and society keep encouraging the ‘private flat model’ (to satisfy the I-want-a-big-house feeling), in detriment of other alternatives in which many people will have greater satisfaction developing aspect of their lives now they can’t even envisage. We should then develop new financial, legal, social structures and technology that allow for this diversity in housing to emerge (just recently a friend of mine (@indy_johar) has launched wikihouse.cc, making easy house DIY design). Do not impose one solution, allow for the many to emerge.