Liberating Spaces

‘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.

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The night starts here, the night starts here, forget your name, forget your fear
The night starts here, the night starts here, forget your name, forget your fear

The pleasure part, The after shock, The moment that, It takes the fall apart
The time we have, The task at hand, The love it takes, To destroy a man
The ecstasy, The being free, That big black cloud, Over you and me
And after that, The upward fall, And worry angels, After all
I don’t know, I don’t know

I remember the drums, the beats and the feet. Bodies touching. Hands raising. Down, Up. Beat up, beat down. Louder and louder. Hips left and right. The floor full of those whom the night calls every day, at every sun. Moon-dominated souls that want to live what’s not allowed in the waking lights. Amnesic mind blowing experience. Drugs or not. Changing lives by the contact with the other. The unknown looking at you. Luring you to the depths of the dark. There, where the wolves wait your coming to make you theirs. There, where the bat sucks your blood. There, where the fairies bring you pleasures unattainable in the clarity of the day.

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There is on IMDB a reviewer of the wonderful movie Before Sunset who says

I remember a line that says “nothing that is complete breathes”, and I think that is what we see in this film. A perfect connection with another human is a blessing and a curse; having experienced perfection a part of us stops breathing, unable or unwilling to mar the perfection of that memory.

How truthful!

I am a comet. I cross the space at thrilling speed, grazing planets and their satellites, fed by stars that beacon my path. I was happy alone in the darkness of cosmos. Until the time I met you. Until the moment I touched you. I thought I was unique, but I was not.

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For the last months I have written quite a bit about emotions and reason. In what I called the emotional revolution, I see a process of transformation through which we realize that reason is not the only legitimate source of knowledge and meaning in our lives. We are starting, as individuals and as communities, to get into contact with our emotions in ways we can share and give them common meaning by new and rediscovered means – images, music, movies, farming, cooking, exercise, travelling, comedy, Internet and social networks, etc. – at a global level. Emotions are becoming essential to understand our environment, our peers and ourselves. We are as much emotional as rational beings. To give full meaning to our reality, reason and emotion need to be accomplices.

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I lost the train. This morning, for unfortunate circumstances I lost the 6.22 am Eurostar from London to Paris. A friend of mine was waiting for me on the train with a full breakfast (croissants, pain chocolate, fruit, juices…). And I missed it!

This trip has been planned for more than 10 years. All comes back to a night in Paris in 1999. Walking back home with a friend near La Bastille, we started to talk about the girl he was going out with. In the conversation I told him that my intuition told me that he was not going to be with her in six months time.
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On a recent post I distinguished between the speed and freedom of a life alone and the depth and fulfilment of a life together. Yet I was somehow wrong in this differentiation, for we are not necessarily more free when we are alone. We may have much more liberty by being with the person we feel connected to. (more…)

It is said that when the Earth was created, the Sun and the Moon were made of the same stone coming from a faraway place of the universe. The Sun was given the power of light and the Moon the power of beauty. During the day the Sun would illuminate the Earth, giving strength and energy to its creatures and plants. During the night the Moon would break the darkness with its soft silver light, inspiring the hearts of animals and humans. Every day and every night, the Sun would come and go when the Moon would go and come. For only very short moments the Sun and the Moon would vaguely see each other from the extreme sides of the earth. Because of its strong light, the Sun would not see the beauty of the Moon, and the Moon would not dare to look at the sun for fear of being burn. They were for each other a mere moment of every day and every night. (more…)

Since quite young, I’ve travelled alone to different parts in Europe, and then to the Middle East, Russia, United States, Mexico. There are advantages in travelling alone. Most and foremost, liberty. Liberty to decide where and how to go at any moment. Also when travelling alone you meet new people more easily, for you are more keen to talk with strangers, and strangers are more keen to talk to you. Yet, I’ve got the most pleasure in travelling, and I’ve got the furthest when travelling with someone that understands me and I understand. Travelling together brings new opportunities to the trip I wouldn’t even consider alone. It brings new views, perspectives and interpretations to my experiences that can push me to places and adventures I would have never thought by myself. This is the same for the trip of life. (more…)

Tomorrow Sunday, volcanic cloud willing, I am taking off from Barcelona to Moscow for teaching. My relation with Russia is not new. Already during my “Cold War years” I was quite intrigued by the Soviet Union and a bit suspicious of the US. I felt an odd attraction for the big bear. My favourite James Bond movies is in fact From Russia with Love and I liked Ivan Drago, the Russian boxer in Rocky IV . Later, an uncanny experience happened to me in August 1997, while I was studying French in the Alliance Française in Paris, a pretty blonde Russian girl approached me in the coffee shop of the AF and started to talk to me in Russian. She said I looked Russian. That intrigued me. The following year, while I was studying in Sciences Po, I followed Russian language courses (not very successfully, for I’ve never liked to learn languages in a class). I thought my love with Russia had finished then. But I was wrong.

In 2006, I was asked whether I wanted to start teaching in the new Masters programme set up by the College of Europe and the MGIMO, within the cooperation framework between the EU and Russia. My Russian attraction was reborn, and I said immediately yes. I don’t regret it even a bit. It’s been always a very nice experience. I teach twice a year there, in winter and spring.

BUT my Russian “love affair” didn’t end there. (more…)

Paulo Coelho in his novel The Alchemist wrote

“Listen to your heart. It knows all things, because it came from the Soul of the World, and it will one day return there. Wherever your heart is, that is where you’ll find your treasure. Your heart is alive. Keep listening to what it has to say.”

It is a simple, but powerful statement. Yet it is much more difficult to follow than it seems. Listening to your heart is not an easy thing. For very often we think we are doing it, but we are actually listening to the layers of values, ideas and practices that we have learned in the past. They look like our feelings, our intuition, but they are not. Other times we are captured by our fear, which muffles what the heart has to say. Listening to your heart is to go beyond the learned values and the fear, and feel what your intuition is telling you. The communication with it doesn’t come through the language, it is not logical, but through your emotions.

Sometimes in life we are presented with rare opportunities that can make our life a special experience. These are life treasures. Yet, very often we don’t see them as such, and we lose them. We miss these opportunities because we haven’t listened to our heart, to what our deep emotions, to what our intuition is telling us. Either because we cynically rationalise them, we convince ourselves that treasures, these special encounters that can make our life different, do not exist, that they are never what they seem. Or because we are afraid, fear tells us that these treasures hide something bad in then, that sooner or later they will bring us pain.

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I am again in Barcelona after nearly two months since I was here the last time. Many things have changed since then. Experiences and personal realisations have changed profoundly how I see myself and the world around me. Since the first time I left my home in 1998, I have had difficulties in adapting again to my old life, family and environment in Barcelona. Now, it is harder than ever. It is like there are two worlds: mine and theirs. I know that in Barcelona there are other realities different than the one I grew up. Worlds I understand better. Worlds where people understand me better. I found them, for example, in the people with whom I co-founded Factoría Ciudadana. Now I know that in my city, there are other realities that are more fulfilling than the one I was put in when I was born. Luckily, I also have London.

I don’t know why, but I often can tell instinctively when someone is lying to me. It might be because in my personal life I’ve seen lies being told many times, and kept for long. I’ve seen the destructive power of lies, particularly for the person telling them. Or because I was a very good lier in my childhood and teen years. As I said, I don’t know why, but I sense when someone is lying to me. The thing is that I normally don’t react to it.

I don’t react because it is an instinct. I feel the lie, but I cannot be rationally sure about it.

I don’t react because, strangely enough, I respect the reasons a person may have to use a lie.

I don’t react because if the person who has lied is not related to me in ways in which I feel comfortable to ask certain type of questions, I cannot go beyond her/his initial denial.

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There is never a new beginning, but a series of transformations of your own self.

Nada de lo que pasa ocurre sin razón. A veces ésta hay que buscarla no en el pasado, pero en el futuro. En esos momentos necesitamos ser pacientes. Tenemos que esperar a que lo que venga nos dé el significado de lo que se ha ido.