I posted a class leading to King Pigeon today, and it got me thinking about the significance of closed circuits and circles in the yogic ontology. Circles figure everywhere — from the endlessly pulsing expansion and collapsing cycles of the universe to the outward and inward pull of the yogi aspirant’s awareness. This won’t be a long tome. I’ll just offer a thought to put in the pocket.
Embodiment
She finds herself born and embodied. From the first moments of life, she searches externally for sources of nourishment and love, first from caretakers, then from many others along the way. After a while, her seeking becomes more complex. She looks to institutions, books, leaders, guides, friends and teachers to shed light on this curious condition of embodiment. None of it is enough, so she expands her search. She earns degrees, becomes masterful in certain areas, acquires knowledge, achieves some material wealth — and still a certain dissatisfaction is detectable.
Going In
If she is lucky, she receives the auspicious recommendation to turn inward. Heeding it, she gets quiet. The reaching outward has become a reaching inward. If she makes a regular practice of it, without too much grasping or anxiousness about the whole thing, some fruit is borne there. After a while, she recognizes the vastness, the space, and the eternal, unmoving nature of her inmost Being. If she is sufficiently lured by this inward pull, nothing else matters more. No material experience, no phenomenal distraction can detach her from abiding peace. Still, the experience of being human has not come to a close.
Reentry into the World of Material Existence
So she must return to external experiencing. It’s a completion of the circuit. She’s stepped back out into nature, but this time it’s different. She moves from peace, she speaks from silence and space, she watches as Life unfolds, acting when she is called to act, never for personal gain alone. No longer is there so much struggle, stress, or a feeling of being incomplete. Now there is wholeness, fullness, delight, and ease even in the midst of challenge. She’s not above the play of the life force, but she has come home to herSelf, at least to some degree, and her duty now is to share.
Teach on, teachers! Keep on sharing if your dharma is calling you to share. Go be generous. Be a light. Be love.
<3
Leigha