The Heart of the Warrior

It happened!!! I cried on my yoga mat. Tears of sadness and joy. Tears of an open heart. Tears of compassion. Beautiful, fearless tears. I have been eagerly awaiting this moment and it came today at Equalityoga. Hundreds of lovely beings shared an outdoor practice dedicated to social action-specifically for Gay Rights. We created a collective intention of cultivating equality-equality as love, honor and respect for all beings for who they are. During this practice, I found myself cultivating these same feelings for myself-love, honor and respect for who I am. I forget to do this sometimes. I forget to recognize my own basic goodness. This is what connects me to everyone else. If I forget this about myself, how can I connect to others? How can I have compassion for myself and for others? Only when we recognize our own basic goodness can we shed our fear-based egos and allow our hearts to crack open, spilling love out into the world. Only when we have looked at our own soul can we realize the beauty of another's soul. When this happens, we experience the Heart of the Warrior.

In the tradition of Shambhala (a path of meditation I was introduced to some years ago that views all beings as fundamentally good), the Heart of the Warrior is one of fearlessness and gentleness. The warrior is not afraid of who she is. She can look directly into her heart and mind without the veils of fear, doubt and ego. She can allow her heart to open completely and share her love with the world. Fearlessness is her source of strength and her strength enables her to open to the world with a raw and tender heart, a heart of complete gentleness. The Warrior is so vulnerable that she is invulnerable; there is no ego to be wounded. The Warrior has great strength and great softness. The Warrior has both masculine and feminine. The Warrior has no arrogance, no aggression and no attachment to past or future. The Warrior extends herself fully with kindness to create and maintain an enlightened society.

So how do we develop our warrior? Where do we start? How do we become fearless and gentle? Here is how.

1. MEDITATION: The late Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche, a lineage holder in the Shambhala tradition, explains that through the practice of sitting still and following your breath as it goes out and dissolves, you are connecting with your heart. By allowing all thoughts to melt away, you start to "break through the ancient crust of ego and awaken to the joy of fully living in this world". You let your guard down, you take off your masks, you recognize your basic goodness. By simply letting yourself be, as you are, you develop genuine sympathy towards yourself. Out of this, grows a tenderness and a sympathy for others. "Real fearlessness is the product of tenderness. It comes from letting the world tickle your heart, your raw and beautiful heart. You are willing to open up, without resistance or shyness, and face the world. You are willing to share your heart with others" (Chogyam Trungpa). The warrior dares to experience the sharp edge of reality and move forward with gentleness, awareness, and inquisitiveness.

2. YOGA: Basic goodness is a fundamental principle of Anusara Yoga, which happens to be the style of yoga I have chosen to study most closely (you can tell I dig this whole "basic goodness" thing). Through a physical yoga practice, we can connect with our hearts and celebrate our intrinsic goodness. By honoring the beauty and goodness in all practitioners, teachers of Anusara Yoga create a space in which it is safe to unveil and look directly into your heart. It is common for yogis, through the beauty and physical expression of the practice, to feel or release intense emotion on the mat (even tears, like today for me!). This is the Heart of the Warrior. This is the fearlessness of looking at ourselves, honoring ourselves, and honoring others.

3. PRESENCE: The Heart of the Warrior can pop up at any time. All that is required is presence. When you are present, you are not thinking about the past so you have no identity (no ego), you are not thinking about the future (or the false happiness that awaits you there), you are 100% in the now. When you are in the now, you are automatically connected to your heart, to your basic goodness. And since you are so open in your presence, anything that comes along touches your raw heart and brings forth compassion. The simplest thing can bring about tears of joy. The harshest circumstances can be addressed with great gentleness. In the midst of great difficulty (grief, hardships, loss, break-ups, etc) your heart is waiting to be cracked open. All you have to do is ALLOW yourself to be present. It is the fastest way to heal. No fear, no aggression, no hiding, no defensiveness. Just awareness and love.

As I have found with many things of this nature, the Heart of the Warrior cannot really be explained. It cannot be intellectualized. It MUST be experienced. And it must be experienced by YOU. So take a friggin' sledgehammer to your ego and expose your beautiful heart. Be raw, open and tender. Find your warrior and extend yourself fully to the world with gentleness, fearlessness and non-aggression. JAI HO!


Love,
Erin

The Mat as Macrocosm

When you are practicing yoga, do you ever feel part of something bigger? When I am on my mat, I find that I feel a sense of connectedness, a vastness, a unity, a oneness with the entire universe. This is not happening in a church or a temple or on top of a mountain somewhere, just on my mat. Where is this coming from? Then I remember the meaning of the word Yoga. In Sanskrit, yoga means union. It is not only a union of mind and body (the union we typically think of when we think of yoga) but it is also a union of the individual self and the supreme self, the individual consciousness and the universal consciousness. The yoga mat serves as a connection of our tiny selves with the enormity of the entire universe, the entire cosmos, the macrocosm.

Macrocosm can be defined simply as the great world or universe; the universe considered as a whole. It can be defined less simply as a representation of a smaller unit or entity by a larger one, presumably of a similar structure. This definition fits nicely with the fundamental thesis of Kriya Yoga-that we are a miniature version of the whole cosmos. We are a finite version of the infinite. We are the universe/God/the Divine/the Supreme Consciousness in the boundary of a body. I find that this concept is most concisely and eloquently explained in the words of Kabir: "All know that the drop merges into the Ocean, but few know that the Ocean merges into the drop." We are the entire ocean contained in one drop. Everything we are looking for on the outside is already within us, including salvation, peace, love and contentment.

Yoga is the means of making that connection between microcosm and macrocosm - realizing the truth behind the union of individual and universal. Our yoga mat takes us on an inward journey, to the depths of our soul. What we may not realize at first is that the journey to ourselves is the same as the journey to that which is greater than ourselves. The journey to self is the journey to the Divine. When we connect to ourselves on our mats, we connect to everything that happens to not be on our mats. So when we are doing all of those hard poses, focusing on our breath, calming our minds, challenging ourselves to move beyond our limitations, allowing ourselves to release, to surrender, to expand, we are on that journey. We are making those connections. We are realizing our true nature. It's like tapping into the Source and realizing that we are the Source.

The next time you are on your mat, let it be a rectangular reminder that the entire universe lies within you, as you.

Namaste,
Erin