Follow Grace

It is the first day of 2009. Despite the late night New Year celebration I managed to wake up at the regular time and followed my usual morning routine. However, this morning I felt a definite sense of urgency to organize my life. It came with certain clarity and ease. Serendipitously, I bought a beautiful lunar date book yesterday. Written in it read "Cats are the sleepiest of all mammals. They spend sixteen hours of each day in dream-land." Well, last night went by like a dream and so was the whole 2008. Promptly, I awoke and wrote down my schedule for the month of January, checked my emails and managed my money accounts all before 10 am. Granted my little life does not need much management, still I am impressed.

I have not managed a preconceived idea of what to write so, the title for this blog is quite appropriate. I am just going to flow with the moment and follow what arise. First to mind, I am infinitely grateful for the teaching of yoga and ayurveda. I am now very much at ease in my body. After a long night dancing I woke up mentally clear and relatively pain-free. The Caraka Samhita, one of Ayurveda's classic texts refers to health as "The senses are fulfilled; hunger and thirst are assuaged; standing, sitting, lying down, walking, breathing, talking and laughing are effortless; food is digested easily by evening or morning." These words are so simple and true. When you follow grace your life too becomes simple and true.

Grace has many meanings but the one I choose for now is "the love and favor of God toward human beings." How do we follow God's love and recognize the favor we receive? The first and perhaps the only obstacle we have in realizing the love and favor of God is how we see love and favor. Yoga teaches oneness and being one with God is to see what God sees. All of yoga and ayurveda practices deem to support this union and heal our fragmented vision. The realization of oneness is the seeing of God.

It is helpful to determine whether you are a pessimist, optimist or rationalist. Because what you see is what you are conditioned to look at. If you are unhappy with life in general it is obvious you are a pessimist. If your life is a bad news and you always have bad news to share it is a good indication you are aversive to life. A pessimist has a hard time follow grace because their reality is reversed into self loathing. You are bogged down by the past pain. You can't seem to lift yourself up from the earth to experience the lightness and freedom of reality.

An optimist has the opposite challenge. I happily (being an optimist) admit that I fall in to this category. You perhaps have an easier time dealing with life and more willing to see truth. But alas life is not all bliss but a total ignorance can be. Yet, not seeing truth is a definite suffering. An optimist tends to reach toward self gratification. The reality of the moment gets lost in the anticipation of better things yet to come and are forever beyond your reach. These are dreamers and artists who fast forward through life and can't quite feel the earth underneath their feet.

Perhaps you are a rationalist and is thinking that surely you are seeing things exactly as they are. The truth is that truth is not so obvious. Yogis, sages and buddhas spent years inquiring into the truth. Looking at things and relating to them only as materials clench your vision. Material manifestation is known as maya in yoga. Maya simply put means illusion. To our senses maya is very real. But for the inquiring mind maya and all its manifestation is continuously changing. If you have a definite sense of how things are and how things should be you are twisting away from the subtlety of reality which is unchanged. This takes me back to the cat's dream-land. Interestingly cats are up 8 hours a day which is the amount of time we spend sleeping. I wonder if their dream-land is their reality not unlike our 16 hours a day we think is our reality?! Moving past your senses and seeing beyond the material world unravel the complication of life cycle and reveal the simplicity of truth.

Seeing truth and sensing beyond maya and your past condition require looking inward. Bringing balance and equanimity into your life through the practice of yoga and ayurveda help settle your mind and refine your questioning. Perhaps your 2009 can be the year of experimentation to follow grace. Embrace what you have as God's favor and love what is while questioning what is not. As I look down to my cup of tea, the tea bag's piece of advice read "The beauty of life is to experience yourself." I interpret that as Grace.

Happy New Year!