Relationship as Yoga: Podcast Episode 2

Relationship is the ultimate and most arduous yoga. If we understand yoga to mean union, then relationship is a direct path to that union. A truly intimate relationship can be a powerful vehicle for spiritual development. It can be a safe place where we learn about ourselves while we dig beneath our socially accepted masks and learn what makes us tick. And yet there is one word that best describes the response we all have toward intimate relationship: terror. In this workshop aspects and issues that keep us from entering into or fully engaging in relationships are examined.

This workshop was recorded on October 25, 2009 at the Downtown Yogaworks in NYC.
This is the second half (Episode 2, 1:03:04 running time, 29.5MB) of the two-hour workshop.

In email or via RSS, you may use the following link to access/download the podcast directly to your computer (warning: approximately 29.5MB): http://abdiassadi.com/podcasts/abdi_assadi_yogaworks_v1_episode2.mp3

Or, you may access this podcast episode via your iTunes application:

 Launch iTunes and Subscribe to the Podcast

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 1:03:04 — 28.9MB)

Relationship As Yoga: Podcast Episode 1

Relationship is the ultimate and most arduous yoga. If we understand yoga to mean union, then relationship is a direct path to that union. A truly intimate relationship can be a powerful vehicle for spiritual development. It can be a safe place where we learn about ourselves while we dig beneath our socially accepted masks and learn what makes us tick. And yet there is one word that best describes the response we all have toward intimate relationship: terror. In this workshop aspects and issues that keep us from entering into or fully engaging in relationships are examined.

This workshop was recorded on October 25, 2009 at the Downtown Yogaworks in NYC.
This is the first half (Episode 1, 1:04:58 running time, 30.5MB) of the two-hour workshop.

In email or via RSS, you may use the following link to access/download the podcast directly to your computer (warning: approximately 30.5MB): http://abdiassadi.com/podcasts/abdi_assadi_yogaworks_v1_episode1.mp3

Or, you may access this podcast episode via your iTunes application:

 Launch iTunes and Subscribe to the Podcast

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 1:04:58 — 29.7MB)

Mindful new year

I offer you a poem by a man who knew a thing or two about transitions and living in a time of profound anxiety:

“I know that nothing has ever been real without my beholding it.
All becoming has needed me.
My looking ripens things and they come toward me,
to meet and be met”.
Rilke

How do you read this poem? As an invitation for your ego to go forth and conquer? That with out you
there is no world? Is Rilke professing the same knowledge espoused by many of the modern new age teachers about manifesting what you want? Or can you see that it can also be read as life being a process of becoming; “to meet and to be met”? That there is a mutual dance that occurs when we soften, and the line between us and the process blurs? The times that we are living through will not and can not be met by the first way of reading it. It can only be navigated by the second, by trusting the process and softening the self.

I invite you to use this demarcation of a new year to deepen your relationship to your Self. I sense that any one who has concrete plans for a specific goal or direction right now will be sorely disappointed. It is a good time to be fluid and paint with broad brush strokes, set general directions and allow the unfolding of time to fill in the fine details. Any thing that smells of the old ways of being will continue to be ripped away from us. The challenge at hand is to continue to have the courage and take the time to examine what or whom is not serving us any longer. It is a time to keep clearing away the old and allow ourselves to know that we don’t know instead of singing the same old tunes. These times of uncertainty are extremely uncomfortable for all us needing the illusion of being in control. And yet it is exactly these times, when attended to with attention and silence, that allow us to better understand what poisons us and what feeds us. Here’s to a mindful new year.

Practice dying while alive

Death is a complicated topic in our culture. Most of us are terrified by the specter of the inescapable ax hovering above our heads, and sublimate our fear in any number of disguises. It is one of the reasons why we can never sit still. Slowing down brings us face to face with our own frailty, and reminds us of our lack of preparedness for the final letting go. One sees a similar fear in our behavior around the dying. On numerous occasions I have been at the bedside of someone a step away from death when a friend or relative drops by to offer some asinine comment like “you look great” or “ I know you will pull through this”. These comments are our egos talking; on some level we believe we can bypass this final exit.

We can deepen and enrich our lives by examining our conscious and unconscious attitudes towards death. In my experience, it is possible to learn about dying while we are living, and it is a valuable knowledge. When our actual death comes, most of us leave in the middle of something—we do not get to choose our moment of passing. Very few of us leave when our egos are ready. So it is good practice to see what feelings come up when we do have to leave things unfinished.

A meditation that I do from time to time is to lie down and feel what it might be like if I was dying. In my mind, I release all that I hold dear, all the plans and dreams and love that surround me in that moment. I pay attention to the emotions that come up and my reluctance to let go. And then I practice letting go. Try this exercise with some heart—it can show you much about where you are in your life.

Another activity that I practice is to stop an experience that I am engrossed in. Let’s say I am watching a movie that I find engaging and I force myself to walk out before the end. Or I am working on my motorcycle and before I finish the job I put down my tools. You can have the same experience by putting aside a book that you are immersed in. I follow all these actions by sitting with the agitation that comes from my ego not being satiated. Practice it: the force of the agitation might surprise you. With repetition, it does become easier. Practicing dying leads to living more fully. And letting go a little now can make it easier when death does arrive.

The divine is in the details

In this sharp energy that we are all swimming in, it seems that consciousness is beckoning to us directly. In particular, I am currently noticing a great turbulence and questioning around the social contracts that people find themselves in.

Let me explain: when we enter into relationship with someone, there is a conscious interaction and an unconscious agreement. The conscious part is what we are aware of—such as a physical attraction or a sense of social compatibility.

The unconscious level, as the name implies, is what is going on underneath. It is here that things become tricky because the unconscious, contrary to what we sometimes like to believe, is not our inner truth-teller. In fact, it is where most of our distortions and addictions first formed.

So when we’re getting that sugar high from an extended gossip session, we might be telling ourselves that we’re bonding with a clever, worldly friend—while really we’re tapping into the dark depths of our own judgment and alienation. Or perhaps we’re feeling the warm glow of virtue and philanthropy in taking on another person’s crisis—when secretly we’re getting off on the drama and enjoying the time out from our own problems. The point is that, like anything else, relationships are susceptible to fake highs and false consciousness. As the inevitable hangover descends on us, the reflex is to blame the other party. In reality, it is ourselves we have betrayed by failing to examine the unconscious agreements that always underlay the relationship.

I am observing people waking up to the fact that they are in unhealthy relationships. Sometimes this can be a gentle process of letting go but more often it is a jarring experience. These types of change are difficult enough to navigate if they occur in a business situation but in a friendship or love relation they can be deeply painful and confusing. Recently I was forced into a not-so-pleasant reminder of a relationship dating back a decade. The gossip that brought it to my door was hurtful and false. After sitting with the hurt, I had to take responsibility for my lack of integrity in the situation. I gave thanks for the stern teacher the other person had become in forcing me to address my unconscious material. But I also sat with the self-acceptance of the specific blind spot that had created this situation in my life—a wounding dating back to my childhood. The action was not malicious on my part. Nor, I realized, was it malicious on the part of the other person, though I felt that rather than take responsibility there was hiding in the guise of a victim. It reminded me of two important truths. The first is that all we all need to share equal responsibility for what occurs in relationship—because relationship in essence is an observing and a sharing of our unconscious material. The second is that while we do not have to like certain people, we do have to love them.

Ultimately all these seeming detours are roads back to ours Self. In this return trip, the devil is in the unconscious action, the divine in paying attention to the intent.

Letter from a sister on the path

I am posting a letter from a friend this time around. It is the most honest writing I have read in some time. And it points to an authentic place where true inner work can begin and take hold: our ego on its knees. Most else is posturing and hiding under the false guise of doing spiritual work.

A,

I was chanting today, and it has stirred up some interesting emotions as it always does. Chanting has a very clear way of cutting through to the heart, I guess that’s why I love it so much.. .

Any how, I have hit a very important wall…

A wall that for so long I thought I could “work away” or “fix away” or “diet away” or “fast away” or “Forum away” or “travel away” from, but I know that trying to fix something on the outside, hoping for a lasting shift on the inside, doesn’t work. It doesn’t work because I’ve tried it, I’ve pretty much tried every external way I know how to fix these feelings/to fix myself, except becoming a raging alcoholic or drug addict, which really isn’t any different from starving yourself, except for the fact that starving yourself seems to be in these days. And I’m over trying to get away from these feelings of inadequacy, fear and judgment, the ones that drive me to over compensate, and fill my plate, and over whelm myself with tasks in order to avoid going into the depths of these emotions. I want to look at them head on, no crutches…

To tell you the truth I am just so tired of trying to change my external reality hoping that it will shift the inner, and I know that “the next thing” is not going to be “the thing” to make that shift happen.. I see that the shift I am looking for will come from the inside, if it is to have a lasting impact it has to, and that is scary because I have to let go of my crutches, and I have to finally go to the place I sometimes write about but avoid going all the way…

I am ready to know my shadow, and I am ready to make friends with it and try and understand what/why I have been trying to get rid of it for so long. It is hard for me to reach out for help, because I am geared to do things alone, but I am ready, and I will do what ever it takes because that’s what I am here to do, to heal this shit. I want to go all the way into the wounds, I want to stop bandaging them up.

The dessert of the desert

The cool, dark and star studded sky gives way to primordial heat and dryness my ancestors knew well. In the middle of the Baja desert, the eye adjusts to infinite tones of browns; foreign and seemingly monotone only days ago. Starting a rapidly obsolete mode of transportation, I kick the red metal mule to life. The dirt bike’s carbs suck in liquid dinosaur bones and spit out heat and a staccato barking sound. As the bike vibrates through my body, I think of my grandmother’s stories about traveling by camel through the deserts of her homeland, leaving the safety of the caravan oasis to travel to another village. I feel the excitement she must have felt, first time leaving her village as I let out the clutch and bury the tires into the sand.

Many decades have gone by since I first heard of this sacred place and here I am basking in its cleansing fire. Amazing how the mind works, projecting itself out into time and space borne out of desire. A young boy’s burning desires in the form of a poster of a desert racer on a bedroom wall in one continent and time are experienced by a man in another. The vastness of this place enforces a sense of an utter smallness that the boy could not have grasped but is humbling to the man.

I say a prayer for my grandmother; all the hardships she endured for me to be here today; propelling pieces of her DNA across this baking landscape. The little boy that envisioned it screams out loud with joy in my heart. And now I stand on these here foot pegs digging deep into this delicious dessert, grateful for each mouthful of sand dust I am being served.

Authenticity and labels

I was seated at a large table at a social gathering recently where the topic turned to spirituality. People began describing their adopted spiritual paths like tourists flashing ID at a border crossing. “I am a Buddhist” was a common one; a couple of Catholics and converts to Judaism were also added to the mix. Then one of the group, a spiritual teacher of some stature, started talking about the authenticity of his esoteric path and its ancient lineage. Authenticity is a word that, when uttered, is frequently followed by something inauthentic. I was not let down in this instance, as the person in question displayed a formidable ego and total lack of self-awareness as he rattled on about the importance of humility and love in his path. There was nothing malicious in his presentation; in fact, his knowledge was impressive and informative. What was disconcerting was the massive, unconsciousness gap between how he perceived himself and how he expressed himself–his hot mind and his frozen heart.

I felt a pain in my heart for the man, for all those around me and for myself. The tightening feeling in my chest was due to the fact of how far we all can stray from our authentic selves. We travel that distance to avoid emotional pain and the feelings of anxiety that pervade our experience in this realm. I thought of all the times in my own life when I have hidden under someone else’s banner instead of facing my internal demons. All the -isms and the -ists, from Judaism and Buddhism to Taoism and Jainism–what do we really intend when we make those allegiances? Labels can be and often are a shallow and unexamined definition of what makes us whole. Is the experience of one teacher tens, hundreds or thousands of years ago enough to define us, us unique souls who don’t share a single fingerprint? In my own life, I have learned to appreciate and learn from all these great and ancient traditions while tending to my own map as revealed to me in my own psyche and heart.

I believe the purpose of a healthy path is to bring us closer to our own true nature. Too often I have unconsciously misused teachings as a veil to hide behind rather than as a cleaning rag to dust off my mind and heart. I have rattled off a passage from some scripture when the moment would have been better met through an act of vulnerability, introspection or just remaining in the unknown. We all have a gift to share with ourselves and others that only comes about by us being authentic to who we are. In fact, that is our gift to the world: consciously manifesting our own true nature, with curiosity, awareness and compassion.

I took a walk today

I took a walk today. As I do every workday, at 6:00 AM, four blocks from
my apartment to my office. This is like walking in brackish water; the
late-night party people are straggling home while the early birds are
walking their dogs or jogging to the gym. I feel my feet on the hard
concrete and drop my breath. I start the day by attempting to be as
present as I can as this moment will inform the rest of my day. My
game with myself is to notice several new things on each walk: an
unnoticed piece of architecture, a crack in the sidewalk or an unfamiliar
dog. The color of the flowers in front of the deli was particularly bright in
the cloudy twilight. The smell of bacon in front of the diner was particularly
pungent, hanging in the humidity of the early morning.

The same walk for over a decade and something new every day. Yet the
witness, this old friend who watches through my eyes and smells through
my nose, who lives within and beyond this single human specimen, is strangely
the same. What if I had died last night and I am in a bardo state, my spirit walking
out of my apartment out of habit? I chuckle, feel my feet and drop my breath. I
take solace in the fact that in the river of life this city street carries, my awareness
of this witness is all I have. Thirty three years walking these New York City streets,
the teenage boy and the middle aged man, walking step in step.

The gap between spirituality and psychology

“One does not become enlightened by imagining figurines of light but by making the darkness conscious.”
Carl Jung

A belief that I have been forced to confront in my own life, and that I also observe in those I treat, is
that a spiritual path can address psychological issues. Indeed, for many people it is the primary motivation to begin a spiritual journey. They enter their chosen path as a reaction to conscious or unconscious emotional pain, but without the deeper awareness that would lead them to address the pain. Because we live in a hype-individuated post-Freudian culture, most of us have reach adulthood with some insight into the issues raised by our upbringing. However, many of the Eastern systems that have taken hold in our culture are rooted in interdependent societies with a rigid social order that precludes judgment, or even critical consideration, of parental relationships.

The introduction of such systems into our psyches can further confuse the need for psychological work. I have witnessed many teachers, ranging from shamans to yogis, who have covertly
discouraged psychological work. They have done so with the promise of salvation if one delves deeply enough into their particular discipline. There is no doubt that any genuine path will soften our ego and possibly rewire our nervous system. However none can replace the need for addressing psychological issues. This holds particularly true of our unconscious material, which always causes havoc when not addressed. We can nod our head at hearing the word unconscious while remaining completely blind as to the ways in which it shapes our behavior and undermines our lives. We need expert help to observe, dismantle and ultimately heal these suppressed emotions and issues. The movement towards the light is not enough: we need to shine the light into the deep darkness of our unconscious and illuminate it. Transformation of suppressed material has to be integrated into our chosen path of salvation.

I have suffered as well as observed many heartbreaks around powerful teachers and healers. These women and men had much to offer the world and yet their lack of awareness around their unconscious material seriously undermined their gifts. The big PMS issue in spiritual circles–power, money and sex–can be traced directly back to suppressed and unresolved unconscious material. This is not an issue of being perfect or magically healing all our wounds. Sometimes gaining an awareness around a certain wounding is as far as we can go. But that is far superior to sleepwalking to the beat of our ego’s unseen machinations. Take this as an invitation to deepen your practice by befriending all that you hold at bay in your psyche.