Relationship As Yoga: Podcast #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

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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.