Intention, Yogini Style: NOT Your Pop Shrink's Affirmations

You can’t spend as long as I have in the areas of Bodywork, Eastern Religion, Earth-Based Spirituality, and Natural/“Alternative” Health, and be unfamiliar with the concept of “intention”.  That the power of the mind can be focused in such a way as to actually bend the course of events unfolding is no new-age curiosity just stumbled upon by the makers of The Secret (don’t get me started). 

It’s been around as long as we’ve been aware of our own mentation, of the phenomenon of consciousness.  It’s spelled out in ancients texts from traditions all over the world, and passed down through oral teachings in traditions that don’t use texts.  Intention is the backbone of transformational work, without which results are flimsy and without substance (soundtrack to this rant: Talking Heads’ Making Flippy Floppy)... which is to say, intention is nothing to be taken lightly.

I’ve rubbed elbows and bumped auras with my fair share of Affirmations Enthusiasts over the years, and I’m simultaneously heartened and irked when I listen to them speak  (as intriguing as it sounds, those sensations do not make for a winning combination) because though they are often standing within spitting distance of "the point", they just as frequently miss it!

I’ve heard people say they don’t need to tend to their finances any more because they’re  “Investing in the Universal Bank of Eternal Bliss”.  I’ve heard them blithely declare that they have rid their bodies of disease by doing nothing more than taping healing statements to their bathroom mirrors.  It’s as if they see dragons and monsters clawing at their door, and choose to call them “rainbow-eating unicorns”, even as they’re devoured alive.

What gets me is that there is a grain of truth in each of these approaches.  But (and I take care to never start sentences with “but”)... that grain of truth has not been given what it needs to germinate, sprout, and grow into a real thing... and that is a certain something I like to call subtle attention.

You need to get your subtle attention aligned with the subtle energy of money, the subtle energy of healing, even the subtle energy of the monsters at the door, if you have any hope of influencing them with intention/affirmation.  You can't stand in your customary mindset and expect to influence the most subtle and mysterious processes in the known universe- you have to adjust your own mentation, which means going within.  And, as you develop that skill, you also have to be crystal-clear that what you are asking for is exactly what you want.  I mean crystal-clear as in, there is no room for ambiguity or misinterpretation; as if you were hanging by your knuckles from a cliff edge and precision in speaking would save you:

Rainbow-eating unicorns are hell on your food budget.

The act and art of intention as it is marketed today, (and it is marketed; don’t get me started- again) it’s as if a candy-flavored decal has been manufactured that you can just slap over existing truths and situations in a sugar-glazed denial of anything that needs introspection, attention, or the most jonesed-after of activities for the Breakthrough Junkie: Inner Work.

The Spanda-Karikas are a heady, philosophically dense collection of pithy sanskrit verses that, properly understood, outline the entire relationship between our mental processes and the power that manifests the universe (spanda).  I could spend my entire career unpacking just the 22nd verse of the first section (from Jaideva Singh’s translation):

“In that state is the spanda-principle firmly established to which a person is reduced when he is greatly exasperated or overjoyed, or is in impasse reflecting what to do, or is running for life”

In short, it is precisely during those times when we are thrown mentally off-track by some heightened emotional state (and whether it is interpreted as “good” or “bad”, “happy” or “afraid” matters not a whit) or are at a complete mental impasse, that we are in a position to access and influence the creative pulse out of which the world throbs its way into being.
 
The commentary on this verse describes the manner in which the yogin(i) must grasp hold of the mind at precisely the moment that the heightened state arises, in order to bear influence on the situation.

In western culture it is customary to ignore the immense power in these heightened states.  When in fear or anger, we grasp at nothing (least of all, our minds) and let the situation spin out of control by focusing on more of what is wrong, unwanted, or unnecessary... thereby creating more of it.  Or, and this is where Modern Affirmationists often miss the boat even while standing on the deck, we craft a phrase or picture that is the opposite of the reality that's got us all fired up, and pretend it's true.  The old "fake it 'til you make it" routine does have its virtues; it is a great warm-up exercise for the work we're talking about here - but it does not manifest the whole enchilada.

What is required, and what this verse describes, is a stealth operation carried out by the experient on his or her own perceptions.  It is a skill that requires diligence, practice, and steadfastness on the part of its practitioner.  Having caught hold of the mind in the moment between one thought and the next, the yogin is instructed to immediately turn within. When this is accomplished, the experient is in the company of the manifesting power of the universe and uses laser-like focus to create the desired outcome.  The commentary goes on to say that those who are not yogis (practiced at turning within) will remain only stupefied.

In other words, this ain’t no platitudinous, candy-ass bumper-sticker philosophy; it’s a rigorous discipline that involves wrangling with the realities of the situation-as-it-is, while harnessing the subtle, yet run-away-train nature of the emotions.  And yes, it can bring you wealth.  And turn illness to health.  Monsters into unicorns?  Sure, if unicorns are truly useful to you (and if you can train them to eat whole enchiladas instead of rainbows).  But the trick is, and the point that pop-shrink marketers the world over are missing, is that it is Subtle.  Sub. Tle.  And it

Requires
Your
Participation.

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The Power of One Word

When I was practicing as a massage therapist I discovered that my clients’ recoveries often accelerated after we had conversations in which I said things like, “You know, you keep referring to the accident in which your neck was injured as, ‘My accident’.  The word’ ‘my’ indicates possession, and possessions are usually things we are attached to, and want to keep. So, I just wonder what message that’s sending to your body.  What if you used something less charged while still telling the truth- like “the accident’?”

In traditional study of the sanskrit language, it is emphasized that each syllable carries a whole plethora of meanings.  Each written letter makes one sound, and one sound only.   Consonants always have an inherent vowel attached, which makes every letter a syllable in its own right. The pronunciation is so precise that to place the tongue in the wrong position during any part of an utterance may render an entirely different meaning.

In sanskrit, each syllable has its own associated diety, color, element, state of mind, place of influence in the human being (sometimes in the physical body, sometimes in the energetic layers that surround and influence the body - what westerners think of as “personal space”).  Add to this list, certain physical processes, states of feeling (called “bhav”), powers (discernment, compassion, anyone?), and a whole wealth of subtleties that could take a lifetime to unravel in their entirety.  What it comes down to is, this point of reference places tremendous emphasis on the fact that the words chosen to describe a circumstance will have an influence on that circumstance.

The power of words to influence and create things... from emotional states and body processes, to governmental policy and weather patterns... has always been taken seriously by the proponents of this particular brand of wisdom.  The sanskrit term that describes it is “matrika shakti”.  Unpack any sanskrit word, and thousands of meanings will tumble out!  So, to gain a simple translation we will call shakti simply “power”.  It’s distinctively the power to manifest (as in, the universe).  Matrika can translate as “little mothers”.

“Power of the little mothers?!”, you say.  Consider this:  the sanskrit alphabet, when taken in its entirety, is considered to be the very body of the great mother from whom the entire universe is manifest (even this is an oversimplification, but it’ll do).  Each syllable is like a holographic part of that larger whole.  So, yes, the power of the spoken word is made from the collective power of all the syllables together.  Little mothers.  (Is it too much to add that the matrikas are also warrior goddesses that support Kali, the goddess of destruction (don’t fret, dear readers - she’s out to destroy the ego-riffic ignorance that’s gotten us into the mess we’re facing in the 21st century))?  And that Kali wears a necklace made up of... well, depends on whose translation you read.  Some say 50 skulls.  But if you’ve trained to read between the lines you’ll know that it’s the 50 letters of the sanskrit alphabet from which she derives her power.

It’s always fascinating to me to look back on my time as a bodyworker and realize that perhaps the most useful thing I ever did for my clients was to make a small observation about the language they used to describe their condition.  Without even meaning to, I became something of a “matrika coach”.

I’d say, “Let’s play with ‘injury’ and ‘healing’.  Which do you want to keep?  Which do you wish to let go of? Look at the difference between these two phrases:
‘The healing of my injury’
‘My healing of the injury’
It might look like they say the same thing, but look at the power of the small words!
In the first example, you possess the injury.  In the second example, it’s the healing that is yours.  Whatever your mind may think, your body recognizes and responds to the difference.”

Sometimes a client would get really gung-ho and start revamping their entire “language wardrobe”, suddenly spinning off phrases like, “Every day I’m blessed in every way”, and “I’m turning it all over to the universe”.   People tend to start with extremes when we learn new skills, so I reign them in and point out that sugar-coating or denying situations don’t change them, and that the powers-that-be actually require our participation if things are going to be different.  You can’t just wrap your circumstances up in a cloak of new-age phraseology and expect to alter the course of the universe.

Instead, I encourage people to hone in on one single word in their habitual repertoire.  I say, “You are looking for a word that carries power and significance.   Listen closely to yourself (or enlist the support of family and friends) for phrases that you repeat often, like refrains to the soundtrack of the day, and look for one single word to change”.  

My favorite example:
If you replace “I hate...” with “I love...”, it makes a lot of affirmation enthusiasts happy, but it doesn’t tell the truth about your experience.

But when you replace “I hate” with “I don’t understand...”, it still describes the truth of the situation, and it also changes the charge.  If you don’t understand a thing, you may or may not choose to seek understanding -that’s up to you. But at least it doesn’t push it away and close the door, and engender bad feelings like hate does.  Ask anyone who hated gay people until they learned they were raising one.  Their hate had to change to “don’t understand”, so that it could change to “trying to understand”, and eventually to understanding. Then “I hate” can morph into “I love”, through understanding.
With this one single change, we open the door to peace between people who come from different backgrounds, traditions, cultures, and belief systems. 

One thing about those little mothers - they will give you anything you want. 
Problem is, they think you actually want everything you say.
And that is another topic, for another day...

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Reframing During Crisis

Reframing:

By my own definition it’s the skill of challenging one’s habitual or automatic reaction to a situation, person, or mindset with the intention of gaining a new and more useful outlook, then harnessing the energy that would be otherwise lost, to use for transformative purposes.

Most of the time, our minds are on automatic pilot, tossing our customary reactions out into the world like kids throw bread at ducks, with certainty that because it came to us so quickly it must be the right and true and “natural” reaction.

The thing about our “natural” reactions, is that they come into existence with no thought given to the consequences of adding the energy behind them (typically non-useful energy like dread, anxiety, abject terror, spite or judgement, am I right?) into the mix of what’s already going on.

Where human beings are now in the history of things, it is imperative - now - that we start recognizing that the state of our minds impacts the state of our world, individually and on a larger scale.  We can start in our own heads.

Once upon a time I challenged a group of students to spend an entire day examining their customary thoughts, and endeavoring to “reframe” the ones that were not useful or productive.  The most frequent objection, was that sometimes truly horrible things happen and that denying that reality was just adding layers of fluff to an already unbearable scene.  This is not what I am talking about here; denial is a whole other useless mind-trick and though it is sometimes cleverly disguised, it is not the same as reframing.  Ask me sometime about the day I returned from two weeks in a foreign town, where I’d gone to retrieve my partner who herniated a cervical disc while traveling and who was then bedbound for the next several months, to have a friend enquire about the ordeal by asking: “how was your mini vacation?”, and I’ll tell you about burying real things in fluff.  This is So Not what I’m after.  Let me demonstrate:

I have a “stepmom” who is at the top of the “short list” of people most dear to me.  She married my dad and me as a family deal in a Unitarian Church when I was 15, and while  my dad left the marriage about three years later, she and I are still related.  She is the core of my experience of “family”.

Three weeks ago she and her husband travelled to a major city about 6 hours from where they live, for her to have a minimally invasive heart surgery.  The procedure involves running fiberoptic-size threads through a major artery from the top of the leg into the heart, so the incision is only an inch or so.  I was advised the surgery could take from 5-6 hours, so when my phone rang at 5 hours 15 minutes I anticipated news that she was on her way to recovery.

Instead, her husband informed me that there had been a complication resulting in uncontrollable bleeding, and that they were going to have to expose the heart directly in order to get to the bleed- this means separating the sternum.  When they say “open heart surgery”, it doesn’t mean that the heart is open- it means they have to open the chest cavity to get to the heart.

He had other family to alert and his own feelings to deal with, so our call was brief.  I stood on the spot, stunned for a moment by the enormity of what was taking place and the fact that I was thousands of miles away.

First in line was grief.  As if I’d already lost her, the grief came in and sat right on my heart, insisting that I empty myself and give in to the spinning vortex of loss.  Next in line, and impatient, was fear.  Fear and grief were actually struggling in line, trying to trip one another up in order to gain my attention.  As my breath stalled in my chest and tears were wending their way to where they make my nose sting, I remembered that none of this was helping her a bit.

She was lying somewhere in a sterile room thousands of miles away while doctors scrambled to save her life by cutting her dear chest open.  My drama would not serve her one bit!  The only thing I could do, was decide how I was going to spend my energy in reacting to the news.  It was mighty energy, it was powerful!  I could waste it playing pinball inside my own body, bouncing anxiety and fear off my organs like I was going for the high-score, or I could bundle it all up and send it off where it could do some good.

You don’t have to be someone who prays to get this: emotions are energy, and they can travel.  I made a choice to change the direction of the energy I was feeling in the form of panicky emotions. I chose to challenge my assumption that the doctors were “scrambling”.  Scrambling is disorganized, panicky, and unclear- like I was feeling.
I decided to convert my scrambled emotions to clarity, steadiness, and swift action - the kind you feel when you’re totally “in the zone” of doing something you’re really good at- and send it to the doctors in that room with the dearest of stepmoms anyone’s ever known.  I steadied my breath and practiced the sensation of calm certainty, and I sent it to the surgeons, nurses, anesthesiologists, and other professionals into whose hands her life had been delivered.  I pictured them thanking eachother for a job well done.

Not every instance of reframing needs to be this dramatic or difficult.  But it bears pointing out that, if we start with the small stuff, we develop our skills so that eventually we have the moxie for when the stakes are high.

...and yes, she made it.  She’s home having a cuddle with her critters and resting up for the next round in her recovery.

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Words, Writing, Wisdom Not My Own...

I have a dear friend who’s a blogger.  She sent me an email yesterday, and through her words I was brought directly to her side, going through the same things she was going through... though I realized eventually that her descriptors really were vague enough that I have no specific idea what the particulars are to her situation... her phrases were watercolors of human emotion, evocative of experience but devoid of details... and yet so poignant that I had a very in-the-skin snapshot of what her emotional world was like at the moment she’d been writing.

What happened next, I could not have anticipated.  I replied with words of deep knowing, compassion, and kind-hearted understanding.  I conveyed my support of her, my fondness for her, my belief in her stalwart inner strength.  I even dusted off my sanskrit/eastern-religion-major mantle, and pontificated on 5,000 year-old philosophy that describes how the state of one’s mind and the quality of the reality they generate are inextricably linked, that there are words in sanskrit (but in no other language) that describe the method by which the experient (the person going through the stuff) actually manufactures the experience.  Then I sent her a cyber-hug and a wish that I could bring her cocoa.

It made me want to write back and forth with her all day.  I can distill that down even further: It made me want to write. 

Words, words, words... always my favorite things.  Skillfully used, they make it possible to translate the most subtle of experiences from one being to another, so that we can share and teach and learn from one-another’s insights and perceptions.
My mother told me recently that I began writing before I could read.  All my youth I anticipated that I’d become a writer.  Then, and then and then...

Began the pursuit of making a living, I suppose.  And through that pursuit I garnered experience and expertise in so many varied fields that I now find myself flustered if I think about writing as a career - about which bag of tricks would I write?!  

The bits in my repertoire include the connection of body/mind/spirit from several years as a massage therapist and teacher of massage therapists; the power of words to create reality, based on direct observation, an unexpectedly clear understanding of ancient texts that spell it all out, the blessing of an enlightened master and the statement of one Sally Kempton (then Durgananda) that “this information wants to be known”; the connection between the human cerebrospinal fluid system and certain passages in other ancient texts; essential oils as medicine; replacing household toxins with natural healthy solutions; urban farmsteading; vermiculture; growing wheatgrass; self-reliance and permaculture... oh and of course, of course - what readers have responded to most, is when I write about nothing more than my internal processes.
My insecurities, demons, and the whole cast of characters that make up my inner dialogue, make pretty entertaining material as they wrangle their way into one tangled web after another, always intent on Breakthrough at any cost...
And so, with or without a chosen direction or area of focus, writing season is upon me.
We are at a time in human history where people who know things that may be helpful to the situation are beholden to share them.  Like the unexpected flow of words in response to my blogger friend’s email, there are times when we just need to speak what we know in case there are ears to hear it.

The past few weeks have been full of circumstances that were trying, frightening, and confusing for several people close to me.  While we were separated by thousands of miles, I have somehow been able in each situation to call up words that brought solace and also to offer guidance about how to harness the power in the “negative” feelings and turn it around to be of benefit. For no reason that I know, I have been endowed with the capacity to “reframe” just about any situation. My friends and family know they can always count on me for this kind of service; they’ve come to rely on it.  They call it my “wisdom”, as if I inherently possess this cache of tidbits that are real and powerful and useful and heartfelt.

What I know to be true is that I no more possess this wisdom than I possess the air I breathe.  I do let it flow through me, and in trying times I do know how to expand so I may access a deeper flow... so when it is expressed it may appear to come from me; It has lodged in me perhaps as a result of study and practice I’ve undertaken over the years (it certainly was not inherent in my younger days!), and while I feel humbled and honored to have access to it, I still recognize that it is consciousness flowing through me from a still place I’ve somehow learned to access, and it is not mine at all.

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Time to grow, Again...

I spent a long hard winter "cybernating" - weeks and even months at a time when I could not gather the where-with-all to get out of bed a moment early, let alone brave the blank screen.  Today, though- growth is happening all around.  At 80+ degrees outside and rain every night, everything is bursting forth with such unbounded enthusiasm... to grow, climb, bud and blossom... and who knows?  Bear fruit?
With a dear friend's musings serving as the epiphany to get me back on the pages, it is clear tonight that the morning will find me here, tappy-tap-typing my way into my own good graces once again.  Breathe in, breathe out... all the way out. 

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