By
Contemplations from the 10th lesson on the Shiva Sutras

Sutra 9:  Hridaye chittasanghattad drisyasvapadarshanam

‘Merge your mind into your heart and everything will feel like it belongs to you’.

There is nothing wrong with having a mind, indeed the mind is a most sophisticated and useful tool. But if we start to live in it, if we take up permanent residence in our heads, then we are going to experience some frustrating limitations in our lives.  This is because our intellect is limited in its functionality. It is designed to dissect, divide and analyse life but it is not designed as a faculty through which to love life and feel connected to all those around us. Its not that the intellect is deficient, it’s just not its job that’s all. 

 So whilst the head may be the penthouse suite of the physical body, living in it full time will inevitably leave us feeling isolated, dissatisfied and divided both from ourselves and from the world. Therefore in the same way that it is useful to have a bathroom in the house, it is also useful to have a mind but only a crazy person would choose to live in the bathroom and ignore the rest of the house

To feel life, to love life, to feel connected to everything and feel a part of it all we need a different instrument altogether; we need the heart.

In this sutra shiva invites us to take a ‘one foot drop’ from our heads into our hearts. Its only a short drop and yet most of us find it to be a daring one because within us all is a deep rooted fear that if we make this small but significant jump, we will somehow lose our minds.  Yet the opposite is true. For when the mind is relaxed into the heart, when we switch from the faculty of thinking to the faculty of feeling, the mind itself receives a significant upgrade. It becomes a tool of contemplation and an instrument of wonder, serving to expand the heart rather than divide it. This meeting between the head and the heart is the perfect collaboration between the scientist and the poet

Shiva says LIVE in your heart and USE your mind.

So here is the practice:

In everyday life whenever you find yourself stuck in the head, take a pause, relax your analysis and feel yourself energetically make the ‘one foot drop’ into your heart. Do it whenever you remember and over time you will find you have made a new and lasting home in your heart.  As you practice this more and more you will find that looking out from your heart rather than from your intellect gives you a whole new relationship with the world. Everything will start to feel more like it is a part of you and everything in a strange way belongs to you.

This union between your heart and your mind, will change your life forever!


Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

By
Image
Bliss Bubbles from the Beyond - 6th Week of the Katha Upanishads Throughout the study of the Katha Upanishads, we’ve been receiving the teachings through Yama, the Lord of Death, via the story of his encounter with the young boy Nachiketa. Nachiketa and ourselves have essentially (and bravely!) chosen to make Death our  Guru , as we boldly begin to delve into it’s deep mysteries. However along this journey, we are also starting to recognise the wonderful paradox that Yama – Death himself,  truly and   totally believes in our capacity for LIFE .  In our complete entitlement to freedom.  It turns out that Yama is actually 100% life-affirming, utterly pro-life and absolutely life  LOVING . This week, Yama brings us deeper into the untouchable – the unshakeable place within us all that even Death cannot reach. For this, he gives us the gift of one word. “I will give you the word all scriptures glorify, All spiritual disciplines express, To attain which aspirants lead a lif
Read more

Why is Cold Water Training part of the LYM

By
Image
Cold Water Training is one of the five components of the Living Yoga Method. Why? Because whatever you want to do with your life, doing cold water training will optimise it - you name it: physical health, mental clarity, energy levels, emotional mood, and even a decent night’s sleep, a col d shower a day will enhance your experience. Your body is amazing and if you are willing to ask more of it, then it will show you what it really can do.  None of us are entitled to vigorous health and vitality, we each have to do our bit to earn it, (cue The Living Yoga Method). The cold shower you take each day is a massive investment in this direction and here we set out a few of the incredible and proven benefits: 1. Immunity When you turn the shower to cold, your body will go to work to keep you warm by raising your metabolic rate. The result of this has been scientifically proven to massively increase the production of white blood cells, responsible for giving you a robust immune system and musc
Read more
By
Image
Your inherent goodness, is as common as the grass... (Tao Te Ching part 6) ~ by Adele. Capturing the essence of the Living Wisdom sessions could potentially take me days sometimes. You yogis bring sooo much to each session I could probably write 10 blog posts just from one night! My notes always starts off so neat, and then towards the end they are scribbles, as there is so much to capture. It’s so good. Thank you. I hope I manage to do it all justice, squishing it all together in cohesive summary to the best of my ability! Last week we took away chapter 22 to work with on our own….What did we make of it? The first part: If you want to become whole, let yourself be partial. If you want to become straight, let yourself be crooked. If you want to become full, let yourself be empty. If you want to be reborn, let yourself die. If you want to be given everything, give everything up. Did it give us some permission to cut ourselves some sl
Read more