Why is Cold Water Training part of the LYM

"Know The One and Know All" -  (Katha Upanishads Week 9)

~ by Adele.

Last week we spoke of the beautiful ocean and wave analogy; comparing the physical versions of ourselves as waves, always connected to the vast ocean of life. And even when we start to buy into the belief that we are ‘separate’ from the ocean or the other waves, it doesn’t matter. We are always connected – there is no separating the wave from the ocean. Our process is just one of continuous remembering, and allowing ourselves to relax back into the bigger energies. Ahhh...

We do this by getting daring enough to welcome in the whole of life, even the nitty gritty parts of it. As they are all specifically ours to experience. In fact we cannot get to experience that which is beyond life without going THROUGH life first. There’s no other way! 

So we continue to deepen in our courage to let go, and start to fall more and more in love with the experience of being unified with life. Of course, “you” do not go, and you’ll even still probably keep those strange personality quirks of yours! But you choose more and more to merge into the ocean, to fall back into life. Something has started to give way inside your wave and you know that you’re always connected, even when you may sometimes feel disconnected. Instead, you’re able to watch from a deeper place what’s happening, even if you’ve ‘lost it!” There starts to be an inner calmness, even if we’re not behaving particularly calm at the time.

Of course, this connection changes our experience totally, and especially with other waves. Instead of comparing our wave with the wave next to us, or getting jealous of what that wave over there can do,  maybe we can relax a little. We can say, “Wow, check out what that wave can do!”, and wish that wave the very best life it could EVER possibly have. (Rather than perhaps deep down hoping that wave might slip and fall on their arse!)

How beautiful would it be if we could start to see the other waves as “brother” or “sister”, instead of “danger” or “competition”? Knowing fully that wishing one wave the best genuinely from our hearts, does in no way diminish our own potential. We can start to appreciate all the forms of the waves – how the ocean takes form in a guitar-playing wave over there, a hair-dressing wave over here, and a great-mum wave right next to us. It also changes our perception on the idea of death; when a wave runs its course, where does it go? It merges back into the ocean doesn’t it? It’s not gone. Maybe there is a different way to look at the idea of death, maybe we are just breaking out of our bodies into a new life, and merging back into eternal life. 

“May you relax well back into the ocean my dear”, we could wish our fellow waves. Isn’t thinking of it this way so beautiful, so full of total love? I think so.

When we know, or rather remember, this deep connection as the truth it is, we can also notice when we start to contract from it. Then moment to moment, we can summon up the courage to keep on opening to each experience, each time taking us deeper into our ocean. This is of course, ino ‘easy’ road. But what would the ocean of life say to us if it were to come up and speak to us?

Steve jokes in his deep ‘ocean’ voice,

“It would probably say:

Steve……...RELAX.

“Huh….okay, so you mean I don’t have to worry about anything…at all, ever?” Steve asks life.

*A long pause*

“No.”

*another long pause*

“I am taking care of everything”.

Well thank God for that! It’s almost so funny when it’s put this way, because then what about all this time I’ve spent worrying and fixing and planning and doing?! And sometimes we even dream of not having to do all those things, but there’s a part of us that still thinks we know best and that we have to! It doesn’t mean that we get complacent, but rather the opposite. Choosing to be part of the flow of life is a constant commitment. But when we see that life really does have a bigger plan for us, we start to trust more and more. Of course, life will not remove the challenges and lessons that we need to go through, but it will ultimately give us way more than we could ever go out and take from it. 

And this life, this ocean knows all. It know everything it needs to know at any given time. And when we connect to this one, it will also flow through us, giving us everything that we need to know too. Therefore, meditation is not a ‘time out’ or a luxury, or a relaxing technique. It is instead, to tune in to this ocean of knowledge and wisdom which is available to us always. So we can know all we need to know at any moment, and we can stop worrying about controlling it all so much. Phew. Cool.

And so we come to the simple but profound message of Yama’s this week:

“Nachiketa, can there be anything not known to the Ocean, when Everything is part of the Ocean? - Know ‘The One’ Nachiketa, and you will know All!”

Love

Adele x