Set the stage...following and finding your dharma

Sometimes all that we ask for comes all at once.  And then we are left with many canvasses to choose from. Listening to santosha on cd yesterday, the tears just flowed as I listened in gratitude to words of simple wisdom. Words from others can at times serve to simply remind us what we already know, or better still, lead us to question things. For me, the questioning prodded at my samskara of security and habits.

I got accepted into my next level of yoga training and it was a feeling that literally warmed my heart. For those of us lucky enough to question, sometimes we are led back home.  Which I thought for me meant Sydney. It’s where I grew up, what I’m used to. But listening to Akash’s example of a stagnating river, I was left with the question…was I letting metaphorical water flow in and out of my life? Or were my barriers too stringent, so I stuck to what I knew.

Following your heart and your truth, which is my understanding of dharma, is not necessarily going to be an easy path. As I did my run this morning, I was reminded of Yogananda’s quote which always comes back to me in challenging times…’an easy life is not a victorious one’. I know that I have found my bliss in yoga. The feeling of leaving a class where there is an equal exchange of this amazing energy between yourself and your students really is a gift that I can’t find words for.  And the truest security we can easy have lies in our heart space.

Remembering back to my time in Nepal, I saw the Nepalese people so blissfully happy living such simple lives. Upon my return and walking through Sydney’s QVB…weird out of body experience. We had so much materialism but where was the heart, the connectedness? Sometimes it seems, the more you have, the less you have.

Santosha, or contentment, comes from feeling at home and trusting in that sacred space within ourselves. So it seems that I have done a 360 since moving here. When I first moved here, I missed my then home and wanted the fast pace and all the trappings both good and bad that came with it. But in the words of Martin Luther King, I have a dream…to leave my mark upon the world. And this only comes from following our dharma…which is ours. It takes at times setting ourselves free from both judgements and expectations.

I close my classes now with a ritual, to remind us to come back home. It’s the first spiritual ritual that I remember..grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can and the wisdom to know the difference. So as you all enjoy the rituals of your Sunday morning, remind yourselves that life is destined to be set on a stage rather than a spreadsheet.