Hridaya 10 day Silent Retreat - Day 5)
Day 5
By tonight we will be half way there.
Bad night, I mostly spent it waiting for morning and laying on my hands so I would not scratch. For this reason I missed the quote….
My morning meditation is a place of joy and sweetness. I feel my breath caressing my heart as I inhale and as I exhale. I feel my aura, my koshas my energetic body inflate as I inhale and deflate as I exhale. I truly experience the oneness of being in a sea of souls. I am not my body. The 2 hours passes in an instant. I only know we are at the 2 hour mark because this is when my right leg becomes numb. At the sound of the gong I don’t want to move but the fire of my skin wanting to be scratched has started as the day is warming up. I’m ok with moving a 2 hour meditation session is plenty. I open my eyes and walk out of the hall. I sit in the garden, celebrating the rare breeze, watching a dragonfly flit in the same breeze that cools my skin, I open my oats and begin to eat. I am strangely not hungry at all. In fact I struggle to swallow. Suddenly I am trembling, my body is pure emotion, pure energy, I’m not sure if I am going to vomit. I stand walking in a trance towards the bathroom. High, flying high. I feel like I have taken drugs. I am pure sensation. I feel my skin turn to goose bumps, then I sweat. Everything around me is pulsing with the vibration of life, I am dizzy, not sure if I can stand. I crumple into the toilet and sit for what seems an eternity. I am unable to move and glad for the solid surface beneath me. Can bites have taken me to this place? What a revelation I needed the tiredness, the bites, the lack of sleep, needed the anger, the irritability. After the resistance, acceptance and surrender.
I am learning my ritual for falling into meditation. Sometimes its easier then others. Sometimes the doorway opens and welcomes me in…other times I have to ask my mind “are we ready?”
Samsara and Nirvana are always together. The flow will always be there so it stops being an effort. I continue to practice even though it’s not an effort. Pure joy. One needs the other
I am dying on each exhale – there is no need to breathe in. I am not the body. I actually need very little to survive. I am not the body, I am the essence. Enough to live is enough.
I got it!!!! What if I don’t get it again? Can I become as addicted to these sensations as to cocaine or alcohol? Can the very thing that is supposed to lead me to freedom lead me to grasping and suffering?
The truth is - getting it, is actually realizing there is nothing to get. It’s the natural state.
I am aware of the minds need/enjoyment for multitasking. I have been proud in the past of my ability to do numerous things well at once. Right now I am one-dimensional. Just my heart and me.
My head is spinning. But is it my mind or consciousness spinning, my intellect or my intelligence or none of that and my soul.
In sutra 1.2 of his Yoga Sutra, Patanjali defines the state of Yoga as the cessation of identification with the fluctuations of mind. Then in sutra 1.12, he offers a 2-step method for how to stop those fluctuations and thus how to attain Yoga. He tells us that through practice (abhyasa) and non-attachment (vairagya), we will be able to stop identifying with our thoughts and be able to see the true reality of who we are. At that point, we have reached enlightenment –the realization of the oneness of being, eternal bliss.
https://jivamuktiyoga.com/fotm/practice-and-non-attachment/
It is definitely easier to detach from something we do not identify with. Learning to let go does not mean to not love or not care….just time to let go.
The girl on my right no longer lays out her rose quartz and shiva lingham. I understand this might have been related to her moon cycle. The girl in front of me still takes up too much room, in fact the more I squish my mat back (the girl behind me left on day 3) the more she makes the most of the extra space and still put her cushions and chair on my mat. I feel squashed and boxed in.
Thoughts from the day
Don’t live in compensation
Follow your heart
Keep the passion alive
Beginners mind
Take time to be with yourself
Don’t be in a hurry
Drop what you know
Look for love in everything
The mind can be changed by changing the thoughts
I am having a love affair with everything.
I am walking slower, sounds are amplified, I see beauty in everyone around me. The girl in the front with her thick long dark hair that glistens in the sunlight, the girl 2 to my right who is like an avatar, tall, fair, olive skinned, with huge hands, she often sits alone chanting in the garden. Whilst our mantra is “who am I?” I wonder “Who are you?”
The girl wearing the blindfold that removes it to reveal the most sparkling blue eyes, the girl with the cute outfits that fall gently on her body. It’s not just the people I am in love with its flowers, their fragrance, the sound of my feet on the cobbled path, the monks chanting for an hour every evening which signifies its almost self practice time. I love the evening sky, My evening walks because I am skipping dinner, the sun set, the pink sky behind silhouetted palm trees.
