In your light, I learn how to love.
In your beauty, how to make poems.
You dance inside my heart
where no one sees you,
but sometimes I do,
and that sight becomes this art.
- Rumi
Recently, my good friend Priya texted me and asked why I was not blogging anymore. I honestly told her that no "experience" that truly touched my heart and soul, had happened recently. So I was simply not inspired to write. She said something interesting - "What is it that makes you feel you aren't having (such experiences)? What's stopping you from having them? I feel its always that we are going through a phase where we are not receptive to it."
It got me thinking - yes, indeed - I have been going through this "phase" where my head has been dominating my heart. Rather than truly feeling with the flow, I have been "pushing" and "working hard" to make something "meaningful" out of my life. Being overly careful of not wasting my time in "trivial" "meaningless" pursuits and applying myself to "important" things - what a dreary, dead effort. I became acutely aware of the heavy stone on my heart.
With this awareness, the gramophone in my mind started to shift... I started acknowledging and looking deeply into what it is that I am feeling - right now, this moment. What is it that I am resisting? What am I intellectualizing and refusing to embrace? What am I running away from?
The last five years have been tough ones - going through life as a single mom, struggling through phases of low pay, unemployment, bad health, complete insomnia on one hand, to complete opposite phases of success, euphoria, abundance, and professional accomplishments. Even my personal life seemed, for a while, to be coming back on track. But through all this, I was holding something back - I was resisting something with all my might - but totally unaware of it. I was resisting love - resisting both the giving and recieving of love from people around me.
Having experienced multiple "breakups" in both my personal and professional relationships in the past five years, I was perhaps sub-consciously proteting myself from experiencing a broken heart yet again. Justified? Perhaps. Bringing my dear ones and me happiness - certainly not. My mind was in a huge cloud and the intense stress that comes from not trusting anyone to actually be there to "help" was leading to extreme pain in my back, shoulders and neck. I visited several doctors - they couldnt identify the underlying cause.
The love that was in abundance around me - in the words, actions and even in the genuine prayers of people - was, for me, invisible because I was too busy "protecting" myself - the fear of losing love after experiencing it again was too scary for me - had it not been because of lost love, a severely broken heart, that I had almost lost my mind a few years ago? I didn't want to be in that situation ever again!
The Universe supports us when we need to get unstuck from any event or experience. Our own consciousness supports us. I remember a few weeks ago, being in the European center of the Art of Living to teach a trauma relief workshop for Ukranian refugee kids. As it happens, when ever I have helped others overcome their trauma, I have noticed some of my own traumas resurfacing and leaving me. During the two nights that I was there, I had vivid dreams of my school days. They were strange dreams - of vague conversations with boys I was in love with or had a crush on as a teenager. In my dreams, I remembered how I never permitted myself to believe that someone I liked/loved might like/love me too - yet, towards the end of my school years, I realized that several "popular" boys who I thought were way out of my league, liked me - but I seemed too distant and disinterested! In fact, the boy I had a secret crush on for more than 4 years, liked me the whole time too! He just never came forward because I seemed so "cold". At that time, I wondered why I was dreaming and re-living/remembering these crazy school days' details.
As I remembered these dreams after my friend Priya's nudge, I felt that they had come to me beause back then, just like now, I was resisting love - I was too afraid of rejection, of getting hurt. Whether it be human "love" felt as an emotion, or universal love, experienced as our very existence, I was resisting it, running away from it - all the time afraid of experiencing the pain of "losing" the love if I were to let myself expreience it again.
Indeed, in recent years, I have met the most loving of people - men and women, willing and wanting to be with my daughter and me, share a few moments of belonging, of caring - but within a few months, I felt the need to push them away. We would all surely lead better lives without being tied down by each other?!
I have often heard Sri Sri, founder of the SKY breath meditation and world renowned humanitarian, say: "Dont fall in love, rise in love." It was always a little baffling for me - what does this mean really?
I looked back at all the times I'd felt I was in love with someone, and wondered - did my heart always break beause I "fell" in love rather than "rising" in it? How does one "rise" in love?
Almost as a timely answer to my question, the Universe brought me to person who I felt an instant and strong "spark" with - I even felt it reciprocated, but noticed how I immediately pushed away the feelings in me and the interest from his end - it cannot be and should not be! I have more important things to do! Anyway, this is probably just going to lead to more pain in the long run. But the feeling of love kept flooding my heart - the more I pushed it away, the more fuzzy my mind became, the more restless and unhappy I became. But this thought kept coming back "dont fall in love, rise in love."
I started listening to bollywood love songs - after sooo very long! They are so innocent and real - equally well suited to expressing both personal and divine love. They filled me up, once again, with a longing for my Master. I started observing these intense feelings and my resistence, my fears. As I watched them, I slowly felt the resistence dropping away - the pain intensified and longing filled me up - tears of love and gratitude flowed freely after what seemed like an eternity. I let myself feel the intense pain of longing - longing to become one with the whole Universe. I felt the reawakening of devotion, of intense and pure love - unattached to people, situations, and (material) desires. Unbounded love unrestricted by boundaries of relationships and personalities. I felt freedom! A beautiful, soft, sweet freedom, laced with the pain of longing. Every particle in my being seemed charged and alive! Was this what Sri Sri meant by rising in love?
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