44 - Finding and Opening into your Yogic Heart Path.

The blocking mind is fragile and thin.  The Awe and happiness experience when you are in contact with the slightest beauty or success is your true Being.  It is always present behind the thin veneer of ego.  There and many paths to opening including yogic ones.  Which are yours?
What are the mechanics of opening and staying open?  We explore these topics in this podcast.

These podcasts are here to support your personal path of awakening whatever that might be. I feel they are most powerful when listened to in sequence from podcast one forward because each is built on the last. Though they, also, all stand on their own. If anything does not resonate, please disregard it and follow your heart. All my podcasts and website are free. Enjoy!

Though I am a psychotherapist, and these podcasts are offered to be spiritually helpful, they are not psychotherapy. If psychotherapy is ever needed, please reach out to a psychotherapist.

www.williamecooper.wordpress.com for more support. You may, especially, enjoy the short contemplations and the resource page which gives you some supportive material.

Transcript

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Hello, this is William Cooper. Welcome to Awakening Together, Relaxing into Happiness. I trust you're doing well. Today, let's look at various paths to awakening. The word yoga means union, and it's union with your deepest self. So really, any path that opens you up to your highest and truest self can be called yoga. And it's not only what we're familiar with in the West as simply the physical yoga of the stretching and opening up our bodies. There are many forms of other types of yoga that we'll talk about as well in this podcast. The goal of the yogic path, regardless of the path you choose, is to lead you to awakening. So there are different paths to awakening that different people feel more comfortable with. Some people like one thing, some people like another thing. And in the end, it's best to listen to yourself and follow your heart, regardless of what teachers or books or other disciplines might tell you. It's always good to listen to what they have to say because there's often wisdom there. But in the end, it's your awakening. Buddha's awakening doesn't awaken you, yet Buddha has a lot of good things to say. So it's good to listen to others. Take it all with a grain of salt and then follow your heart. What opens you up? And just as importantly, what keeps you open? Why aren't you open all the time? Because after all, you're a beautiful being all the time. Your being is one of love, peace, well-being, vibrant, potent, powerful energy, bliss and joy and happiness all the time. Like the sun, that powerful. It's way more powerful than an atomic bomb. And that is felt all through your nervous system and body all the time. However, a lot of us don't feel that. A lot of us just feel depression or feel anxious or stress. So what's going on? Why aren't we feeling ourselves? And by the way, our being reaches even beyond this existence. So it's beyond this. It's all that is and beyond. That's your being. So very powerful. More powerful than the mind can imagine and that science has uncovered. That powerful. So back to that original question. That being the case, why aren't I feeling it? What's going on? Well, first let's look at the process of opening up in general and then later focus on specific yogic paths for opening up. And yes, we've talked about opening up and dissolving blocks in past podcasts. So if you've missed those, you might want to go back and take a listen. But we'll touch on some things here too. Every time we think we create lenses that our light and power shines through. Same with emotions. But every time it shines through, it's diminished because it's weakened and diluted as it shines through a lens as any light would when it shines through some sort of lens or image. That's what happens to us. And depending on which image we are using, some of these images aren't so happy and we become identified with them and we don't feel so good. None of them are ultimately true. Yes, they did probably happen in your life or past lives, but they're not ultimately true of your being. And all these images can be dropped, yet they block us. We also store these things up in our bodies and those feelings block us pain and ill health and so on and so forth. So what can we do to help feel our true selves? Let's start with some simple things. Say you go to the Grand Canyon. It's so vast. When you look over the edge, your mind often will just disappear. It's so vast, the mind cannot maintain its customary structures and you're filled with awe. In that moment of awe, you feel yourself. In moments of laughter, you feel the joy of yourself. In moments of a beautiful sunset or great beauty, you feel yourself. You at that level are one with all things and you are the universe or the universe is you and it's shining through. The mind and emotions that block us aren't really that strong, are they? Because when we look at the Grand Canyon or some other beauty, the mind just gives way. It lets go and we experience an opening to our true self and it reveals the awe, the joy, the happiness, the laughter, the truth of ourselves. When we're in nature for some time, because nature doesn't think and our surroundings affect us, just like karma or any kind of energy that surrounds us, our mind starts to let go and relax. And that's why nature feels so good. If we stay in nature for a while, our mind begins to let go, release and relax. A former minister of art in France, when asked, said his definition of true art was something that when you look at it, when you're in its presence, it's like a portal to the divine. He says everything else is just a pretty picture. But if when you look at it, it opens you up to the divine, that's art. Same with music, when it opens you up to the divine and by the divine, I mean, whatever that word means for you, but the oneness, the universe, and ultimately you are one. There is only oneness. And so that is you, right? So often people look for things that open them up and that can be the one part of your path. What makes me feel good? What opens me up? Sometimes people say, follow your bliss. Joseph Campbell, that was his phrase, follow your bliss. And that's such a good idea. It opens you up. It starts to tune you into yourself. But as you follow your bliss, what happens? You get the new car. That's blissful. You see the Grand Canyon. It's awesome. You become a billionaire. Great. But after a day, so what? Your heart closes back up, right? It wears off. And so there are two sides to all of this. The first side is find out what works for you and opens you up. Great. But as you close back down, notice what's closing you back down. That's pretty important. And is there a way to dissolve that? That's very crucial, right? And that's what we talk in our past podcasts. If all this is new to you, you might want to start at the first podcast and work your way forward. But there are many paths because when I see the Grand Canyon or I string together exciting events in my life today, the Grand Canyon, tomorrow Sedona, the next day I'll go to Las Vegas, the next day I'll go skydiving, the next day river rafting. And I keep getting bursts of openness and laughter and feeling good. And then I shut down and quote unquote lose it all. Then I have to find something else and then something else. Well, that can wear you out and it can be depressing after a while. You finally learn that, you know, I could do this forever and I'm not really going forward. Is there a better way? Well, there are some yoga, yogic paths. That are designed to open you up. And let's talk about those briefly. Maybe you're familiar with them or maybe one or two of these paths will resonate with you. Remember, only one path has to do with what we consider as yoga in the West, Tatha yoga, where you stretch and you move your body. The rest are other ways to find union with yourself. And you can use one path or a combination of all these paths. Or you can discover a completely different path. It's all about you and what works, what brings you to self-realization. Yet ancient wisdom is often helpful and worth taking a listen as we figure out what works for us. As I said before, yoga is union. So, there are different ways to become in union with your deepest and best self, your highest self. One way is bhakti yoga and that's the path of devotion. Have you ever felt great devotion to somebody or something and you just felt so much love? This could be worship or singing or just being with them or in their presence. And you just feel so happy. If you follow that path, you look for ways to consistently do this every day and rest in your heart and just feel that beauty, that love, that peace, that openness. All that openness that's opening you up. That's the bhakti yoga path. And yes, it includes singing or making flowers that you might give to your beloved or offer to your deity. Things like that. That's the bhakti path. There's guru yoga. You find a guru that you really resonate with and you hang around that guru. You absorb their energy and you melt into their awakening. And through that, you learn and you become one with the universe. And eventually, you become one with yourself after you learn from that guru and often leave that guru so that then you can rest in your own energy. But the guru teaches you a lot and through that path, you learn and become one with yourself. In a past podcast, I did talk about gurus and awakening. Ultimately, of course, you're your own guru and life is your guru. Yet, a human guru can be helpful as well. There's hatha yoga. That's the physical yoga most of us are familiar with in the West. And often, when you move your body and stretch, you release old mental structures, emotional structures because we're a mind-body continuum. So, having a healthy body and stretching it will open up your mind, your body, and your heart and connect you to your highest self. It's like the curtains often will open as you're doing yoga and put you into connection with the oneness that you are. There are very many forms of physical yoga and you find what suits you. You can join a local group. Many teachers you can find online. Many of them are free and quite good. There's also yana yoga. That's the path of knowledge and a lot of our podcasts here are based on yana yoga. The idea is when you see clearly, you start to see through the delusions that have been blocking you. And as you see through the delusions that are blocking you, you can let them go because they just don't make so much sense anymore. And as you let them go, there's more openness and you connect to your true self. There's not the blocks blocking you from the true self, your true self that's there all the time. There's karma yoga. This would be selfless service where you're serving other people. Maybe you like to feed people. Maybe you like to work at a food bank and that opens you up. You feel your heart opening up. When I go to India, one of my favorite things is it's so inexpensive to offer others food in India. And on my last trip, I found that I could very inexpensively feed lots of holy men. And what better joy is there? It just opens my heart and I love it. Once on one of my early trips as a great honor, a Jain guru had me go feed people and I was too young at my spiritual path to really recognize the great honor he was giving me. But as I showed up and started feeding people, I didn't have to recognize anything. My heart just opened and then I realized what a great honor it was. This is a big thing in India and probably in most places in the East and also here in the West. It's a great honor and it just feels so good. It opens you up. Karma yoga goes beyond just simply feeding people. It's your actions and knowing how they open and help people or how they might harm people and therefore you might want to stop doing things that harm people. But that teaches you a lot about yourself to do service to others. There's mantra yoga. That's chanting mantras, certain words with vibrations and meanings that have a lot of powerful effects on you to open you up. Sometimes it's just the vibration that opens you up. Other times it's the actual meaning of the word. Other times it's because you're connected to a higher truth inside of you. By saying a mantra that reminds you of that higher truth, you don't get distracted in the other attachments so much because you're connected to something deeper and you keep reminding yourself to stay connected because you're chanting your mantra. There's also raja yoga. That's a path of yoga that includes meditation but also lots of wisdom, different disciplines, the eightfold path, right understanding, right emotion, right speech, right action, right livelihood, right effort, right awareness, and right meditation. So it's a whole system and it's a way to bring you to your deepest self, to the truth of who you are as well as some thoughts and guidance as possible ways to express through action your deepest self in this world in a clear way. And there's tantra yoga which is an energetic, an energy yoga. It's connecting to the energies all around us. All creation, all existence vibrates with the same energy because it's all the same substance and this can be accessed with different methods and means and tantra yoga works with these energies. We've heard about sexual connections but it's also way beyond that and it doesn't necessarily include that. It could include working energetically with deities or chanting or visualizations. We might find our path to be a combination of all these yogas or we might evolve from one yoga to the next yoga in no particular order but what calls to us. Often yoga schools would like you to stick with their school maybe forever but that's optional. You could do that or you could just listen to yourself and as you open up in different ways you would move in the direction that now suits you. What's the next deepest step for you? Today looking at a beautiful artwork in the museum might open you up beautifully. Tomorrow it's listening to music and the next day it's doing hatha yoga but the advantage of sticking with one path for a while is that you can go deeper and its consistency especially with things like meditation or hatha yoga, probably all the yogas, start to teach you something because you go deeper and deeper and you start to bump up against the blocks, become familiar with ways that you block yourself and then because you're becoming familiar with the ways that you personally use to block yourself, as you watch those blocks and combine it with a number of things we've been talking about in the previous podcast, you can begin to see through those blocks or the power of your awareness can begin to melt those blocks. They can begin to dissolve and you begin to feel your presence that's always there but you begin to feel it all the time. You don't have to keep jumping out of an airplane or going to the Grand Canyon or doing things to get a glimpse of who you are. Instead you're that radiant ball of bliss and love all the time. You experience the beauty of yourself all the time. So I would say there are two steps. First, find out what opens you up. Follow your heart. Follow your bliss. What opens you up? That can be the first part of your practice and then as you open, notice what closes you. What boundaries do you bump up against? What old habits, thoughts or emotions do you bump up against that block you and prevent you from experiencing and expressing the full beauty of you? How do you let that go? Because it's not you. It's some old habit or thought. So what is helpful for you to open up and release that which closes you down? That's really the path and you continue until you feel yourself all the time. What could be better? You just feel your beauty, your wonder all the time. Life is exciting and it provokes you to move forward. Even suffering shows you where you're stuck and it moves you forward because you want to get out of your suffering. The universe conspires to show you all the time what you need to see and to move you forward to love you and to open you up into your best self. Ramana, a great saint from southern India, used to suggest follow any path that works for you and as you follow that path, start to let that path go bit by bit. For instance, if you're practicing mantra yoga, maybe at first it helps you to chant your mantras out loud but once you've done that and your mind has opened up and quieted a bit, when you can, start to chant them internally, silently. And after a while, when your mind calms down even more deeply and your heart opens more deeply, maybe rather than repeating the silent sound to yourself, just know what the mantra is with no sound. Getting quieter and quieter until no mantra and there's only open beauty. You can apply that to any path. For instance, karma yoga. Maybe you would feed people and that would open your heart until perhaps you would notice that your heart was open and you didn't need to feed people. Yeah, you could but that's just because you already have an open heart and you love people, not in order to get an open heart. Often when we start a path, it's to get something which is a good intent and then as we receive it, it's to begin to let that practice go and just realize that that's who we are, an open radiant being and then from there flow into the world and let our intuition guide us as to how we serve the world and ourselves and others day by day. What serves, what do I feel called to do today? What is my intuition ask me to do? And do that. As you open up, Ramana liked people to notice what they're not and let that go and rest in what they are until all they do is experience who they are. So what yogic path suits you? Is it art? Is it music? Is it serving others? Is it chanting? Is it devotion? Is it hatha yoga? Maybe it's meditation or maybe it's tantric yoga or maybe it's jnana yoga, the path of knowing, of knowledge. What serves you? Maybe it's skydiving, maybe it's sitting in nature, maybe it's taking walks, maybe it's looking at a sunset, but what opens you up? That's who you are. You know, there's only one love and that's the love that you feel when your heart opens. That's no different than the universal love. It's the same love. It's just, it's shining through your heart when it's open. There's only one piece and that's the piece you feel when you're walking on the beach or you're in nature. That's the piece of awakening. It will never be any different. It will be simply that there won't be blocks blocking it out. That will be the piece you will feel all the time in awakening. The love will be the love you feel all the time in awakening. When you feel bliss looking at the Grand Canyon or at a beautiful painting, that's the bliss you will feel in awakening. So, there's only one bliss. There's only one love, peace and happiness and that is the bliss of you, the peace of you, the love of you and as you are in touch with it, you're in touch with yourself. You're at the end of the process, the moment you're in touch with your own beauty. All that's left to do then is to notice the things that come up and block that and let them go. So, that's the yogic path. It's so nourishing to find the yoga that opens you up. It feels good, right? Okay. Enjoy. I look forward to talking to you next time. Take care. Bye.