I have been in a quandary recently musing on the nature of destiny and free will. Over the course of my life I can chart the oscillating nature of my relationship to my will. As a child, of course, the theoretical question of whether you are in charge of your own life really doesn't rise in conversation other than the rage that you might feel at being denied what you want. Then over time as you grow older and then move into adolescence I personally found a sense of impotence as events beyond my control shaped me and my world. I became in my bitterness a victim of fate and I surrendered to fate as my conquering king. Then I embark on my conscious spiritual quest and I am given the support and insights to question whether I am victim of fate at all or whether I am in fact master of my own destiny. I rise to that rallying call, you can shape your destiny, you can manifest your desires! But can you? After a time my desires were not manifest and my only way of rationalising that is to blame myself because if I were righteous and true then those desires would be manifest, surely. It was then shared with me in a meditation that I am "servant of this universe first and its queen second" and that insight enabled me to reframe my sense of destiny: that in service came reward, that if my will was to serve then my destiny would unfold. This was about the same sort of time that I replaced the phrase "master of my destiny" with a phrase many of you, my friends, reading this may have heard me use "captain of my own ship". This latter statement to me was more closely aligned to my understanding of the role of my will within a greater destiny. I see myself as a ship in a fleet and the Beloved creator is the Lord Admiral while I am captain of my own vessel. Therefore the range of will I have is great within parameters set by my ultimate commander.
Lately I find that I have been brought to my knees. Literally. And I am called once more to surrender my will to the Higher Will. And initially I have no quarrel with this but then I start to think... was I wrong to ever think I was captain of my own ship? Was I wrong to share that view with others that might attempt to do the same and then find themselves in the mire that I am now in?
And tonight came an understanding that the basis of my quandary was in a fundamental misunderstanding of will. If one believes that free will is the opposite of a life "dictated" by a divine will then one believes in a free will that is material and of our making. Yet within the material world there are only choices. You can have chocolate or vanilla ice cream. This or that. That or this. Your will is only "free" by the extent to which you might accept the range of choices on offer to you. But that choice will always be limited within the material realm because in becoming material something becomes finite. Thus it can never be FREE. So Free Will as opposed to divine Will is a mirage, an illusion.
WILL CAN ONLY BE FREE WHEN IT IS LIBERATED FROM THE MATERIAL REALM. That is to say that only when your will is completely aligned to divine will can your will actually and truelly be free.
And that paradox that is the human interpretation of the Divine Will as limited (fate) is flawed so fundamentally that it drives people to believe that to master one's own destiny is to reject God. But ironically it is in turning one's will over to the divine that you free it and free yourself. Because the more aligned your will is to the divine plan the more likely it is that it will be made material. But if your will starts from a material place and has a material goal it can only blunder around the maze to find itself at the the only false centre through trial and error.
So whether this makes sense to anyone else would be interesting to find out but I am assured and reassured that Captain of my own Ship is a title I can retain so long as I am loyal to my Lord Admiral.
Thursday, March 3, 2011
Friday, January 28, 2011
Lessons in life, from our own bodies
Last weekend I went to the Dru centre in Snowdonia. It's where I trained to be a yoga teacher and I volunteer there from time to time. Some weekends I have volunteered there I have worked my socks off and I love it but last weekend I probably didn't pull my weight because I was so tired. No one there would hold that against me at all I know, it's a very special place. There were two courses running one was a teacher training course and the other a Back Pain course which is for people who are already teachers who want to become yoga therapists.
I sat in on a back pain session which was being taught by Coby Langford. Coby is an osteopath and a yogi and I knew that I would learn a lot from her session. Coby and Mansukh Patel have developed a CD which uses yoga to heal back pain and Coby was sharing with the group the process of refinement that she and Mansukh went through in developing their approach. It seems that when people come to Coby with back pain any strengthening exercises that she might give them more often than not would make the pain worse.
Coby explained that the core muscles are postural muscles and the erector spinae muscle along the spine is a movement muscle. Normally the core muscles have a good and regular dialogue with the brain and you don't need to think about switching them on they just work automatically. What happens with many people though is that through poor posture, injury, childbirth or whathaveyou that automatic dialogue between your core muscles and the brain ceases. The messages from the core muscles to the brain can't get through due to the white noise that is bombarding the brain from other muscles that are in pain in the body. The erector spine which is used for movement - not normally posture - has been recruited by the body to help out because the core muscles have gone off line. The poor erector spinae muscles (and often the gluteals as well) have to work very hard to do the job of holding your posture when in fact that was not what they were designed for. They work and work, and they become rigid and tense and they scream with pain. Until you re-establish dialogue between the core muscles and the brain - and you learn to relax and strengthen the other muscles - you will have back pain. The way to switch on that brain/core dialogue is to use the core muscles, contracting them gently, and regularly.
Coby also went on to talk about "strong" muscles. Many people think they have strong back muscles because they work out, or they are well defined or whatever. However the definition of a strong muscle is not one that holds on and holds on tight - like that rigid erector spinae or scrunched up glutes - a strong muscle is one that is able to relax. So... when Coby is working through the back pain programme with people it's very important that they take the time to relax their muscles, to stretch them and release them - this takes up to 2 weeks. It is at this point that they gently start to need to strengthen - so the second part of the programme kicks in. Coby could not emphasise enough how important that period of release and relaxing was in healing back pain.
Now, this, I hope, is very interesting to anyone suffering with back pain and I completely recommend that you get Coby's CD on Back Pain - check out www.druworldwide.com - but the reason it has made it onto my blog is for the lessons I took from Coby's lecture - about myself.
I resonate completely with the story of the core/brain dialogue and the rigid movement muscles on a metaphorical level. I can see in myself that quality of the erector spinae that works so hard, trying its best to be all things to all people - holding things together when my purpose is to be fluid and move. I hear the message that a strong spine is one that can relax - and that it needs to relax then strengthen in order to heal. I also realise that I have lost touch with my core because of the bombardment of chatter and pain that has clogged up my airwaves. All the things I have been trying to do that were not in alignment with my core values and my higher self have distracted and distorted me, pulling me off centre and caused me pain.
So, to take the analogy further I now completely understand why I need time out and why I am burnt out despite having so many tools in my box. I need to relax and release. I need to re-engage my core and re-establish dialogue between my mind and my higher self, to return to my core values. Then I need to rebuild my strength gently so as to not interupt that conversation with god with unnecessary noise from my ever faithful body which has been trying its best, bless it. I know now that to keep going on this ultra marathon will never make me stronger - it will kill me one way or another - real strength is the ability to relax and to let go. To surrender... to the higher self and the gut instincts of my own wisdom.
I share this journey of mine because I learn so much from reading and hearing other people's journeys so I hope this can help others too.
Thank you so much to Coby Langford, Mansukh Patel and everyone at Dru for shining their light. And thank you to me - for being a willing pupil on this path. Namaste xxx
I sat in on a back pain session which was being taught by Coby Langford. Coby is an osteopath and a yogi and I knew that I would learn a lot from her session. Coby and Mansukh Patel have developed a CD which uses yoga to heal back pain and Coby was sharing with the group the process of refinement that she and Mansukh went through in developing their approach. It seems that when people come to Coby with back pain any strengthening exercises that she might give them more often than not would make the pain worse.
Coby explained that the core muscles are postural muscles and the erector spinae muscle along the spine is a movement muscle. Normally the core muscles have a good and regular dialogue with the brain and you don't need to think about switching them on they just work automatically. What happens with many people though is that through poor posture, injury, childbirth or whathaveyou that automatic dialogue between your core muscles and the brain ceases. The messages from the core muscles to the brain can't get through due to the white noise that is bombarding the brain from other muscles that are in pain in the body. The erector spine which is used for movement - not normally posture - has been recruited by the body to help out because the core muscles have gone off line. The poor erector spinae muscles (and often the gluteals as well) have to work very hard to do the job of holding your posture when in fact that was not what they were designed for. They work and work, and they become rigid and tense and they scream with pain. Until you re-establish dialogue between the core muscles and the brain - and you learn to relax and strengthen the other muscles - you will have back pain. The way to switch on that brain/core dialogue is to use the core muscles, contracting them gently, and regularly.
Coby also went on to talk about "strong" muscles. Many people think they have strong back muscles because they work out, or they are well defined or whatever. However the definition of a strong muscle is not one that holds on and holds on tight - like that rigid erector spinae or scrunched up glutes - a strong muscle is one that is able to relax. So... when Coby is working through the back pain programme with people it's very important that they take the time to relax their muscles, to stretch them and release them - this takes up to 2 weeks. It is at this point that they gently start to need to strengthen - so the second part of the programme kicks in. Coby could not emphasise enough how important that period of release and relaxing was in healing back pain.
Now, this, I hope, is very interesting to anyone suffering with back pain and I completely recommend that you get Coby's CD on Back Pain - check out www.druworldwide.com - but the reason it has made it onto my blog is for the lessons I took from Coby's lecture - about myself.
I resonate completely with the story of the core/brain dialogue and the rigid movement muscles on a metaphorical level. I can see in myself that quality of the erector spinae that works so hard, trying its best to be all things to all people - holding things together when my purpose is to be fluid and move. I hear the message that a strong spine is one that can relax - and that it needs to relax then strengthen in order to heal. I also realise that I have lost touch with my core because of the bombardment of chatter and pain that has clogged up my airwaves. All the things I have been trying to do that were not in alignment with my core values and my higher self have distracted and distorted me, pulling me off centre and caused me pain.
So, to take the analogy further I now completely understand why I need time out and why I am burnt out despite having so many tools in my box. I need to relax and release. I need to re-engage my core and re-establish dialogue between my mind and my higher self, to return to my core values. Then I need to rebuild my strength gently so as to not interupt that conversation with god with unnecessary noise from my ever faithful body which has been trying its best, bless it. I know now that to keep going on this ultra marathon will never make me stronger - it will kill me one way or another - real strength is the ability to relax and to let go. To surrender... to the higher self and the gut instincts of my own wisdom.
I share this journey of mine because I learn so much from reading and hearing other people's journeys so I hope this can help others too.
Thank you so much to Coby Langford, Mansukh Patel and everyone at Dru for shining their light. And thank you to me - for being a willing pupil on this path. Namaste xxx
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