Up To You

I believe that there are messengers on earth, people whose mission it is to inspire and direct others towards truth and peace, using perception and certainty as building blocks as tools of inspiration. I believe that after 35 years of trying to find my way, I came to a place where I had no choice but to step up and understand that my future was possibly rooted in that role of messenger, and 3 years later, I am certain that I have stepped into my life’s mission. It is absolutely and totally due to this path of mine that I can clearly see the infinite possibilities that exist for each and every one of us, and this is why I feel so determined to convey those possibilities to everyone within reading and/or hearing distance. What reinforces my belief that I’m on the right path is the (sometimes) overwhelming number of people I counsel, encouraging them to lift their gaze up so they can see the endless options that are available to them, options that once chosen, could lead to a better, stronger, more meaningful existence. What comes so naturally to me apparently doesn’t for everyone else, and so I feel that obligation to guide people towards their own truths with that much more conviction.

All the topics I bring up, all the substance that makes up the body of blog posts that I’ve written and the mini-lectures I’ve given at the beginning of my yoga classes, all lead me back to one main point that I wanted to address in this post…one that serves as the foundation for all the insight I have to share: all that we need to do in our lives is decide what we believe in, and then believe. That’s it. Call it a shift in consciousness, call it a change in perception, call it what you want. But it really is that easy.

I first was taught about the power to change my approach to life by my first yoga teacher, Joan Ruvinsky, who has always brought a non-dual approach to the practice, and to life in general. Non-duality speaks to the unity in all things, and in doing so, allows us to accept that divinity is not something we work towards, but rather, something that already exists within us, and all around us. That everything is already connected. All we have to do it see it, or, believe it. And so, in keeping with that understanding, let’s bring it back to the concept of messengers. Messengers don’t necessarily don’t have to be in the form of the luminescent angel guiding us through the dark. Messengers can come in the form of the person standing in front of you in the checkout line at the grocery store. Angels can be in the form of the person practicing next to you in yoga class. Who’s to say that the capacity to be angelic isn’t the missing link between having angels remain in the realm of the other-worldly and having them exist in a very real and tangible way? All the things that we have accepted as being one way because that’s the commonly believed assumption have to be re-examined. Because there are messengers and angels among us. All we have to do is see them. And believe.

Bringing it back to yoga, I hear a lot of talk about enlightenment…students asking how they know they’re getting closer to enlightenment through their yoga and meditation practices. To all of them who have asked me, and to all of you who have the same or a similar query, I have this to say: who’s to say that enlightenment isn’t already right in front of us, asking only that we allow for the shift in consciousness necessary to lift the veil of illusion from our hearts, allowing the beautiful and the sacred to step into our immediate range of vision? Perhaps enlightenment exists in the ability to stop spending time and energy pursuing the abstract, and let our gaze focus on the perfection that exists right now, in this second. Which isn’t to say that we don’t do our best to stay in the present moment as often as we can in the hopes of staying as close to that state of truth as possible, but we allow ourselves to breathe and let go of that dangling carrot. Because we choose to believe. It all comes back to the non-dual concept. We are not separate from all of it…from enlightenment, from truth, from light, from each other. The connection already exists, we just have to allow ourselves to unlearn what has failed to serve us up to now and adopt a different approach to seeing the world through eyes focused on peace and the permanence of all that is.

If we understand that we all stem from the same source, that the most obvious thread of our commonality is our existence, then it’s only a question of time before we allow the dividing walls of hatred, misogyny, sexism, homophobia, government, religion, media, racism, and, above all, the concept of the divine being separate from us, to fall away. All we need is to believe. I do now, after years of trying every other avenue led me back to my starting point. I believe. Do you? If so, what’s your take on it all? What truths do you lay your faith in?