Being/Doing~ Day #5 (Week 2)
- By Richard Fahlander
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- 17 Apr, 2020
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April 17
For many years Home Depot used the tagline “More Saving. More Doing.” Often, I would think to myself that the equivalent yoga tagline could be “Less Doing. More Being.” Thinking along those lines, I recall a teacher suggesting that we be the pose not just do the pose. “You are the strong mountain, the humble warrior, the flowing dancer.” And the other day during class Gregor reflected that a particular pose is simply the form of yoga leading toward the state of yoga. To me the form is the doing – the state is the being.
It turns out that a few months ago Home Depot switched their tagline to “How doers get more done.” According to their VP of brand marketing, “Our purpose is to empower doers. Helping doers get more done is what this campaign is about.” Hum. I wonder if a yoga VP of brand marketing might say, “Our purpose is to empower beings. Helping beings get more being is what this campaign is about.”
As yoga practitioners what is the being we want? I offer this from Nicolai Bachman in The Path of the Yoga Sutras. “ The purpose of yoga is clarification of our individual field of consciousness in order to perceive external events clearly and connect to our inner light of awareness.” I will then add that, as sentient beings, we can then move forward into the world with equanimity for all.
On The Mat Yoga Blog
“There is a light in the core of
our being that calls us home—one that can only be seen with closed eyes; We can
feel it as a radiance in the center of our chest. This light of loving
awareness is always here, regardless of our conditioning. It does not matter
how many dark paths we have traveled or how many wounds we have inflicted or
sustained as we have unknowingly stumbled toward this inner radiance. It does
not matter how long we have sleepwalked, seduced by our desires and fears. This
call persists until it is answered, until we surrender to who we really are.
When we do, we feel ourselves at home wherever we are. A hidden beauty reveals
itself in our ordinary life. As the true nature of our Deep Hear is unveiled,
we feel increasingly grateful for no reason—grateful to simply be.”
—John J. Prendergast, PHD, The Deep Heart
Seems like it’s been rainy,
windy, dreary for eons. Which may have helped us shelter inside a bit more. I
remember reading years and years ago in a Seth book that weather can be
influenced, and even created by mass human emotion. Why not? We are far more powerful
than we currently acknowledge, and science is beginning to validate many
phenomena that had seemed inconceivable before. Those seemingly endless days of
“bad” weather seemed congruent with the emotional tone of covid her in New
England. And now SUN! Glorious, warming, invigorating, hope-filled Sun! Today I
will be outside basking and gardening and thanking. And I’m sure the whole
neighborhood, and most of New England will go outside, stand with our faces to
the sun and breathe a huge healing breath of joy. And maybe the collective
energy of that will resonate out across the word as a promise of brighter days
to come.
