… of transformation is a curious thing. Talked with my yoga teacher not too long ago about the Krya of Yoga, the three tenets of openness, proper reflection and changing habits. Have been pondering them quite a bit and am adopting them into my own concept of a transformational lifestyle.
A transformational lifestyle would in this case consist of three elements:
- Openness to Transformation – Instead of shunning or merely accepting change, inviting it and embracing it fully, making it willful and hence transformation. It is the willful dying after every exhale, and the understanding that each time we inhale, we make choices – we create ourselves and the entire universe around us anew. “The most important thing in life is to give up who you are at any point for who you could become.“
- Proper Reflection – inviting those into our lives that give us honest and loving feedback, and taking it even if it comes in a different package. Listenting to all otherness, seeing ourselves in others, realizing that when we point at someone, three fingers point back. It is reviewing and seeing ourselves as much from an objective perspective as our subjective perspective allows. And this also includes saying “Thank you” when someone compliments you. It is, as we perceive reality and our relations no matter if we like them or not, to hold the mantra “I created this, because I wanted to…“
- New habits – The majority of our daily experience is based on habit, and this is necessary to some extent – if you had to rethink walking for every step, you would probably not move very fast. This is okay in as long as our habits serve us. Many of the programs our little bio robot runs, though, have become obsolete and require replacement. In order to replace them, though, we need to create new ones. In yoga it is taught to begin good new habits and old bad habits will fall away. Or, as Bucky Fuller put it “You never change things by fighting the existing reality. To change something, build a new model that makes the existing model obsolete.”
Now, this is a tall order. Really living this fully might seem something better left to saints. But it is a continuum, on which we can move and advance. Striving toward those imeasurables is what matters.
The last weeks have been filled with an atmosphere of change. The ides of March, the end of the year just before spring blossoms. It is a violent time, seeds are being cracked open, a brutal death for the known structures of comfort. Old shells have to fall away as new life emerges…
Have been feeling that discomfort and acedia myself. So I have been particularly open to what is happening around me and have been willing to transform myself even more so than usual. Last Friday, two of my friends told me that I needed to get out more often given that I had spent winter mostly hibernating, ruminating and living the life of a hermit. Did a tarot reading on what’s going on now, and the key was “The Chariot”, the knight ready to roll and seek the holy grail.
So Sunday I decided to go hiking with a lovely friend of mine. On the way there, we passed the rocking monkey chariot sitting by the side of the street, which – as you can imagine was quite delightful to me giving I have a thing for monkeys. Then yesterday, I went to the ocean. Walked along the boardwalk in Venice, cherished the freaks, sat in the sand and smelled the waves for a while. It felt like the vast open expanse of the ocean purged my mind, my emotions, my whole being. Coming back from the ocean sparked a whole stream of creativity, and it hasn’t stopped since… Seems like transformational lifestyle is working…
Off to work on the talk I gave last Saturday on “Intimacy and the Art of Relating”. Should be posting that one soon…