The 5 stages of wisdom – and relationships

August 12, 2009 at 9:01 am (Kundalini Yoga)
Tags: , , ,

My Life Is about My Relationships… You will never find yourself in a point in time when the subject of relationships is not an active part of your now experience, for everything you perceive or notice or know is because of your relationship with something else. Without a comparative experience, you would be unable to perceive or focus any kind of understanding within yourself. Therefore, it is accurate to say that without relationships you could not exist at all.

~ Abraham

I was contemplating the ancient teaching of the path to wisdom. Every yoga teacher goes through this. Mid way through this journey, a teacher reach a point of doubt: they begin the question their path, they challenge their teacher and the teachings; they may make radical changes in their lives. Sometimes a teacher may stop teaching for a while or for ever. Other times, they may choose a different “path” and start a new journey all over again.

Several of my closest yogi friends went through the Shakti Pad period in the last year, and I feel that many more will in the coming year. While reviewing my relationship with these people, and all the other people that I know, I came to realize that the 5 stages of the path to wisdom applies in a very real but sutble way to relationships also

I share with you my understanding

The Five Stages on the Path of Wisdom

Stage 1 : Saram Pad.

This is beginner bliss.The honeymoon period. Where everything is new and wonderful. You are a novice. you embrace a new path either though pain, though pleasure or though a calling. As a novice you are given a set of guidelines and rules, because you have not walked this path before. For example: Don’t change the order of the asanas (positions) in a kriya (yoga set); because at this stage you would not understand the effects. There is an element of trust in the teachings. life is fun and full of joy for the new discovery.

In relationships, it’s the stage when you are attracted to someone and you recognize their attraction to you. You follow a set of social rules of engagement, and you trust. It is a new journey and you are a novice. Life is full of joy.

Stage 2: Karam Pad.

This is the stage of testing. action and reaction. You are the apprentice. your mentor gives you challenges. For the yoga teaching, you are over the bliss of what yoga is, now you want to deepen the experience. This is when we start a daily practice, and start doing the 40/90/120 day meditations, start proactively looking for more challenging kriyas, and rather than looking for “nice” kriyas that make us feel good, we look for challenging kriyas that allow us to grow as an individual.

In relationships, this is also a time of testing. And so we begin to see our projections through the reactions of others. We open up and trust and in doing so we allow ourselves the choice of clearing old karam, old patterns, we being to grow in the relationship. You are an apprentice, and the relationship is your mentor.

Stage 3: Shakti Pad

This is the stage of greatest transformation when the apprentice becomes the craftsman. No longer are they given rules by the master. In Shakti Pad an apprentice may stay an apprentice, quit the practice altogether, or transform. It is a test of the ego. In life there are 3 things: Karam, Daram and Param. Karam is action (and reaction), Daram is divine action, and Param is doubt. When we don’t exercise Karam or Daram, we are left in a place of Param. Time has passed, and we start to look outside for external references. Is this really working? Is this the “right” path? I know more that these people! We challenge our teacher and the teachings. It is like the adolescent teenagers, who wants the power and respect of being an adult, but without the responsibility and commitment to action.

In relationships, this is make-or-break time. It’s the time where the relationship can flourish and bloom, or the relationship ends. It’s a time of responsibility, of facing up, of independent interdependence. It is a time of duality and non-locaility: You see everything through 2 outcomes of positive and negative and you doubt your choices. Trust is key here. It is a leap of faith. The rules change, we act on our projections and reaction in others, and start to take responsibility for everything in the relationship. After a period of blaming, of doubt, the blame game finishes, and we start to experience true self.

Stage 4: Sahej Pad.

We get the “joke” now. Life becomes simple. It is the stage of the expert. What you focusses on manifests. Everything you learn you want to teach. You are intuitive. You are aligned with your destiny. Everything has a flow and grace to it. There is no doubt anymore, no question of why or what to do. You just know. Everything you do is aligned with all that you are. Compassion is your highest value.

In relationships, there is an innate understanding of each other. The intuitive understanding of each others thoughts negates the need for mindless chatter and gossip. When one is away, the other can perceive their imminent return. Each are perfectly aligned with each other. Compassion is everything.

Stage 5: Sat Pad

Sat Pad is the stage of the Master. Most people will never experience this stage. It is a state of Intuitive-Intelligence. Yogi Bhajan described it as “comprehensive, comparative, intelligent, intuitive consciousness” We live from a place of divinity, grace, and harmony with the whole universe.

In relationships, it is when two become one. When one dies, the other shortly follow, to re-unite in a heavenly realm again.

I have met only one couple like this in my life. My own grandparents.

Sat Nam Ji.

@cityguyyoga

8 Comments

What a difference a year makes…

June 22, 2009 at 6:08 pm (Kundalini Yoga)
Tags: , , ,

skyVaals, Netherlands. Summer solstice, 21st June 2009. The Vaals Summer Festival. As I sat at the back of the room  for the closing meditation, I felt grateful.  I was grateful that my teacher, Guru Dharam could attend. I felt grateful that some of my SKY sangut could meet up and be together.  I was grateful that I had in some small way helped to create this wonderful space, along with everyone else who attended. I was grateful to be sufficiently aware of my awareness to feel and notice the energetic interplay in the room over the weekend. I was grateful that I could share this journey with others.

Summer Solstice is a time of letting go of the past, old identities that no longer serve us, old relationships that don’t work, old habits, old ways of thinking. Like a high tide about to turn, the summer solstice this year was a wonderful time to work through these old issues and let them go. I knew it was building for the last few weeks, and while I recognize that this could as easily be a projection of my own psyche as it is a perception of the outside, in either case, it is a time for cutting chords, for clearing and letting go. This year is a particularly good time to do this, as we also have a new moon to accompany this years summers solstice.

Back in the room after a “challenging but not difficult” set (Guru’s words, not mine); We closed with a Laya meditation, followed by chanting Wahey Guru for what felt like 22 minutes, although in a space where time stands still it may have been longer or shorter that this. We have chanted this mantra a thousand times before, but this time, there was something very different.  It felt like every spirit and soul within a thirty kilometer range had joined us and wanted to rejoice in the joy and heart centered feeling of oneness that was present in the room. Like a symphony of voices it swept over us like the ebb and flow of the high tide, clearing, purifying and healing. In mid-chant, I though for a moment for a word to describe the experience, but no words came: In midst of a crescendo of choral voices, “speechless”  is a shameful substitute. But it was beautiful.

I contemplated the past 2 days.  BenJahmin and I has opened the festival with our “Flow..” session.  As Sonja was introducing us, I remember thinking to myself. There is only 2 ways a workshop called “Flow..” can go: It can either flow or not flow. And if it doesn’t flow, then we should probably start thinking of alternative careers and themes of exploration.

The workshop & whole festival flowed beautifully.  From the Kundalini Yoga kriyas, mantras and music, to beautiful singing bowls, great food, deep meditative relaxation; exploring crystal skulls; the kirtan evening and an amazing lesson on Shiatsu massage (more please!) to the closing kriya and meditation from Guru. Everything thing seems to build on the previous experience to deepen my appreciation and gratitude for the moment.

After we finished and had tuned-out, I sat silently for a moment. “Thank you”, I said. But it was not directed at anyone in the room.

As I slept on the EuroStar on the way back to london, I was smiling. Imaging what it would be like to do this every day…..

Leave a Comment

I value our relationship…

March 22, 2009 at 7:21 am (Kundalini Yoga, Self-Help, Spirituality)
Tags: , ,

Values are those intangible things most dear to us. They are what motivates us to do everything all day long from the moment we wake up until we go to sleep at night. They are how we evaluate what is right and wrong after we do something, so values are what gives us our moral code.Silver lining

People often hold a common set of values, however everyones values and the priority of those values are different to a large degree, and often our own personal set of values don’t align.

When this happens, we experience conflict, – a feeling of being torn in two, and we may say something like “A part of me want’s this, but another part of me want that”, or “I really want to do this, but a part of me stop me”. or “I’m torn in two”.

How does this happen? To explain this I need to explain what a shock is first. Bear with me. A shock is something that takes you by surprise, and sets up an electro-chemical reaction at three levels: Firstly in the brain, where a specific location of the brain will get a Jolt, almost like it was zapped with a electo-magnetic gun. ( And in fact, it feels like a electric shock ). Secondly a specific organ in the body is affected. This is much slower as it involved electro-chemical stimulus, and finally, the psyche or the internal thinking of the person is affect.

So, back to values. I have the belief that we are born with an intrinsic set of values that are aligned with Flow, these being the predominant experiences of a balanced chakra set, such as security, growth, willpower, compassion, connection, focus and spirituality . When we are in flow, we experience the positive aspect of these values. However, when we have shocks in our lives, we create experiences that create new values.

The memory of those shocks creates an emotional attachment to that shock – probably the emotion of fear, but could be a guilt, or sadness, or jealousy or any other emotion based on the intensity & type of the shock. Depending on the intensity of the shock, they may experience anything from worry, anxiety, irritation, fear, phobia to even paralysis. And each of these shocks create new values that tend to be defensive in their nature – usually involves avoiding stuff. Examples might be avoiding poverty (by trying to get Rich quick), avoiding being fat (by going on yo-yo diets), avoiding capitalism (by not spending money) , but to the very degree that we try to avoid something in our lives, we attract it. It’s the law of attraction – If you are aware of it, it’s you.

The end result is that each individual, having experienced all sort of shocks over their life will operate from a different set of values and many of those values will hold the person back.

Why is this important? Because as I prepare to go back to the city, I need to acknowledge the difference in values between the two worlds. A good friend pointed out to me that there isn’t two worlds, there is only one. And this is true, however my experience of the city compared to Planet Kundalini is that people operate from two very different sets of values. And here is the difference.

Predominantly, Planet Kundalini operates from a set of values around the Exclusive Kundalini Yoga Club. And yes, it is a club. We embrace everyone who embraces us, and we feel we can’t related to people who don’t related to us, because it’s just too out there for many. – Taking a spiritual name, growing your hair/beard, eating vegetarian foods (although this is more acceptable now), and waking up every morning at 4.30am to do 2.5 hours of meditation. It’s all a bit out there for the average Joe Blogs.

However The City Club has a very different set of values based around money. The values I experience around Money in The City is totally different to any other place I have worked in the world. It’s actually very positive in many ways. You see, when then average salary is at least a six figure sum, you hear the phrase “Money talks, bulsh#t walks“. And it’s true. People commit to something in the City, it tends to happen, especially when they whack a pile of money down as a guarantee of their future actions. It’s implicit trust through money. And since money is an abstraction of energy, it commits Energy to the project.

The net effect is that excuses melt away, and people find that their values align real quickly for a common goal. For The City, the only problems occurs, when the insanity of ego takes over, or to be more accurate, the belief that the individual is separate from everyone else. This creates the individualistic competitive nature that gives the city a bad name. To think about it, I see so much ego in Planet Kundalini circles, I’m not really sure that this really is an argument, it’s just that things get done in the city. Quickly.

So, Planet Kundalini, I value our relationship. but I’m not sure I love you any more.

1 Comment

« Older entries