Category Archives: Svaroopa Yoga

Freedom from Pain

By Gurudevi Nirmalananda

When you meditate, especially in the early morning while it’s easy to coast the edge of Consciousness, you can dive deeper into the Consciousness that you are. After meditation, your mind doesn’t Velcro to stuff in the same way.

Velcro is a good analogy. I’ll describe a thought as a ping-pong ball that’s covered with Velcro. The Velcro strips come in two varieties – hooks and loops. One strip has lots of little flexible plastic hooks. When you lay it on the other strip, which has lots of little flexible plastic loops, the two strips grab onto each other.

Let’s say your ping-pong ball of a thought is covered with the Velcro loops. When it flies through your mind, it’s like the inside of your skull is lined with Velcro hooks, so the ping-pong ball gets stuck.

But after meditation, there are no hooks in there anymore. So the ping-pong ball flies through and it doesn’t get stuck. Even a thought about pain comes flying through, “Pain. How’s that pain I had yesterday?” And your mind, expansive and full of light just doesn’t grab on.

You can realistically assess the condition of your neck or knee, or whatever mental-emotional issue that was so debilitating yesterday – but without the reactivity quotient.

Pain is 10% sensation and 90% reaction.

If you’re not reacting, your ability to deal with the 10% is much improved. And you may need to go to the doctor, or go back to bed, or call someone and talk it through – but you’ll be better able to tell what is needed.

Why?

Because you are more than your pain.  There is more to you than your pain. While you may have pain, you are not your pain. You are more, so much more.

I remember going through this one morning as I was…

Bondage & Freedom

Yoga’s promise is freedom. But there is no freedom without bondage.

People who live in oppressive situations long to be free, whether they are in a political quagmire or if they are in prison or merely trapped in a job or relationship that stifles them. Or their own mind. If you’re not in bliss, your mind is messing with you.

Yes, anyone who is in bondage longs for freedom, even strives for freedom. Even the critters want to be free.  I lived in San Diego for many years. In one beach town, called PB or Pacific Beach, there are a lot of outdoor cafes. One of the best parts of the meal was when the local flock of parrots would arrive overhead.

Fifty or sixty birds, all very noisy, all different sizes, from the giant macaws to the smaller Amazon greens. They flocked together. And when they flew in, landing on the rooftops and utility lines, you couldn’t hear your friend talking. The parrots were so loud, clearly having a good time. Cawing, yes. Singing, whistling, and talking – clearly they had been pets that got out somehow.

One day I was driving down a side street and saw a man outside, holding some bird treats in his hand, calling lovingly to a big macaw on a street light overhead. “Come on home, sweetie pie… Come on home…” But the bird wanted to be free.

So do you. Even if you aren’t confined by others or limited by external circumstances, you long for freedom. This impulse to freedom, the desire to fly high, to expand to the sky and beyond – it’s built into you. It is your own inner knowing of your own Self, Consciousness arising within, ready to blossom, ready to shine, effulging forth from your own Divine Essence. Oh, Shiva.

This longing for liberation is what propels you into spirituality, into seeking, into finding a place like this that offers answers – so you can see if these answers match your inner itch…