Monday, December 26, 2011

Reflection and Inner Growth

If you are someone who is in tune with a spiritual path, you will have heard the term ‘reflection.’ In fact, you may have heard it so much that it has become somewhat of a buzzword. However, have you ever stopped to wonder what it really means in a spiritual context? More importantly, have you discovered its importance as a tool of inner growth?

When you look in a mirror, what do you see? More than likely you will see your physical human form looking back at you. Now ask yourself how you feel when you look at yourself. Are there negative emotions or positive ones that surface? What are the thoughts that arise? Are you aware of any self-judgments when you look at yourself?

It may seem like all this inner-questioning could lead to a lot of over-analyzing in your head. This could certainly happen if you follow that path. However, if your desire is to let go of any self-identities that do not serve you anymore, you need to move beyond intellectualizing and into the realm of allowance.

Allowing is very different from simply letting sensations, emotions and thoughts control you. It is more about observing thought and emotion without feeling a personal sense of identity attached to it. In other words, you will not be stuck in the reality of “this is who I am.” You will not try to fix it, change it or judge anything whatsoever. The idea is to slow your mental activity down and become like a non-attached observer viewing a movie screen. Eventually, you will achieve a state that enables you to be still, to feel and to let everything go.

To understand this better, consider the following analogy: Imagine yourself on a boat that is travelling through some very rough waters. You feel the rocking and swaying of the boat and the occasional spray of sea water hitting you in the face. You see dark clouds looming and forks of lightening approaching. Soon, pelting rain drops fall from the sky and soak your whole body. All these elements are akin to physical sensations, judgments, emotions or thoughts. These are what you observe, experience and most importantly, allow. The idea is to use your awareness like a spotlight that shines its powerful light on all forms and helps you to see them for what they are: forms that come and go.

At this point, it’s very important to mention what you can do if you are not able to allow or when you find yourself in resistance. Always go back to what is true for the moment at hand. What is true may be, “I am not willing to allow this” or “I can feel my resistance to this.” Once you are able to really “stand in” what is true in each moment by saying “yes” to it, you can release any inner tension or any “non-allowance” in small increments.

It may take seemingly endless repetitions of this “standing in truth” especially when you are dealing with a deeply-set negative pattern within you. However, little by little, you will entrain your awareness to focus more intensely and enhance your ability to allow in order for you to choose more life-affirming perspectives. You will know you are on the right path when you experience those “aha!” moments ¬¬--or in other words, self-realizations. You will actually feel lighter, have more self-knowledge and feel a greater sense of self-certainty, self-empowerment, self-love, self-value and much more.

Now expand this model of looking at yourself in the mirror to using everything in your life as a mirror. This could be the relationships in your life whether that may be an intimate partner, family members or a complete stranger. It could also include media forms such as television, movies or the internet. The sensations, thoughts and emotions that emanate from inside you are constant sources of self-reflection as well. Essentially, life is an endless web of interconnected relationships. It contains limitless reference points each serving as a mirror for one another.

So, what is the point of it all? Well, try to imagine for a moment journeying as a human entity through life if you had no points of reflection. You would be completely in the dark –or completely in the light for that matter– and by default there would be no awareness of other separate entities. There would be no journey that begins from a place of innocence. There would be no journey that ventures into separateness from a higher source. And, there would be no journey that returns to connectedness with that same higher source.

Could it be that getting back to this connectedness is what has always driven us, what urges us to evolve our consciousness and discover the unknown?...



Night Had Barely Fallen

Night had barely fallen on the town. The air was cool. The sky was clear and the moon was but a sliver. “Time for that sweater,” I thought as I stepped out the door and descended upon the town.

Montes de Oca...Barranca...Correo. Then, it happened: the first surprise of the evening. Arms outstretched, holding onto their plastic pumpkins, approached two of the most adorable Mexican children dressed as a witch and a Catrina. As it was only October 30th, I was unprepared for this sudden Halloween preview and had no candy to give to these cute kids. Turning them down was heart-wrenching, to say the least.

As soon as the twinge of my heart-strings had settled, an even greater intensity of emotion swept over me as I entered the Jardin. Just ahead, beyond the tightly-packed crowd, lay what appeared to be a very ornately decorated stage lit by soft, colorful spotlights. Beautifully adorned Native Aztec dancers moved to pulsating tribal beats emanating from strange prehispanic instruments. The smell of Copal smoke that shrouded the stage and then swept across the plaza evoked a feeling of mystery, excitement and fear. Then this feeling merged with a sense of warmth and connection as I observed the candle light spilling over the stage and bathing the heads of spectators.

The rhythms continued to pour out and the dancers, with their feathery headpieces and ghostly painted faces, vigorously stomped and twirled and bowed to the gods. I gazed in awe at the whole scene: the elaborately decorated stage was actually the main altar of the plaza and looked like a pyramid among the many smaller ones scattered around the Jardin. The towering spires of the neo-gothic Parroquia church created an impressive backdrop to an already impressive performance. Overhead, I admired the hundreds of colorful squares of paper with designs cut into them strung up in dozens of rows above the crowd.

Suddenly, as the wind picked up, these papeles picados as they are known, came to life. It was as though the earth herself was playing along to the pulse of the music. Now, I could really feel myself being swept up by this most intimate and magical current. I could feel the spirit of something larger than me. But, what was it? Possibly the ancestors honored by the dancers and the altars were actually present? Or, simply the sense of connection, community, and celebration that El Dia de los Muertos evokes…

Whatever was at play that night, it was an unexpected and beautiful experience. If I had to categorize it, I would say it would fit nicely and simply into what we call “spiritual.” Spiritual because it gave me a deeper understanding of, and appreciation for, the complex, yet beautiful tapestry of the Mexican culture. Spiritual because of the realization that all the sensations experienced had been “in the moment,” the moment where life truly is. Sometimes being caught off guard brings us back to the nourishing pulse of life –a pulse that sustains us indefinitely and connects us unimaginably.