In Michelangelo's Pieta at St. Peter's Basilica in Rome, Italy in The Vatican City is the image of letting go, surrendering... to emotional release for the Madonna, and to the liberation of death for Jesus...this image is now making me cry again after what I just read in Sadhana Singh's "Everyday Excellence", & after doing the Kriya and the meditation for Grace. I feel that my decision to do an '8 Day Practice' of the kriya listed in his book + one of 8 meditations a day from Yogi Bhajan's 8 steps to excellence, is a direct result of doing our assigned meditation on The Mul Mantra. It inspires!
Today's meditation from that book in the series was working on the "celestial concept of the third layer of the human mind." Tomorrow's is on 'Determination', or persistence, perseverance tempered with unconditional love. As I read this...I remembered a term paper I wrote at the age of 24, long before my mother's death, about the scene in Thomas Hardy's "Tess of the D'Urbervilles" where Tess finds so many pheasants suffering in the boughs of a tree and beneath it; they are dying from injuries to grave to remedy from the callous wounds inflicted by hunters for sport. Tess, in her misery, feeling forsaken and helpless, rises to the occasion to avert their misery and break the necks of as many as she can...averting their agony further. I titled my paper: "The Compassion to Persevere".
Not only am I crying because of the memory of writing that paper, but for three other reasons. One, a cruel man from my past tried to steal that paper, the one I received an A+ for...but he did not succeed! Secondly, in Sadhana Singh's book he talks about the acting workshops he took using Stanislav's method acting, where, in a particular class they had two actors model Michelangelo's Pieta...the process of watching them assume this posture, literally an 'asana', a seat, a pose...became a transcendental expression of grace, determination, love & tears, and surrender for each person present; they were left speechless and in utter awe...
Lastly, a student of mine, Catholic and also Haitian, with a love for the goddess Erzulie, is reading this book at my recommendation. It is about accepting the challenge to face our deepest insecurities and surrender it all up to God, in whatever tradition, not just Christian, not necessarily Sikh, or Jewish, or Muslim or Hindu or anything else...just about surrender...true surrender that only comes with love, unconditional love...and with tears. Love & Tears. Surrender. The name of my perfume.
God certainly does work in mysterious ways...some of them heartbreakingly, neck-breakingly painful (like my cervical injuries could have been without grace), and some of them with a little chuckle at the 'pun' made on the name of that perfume I love...knowing that God is a punster like my dear Father allows me to relax and rejoice in the uncertainty of tomorrow and the grace of yesterday. I surrender to the Divine. Show me the way...
I will sit in my posture in Bound Lotus too...remembering this:
duyee kudrat saajee-ai kar aasan ditho chaa-o...
God sat in a posture to see the graceful happiness of Himself in His Creation. The words of Guru Nanak. The 1st Sikh Guru.
"The impact, sound, and flow of water breaking on a rock is different from that of waves breaking on a sandy shore. Rock will take a very long time to be carved and smoothed down by the sea. Part of it will become sand, and in a very long process, it will learn to let itself be run over by the sea. In the same way, man will learn to let himself be run over by the Divine." ~ Sadhana Singh
St. Therese of Liseaux is holding space in my heart right now. The saint upon whose tomb Edith Piaf prayed at the age of 6 to receive the miracle of sight after having been blind from age 4. Edith remained a devotee of 'The Little Flower' for the rest of her life. Her song "La Vie en Rose" has been playing in my head and in my classes for weeks now. And St. Therese? Someone told me once that she saw her hovering around me...that would explain the way, when at my wit's end, I have found the Determination & the Compassion to Persevere against seemingly insurmountable odds.
I posted this commentary on Facebook as well as mentioning this:
Thank you for taking the time out of your busy weekends to share in this experience of deep surrender for me...I'm still going through it. It involves a lot of painful as well as joyful tears. I am grateful for everyone's presence here. I am still so much in my ego though, that the refusal of some to take the time to read this hurts me immensely. I will get over it however, as it is part of the huge lesson that I am being given: respecting what people are able to give, accepting when they are not able to give.
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