The other night in yoga, I had an experience that I will never forget. It’s funny to me that I write so much about the metaphysical, read so much scholarship on the sublime, and seek to find ways of finding those encounters, and yet, when they come to me, I always find myself surprised, delighted, and totally mystified. The yoga studio I attend (www.exploremosaic.com) offers Reiki, and actually, as I type that, I am not even quite sure that Reiki is responsible for what happened the other night, but I offer that up as a potential contributor to the experience.
One of my yoga instructors has this way to challenging students in the perfectly right way. I always push harder, hold for longer, and extend farther than I thought possible. This night was one of those nights. To give some perspective, about once a month I am able to do something in my yoga practice that I wasn’t able to do before. About once a month. This particular night, I pushed myself (per the prodding of the instructor) to do three new things. Three new things in one night! (Note, it is exhilarating to see the physical manifestation of my growth in yoga). By the end of practice, I was physically exhausted.
But let me back up for a second to reflect on one thing. At the beginning of the practice, the instructor went around asking students what they needed. I thought for a moment, and then I answered, “Balance.”
My instructor asked, “Balance, like physical balance, or balance in general.”
Of course my first thought when I blurted out “Balance” was physical balance, as in balancing poses… but as I thought about the question, I realized I was seeking balance in my life.
So at the very end of practice, my instructor came over to me while I was in shavasana, adjusted my shoulders into a state of deeper relaxation, then barely touched my head near my temples before fully gripping the crown of my head. At first, I was a bit uncomfortable (this is only the second time an instructor has ever done this to me, and in both experiences, I tried my best to relax, but, naturally, it makes one slightly self-conscious to feel another person’s presence over your head), but as I breathed in and silenced my thoughts, I was suddenly able to receive the gift. I felt like I was in a Dostoevsky novel. A human being was generously giving me compassion, giving me love, and giving me what I needed… and I was receiving it. At first I thought that it was unsolicited and undeserved. But then I quickly reminded myself that we as human beings are constantly soliciting love and compassion from others, and that this solicitation and willingness to receive is totally deserved. We all deserve to be loved, to receive love from everyone we encounter.
The moment I felt the hands release, I was overwhelmed with emotion. I began to cry and couldn’t stop myself (fortunately, everyone’s eyes were closed until the end of practice, so I was not disruptive to the rest of the class!). At first I wasn’t sure what was happening. The skeptic in me was thinking about my day and reasons why I might be more emotional than usual, but as I left the studio, still wiping my eyes, I realized exactly what occurred in that short yet powerful time. I was completely overcome with emotion—I felt nurtured, cared for, loved. It was glorious and euphoric. It is what I live for. It is what we all live for. Ecstasy.
This same instructor once said that humans so often don’t love people the way they need to be loved. It felt so true. How we hurt one another instead of loving one another. How we fail one another instead of supporting one another. We are designed, we are built, we are here to love one another, and to love ourselves, fully, completely, and without reservation. Imagine if we all lived our lives fully giving love to as many people as we can, fully receiving love from as many people as we can. We would never feel exhausted because the love would be cyclical, recycling itself over and over, flowing in and out of every one of us. Imagine how different our world would be if we all practiced this way of being. How often those moments of ecstasy would overwhelm us. I don’t know that there is anything more beautiful in this world than to love other people. To quote Monsieur Victor Hugo, “To love another person is to see the face of God.”
My instructor asked, “Balance, like physical balance, or balance in general.”
Of course my first thought when I blurted out “Balance” was physical balance, as in balancing poses… but as I thought about the question, I realized I was seeking balance in my life.
So at the very end of practice, my instructor came over to me while I was in shavasana, adjusted my shoulders into a state of deeper relaxation, then barely touched my head near my temples before fully gripping the crown of my head. At first, I was a bit uncomfortable (this is only the second time an instructor has ever done this to me, and in both experiences, I tried my best to relax, but, naturally, it makes one slightly self-conscious to feel another person’s presence over your head), but as I breathed in and silenced my thoughts, I was suddenly able to receive the gift. I felt like I was in a Dostoevsky novel. A human being was generously giving me compassion, giving me love, and giving me what I needed… and I was receiving it. At first I thought that it was unsolicited and undeserved. But then I quickly reminded myself that we as human beings are constantly soliciting love and compassion from others, and that this solicitation and willingness to receive is totally deserved. We all deserve to be loved, to receive love from everyone we encounter.
The moment I felt the hands release, I was overwhelmed with emotion. I began to cry and couldn’t stop myself (fortunately, everyone’s eyes were closed until the end of practice, so I was not disruptive to the rest of the class!). At first I wasn’t sure what was happening. The skeptic in me was thinking about my day and reasons why I might be more emotional than usual, but as I left the studio, still wiping my eyes, I realized exactly what occurred in that short yet powerful time. I was completely overcome with emotion—I felt nurtured, cared for, loved. It was glorious and euphoric. It is what I live for. It is what we all live for. Ecstasy.
So good. I've had several emotional "shavasyna's", there's something about being gentle to yourself after a hard yoga session that unlocks that stuff. But you are right, love is the answer to so much.
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