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Friday, October 16, 2009

Offering it up




Today I am leaving Kripalu, and I had a revelation about offering ones experience to God or higher power or nature or the universe or whatever expression of that which is larger than us as individuals that works for someone... I've been familliar with the concept for a while but it never felt right. Why would I offer stuff I really don't want or like to the divine? Isn't that disrespectful? And then with stuff I really like I'm usually too busy enjoying whatever it is to even think about anything beyond myself.

Well, today I saw it differently. Some things easily pass through ones experience. Those things are not an issue, emotionally. It's the sticky stuff that becomes something problematic in our growth and process of maturation. Offering up the "sticky stuff" allows us to move forward, and basically keep us moving in life. And this moving forward through experience and maturation is important in terms of a "larger plan" or divine plan--if you go for that.

Things that might stick to a person and prevent them from clarity are things like: anger, sloth, sadness, depression, hurt, victim status. I might feel my anger and not like it and deny it and suffer as a result because it's true whether I like it or not. Or, my anger is important to me so I carry it like the carry-on bag I have with me right now. I think that I can't possibly offer this anger to God. When I think in this way I am personalizing a process that is not personal. To me my anger is personal, but to the process of life (another way to conceptualize divinity) my anger isn't so personal. In the larger sense of life my anger is just a little blip. It might be like when I look down from the window of this airplane--it's hard to discern where one cloud ends and another begins. There is just anger in experience the way there are clouds in the air. So when I offer up what is blocking me from moving forward, this helps me to align myself with a higher purpose. So it's really good to offer up ones anger, sadness, etc. to God, because the process of life is big enough to handle it. And when we release whatever is blocking us from moving forward with actions stemming from love and compassion it is very good for the larger process of life. We begin to serve something bigger that our individual life story. We can reach out and help and heal. Sound good?


- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

4 comments:

Bob Weisenberg said...

Brooks,

It has been truly wonderful to experience your Kripalu experience vicariously through your daily blogs.

As I have written in previous comments, it is especially meaningful to me because Kripalu has been one of the biggest influences in my own Yoga, even though I've never been there, through Stephen Cope's three books and "Kripalu Yoga--A Guide to Practice On and Off the Mat."

Since that I've read many other things, but Kripalu is the root of my Yoga spirituality. I would even go so far as to say that all my writing in my e-book and blog, YogaDemystified.com is my personal interpretation of Kripalu Yoga, supported and enhanced by my direct reading of the ancient texts.

Your blogs would fit right in with all of Cope's wonderful Kripalu stories in "Yoga and the Quest for the True Self" and "The Wisdom of Yoga". And, as you know, that's a very high compliment.

Thank you.

Bob Weisenberg
YogaDemystified.com

Brooks Hall said...

Thanks, Bob.
Your words mean a lot to me. I hope that you go to Kripalu sometime for a great program.

Laura said...

Sounds exactly right to me. Nicely written...I love your gorgeous fully open hearted camel at the head of you blog. I'm going to add your blog as a link to mine...some of my readers are yoginis and those who aren't will benefit from your wisdom anyway.

namaste,
Laura

Linda-Sama said...

about a year ago I was going thru a deep personal crisis. I went into my yoga room and broke down in front of my altar and literally offered it up. I was screaming and told buddha-shiva-kali that I give everything up, that I give up, that I surrender, that whatever happens to me will happen. to die at that moment would have been OK with me.

it was a quite profound experience.