At Home In Your Body

    

It is incombent upon you to make your home as comfortable, as beautiful, as possible.- Maharaji 

 

Do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit, who is in you, whom you have received from God?- 1st Corinthians 6:19

 

You don’t have a soul. You are a Soul. You have a body. ~C.S. Lewis

 

To keep the body in good health is a duty, otherwise we shall not be able to keep our mind strong and clear. ~Buddha

There is more wisdom in your body than in your deepest philosophies. ~Friedrich 

Nietzsche

 

Your body is your home.  It is your duty to care for it.  Seek out the spark of the Divine and make that your companion, everything else will fall into place… These are the words I heard from Prem Rawat, also know as Maharaji, via a dvd at an event this last weekend at One Yoga Planet over in Ft. Pierce.

 

My friend and tribesman, Boston based DJ High-Fi (aka Ian Hyman), was mixing some killer live tunes while we sweat it out to the stylings of Margarita Tree.  After, there was a lovely mixer and a presentation on the teachings of Mharaji in which it was shared that, “…what you are looking for is within.  Your truth is within, your peace is within…”

 

It comes at a time when I am musing over the first chakra in preparation for a three part Chakra Immersion I am hosting over at Living Yoga at the end of this month.  The Root Chakra, Muladhara, is the seat of Ganesh and is located at the base of the spine.  The keys words are To Be.  

 

This has got me thinking about Embodiment.  

 

What does it mean to be embodied?  For me it is an intimate connection with what is going on in my primary relationship (my self) and the information that I can gleam from her (feelings) and the adjustments I need or wish to make on any given day.

 

Some days it means I need to take it easy, some days I need to get my butt up off the couch and hit the bridges on my shinny new Cannondale, and other days it means sitting in stillness and allowing the divinity within the opportunity to be heard.  

 

Taking care of the body temple, our original and only life long partner, can leave us overwhelmed.  It is important therefore to take it a step at a time.  Did you drink enough water?  Are you choosing fuel (food) that will support you?  Is there room to treat yourself with a little more dignity and respect?  The root energy is the primary force of our grounding, security, and survival.  If we are experiencing imbalance at our base, the entire system is out of whack.

 

Until you believe that you are in creative control of your life you may fall prey to feelings of loneliness, static energy, insecurity, fear, pain, and frustration.  A balanced system on the other hand sets us up for success in manifesting what we desire and brings us into a state of peace and calm.

 

Over the past few years I have been experiencing these pains in my body.  They shift around as I ply myself with massage, accupunture, and yoga… though as I said, these pains have simply been moving around.  They’ve set up camp at one end of my long legs, moved over to my shoulders for a bit, and recently there have been some protest from my hips and my jaw.  It was not until I got serious about these instabilities, this imbalance, that I was able to ferret out the base causes and deal with them in a direct manner.  In fact, I have whittled down the list of complaints to two: both of which manifest in the body and in my emotional landscape.  

 

It is not always a cake-walk when it comes to dealing with issues head on, especially body issues.  I do believe however that this is one of the powerful lessons our yoga practice teaches us.  We must be willing to get real honest with what we are experiencing in order to evaluate the situation and make decisions based on a complete set of information.  If we are disconnected with what is going on right in our very own lap, it is unlikely that what is going on around us is going to offer us much satisfaction.

 

One thing is for sure, if you take a moment or two to get in touch with what is actually happening then you are far more likely to make adjustments that will have a positive long term impact.  It is important that we treat ourselves with care and compassion, that we feed ourselves with nourishing food, that we stay hydrated, that we move around and keep our muscles and joints lubricated.

It is just as important to take time and massage our own two feet, without whom life would be significantly more difficult.  If we refuse to care for our vehicle we will run out of time to do the things that we wish for in our life and in the mean time we make the whole process one fraught with self imposed limitations.

 

All of the issues that you are dealing with in your daily meanderings impact the body.  All of your thoughts impact the body.  The body stores our memories, our emotions, the compliments and ciritisizims of others, and it is what ushers us in and out of this world.  We must be willing to care for our temple.  We must demand from ourselves a higher degree of care and respect.  We must get reconnected and in doing so set ourselves up for profound positive change.  

 

Single steps turn into patterns.  Patterns turn into tapestry.  It is the fabric of our lives that we are daily threading.  Make it one that exposes beauty, joy, balance, and love.

 

The greatest of these is Love…

 

 

Posted by shelleyadelle on January 20, 2010

http://shelleyadelle.wordpress.com/2010/01/20/at-home-in-your-body/