Churning

There was a cyclone where I live recently. It felt like natures representation of what is happening in the world right now – a churning on a mass scale.

In Indian mythology, there is a story where the asuras (demonic forces) and the devis and devas (divine forces) were churning the milky ocean, looking for the amrita (the nectar of immortality). As they began churning the ocean, wonderful things began to appear, but as they continued churning, a poison rose up to the surface.

I feel this churning and see this “poison” rising to the surface both in my personal life and in the world around me. I feel like I have uttered the phrase “wow, I never thought that would happen” more times in the last six months than I have in my whole life! Maybe you can relate?

In the story, Shiva skilfully drank the poison and held it in his throat, so that it didn’t destroy the whole world (that is why Shiva has a blue throat).  It is only because Shiva did this that they could continue to churn the milky ocean, searching for the nectar.

Sometimes when “bad” things happen, we can think that they are happening to us, or that there is something wrong with us, or we place blame outside of us, or we get so caught up in our emotions that they consume us, and we can’t see past the bad experience.

Rather than labelling these experiences as “bad”, yoga says that there are lessons that we each need to learn in this lifetime (karma). If we can hold our experiences and learn the lessons, we burn the karma. Burning the karma leads to freedom. If we don’t learn the lesson, we will find ourselves in similar situations over and over again, until we do. 

Sometimes this can feel harsh, so we need to remember that there is a force that is bigger than us and is also within us (the Divine, the Infinite, the Universal Soul, whatever you want to call it). The Divine loves us so much, like a cosmic mother that wants only the best for her divine child – she wants us to be free. And her love for us is so great, she wants us to experience freedom so much, that she gives us experiences, blessings we might call them, so that we can learn the lessons that we were put on this earth to learn and set ourselves free. And if we don’t learn the lesson the first time (and often we don’t!), out of her love for us, she gives us another experience – another opportunity to learn the lessons of our soul.

In these times, I think we need to be more like Shiva - we need to hold what is happening in our lives and in the world (and all of the feelings and emotions that come with this), without letting these experiences destroy us, so that we can keep churning our inner world and our inner nectar can be revealed.

One way to do this is though practices like meditation and yoga nidra, coupled with self-inquiry. We can ask ourselves questions like these:

• What inside of me is churning?

• What support do I need to give myself, and what support do I need from others, so that I can hold this experience with loving presence?

• What is the lesson that this experience is teaching me? Where else in my life is this lesson showing up? What are the lessons I am tired of learning?

• What do I need to let go of? Or, what within me is dying? What within me is being born?

• How can I allow this experience to break my heart, not in two, but wide open? How can I open to this experience as a way of opening to something bigger than me?

• What within me has changed since the last similar experience? What is this repeated “bad” experience showing me that I have already healed? How can I meet this experience in a different way this time?

• What is the purpose of my life? Or, what does my soul want my life to be about? How can I use the lesson from this experience in service of the purpose of my soul?

• How can I share my light?

In my experience, I am only given what I have the capacity to hold. As I continue to practice and expand my capacity, things that were once hidden are being revealed. And because I am prepared to receive them, I can meet experiences that previously would have destroyed me in a different way - with more calm and love and grace.

My “dark” experiences (even the ones that have felt utterly devastating) have always come with whispers of wisdom, if I am still and quiet and open enough to listen. They have come with many lessons, some painful, some beautiful, some I have forgotten and will need to learn again. They continue to teach me how to let go of that which is no longer mine to hold (which I think is the secret to happiness) and they have the power to show me what within me I have already healed. They always lead to more beauty and joy and devotion in my life (even if it takes a while to get there). They teach me that I need to be able to hold the darkness in order to be able to hold the light. And they continually remind me of the beauty of the Divine play of concealment and revealment.