Creating the Space in Our Life

Nityananda once said that not everybody can be the guru at the same time. Somebody needs to be a disciple. What he meant by that is that each of us is called in our life to a unique experience that is un-comparable to any others. Our experience cannot be judged by promotions or by our financial circumstances. Ultimately, it cannot be judged by any circumstance other than the depth of our connectedness to the power of life itself within us, and the understanding that we have from the depth of that connection about the nature of life itself.

All spiritual practices in every tradition are about making contact with life of our life, and from this contact with the life of our life, understanding what we’re doing here and understanding what life is. This isn’t a cerebral exercise in any way. It’s not about figuring out anything, it’s not about analyzing anything. There is no knowledge to grasp. It is about making contact and holding that contact. It is about making the space within ourselves and the field of our experience for the life of our life to expand and to demonstrate its own rhythm, its own inherent motion and its own natural truth. In this way, because we hold that space, we hold that contact, we simply come to know. There’s nothing to figure out. It’s a knowing that arises out of contact, alignment and flow.

White Picket Fence at the Ocean

CC Photo Courtesy of Shayan on Flickr

Spiritual practice is about clearing all the garbage out of our heads and our hearts, and clearing all the tensions out of our life. For boys, it’s clearing away the boy things, their egos and ambitions, their contests and their triumphs. For girls it’s about getting rid of their girl things—the fence around the nest and so on. It’s about getting rid of all of those things, so that the life of our life has the space to really breathe and to really move, and, in its breath and movement, to teach us. It is not teaching us something intellectual or cerebral at all, but teaching us the feeling to hold in our hearts. It teaches us the space to hold in our minds and the rhythm with which to move in this world that is free of the delusion of accomplishment or acquisition. It establishes us in an unbroken appreciation for the unimaginable possibility that is available and expressing itself in the space that we establish and hold through our practice.

This requires a conscious effort. There’s no pill we can take that’s going to do that for us. There’s no chemical at all. There’s no book we’re going to read that’s going to explain it to us. It’s impossible. It is the conscious effort of making contact with the life of our life and holding that contact in the space of our heart, which should be ever-expanding.
This isn’t so easy because it’s hard to remember for boys to remember that we’re not our boy things. It’s hard. It requires vigilance, and the same is true for girls and their girl things. So, with vigilance, we release tensions and allow our creative energy to flow, and in that flowing it fills the field of our experience with so much richness, beauty and joy it elevates us beyond all of the insanity that permeates the whole planet. And by holding that space, we have the possibility of doing good to others and completely changing the world.

Clearing the junk out of our hearts and minds and the tensions out of our life is not so easy. It takes work, it takes commitment , dedication, and practice, practice, practice. That commitment and dedication and passion for growing and practice, practice, practice through the days of your life will allow the power of life itself within you ever more fully to fill the space of the field of your experience. It will completely release you from all of the entanglements of this life, to become completely established and absorbed in the ultimate truth. That’s the coolest thing we can possibly accomplish in this world, and I hope you do it. The reason that I sit here everyday is to support you in your effort.

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5 Responses to Creating the Space in Our Life

  1. neil says:

    spoken like a True Master !!!! I am grateful for the effort that you put forth for your students !!! A Divine presence and fountain of LOVE and Strength in the world!!

  2. Ivy says:

    thank you Swamiji…I bow to you

  3. Chris says:

    Thank you.

  4. Dr. David W Bailey says:

    I’m pinching some of that a posting………………. Lovely Swami, lovely.

  5. Michael R Olyaie says:

    I am enlightened by your enlightenment.
    i am loved by your love
    i am overtaken by your overtaking
    i am explained by your explanations
    i am found by your findings
    i am talking by your talkings
    i am sweetened by your sweetness
    i am sight by your seeing
    i am hearing by your sound
    i am conscious by your consciousness
    i am aware by your awarness
    i am self by your self
    i am smile by your smile

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