T/F Weekend in Columbia, MO

Richard and I got in town friday afternoon, bought tickets for our first documentary, and ate ice cream at Sparky's. It was good, so we manned up and ate some more. Realizing we were missing the parade, we ran up the street to say hi to Ann Mehr and join it.



We bumped into Floppy at the parade. He was all decked out to play bike polo.



We enjoyed being house guests at the Mehr's.



We got coffee with Ken, who I was really glad to see. Here he is schooling Richard on Patanjali.

true/false weekend

I am going to talk about something I see
only because I see it in myself, not because it is true.
I don't know what true means anyway.

I notice a tendency for some to get involved in yoga because it brings them in touch with themselves. I will not analyze why or how. But in the beginning this is not a very sober event. You see What the Bleep and read some Deepak, and all of a sudden there is this idea that anything is possible, and there is such excitement around this and liberation.

However, the difference between liberation as an idea and liberation as a path are two very different things. There is this idea that once liberation is identified, it should be easy to liberate, but again, the idea realm only is part of the body, and we cannot grow through ideas alone. The path travels through the body, maybe then the person does a back bend in a yoga class and has a heart opening, maybe they cry, maybe they see an experience and let go of it. This is it, they think, all of this suffering can be released through my body. I should be a yoga teacher.

Places like the Kripalu Center are full of people like this in their teacher trainings, it seems this way to me anyway. They are all high on light right now and that's great, but I feel like shit right now and to see them running around so light makes me a little sick. I shouldn't be so judgemental--maybe they have dwelled in the darkness in their spiritual practice. Or maybe they don't need to on their paths.

I guess what I am saying is that there are no easy answers. And it seems like you would have to be kidding yourself to be a teacher when you are still on the early stages of this path-less path. Maybe it is part of the path. They are probably just fine. It just sucks to be dwelling in my shit right now and see people running around high on light because they haven't looked at their darkness lately. And of course, that's not really what is happening--that's me seeing myself in something I project to be happening. Nothing is really happening is it?

Nothing really would have to happen for me to abolish my suffering. What's there already isn't the question, it's what is getting in the way of what's there already and the job for me lately seems to be something of a detective.

I have spent so much time in my life not owning the behaviors and views I have had that have been limiting myself, and now they are confronting me headfirst.

I don't think that I still should necessarily be with Derrick, and I don't think that I was blaming him for any of my problems when I ended things in September. I believe the tone was 'I need to learn about myself, and I can't do that in the context of a relationship". I still stand by that. But I saw him last saturday for the first time since then and it was hard in terms of me owning all the little problems I had with 'the relationship' and realizing that actually they were really just little problems that I had with myself. It was hard seeing him seeming well adjusted and moving on with his life. And me feeling like I'm so face to face with my darkness right now. I had to watch my ego wanting to be 'wanted', I had to watch my ego be 'jealous', I had to watch my ego wanting 'superiority' to gain control over the situation. I didn't let any of that happen, i just let myself feel the hurt. I felt coldness in a place that used to feel warm, and emptiness in a place that used to feel full. It sucked.

I know I'm being hard on myself, and I'll take it easy, but this is just where I am right now. It's also hard because I know there is some perfection to what is right now, but it's doesn't make me feel 'light' or like a 'winner' which is perhaps what I may have used to expect back in my What the Bleep stage of spirituality when I thought about 'divine perfection'. This just makes me feel the finality of 'myself' and it is incredibly sobering.

There is also some self-hatred present which makes my path of learning how to love myself even more of a challenge. But self love is my goal, so I have to rise up to find it even more at this time as much as ever.