A Formula for Spiritual Growth
16 10 2009Deity Practice, then, can do two things: It not only can confront the things that I’m used to paying attention to, but it can also open me up to new possibilities of awareness. In the last two recordings, we’ve talked about these different dimensions. Hopefully Deity Yoga presents a clearer look at how this happens, becauseas we’ve said beforeif I’m seeing myself victimized by circumstances, then what I’m seeing in my world are circumstances that are going to victimize me.
So, the first step is to see this and to say, “Whoah.” “I’m selecting circumstances that are going to create a cause for me to rise up in righteous strength to defend.” The first step is to recognize that we do this. I need to recognize that I do this, and the Deity Practice can actually show that to me because it’s a different pattern. It’s confronting all those patterns by introducing something entirely different.
In fact, Deity Yoga is using all the techniques that we use to be victimized, but it opens the door to other possibilities. It opens the door to a sense of Wholeness in our lives, a sense of Continuum of the Flow, and a sense of Divine Change happening.
Let’s think of the ideal mother and child relationship, where the child is this very rapidly growing being. Ideally, the mother is there nurturing, supporting, introducing new ideas, and all these wonderful things. It’s an environment of ease, security, support, and nurturance: a classic, natural Formula for Growth.
What we’re talking about today is this first step, which is realizing how much I use circumstances outside of myself to bring into being the strength, certainty, or clarity of who I am. This is a very, very important thing to begin to realize, because we’re always praising and blaming exterior circumstances for things going right or things going wrong. As I said before, we even have a saying within our culture, that the circumstances make the hero. It’s important to recognize that I’m selecting out of the inventory of circumstance, this circumstance here, this one over here, and this one over here, and stringing those together to say that there is a causal relationship precipitating what happens in my life.
Yogi Sean is the student of Swami Ramananda and a principle officer of the Sadhana Society.
Categories : Religion Parlor, Self Improvement, The New Age Way
