It's All Grace

The more I explore it the more clearly I recognize that the ordinary and the extraordinary in my life are not separate threads intersecting at magical points but rather that everything is at once both ordinary and extraordinary. My perception of my experiences and the world around me seems to be determined by my state of awareness/consciousness/openness at any given moment.

I used to think Grace Happens. It now seems to me that when all the obstructions and false notions of my sense of “I” and of who “I” am are suspended, I am Presence itself and from that vantage, it’s all Grace.

I love how Ramana Maharshi, the beloved Indian sage explained Grace:
“God’s Grace is the beginning, the middle and the end. When you pray for God’s Grace, you are like someone standing neck-deep in water and yet crying for water. It is like saying that someone neck-deep in water feels thirsty, or that a fish in water feels thirsty, or that water feels thirsty.”

I am in my head a lot. I’m wired that way. On the enneagram, I am an intellectual type. That makes sense to me. (I write, therefore I am...) I think one reason yoga has always felt like such a life raft to me is that it saves me from myself.

Returning to the mat, I let the asanas take the lead. Without a program or plan, I simply nudge my body into this or that gentle stretch. Conscious of my breath’s response to increased sensation, I patiently watch, listen, wait for my next shift to present itself. I let all parts of me be heard, felt, acknowledged.

Ofttimes it happens instantaneously; that sense of wholeness, completeness and balance returns and I am fully alive again. Once that happens, it is easy to stay in the flow of the practice for... well, since I’ve just stepped out of time, there’s no telling how long I’ll be there. Whatever the actual time-measurement, it’ll be “just right”.

With a regular practice it gets easier to tell when there is an imbalance. Like a delicate scale that tips with the slightest addition or subtraction, distraction or neglect, my body, mind, and spirit all want to be balanced for optimum life experience. When they are out of sync, it feels like I’m in a cloud, or like life is racing by and I’m missing it, or like there is something wrong with the life around and in me.

Returning to the mat, is returning to the heart, to the spirit, to the beauty and truth and wholeness of life. Returning to my practices is merely a stepping across the threshold, back to my Self.