02/12/2024
State Cultivation
When I was in India I had a bit of a revelation. It was one of those ah-ha moments that very quickly turned into a “um…duh” moment. It’s kind of obvious now that I see it, but maybe you, like me, missed this one too.
Yoga is about state cultivation.
I was sitting in the little temple where Shaligram Swami took living samadhi in 1961. He was just just 40. He was a main disciple of Bhagawan Nityananda. When he knew his master was not long for the earth, he volunteered to go ahead before him and went into meditation in his tomb. It’s a VERY powerful place.
I was just there last week, meditating and praying and I had an insight. I realized that when it comes down to it, our state is what it’s all about. It’s kind of obvious and not a new thing for me to know, but something sank in deeper. Something for me as a teacher guiding my work.
It’s all about state cultivation.
The teachings tell us and our practice shows us that the Soul, the Atman, our innermost Essence is already perfect and divine. It’s our bodies, minds, and lives that need repair and maintenance. But for what?
I would say that the various yogas we do for our bodies minds and lives are for the sake of cultivating our state.
State is an imperfect word of course for what we’re talking about.
Definition of the word “state”: the particular condition that someone or something is in at a specific time. "the state of the company's finances"
So our body, mind, and life are always cycling through different states. But that’s not what Shaligram Swami was telling me about. For us yogis and wannabe yogis, cultivating our state is about cultivating these body-mind life elements in such a way that we can be in direct experiential contact with the Divine Essence beneath/beyond them.
�Like a sunrise behind an early summer tree on a windy day, the light shines through cracks between the dancing leaves, and shines through and illumines the translucent leaves.
Obvious maybe, but take that in.
(Of course, it’s only because the sun’s existence that we can see the tree at all or that it exists in the first place, but that’s a whole other non-dual level. But let’s stay with the metaphor of the sun being somewhat blocked by the leaves.)
We work with our bodies minds and lives (this includes emotions of course) to help them be “translucent”. We do our practices for this purpose, but also to “blow the wind” - so to speak. We move the leaves so that we can see through the cracks and establish that direct connection.
So, our state, in this sense, is the extent to which we can see and experience the sun of the Divine through the matter of the world, first and foremost through our bodies minds and lives (which are part of the material world).
These are all words made of pixels on a digital screen. This whole thing is way more juicy than I can ever convey here.
There’s another state cultivation practice known as Bhavana which I will save for another time… but for now that’s a taste of what’s coming back from retreat.
