“The Universe is full of magical things patiently waiting for your senses to refine and being able to receive them”
I received this teaching more than 15 years ago from Douglas Brooks and my vision of yoga radically shifted. Tantric Philosophy took me back home. To a place where I felt I had been dwelling before. To a world of teachings where to be a yogi does not imply to renounce our senses and the world we perceive through them, but where the discipline of the practice (this is no different at all from other yoga traditions) takes us to be more capable to experience everything, inside and outside ourselves, with more depth, with more delight, with more intensity.
This teaching came back this week in my advance studies of Tantra with Paul Muller-Ortega, reminding me how fortunate I am to be part of a linaje of beings that envision the world as the embodiment of the Supreme Intelligence that we call Shakti.
When I talk about TRANSFORMATION (for me one of the keys of our practice) I mean exactly that. To soften sharp edges, to clean layers, to refine skills so our perception can change, can be sharper and more subtle. So simple. So complex. As usual, paradoxical.
When I was studying and working at the Environmental Engineering Department in the University of Cincinnati, USA, the finding in drinking water of certain toxic products that could disguise as hormones inside the body with its consequent health problems became a trending topic. Although the topic was new, the substances were not. They had been always in the water. What had changed was the levels of detection for the new analytical instruments that allowed for the measurement of much lower concentrations than before so these compounds could be detected for the first time. The invitation of Tantra is to refine our detection capacity. The infinite possibilities the Universe offers are ALWAYS there. But we are only able to experience those allowed by our level of consciousness and refinement.
Not sure about you, but I am not content with experiencing life at a superficial level. So I practice yoga, in the multiples shapes it takes. My goal: to refine the senses, to refine the capacities of the mind, to refine the methods of understanding and knowledge, To become more of a human being, more refined, more capable to detect the spark of consciousness that ignites each experience, each object, each thought, each interaction. And able to feel with more and more clarity the essence of love that pulsates in every moment.