Universal Reminders

I wonder if anyone still reads my blogs; student friends and "civilians" alike! ... this since I have not been the best about being regular... it is my intention to become anew in this way so that I can keep that connection to you all!

So you know how you think about someone "randomly" (no such thing!), maybe a few times and then what seems to be "out of nowhere" (no such thing!) you hear from them or discover that something was going on in their life and you seemed to have "felt" them in this way? In a similar situation, sometimes we get "notes" or ,to use a wonderful wonderful wonderful phrase from the amazing http://www.tut.com/ (subscribe, after reading this blog that is :), "messages from the Universe" to pursue something- be it a phone call to an old friend, a new job, new location or in this particular case, a book.

It had crossed what seemed to be an everyday experience that  I should check out this book and then someone else mentioned it and then a 3rd time when I finally said "OK OK!"...

Said book? Eat Pray Love.

I could blog commentary of my own for every "bead" of this book but I will spare you comparing my life experiences (the last few years in particular up to this very moment) to the fact that from the start of the very first few pages, I felt as though I was about to read another version, albeit not the same but perhaps similar to my own experiences, of my life. What prompted me to blog about this was 1) something that I read the other day that referenced the sacred Bhagavad Gita, which I have read, love very much, and plan to reread several times over (it's all in the translation you choose!). I smiled, paused and have not stopped thinking about this passage in particular since coming across it in this memoir because it is simply the most memorable and most profound passage I connected with during my first run in reading this gift from India.

"It is better to live your own destiny imperfectly than to live an imitation of somebody else's life with perfection."

I think so deeply about this passage remember the words of Krishna who represents the divinity that is God in the Gita as he shares these words with Arjuna, his fellow man. It is the destiny of Arjuna to be a warrior prince, even when it means that he is battling with his own blood- but it's symbolic to the internal and perhaps ETERNAL battle that is life and the experiences of. Far better to die being the warrior prince, living his Sva Dharma, than it would be to become a shoe salesman who lives to be 120.

I started to think about some of the desires of my own human experience such as becoming a mother. Who knows if it's in MY Dharma to mother in THIS way or not. If you asked me today I would say that its something that I feel like I want and need to experience especially being that I lost my own mother at a young age due to tragedy and am starting to feel that I want this full circle experience. This passage reminds me that we all have a purpose and that purpose looks different through each set of eyes and certainly looks different as it comes to fruition. So while I feel this desire begin to rise within me, I find peace through this passage that it all unfolds as it is meant to, in the time in which it is meant to, if it's meant to at all.

2) (the second reason that I was moved to blog about said book)... Just finishing up the first trimester (no pun intended here) of this book, I read these words which struck another chord:

"... when you sense a faint potentiality for happiness after such dark times you must grab onto the ankles of that happiness and not let go until it grabs you face-first out of the dirt - this is not selfishness but obligation. You were given life, it is your duty (and also your entitlement as a human being) to find something beautiful within life, no matter how slight."

Later, the Author goes on to write...

"I did not know yet what I deserved. I still maybe don't fully know what I deserve. But I do know that I have collected myself as of late-through the enjoyment of harmless pleasure-into somebody much more intact. The easiest, most fundamentally human way to say it is that I have put on weight. I exist more now that I did four months ago. I will leave Italy noticeably bigger than when I arrived here. And I will leave with the hope that the expansion of one person- the magnification of one life- is indeed an act of worth in this world. Even if that life, just this one time, happeens to be nobody's but my own."

ahhhh just so fundamentally beautiful and liberating on so many levels. It is our right to find beauty within our own life. Beauty within vulnerability, beauty within acceptance of ourselves (our bodies, our own dharma path, or own experiences owning them as such) and all while having a belief and a deep understanding that we exist on a far deeper, more grand level than that of our bodies, our roles in life, our name.  An understanding that there is even a slight possibility that we deserve so much more than what we give ourselves credit for deserving, that it is our human obligation to want the very best for ourselves- this without greed, and with the best interest in mind for all involved.

I keep my own teacher's words close to heart in that we should find the teacher in all thing. In my case, this time, it happens to be in the calling and Universal reminder that spoke to me through a memoir. I wish to be more and more open to seeing the teacher and being witness to the lesson each and every time.

A Note from the Universe ^sm...

You are creation's
first and last chance... to be you.
Just as you are today.
That's all you have to be.

Bask. It's more than enough.

©www.tut.com

May All Beings Be Happy.

Sanieh
www.saniehyoga.com