~From BJ's blog~
Freedom is the difference between being a victim or being empowered. Ultimately, it is a choice, on some deep level, no matter what the circumstance. The highest teaching of Anusara yoga is the first principle, ‘Open to Grace’. It means, ‘open to whatever Life is presenting you in this moment’, which sometimes has to include bad, crummy stuff we don’t like or want. That takes courage. The courage to engage your heart, having fear, and facing the scary, unknown anyway. It means open to ‘what is. The tantric teachings call it the ‘yes’, no matter what, and then the empowered yogi looks for and acts in the highest way that enhances the greater flow of Life.
Freedom is your intrinsic nature. “You are not a bound being seeking freedom, you are free being, free to choose to whom and what and how you bind yourself to.” –Douglas Brooks. The contemplation reveals an opportunity of empowerment in life as opposed to living as a victim of your own story. Free to choose to bind yourself, and create attachments. Attachments that serve the whole cycle of Life are the ones you want to make. You are free to choose your mate, choose your job, your home, choose how you spend money, what vehicle, kids or not, adopt or not, what you do with your time, energy and money, what ideas and beliefs you hold, the people you hang out with, pretty much everything. Or do you have a story of being held captive by attachments to your partner, your career, finances, your friends, possessions, your past? This is a big contemplation, attachment vs. freedom. Will the story of your life, your myth, be one of victim or one of the empowered hero?
Click to watch "Sobrevivientes del Holocausto : Alice Herz-Sommer, de 109 años - 109 Yr Old Holocaust Survivor"
Victor Frankel, holocaust survivor, author of Man’s Search for Meaning, talks about the way he survived because ‘they’ couldn’t imprison his heart and mind. While physically he was imprisoned, he was free in his heart and mind. He was ‘free’ to search out the beauty in the iris of the dead fish head served to him in a bowl of dirty water as dinner, and he was grateful. When Annie Herz-Sommer, the oldest surviving holocaust survivor, was recently asked what her secret of life is, she answered, “Optimism, and looking for the good. I see beauty everywhere. I know about the bad things, but I look for the good things.” 109 ys Holocaust Survivor. If anyone has earned the right to hold the ‘victim’ story it would be both these great beings, and yet they consciously actively chose to look for beauty, look for the good when things were bad, bad, bad!!! And the greatest part of these stories, is there is gratitude. Gratitude for life, gratitude for the blessing of the challenge. There isn’t a denial of the bad, or pushing it away, it is a free choice to actively affirm good, beauty, what IS life affirming of the whole cycle of life.
Yoga’s boons are tools for empowered living. With practice, you learn you have a choice and you learn how to choose. You learn you are free to look for, to actively seek an opening, an opportunity, the good, the interconnectedness underlying everything and all experience. Easy when life gives the good stuff, the happy, happy, joy, joy. Looking for the Highest, or ‘good’ isn’t denying or ignoring horrible, demonic evil actions being chosen in the world. There is NO way to explain away hideous evil choices people make and do to others, especially if you have been in the path of anything atrocious. Most everyone has experienced some degree of being on the receiving end of someone else choosing to do harm and create suffering. You are a free being, free to choose, the bad news is, so is everyone else. Unfortunately, there are people whose hearts are so blocked from their connection to the Divine and each other, they do ugly things to each other and our planet. This is where empowerment and freedom of the heart and mind are challenged. Ultimately, the response, what you do with tragedy, is the juncture between empowerment or victimhood.
The yoga is to look for and make the Universal connection in any experience. The empowered freedom of choice is how you consciously respond to and contribute to the world, no matter what. What will you do with your experiences? How will you show up? Can you be grateful for even the challenging hard parts of life? Will your thought, word and deed create more freedom, beauty, love and light ,…or not? Every breath, every moment is another opportunity exercise your free will of choice. You are a free being, free to choose how you receive Life, all of it’s experiences and happenings, how you move in the world, what you think, say, and do. You will make a difference.
