Just Passing Through

We’re playing this funny game of dissolving ourselves
until we are simply Life.

This is the Yogic game.
To become one with everything.
To unify with the great stream of consciousness and Life itself.

The Yogis noticed that we only exist when we resist.
The moment we resist Life, we consolidate and solidify
as something separate.

If I resist a situation
my system self-contracts,
my consciousness becomes gross,
my mind tightens,
my body constricts.
A barrier appears between me and Life.

But if I relax that resistance,
I blend back into Life.
I flow again in the stream.

So: we exist because we resist.
And as we stop resisting,
we cease to exist as something separate.

The Yogis said:
total involvement with Life
is the opposite of total resistance.

To be completely engaged in an experience
renders you obsolete
but makes the experience absolute.

The more you disappear,
the more Life intensifies.
And then it becomes a subtle game.

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There are many ways to feel this.
That’s the key — to feel it,
not just think it.

One way is to see
that everything is passing through you.

Every moment’s experience
is Life moving through in different ways.
Always flowing.

The moment I try to pin something down,
or identify with it,
I create a false reality —
because it’s already gone.

Then I become “past Steve.”
And a good chunk of me is still “past Steve.”
Old experiences lodged in the system,
Becoming what I think I am.

The loosening begins
when you see everything as passing through.
Nothing can stay.

Even if something seems to persist for days,
it’s really a fresh experience of the same movement.
Some things last a second,
some a few days,
but always, always passing.

And they move through faster
if we don’t hold on.

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Recently, some gritty karma came.
It showed up in my body.

A whole muscular contraction —
gut, back, groin,
down the leg into the knee.
A new one!
It peaked at lunch today after a few days.
Now it’s already subsiding.

I could have gone to the chiropractor,
the physio, the doctor.
I’m not telling you not to do any of those remedial things. 
But in my experience,
these things always move through.

So I stayed conscious.
I didn’t identify with it.
“Don’t worry Steve,
you’re feeling 80 years old temporarily.
It’s just passing through.”

Try and grasp this:
karma clears faster.
Old stuff burns quickly
if you don’t contract around it.

Worry is the trap.
“This is happening to me.”
That’s the moment it lodges in.

I joked with Sarah in the polytunnel:
“One day, a karma will come
that takes me with it.
But not today!” Haha.

Until then, it’s good to clear as much as possible.
The body is amazing —
always trying to clear its karmic database.

Everything we have resisted
has lodged as tension.
And the body wants it gone.

Our job is to let it offload.
The best way:
don’t worry about it.

I’m not saying don’t take care of the body.
I take care of the body the best way I can.
But beyond that — don’t worry about it.

Because it is not happening to you anyway.

Nothing is happening to you.
You don’t exist as you think you do.

We make ourselves up
and then get uptight about experiences
that are simply trying to flow through.

That’s the point of asana, of sadhana —
to meet resistances
and let them pass.

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To really clear karma
we have to make it conscious.
Otherwise, it loops endlessly.

Once it’s seen,
once it’s brought into awareness,
you can release it
and let it dissolve back into Life.

That’s karmic processing power.
Your system grows faster.
Your awareness sharper.
Your sadhana stronger.

Certain karmas will still play out
through body, mind, emotion.
That’s sadhana too.

Sometimes Life gives you sadhana directly.
Something arises in the body.
If you meet it rightly,
it becomes just something passing through.

Better to let it finish in this life
than carry it to the next.

And as your instrument grows stronger,
you don’t just burn your own karma.
You take on karma from the environment,
often from those you love.

Our bodies are not as separate as we think.
We share far more than flu.

If both people are conscious,
they can burn through each other’s karmas.
The deeper the love,
the more you burn for each other.

That’s love.
That’s Sangha.

The whole ashram is a karma-burning factory.
Sometimes you won’t know
if it’s yours or someone else’s.
It doesn’t matter.

If it’s moving through your body,
just let it pass through.