Becoming an Instrument for Life

The toughest thing in life

is momentum.

Something can be absolutely life-changing for us,
but we are always coming up against
our own habitual patterning,
which might be going the other way.

Anyone who has walked a path
of dedication and discipline,
one that is designed to take us
into greater freedom,
knows this.

This is why anyone walking the path
has a deep amount of respect
for anyone else walking the path,
because they know what it takes.

In the early days of our practice
it is especially noticeable.

You are in no doubt by the end
of each sadhana session
that it is working,
but then the world kicks in,
and with it comes our mind
and all our own ways of doing things.

They begin to re-cloud everything over,
they put dust back on the surface
of the mirror,
so we have to keep dusting the mirror.

This is true at the beginning,
but it is also ongoing.
Yoga is something
that you just do anyway,
regardless of the conditions.

I remember when it became
non-negotiable for me.
You must know it in yourself.
It isn’t down to the conditions,
the weather,
the bodily or mental state.
It is just the path you are walking.

Even if I sit on my cushion
and sob for an hour,
I still consider that a practice.
The important thing is
I made it to my dedicated space.

The act of doing it anyway
is the single biggest step
to mastering the mind.
To show the mind
that you will do something
no matter what,
regardless of what it throws up
as an alternative,
means that it will start to quieten down.

It sees that you are starting
to make your own choices.
Then the mind becomes more humble.

Gradually that same mind
that tried to distract you,
or shame you,
or whatever it does,
will come into absolute awe of you.

That is a good mind.

---

Krishna in the Bhagavad Gita says:
“your mind can be your best friend
or your worst enemy.”

You simply have to turn it
into your best friend,
and a friend is one
who respects you.

It is not easy walking a path
that is designed to take us
all the way to full illumination
and mastery.

In our tradition,
if you take it back before this period
of modernity,
taking on yoga as an actual life discipline
was considered to be
a monumental event in someone’s life.

It was a decision
to walk the path home.

It was a decision
to become rooted in the Heart
and to become Love on earth.

A path that takes you there
will test you down to your roots.

There would be great respect shown
to those who were on the path
for this reason.

In India everyone knew
what the path was about,
and so massive respect was shown
to those walking it.

Yoga has become
what it has become in the West,
and even in India
it has become something other
than what it originally was.

But it will always be what it is here,
because we are duty bound to Guruji
to keep it real and true,
and not just a way
to get more flexible.

---

We are transforming ourselves
on every level.

When you enter dynamic stillness
you become super susceptible
to suggestions that you put
into that space.

One possibility
is to suggest instrumentality.

The basic idea is this:

if you want to have
a fulfilled existence,
you are going to have to live it
in a certain way.

If you live it for yourself,
even if you create
a seemingly perfect life,
still you will not be satisfied.

Never in the history of humankind
has that fulfilled anyone,
because it is rotating around
something so small.

That is not our nature.
Our nature is expansive.
It is totality.

So even if I make
this little thing perfect,
it is sat in something enormous
that simply makes it insignificant.

Living life for others
also won’t do it.

Only living for Life
will fulfil you,
because Life is the whole thing.

If you live for Life
then you are in totality,
and that has the potential
to fulfil your soul.

---

What does it mean
to live for Life?

It is the ability,
in any given situation,
to soften into the experience,
to relax the body,
the mind,
and the personality structure.

It means letting go
of assumptions, fear, judgement,
letting go of the ‘me’,
and dropping deeper than the personality
into the energy inside our bodies,
which is Life itself.

From there we ask,
”what will you have me do?”
How can I serve the energy
in this situation to flow?

You would have already served it,
because you already relaxed your ‘you’.

That immediately puts you in service
of something bigger than ‘you’.

If I’m sitting here with you right now
and I have a very strong desire
about how I want it to go,
I cannot be in service.

I can only be in service
if I have dropped
all my personal desires
and can speak to you
from the Heart of myself.
Then I may be of some use.

---

Our ability to drop ourselves
brings us into service of Life,
and the yogis said
that was a life worth living.

This is where instrumentality comes in.

Just consider yourself
to be an instrument of Life.
Not a ‘you’ having a life,
but an instrument
through which Life flows.

Your job is to keep your instrument
as open and unlocked as possible,
like a flute.

Imagine trying to play
a solid flute.
That is like trying
to play an ego.

Hollow that flute out.
Empty yourself through.
Drop all assumptions and thinking
and become absolutely present.

You can do it right now.
Go on, do it.

Now you are an instrument.
That is how it works.

---

The meditations we do leave residue.
The messages we drop
gradually replace the old psychology.

They start to open us up
to a different way of seeing,
and before long the body
starts acting in accordance
with the messages it has been receiving
on a regular basis.

Our bodies are behaving
according to the information
we have stored in our minds
about them and about life.
They literally shape that way,
which means they can be reshaped.

I see bodies change all the time,
sometimes in a matter of moments.

One of the great discoveries
is that in order for Life
to make something magnificent
happen through us,
we have to do next to nothing.
In fact, the less we do,
the more it does.

When we stop doing Life,
Life starts doing us.
It will love through us
with an infinite capacity to love,
unlike our ‘me’,
which has preferences and conditions.

The ‘me’ is always going to be limited,
but Life is not.

Our ‘me’s’ think they know a lot,
but it is the equivalent
of a teaspoon
in an infinite library of wisdom.

It is better to acknowledge
that we are ignorant,
but that Life knows everything
about Life
and is knowing through us.

We can try to serve
from our small selves,
but that is nothing compared
to how Life would serve
if we simply got out of the way.

It would serve appropriately
and perfectly
in every situation
if we have no personal motivation
clouding the moment.
It will simply give to itself.

In other words,
it can run your whole show for you.

---

When our relationship to Life
becomes like this,
it becomes blissful.

From our non-doership
we can rest back
and witness the extraordinary way
Life operates through us.

We gradually fade
into the background as an ego,
and Life comes into the foreground.

It will show us
everything we ever need to know
and everything we can be,
but we have to remove ourselves
from the equation.

The idea is to prove this
to yourself unequivocally,
until it is simply self-evident
and you can’t deny it anymore.

---

The postures are one of the best places
to prove this.

If you stop trying to do them,
drop all ideas
about where the posture is going,
and simply invite the body
to join the breath,
there will be perfection,
fulfilment,
and joy.

Even in stiffness and resistance
it will be joyful.

The less you do,
the more It will do,
and the more it will wow you.
Then the less you will care
about where it is taking you.

---

How much time do we spend
wondering about where our lives are going?
The percentages are enormous.

We worry about it almost constantly.
We spend huge portions of our existence
trying to figure out where it’s going
before it gets there,
and we have absolutely no hope
of doing it.

It is impossible.
You cannot know the next second.

We discover in the posture
that we don’t need to worry
about where it is going.
We simply go,
and Life starts unfolding.

It is bound to be brilliant
if we let it be so.

If we don’t discover this,
we will miss it,
and Life will be saying,
“Well, I did have something
absolutely awesome planned for you,
but you insisted on doing your own thing.”

There is no judgement from Life.
It is ready to step in
any time you let it.

Surrender makes such sense
when you look at it like this.

But who will do it?

You?