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maheswari
Lebanon
2516 Posts |
 Posted - Jan 16 2013 : 01:53:37 AM
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i m not sure of if this has to be posted here...
for many years now i have been teaching asanas...i never plan my classes..i just feel how the students are feeling and then spntaneously the suitable flow of asanas come to me..so at the end of the class i always feel that i did not really teach, the flow was happening by itself and i was just a channel
but lately when teaching i m feeling totally empty, non existent, see through,terribly silent and terribly empty
i find myself saying: dont these students see how much i am empty and silent? what are they doing here? i can not help/give them anything!
i also feel that the students are empty and that those classes are futile
yet i am in that class and it is my duty to teach so i ask Him to give me the strenght to teach the class very well cause this is what the students want!!it may be totally empty but this what the students are asking for and they are happy about it!!
the classes are still very good ...and after the class the students and i always feel good and happy...yet there is a change in perception....dont know really what it is |
Edited by - maheswari on Jan 16 2013 01:55:21 AM |
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Ananda
3115 Posts |
Posted - Jan 16 2013 : 02:12:20 AM
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Somehow i don't see this as an enlightenment milestone.. But on of the advaita traps or one of the pitfalls along the way.
Dear yes, i agree we are not thus the emptiness... It's Him only that is. God or truth ect. By any name you see fit.
Best to do in this situation is see god in your students and yourself. And serve your students as you are serving Allah. And be yourself the tool of Allah again and again. Don't worry no state lasts it will all pass and change. Dawam el hall mena al maha as we say...
Much love to you. |
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maheswari
Lebanon
2516 Posts |
Posted - Jan 16 2013 : 02:28:41 AM
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thank you Ananda for yr reply
true no phase ever lasts....and this a passing phase that is for sure
i am doing my duty the best i can
it is either a pitfall along the way or the discrmination/dispassion phases that comes before Unity..see
http://www.aypsite.org/327.html
dont know and dont expect anything...time will tell |
Edited by - maheswari on Jan 16 2013 02:33:13 AM |
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Ananda
3115 Posts |
Posted - Jan 16 2013 : 02:57:18 AM
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I've been through similar phases myself... Come to think of it... This has kind of become my mental structure about the way how I think about myself now... My only wish is to be fully consumed by the absolute... But to my surprise it turned out that there is not any me to be consumed by anything... As you mentioned above there's unity... Even though the veils are still here and I know it's love calling out for love... Yet there's no helping but to love and long... I know you're very much involved in advaita as I kind of am... But I'd give wings to my heart and bhakti more than my intellect judging from where you stand now...
I know that you already know all this... But can't help but write
Love,
Ananda |
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maheswari
Lebanon
2516 Posts |
Posted - Jan 16 2013 : 03:30:44 AM
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yes i am into advaita but it is very recent compared to bhakti..bhakti/inner voice/longing was the main guidance for me all those years
even now when someting seems too intellectual for me i immediately drop it cause it simply means i m not ready for it yet...
advaita is always to be treaded carefully |
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Namath
350 Posts |
Posted - Jan 16 2013 : 05:04:47 AM
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quote:
Originally posted by maheswari
i find myself saying: dont these students see how much i am empty and silent? what are they doing here? i can not help/give them anything!
funny...This is exactly the presence I felt with Thuli Baba.After examining him for few minutes,it was crystal clear I was not in the presence of a body-mind system....He's totally not there...totally empty.I couldn't catch a signal,I could not catch a thought from him.
I was watching people prostrating to him & I'm laughing,laughing in my heart "Hey People!Don't bother...he's not there!...What kind of comedy this is."
Then he looked straight at my eyes & pictures of different beings from insects,to animals to humans suffering started flashing in from of my eyes like a movie...I couldn't stare for long ...I was in tears"....few minutes later,I looked at him again,he was still staring at me & this time I read in his eyes "What are you doing here? you have what is needed..now go out & do service ."
To my surprise,When he spoke later on, it was exactly about those two topics I read or he shared in his eyes.
So yes,You can't give them but they may find exactly what they need.
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Ananda
3115 Posts |
Posted - Jan 16 2013 : 05:16:33 AM
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Funny you've mentioned this dear Namath, it's the way I always explain how Sheikh Belgacem and Amma are.. I sensed the same thing from Yoganiji as well when I first came to know him. But because of meeting Belgacem and Amma in person it was more obvious there... All of them look like empty shells... Yet there is so much love around them... It's funny though that with Yacin it was different... The love was shining from him... Like a sun... Whereas with all other sages it was around them... At least this is my own experience... Maybe others who were with Yacin felt a different thing...
I would sure like to meet Thuli Baba next time I go to India. Planning to do so again some time along the road... Visit Ammachi and Tiru at the same time... It's only a one day trip in train from kerala to tiru or the opposite...
Love,
Ananda |
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Shanti
USA
4854 Posts |
Posted - Jan 16 2013 : 06:23:15 AM
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Thank you for sharing Maheswari and Namath and Ananda!
Stillness in Action...
Very sweet!
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maheswari
Lebanon
2516 Posts |
Posted - Jan 16 2013 : 10:01:13 AM
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thank you Namath for sharing ...very interesting!
thank u Ananda and dearest Shanti |
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Namath
350 Posts |
Posted - Jan 17 2013 : 02:03:13 AM
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quote:
Originally posted by Ananda
Funny you've mentioned this dear Namath, it's the way I always explain how Sheikh Belgacem and Amma are.. I sensed the same thing from Yoganiji as well when I first came to know him. But because of meeting Belgacem and Amma in person it was more obvious there... All of them look like empty shells... Yet there is so much love around them... It's funny though that with Yacin it was different... The love was shining from him... Like a sun... Whereas with all other sages it was around them... At least this is my own experience... Maybe others who were with Yacin felt a different thing...
I would sure like to meet Thuli Baba next time I go to India. Planning to do so again some time along the road... Visit Ammachi and Tiru at the same time... It's only a one day trip in train from kerala to tiru or the opposite...
Love,
Ananda
You're sure about that? ...
I've always had this romantic idea that it was all peace and love when Ramana was around.Till I read "The Human Gospel" for Sri Ganesan. The Ashram had its problems at that time.A court case against Ramana,conflicts & gossips among devotees....etc
I started reading in "Bhagavad-Gita As It Is" ...Sri Krishna was telling the Bhagavad-Gita to Arjuna & they were at war!... in the battlefield
As for Yassin,I don't know as I haven't met him in person.But I agree that he's full of Love.Also,Yacin plays the role of friend and brother...So maybe this can relate to how you feel towards him.
Shanti...thank you for your presence too
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Ananda
3115 Posts |
Posted - Jan 17 2013 : 02:12:44 AM
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Dear Namath, it depends on how you look at those things. They are acts of love from the divine as well... Calamities are as tests... By now I am sure you know that it's mostly suffering and jihad against the self until... I am still before the until As per Yacin, he plays different roles at different times...
When I first went inside Ramana ashram, I was expecting bliss and ecstasy but instead creepy stuff started coming up to the surface... Something a lot more intense happened when I went to Tunis. I realized when I got there why Yacin once told me "we have mastered death and we smell of it." But other people experienced spiritual drunkness when they went there... Nothing is the general rule in these things....
Salam |
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Namath
350 Posts |
Posted - Jan 17 2013 : 02:54:50 AM
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This is exactly what I meant.
You said it better.
I was trying to say feeling Peace and Love is personal because you already have this within...But having a holy person around doesn't necessarily spread this on the outside .
Funny how each experience something in different way...no wonder wise ones internally renounced.
there was an old man in the Ashram everytime I met him... we would laugh,joke and chat....I enjoyed chatting with him,he's so much fun.Till one day,I met him...he was followed by like 10 people with awing silence....he gave me a mischievous look with his eyes that made me laugh instantly.
I asked my friend who is a devotee of Ramana for over 30 years who that man is .He said "He's Swami ABCD...He is highly educated and wealthy man who renounced everything & lives here now....they say he speaks 72 language... he's highly intelligent and I'm privileged to sit next to him at lunch...I try to make him speak sometimes But he doesn't like to speak..."
I didn't feel at that time like telling my friend..he speaks alot...I chat to him almost daily...& he speaks arabic very well.
Maybe he was talkative with me because I myself is talkative....& silent with my friend because he's silent himself.
Salam
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CarsonZi
Canada
3189 Posts |
Posted - Jan 17 2013 : 3:27:00 PM
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Dear Maheswari,
I believe that I went through something similar near the end of my "career" teaching yoga in yoga studios. Eventually, words began to feel so cumbersome that it became really challenging to lead the classes. Each class had fewer and fewer words spoken and eventually it got to a point where I did not feel like I was a suitable instructor anymore. Perhaps it will not go this way for you, I don't know.
For me, eventually it was simply understood that the students required something from me than I was unable to give and I just stopped teaching. The students needed an "actively engaged" instructor, and I could no longer be this for them. I had no problems being a "passive instructor" but this was not suitable with my classes as they were attended by experienced and unexperienced alike. Quitting teaching was probably one of the hardest, if not *the* hardest, things I've ever had to do, but it also triggered a lot of growth and opening.
Love!
Carson  |
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maheswari
Lebanon
2516 Posts |
Posted - Jan 17 2013 : 3:54:36 PM
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Dear Carson
exactly ! the words are less! dont feel like talking much during teaching...no more enthusiasm...i love to teach but not more enthusiasm... .the classes are very good but no more enthusiasm in me....what words can be said really? what new asanas can be given each time? what innovation they expect?what physical accomplishment they want to do?...all this does not matter,what matters is the feeling,the emptiness, the silence, the being....the core compared to the shell
the idea of quitting teaching asanas has been appearing on and off since last june....i would not be
surprised / sad if i stop teaching....yet not going to do any decision for now ...just letting life keep or remove those classes according to life circumstance that will appear and that i am sure will provide further growth and seeing according to my own path/set of obstructions
thank you so much for sharing! |
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karl
United Kingdom
1812 Posts |
Posted - Jan 17 2013 : 5:13:58 PM
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quote:
Originally posted by maheswari
i m not sure of if this has to be posted here...
for many years now i have been teaching asanas...i never plan my classes..i just feel how the students are feeling and then spntaneously the suitable flow of asanas come to me..so at the end of the class i always feel that i did not really teach, the flow was happening by itself and i was just a channel
but lately when teaching i m feeling totally empty, non existent, see through,terribly silent and terribly empty
i find myself saying: dont these students see how much i am empty and silent? what are they doing here? i can not help/give them anything!
i also feel that the students are empty and that those classes are futile
yet i am in that class and it is my duty to teach so i ask Him to give me the strenght to teach the class very well cause this is what the students want!!it may be totally empty but this what the students are asking for and they are happy about it!!
the classes are still very good ...and after the class the students and i always feel good and happy...yet there is a change in perception....dont know really what it is
Kind of like the show is over and you are left you on stage to carry on an unscripted show ? |
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maheswari
Lebanon
2516 Posts |
Posted - Jan 18 2013 : 02:00:20 AM
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the show is definitely over ...i have to continue the class not knowing exactly what i m expected to do ...very second by second...cant think ahead otherwise it feels like an abyss
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karl
United Kingdom
1812 Posts |
Posted - Jan 18 2013 : 06:36:20 AM
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quote:
Originally posted by maheswari
the show is definitely over ...i have to continue the class not knowing exactly what i m expected to do ...very second by second...cant think ahead otherwise it feels like an abyss
Just accept it and it will end. You have to accept each part, as you do you will notice an immediate easing. You know this anyhow, but sometimes when the feel or circumstances change its sometimes good to be reminded that its all just a part of the same resistance. There is then an ah ha moment.
I found that sometimes self inquiry can get ahead of stability even when not practising it directly. SI has a habit of insinuating itself into practices automatically, even when not deliberately attending to it. It means you have to work harder to accept and surrender. My experience is that the challenges ramp up over time and that keeps things grounded, but can be disorienting.
You know all this already as I said, its just a gentle reminder to review objectively along the way, particularly after practising for long periods and over coming many challenges already. Even virtuosos sometimes hit a bum note and more strength to that as it reminds of our susceptibility and humanity.
Love |
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maheswari
Lebanon
2516 Posts |
Posted - Jan 18 2013 : 06:45:29 AM
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| Thank you Karl |
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feeling empty
