Waiting for the revelation

Today in my sunday morning class my theme was love. I have taught in the last weeks a class on faith, hope, and concluded the journey today with love. In St. Paul's letter to the Corinthians, 1st Corinthians 13, he speaks of these qualities of heart. Yesterday in my class on Faith we worked toward dropping back and did some awesome asymmetrical variations of some standing poses to get into the psoas and fronts of the thighs. Everyone in the room dropped back, with a little help from friends, and a few dropped back solo for the first time.

Darren Rhodes has a wonderful video on Youtube about concealment and revelation. In it he talks about waiting patiently in a difficult moment, fully immersed in the difficulty, for a revelation to occur. In relation to difficult asanas that take a lot of time to get into, this is a really useful teaching. Check it out HERE.

Today we worked toward kapotasana and Darren's teaching was key to the success we experienced. I was speaking of love as a turning inward, turning tenderly to oneself and looking upon oneself with love. Tenderness is not the default in difficult moments when working into a pose like kapotasana. But we can cultivate it.

One of my dedicated students demoed and she worked very patiently and slowly. I found myself having to wait in the dark, not knowing for sure if she could do it. I was really satisfied with my teaching because I was able to believe in her, and believe in the method, despite my doubts. I mean Kapotasana is hard. She worked for close to a minute and got both hands to her feet.

She was a great example of sitting in the concealment, diligently working the principles, pausing for a moment, softening into the discomfort, and then working again. Slowly her heart opened so gloriously and she received the revelation.

It takes a strong will to sit with such high levels of unknown, such high levels of ambiguity. But the reward when we work in this way truly is a gateway to the seat of love, our hearts. She was totally high after it. Many people in the class just worked the straight armed version and beautifully sat with their own versions of concealment. They all had revelations.

The truth is that I am confronted daily with such ambiguity. Sometimes, in my mind, I am really not sure if things are going to be okay. The contingent and haphazard nature of life is unerring. So much so it can be overwhelming. It seems to me the only practical choice is to hope for the good. And my hope is sourced in a fundamental existential stance of openness. An openness to life as it comes, trusting that all things work for the good in my life, at least ultimately. This is my understanding of faith.

This stance is both deeply spiritual and highly practical. I mean if one really looks at how uncertain things are and decides to wait for things to become certain, one would never even go outside. But it turns out that the greatest things in life come through such ambiguity. To live one's life in love is so vulnerable. But this vulnerability is so sweet!

With the recognition of the inherent vulnerability I am always exposed to, and choosing faith in the face of it, I free up my energy to act skillfully. If I am afraid, my energy goes into fighting the moment or running away in defense. If I have faith I can see the moment as it is and, equipped with my values and the methods I use to understand life, use my energy to act resourcefully.

Faith is the substance of things hoped for. Girded by our faith, our highest hope--to live a joyful, love-filled life--is the revelation. May we all look upon ourselves with a tender love, seeing ourselves as the divine would. Even when it is dark, when things are unclear, a tender pause offers us a moment of space where we might meet the situation with faith rather than despair and lays the bed for love to sprout. Endeavoring toward this is the path to meeting the world with shining hearts.

Peace,
Mark