Well, I have to admit that when I first listened to “Healing the Wounds of Love” a few years ago, I found it really depressing, as I was wading through a romantic disappointment, and the minor key seemed just too sad to stomach. When I first started doing it again a couple days ago, I thought it rather long and tedious too; but it’s really growing on me. Today I woke up with it still running through my head, and I was reading through the Sikhi Wiki story on the shabd at dinner tonight, and I was swept away in a wave of emotion as I simultaneously listened to it; frankly, I thought I was about to cry because it seemed so beautiful. I think diving back into the yoga has cracked open a lot of stuffed emotions too, so I get some emotional reverberations from other things showing up unexpectedly. I think I’m finding diet affects my emotions a lot too; I think my rage yesterday was partly due to having not eaten a stable meal beforehand; french toast with honey (mostly sugar without any greens or protein) and coffee has proven to leave me pretty jumpy in the past. As the yoga continues, my tamasic diet – and lifestyle, really – seems more and more out of alignment with what I think I value, and so many of the people I spend time with seem shut down and stuck in ways that I both completely understand and feel less inclined to want to indulge. But being aware of my own lack of inner integrity is a long leap from changing the behavior.
Well, after a nice Indian dinner at the Sikh family owned India Sweet & Spice on Fairfax, I continued listening to the Shabd as I drove across town at rush hour, and some jerk started trying to ride my bumper and started trying to pass me at a stop sign, and I gave him the finger, and found myself thinking, “my behavior doesn’t seem very yogic, does it?” A bit of disconnect there, chanting the Shabd and cursing at crazy impatient drivers. Ah well. So I headed over to Golden Bridge and got the update about Sadhana there, since I haven’t been for a while, and have been exceptionally nocturnal lately anyway. I was actually looking for the book the 7 part set for treating addictions pdf that I made came from, but I couldn’t find it on their shelves, so finally deduced the original title from Amazon: “Kundalini Yoga Meditation: Techniques Specific for Psychiatric Disorders, Couples Therapy, and Personal Growth” (Hardcover) by David Shannahoff-Khalsa.
Then it got to be sadhana time, and I was trying to find excuses for why I should just do my practice at home, but an inner voice was insisting I should go. So I did. I was surprised that somebody I knew from other circles was leading sadhana, and rather than sitting motionless through the chanting, there was physical yoga throughout the whole morning – some rather simple but challenging in it’s own way. I thought beautiful Alice, the teacher/leader, had put the whole sadhana together herself, but apparently Gurushabd has. He’s mixed bits of filmed Yogi Bhajan instructions in with the chants, and a few different chants that weren’t in the Aquarian sadhana. It was a bit hard to see the mudras in the dark and with Yogi Bhajan’s poorly recorded instructions and thick accent, it was a tough to follow sometimes, but actually really fun once I got into it. She preceded Gurushabd’s sets with a kriya from Krishna Kaur’s manual, (“I Am A Woman”) kind of a navel kriya.
There were quite a number of interesting new manuals for sale at Golden Bridge; I’m especially interested in Guru Meher’s new book on the emotions. It’s hard not to like Guru Meher!
The “Transformation: Seeds of Change for the Aquarian Age” manual looked interesting too. I’ve already got so many manuals that I’ll never get through them all though. So I chanted the shabd again once I got home, and did my 11 min. “Har.” I’m not sure if it’s bed time, nap time, or breakfast time. And the maintenance guy promised to unplug my tub in an hour and a half. He routinely knocks on my door just as I’ve undressed to take a shower, despite my usual request to be told when he’ll show up for repairs, but I am quite grateful that repairs get taken care of quite diligently in my building.