The Soul In Harmony With Itself

The Wisdom of Experience

This week, we wrap up our analysis of The Lady and the Unicorn with the sixth and final tapestry of this series. Some people might expect to see the lady now in heaven, but instead, she is turning earthwards rather than heavenwards. We see a proud and upright unicorn’s horn in her left hand as if to guide the unicorn. It was this gesture of touching the horn which gave the tapestry the title, “The Sense of Touch.” We can see that her face, when compared with previous tapestries, has aged considerably. She looks very much like a queen here, jeweled and standing firmly on the ground. To put it another way, the lady could now be in control of her destiny because she overcame the animal nature in herself. She is in harmony with and guiding the unicorn with the wisdom of experience.

A Direct Relationship with the Spirit

So much of our work focuses on a journey: the unfolding process, how the phenomenon at present draws us into deeper truths about our life, beliefs, behaviors, wants, and needs. But there comes a time when the journey of the soul leads to the calm grounded sense of being. On the one hand, our western traditions support a heroic process through the material of our lives, asking of us a redemption story wherein we confront shadow and strive forward through the psyche. On the other, the eastern world, by in large, places emphasis on no mind at all – to learn to be. While each stream diverges in practice, the outcomes, or should I say the longing for Eden underlies the process in likeness. We want rest for the mind and soul, and a direct relationship with the spirit. We strive for nothing but to be at peace and harmony.

The Universal Ground of Consciousness

This work is impossible without that instinct. We each have a piece of wisdom, have known what more we live for, to experience more than survival. This week I want to encourage you to remember these truths forged through your hard work, dedication and suffering. What epiphany has befallen you that you cannot help but recognize as truth? What meaning lies in your journey and how do you give it away? We talk about this in many streams of tradition and myth. The many traditions of the world draw us to the same fundamental truth of harmony and the universal ground of consciousness. Oneness seems to be the beginning and the end of the journey itself.

The Liberation of the Mind

From new life, to death, to in breath and out breath, the experience of presence, liberation from a mind bound by agenda and threat is free to stand with the spirit and animal self, able to look outward to the world with confidence, not in an idea, but the fulfillment of experience itself. I studied yoga under the tutelage of Swami Satchidananda. His method was simple: rest the nervous system, open the communication in the body, and synchronize the breath. Yoga is a metaphor, an intention to connect and release. To find harmony. In the simple ground of being, what is complex begins to find rest. I leave this series with the sentiment that we GET to experience each moment. Through that endeavor, the will of the gods is made clearer. The soul is sensing the spirit and the will is driven onward in presence and peace.

“All the Yoga practices are just undoing, unwinding loosening up again, and relaxing. Until you unwind, you will be swinging like the pendulum from excited mind to depressed mind, back and forth again and again. Once you begin to loosen up again, the swinging becomes less and less. At a certain point you are totally unwound. Then you simply find your neutrality, your center of gravity, and rest.” – Sri Swami