Welcome to the Yoga Church Sunday Sermons.
October 21st, 2018
{psst: there’s downloadable art farther along in this post, so be sure you make it all the way to the bottom!}
Love is a word that means SO many different things in our culture. It can be utterly casual—almost to the point of meaninglessness. But it’s also a word powerful enough to change our lives. Sometimes it’s the word we deeply need to hear. Sometimes it’s the word we’re terrified to say.
I know that we all need love. I know that we want to be loving people. And I think the vast majority of us are interested in learning how to expand our capacity to love. In my recent contemplations on the idea of love, two questions kept arising for me:
- Are we willing to make sacrifices in order to love the world better?
- And what stops us from loving the people around us?
I’ve gotta tell you, this week’s sermon was hard to write. At times I was sitting at my desk crying. I felt deeply challenged by the words poring out of me. But we live in challenging times and if we truly want things to be different, we have to be different.
Commenting on “the middle ground between love & contempt” yoga church community member Katrina wrote:
“This brings up the idea that you can’t change an existing paradigm with current technology (or beliefs). Something has to change for change to happen.”
In other words, if we want change to happen in the world, we have to change ourselves. As Gandhi so beautifully said: “You must be the change you wish to see in the world.” This saying has almost become cliché. But when we stop to really examine what it means, we realize it speaks of the hardest thing.
Luckily for us, we don’t have to tackle the hardest thing all on our own. My sermon ends with a community challenge. Once you’ve had a chance to watch it, please leave a comment and share one action you can take in response to the challenge. Let’s encourage each other to love better (even when it’s hard).
Love & Sacrifice
Watch:
or Listen:
or Read:
In my last sermon I explored the difficulty of loving people we don’t respect or like—people for whom we feel contempt. My sermon worked from the assumption that there is value in learning to love those we call “enemy” in our life. This assumption grows from my study of Eastern traditions, which teaches that we and our enemies are actually one.
The Isha Upanishad, one of my favorite scriptures, says:
Those who see all creatures in themselves and themselves in all creatures know no fear. Those who see all creatures in themselves and themselves in all creatures know no grief. How can the multiplicity of life delude the one who sees its unity?
The world appears to us as separate. We feel separate. We feel a deep sense of I, me, mine. According to Eastern tradition, this sense of “me” as a separate entity is the grand ignorance. Yoga is defined as a mental state so clear and still that we are able to rest in our true nature. Even though language never quite measures up, our true nature can be described as unbounded consciousness or pure awareness. In more traditionally religious language it can be understood as being-in-union-with-God or remembering ourselves as that of God within us. But the yoga sutras remind us that this isn’t the state we normally live in. We normally live in ignorance allowing our true nature to be overshadowed by the constant movement of our minds. We identify ourselves—not with God, not with a sense of our unity with all of creation—but with whatever thought happens to be passing through our mind.
We are deluded by the multiplicity of life and we lose sight of its unity. When Jesus, in the sermon on the mount, tells us: “In everything do to others as you would have them do to you; for this is the law and the prophets” we still feel separation. Doing to others what we want done to ourselves is still about us—about what we want for ourselves. I don’t think this was the original intention of the teaching, but it’s what our minds, so trained for individualism, hear.
It is only through our attachment to individualism that we are able to hate, oppress, and ignore. Notice this list. We may not show up in the world as actively hateful people causing obvious oppression. But how does our attachment to individualism—to self-preservation as the most important thing—allow us to ignore our unwitting participation in the hate and oppression that surrounds us? I say this as someone well aware of my own attachment to individualism. I will own that I’m part of the problem. I love these scriptures that teach of our unity with all that exists, but I’m sorry to admit that I don’t always enact them. I haven’t figured out how to feel the teaching that we are all one as my constant reality.
In the Bhagavad Gita Krishna tells Arjuna: “At the beginning, humankind and the obligation of selfless service were created together.” The sanskrit word translated as selfless service here is Yajña and it means sacrifice. This scripture is telling us that we human beings were created together with sacrifice. It goes on to describe a relationship of mutual nourishment between humans and deities. Seeker and scholar Ravi Ravindra wrote: “Yajña is an internal activity that does not involve any external human priest. … It signifies the process of exchange between levels of existence in mutual nourishment. And, of course, the greatest force of mutual nourishment is that of love. There can be no practice of love without sacrifice.”
If I want to live out the words of the Isha Upanishad that all people are part of me and I am part of all people, I have to expand the vision of myself beyond I, me, and mine. I have to actively practice moving beyond the separateness so deeply ingrained in my psyche. If I truly want to learn to love my so called enemies I have to actively practice love. Which may mean, I have to practice sacrifice.
This is where we hit a speed bump in our journey. Because we’re talking about shifting our sense of identity, which leads us right back to our attachment. We have to decide what we actually want. Do we actually want to expand our capacity to love? Or are we simply looking for a way to feel better about the suffering and injustice of the world? I’m going to be really honest with you and say that my answer fluctuates. Sometimes I wonder what it would be like to follow in the footsteps of people dedicated to radical love. I think of Peace Pilgrim, a woman who spent 28-years on a personal pilgrimage for peace. She walked more than 25,000 miles wearing a blue tunic and carrying only a comb and toothbrush. She walked and walked and shared her message that when enough of us find inner peace, our institutions will become peaceful and there will be no more occasion for war. She’s an incredible example of what it means to be truly established in love. But, even though I have spent more than a decade working toward my own inner peace, I’m not going to leave everything in my life and follow in her footsteps. So my question becomes: If I want to expand my capacity for love as a tool for justice in the world, what am I willing to sacrifice?
The yoga sutras offer us a practice called Pratipaksa Bhavanam, which means cultivating the opposite. If our attachment to individualism—or to our small “s” self—is what allows us to hate, oppress, and ignore then we need to cultivate the opposite of individualism. We have to cultivate a relationship with our capital “S” Self. We have to actively practice being in relationship with others in a way that fosters the belief that we are part of them and they are part of us.
So here’s my challenge for our community. Can we each do some honest self reflection about the kinds of people and situations that make us uncomfortable or maybe even scared? And can we sacrifice a bit of our own comfort to actively practice love? Can we find a way to be of service to the people or situations that we fear and judge and ignore? If going straight to the source is too difficult, find a book or a movie that will help shift your understanding and perspective. If you feel ready, find a volunteer opportunity or a public event that you can attend. Put yourself in a situation that expands your understanding of the world. I’ll do it too. We can find courage in each other. We were created in relationship to sacrifice. Can we sacrifice some of our ego and our comfort in order to expand our love? Can we hold the words of the Isha Upanishad as our inspiration:
Those who see all creatures in themselves and themselves in all creatures know no fear. Those who see all creatures in themselves and themselves in all creatures know no grief. How can the multiplicity of life delude the one who sees its unity?
REFLECTION QUESTIONS
- How would you describe your mindset most of the time? Are you connected to your True Self? Or lost in the ever changing movements of your mind?
- What do you identify with?
- Do you feel connected to all of creation? Or more like a separate entity?
- Do you want to expand your capacity to love?
- What kinds of people and situations make you uncomfortable? What kinds of people scare you? Do you know why?
- Will you risk yourself a bit? Will you sacrifice some of your comfort? Will you find a way to actively practice love? Will you find a way to interact with people different from yourself?
Downloadable Artwork!
This week I wanted to give you something tangible… Something to serve as daily inspiration and support. So I did some experimenting with color on wood (one of my favorite ways to paint) and added the scriptural text from this week’s sermon. The painting is actually 12×16, but it’s formatted here as a letter sized .pdf for easy printing! Once you’ve hung it up somewhere, send me a photo. I would love to see it out in the world reminding us all to love better. <3
Share your wisdom and insight!
We all benefit from spiritual community. And community means more than one voice, so please add yours to the conversation.
And this week, share one action you can take in response to the community challenge I offered.
COMMUNITY COMMENTS
We all benefit from the wisdom of spiritual community. And community means more than one voice, so please add yours to the conversation. What did this week’s sermon and reflection questions spark in you?
Thank you for doing this work, for diving in deep, and for showing up to the rest of us. _/|\_
Hi Summer, what a great sermon! A mantra that I use in my practice is “May I live each moment in loving kindness, remembering that we are all one.” It helps me to remember to try to reach out. Even if it’s just starting a conversation, making small talk on the train to work. Getting out of my own introverted head and being open to others’ feelings and words is part of my daily practice.
I recently moved to an urban area. I’ve lived and worked most of my life in white, middle-class suburbs; now I mix daily with a diverse population, which I’m enjoying, but In the city, you see it all, and every day — occasional violence spilling into the street, desperate people begging for money, the mentally ill. So far, I can’t look them in the eye. That feels like a moral failing somehow, like I’m not acknowledging their humanity. I keep trying.
Oh Donalee, thank you for sharing so honestly with us. Your vulnerability is a gift. And I share in it with you… Every time I pass someone on the street—someone clearly mentally ill, or lost down the path of addiction—I’m unsure what to do. I’m able to look them in the eye (most of the time), but then what? It’s a deeply helpless feeling. Donna Farhi shares a beautiful story of her own experience with this (in the context of sutra 1.33) on pages 62-63 in her book “Bringing Yoga to Life.” I know you have it!
I really liked this message, Summer! I begin each day with self care, a meditation, some knitting, and coffee with hubby before we split for the day. I am becoming more aware recently, that I have “stories” that have made up who I am. So I behave in a certain way, to continue the story. For example, allergies is a simple one to bring up….. allergic to eggs as a child….. so, still at 59 years, no eggs for me, yet I would eat them every now and then, with no reaction. This summer, getting allergy tested again….. No allergy to eggs anymore! The story in my head just made a major shift.
Recently, I have been saying to myself, in my head….. “you made that choice because of fear”. Fear of what would someone else think or say because of this choice. Long time ago, I would advocate for children, homeless services, social services at the local and state levels….. and it felt good, even safe with others who were doing the same thing. It felt safe being with those populations as well. Now, though, there is a fear of stepping out, in other words, staying safe in my cocoon. This is the individuality that you speak of. It’s me being separate from the universe. Us and them mentality. I cannot and will not name call or blame others for poor behavior, but it’s just so hard to “allow” that behavior to happen so I tend to leave it alone, not respond, internalize and get depressed! But I do realize, that it is us, all the universe, we are all one and the same. For better or worse, plants, animals, water, people, earth: All One People”. And collectively, this is our story. How will we continue our story in the days, years, centuries to come.
Nancy, what a beautiful, thoughtful reflection. Thank you so much for articulating it. As we would say in the Quaker world “this friend speaks to my condition.” The stories we tell about ourselves are powerful. We don’t always realize how powerful. In some ways they can rule over how we participate in the world… The more we’re able to name them, the more we’re able to free ourselves from them. We’re able, as you have done, to say “I don’t want to let fear rule my life,” which allows us to see the larger connections and ask how we, as a connected people sharing the world are going to tell a collective story. We can’t control how the story goes. We can’t control how others participate in it. But we do get to decide how we ourselves participate.