Greetings and blessings.
Thank you again for joining in this section as we continue to explore and seek wisdom in the words of the Prophet Khalil Gibran.
And as we approach the midpoint of this work hopefully you've had time to reflect on your practice.
What steps or acts or thoughts do you do before you sit down to listen?
For me in my personal practice before I begin I need to spend some time just meditating in silence.
Just clearing my thoughts from any distractions and centering on the breath.
And what I've learned through self- observation is what I'm doing in the neuroscience is slowing down my brain waves.
Shifting from the activity of problem-solving beta brainwaves,
Very short wavelengths,
Very few gaps.
Extending the breath and shifting my mindset.
I open lengthen the wavelength creating gaps and in those gaps are opportunities.
In this practice those are opportunities to hear,
To listen with purpose of hearing.
It's said that the expression I know is the enemy of learning.
And so we must mindfully create space and knowing in order to learn.
And sometimes that requires a certain amount of vulnerability.
Vulnerability and courage to admit there may be things that we don't know yet need to learn.
And sometimes I'll hear someone remark that they've either portrayed on themselves or been told that the practice of yoga is a selfish undertaking.
Even self-care is selfish or self-compassion is selfish.
And I'd say how can we hope to help others if we're not self-aware or self-compassionate.
If we don't take time to create the space in our own minds and continue to learn and grow how can we hope to create and love and nurture others.
And so as we continue on our journey through this work,
The Prophet,
Let your practice be informed by your experiences.
Perhaps a moment or two to reflect after each segment just to understand what repaired your mind to listen or to resist.
So this next section is fitting to follow the section on crime and punishment.
In this section we hear the question posed by a lawyer of laws.
If you find a comfortable seat,
Close your eyes,
Start to notice your breath,
The inhale and the exhale.
And mindful of that space between.
This is the space for opportunity and creation for learning and for listening.
And then a lawyer said but what of our laws master?
And he answered you delight in laying down laws yet you delight more in breaking them.
Like children playing by the ocean who build sand towers with constancy and then destroy them with laughter.
But while you build your sand towers the ocean brings more sand to the shore.
And when you destroy them the ocean laughs with you.
Barely the ocean laughs always with the innocent.
But what of those to whom life is not an ocean and man-made laws are not sand towers.
But to whom life is a rock and the law a chisel with which they would carve it in their own likeness.
What of the cripple who hates dancers?
What of the ox who loves his yoke and deems the elk and deer the forest stray and vagrant things?
What of the old serpent who cannot shed his skin and calls all others naked and shameless?
And of him who comes early to the wedding feast and when overfed and tired goes his way saying that all feasts are violation and all feasters lawbreakers.
What shall I say of these save that they too stand in the sunlight but with their backs to the sun.
They see only their shadows and their shadows are their laws.
And what is the sun to them but a caster of shadows?
And what is it to acknowledge the laws but to stoop down and trace their shadows upon the earth?
But you who walk facing the sun what images drawn on earth can hold you?
You who travel with the wind what weathervane shall direct your course?
What man's laws shall bind you if you break your yoke but upon no man's prison door?
What laws so you fear if you dance but stumble against no man's iron chains?
And who is he that shall bring you to judgment if you tear off your garment yet leave it in no man's path?
People of Orphalese you can muffle the drum and you can loosen the strings of the lyre but who shall command the skylark not to sing?
As we allow the words to resonate give opportunity for growth.
If we are constantly closed off our internal even external laws are chiseled in stone there's no room for error it's only fear or failure.
If we remove that fear we open the opportunity the spaces for growth.
Be mindful of the laws you place on yourself those maybe around you that you encounter throughout your day.
Allow for the possibility that those in your life are just manifesting what's real in all of us.
Our individual DNA our perceptions of history and our past our memories these have informed our thoughts and our words and our deeds and together those comprise our personalities our individual manifestations and if we see those as black and white this or that we forget the wholeness that is all of us the unity which is yoga.
So bring your own thoughts be aware of your words lead to your actions continue to practice with awareness that awareness leads to understanding and only then can we begin to shape positive change and thank you again so much for sharing this time with all my love and with all my gratitude.
Namaste
