Welcome!
This audio is recorded live at Power Living Adelaide as part of the Modern Yogi Project 6-week course with Tessa Leon.
So we realize that the level of consciousness we exist at is interdependent with the reality that we're in.
It's interdependent with the other people around us.
Would you agree?
Yeah,
It's in an influence with.
There's a really nice saying by Tony Robbins.
He says,
You are the average of the five people you spend the most time with.
Because you start to look at how we become more and more like the people that we're around.
And how we take on more and more influence from the people that we're around.
In my life I've received huge influences from my partner and I realize there are phrases I say,
There are ways I speak that I didn't used to say.
Even some of my friends around the studio,
I notice little mannerisms and little ways of speaking and I go,
Oh that's from her.
I didn't used to speak like that but I've taken it on.
So you also realize,
Who am I spending my time with?
And what emotional contagion am I opening myself to?
This is why the power of community is so important.
Because if we're taking on the influence of the people around us and we're also exhibiting our influence unconsciously or not on the people around us,
It's worth choosing what is it that I want to put out in the world and we come back to the Brahma Viharas and go,
Well the love,
Compassion,
Joy,
Equanimity.
I want to be around people who are aiming to train those up in themselves as well.
So it's a two-way street.
The subtle influences aren't necessarily just things we say or do.
The subtle influences can penetrate right into our thoughts,
Our habits of attention,
Our belief systems.
Could the community and the things you spend the most time around influence the way you see the world?
Obviously,
Right?
100% of course.
It's the context that potentially we grow up in a certain context.
Like your example before,
Jade,
A context of we celebrate our gifts and our talents.
Or do we grow up in a context of something different and then that's what we take on board.
So there is always a lot more going on than that which we can see with our eyes,
That which we can say or hear.
There is a web of interconnectedness occurring on the subtle layers.
Sukshma,
In yoga we say it can't be seen or touched,
But it's there.
And if we learn to attune ourselves to it,
There's a rich,
Rich world of emotional intelligence that we can access.
It's like we become more fluent in the silent languages of people's hearts and we can feel into what they're not saying.
And they can feel into us and we can connect on a deeper level like that.
One of my favourite quotes by the poet Rumi is that there is a voice that doesn't use words.
Listen.
So this is how we start to listen.
So,
We're going to move into the practice for our meditation this week and next week.
And it's a metta meditation practice,
Cultivating of loving kindness,
Of friendliness.
And some of you did the workshop the other day with Manaj and some of you didn't.
So we've talked about the practice of metta and how it applies to ourselves a little bit,
The way we approach ourselves with loving kindness.
There is a way to practice this through meditation where we use phrases.
We use metta phrases.
So,
There are well wishes,
If you like,
Wishes of kindness and it begins with ourself.
It continues from there to people who've helped us,
Our friends,
People we don't know,
Eventually to people we don't get on with very well.
For now,
We're just going to start with step one to ourselves.
So the way we cultivate the ideas through these phrases is it's like we're trying to soften our heart.
The phrases are like moisturiser,
If you like,
Because the heart can get a bit hard and a bit dry.
So we use the metta phrases to make it a bit more porous so that the love,
The compassion can soak in.
That's the way it works.
And as we realise that the influence is present from our own resonance to others on a cellular invisible level,
We wonder,
Well,
Where does the influence stop?
There's your little trio in that activity.
And then is there an influence to the other people who come to this studio maybe you don't speak to or meet but you practice beside them on a mat?
Is there an influence to the people you walk down the street near?
Where does it stop?
And is this invisible web of connection everyone eventually?
There was on the retreat I did in Sydney,
In this same retreat with Sarah Powers,
We were doing the metta practice one day.
And we were sitting there and we were doing these phrases and I'll share with you the same phrases that I learned because they resonate for me.
Eventually you'll use your own,
You'll find some for you.
But we were sitting there and we were practicing the loving kindness towards ourselves and an ambulance went past,
This was the heatwave loft in the middle of the city and it went past really loud right by the window that we were facing on the street.
And so Sarah then said,
Okay,
We now use this practice instead of you,
Try send a metta to the people in the ambulance,
The people who are experiencing some scenario of distress and practice sending the metta to them,
The kindness to them.
And then she said,
Also what about the people driving the ambulance because they must be in a state of some stress or their bodies are in a sympathetic response as well,
So we send it to them.
And that's how we practiced.
And she said,
I wonder if those people then have a sense on a bigger scale that they're also held in an invisible web of support.
If we understand that we're in this dance of connectedness,
Where really do I end and you begin?
So let's do a little metta practice,
A short and simple one,
And let's begin with ourselves.
If you need to lay down,
That's absolutely fine so your body can be relaxed.
If you need to lean on a wall,
Do that.
And then do the first few beats of the practice to arrive.
Arrive again in your body.
And feel the sensations of the body present,
The weight of the sitting bones,
The length of the spine right up to crown of head.
And where you can,
Exhale,
Ease,
Dripping from your shoulders down your back,
A softness in the physical body.
As you sit,
You realize the breath is here with you as it always is.
Let the little hooks of your mind just land into the breath.
So you center yourself here.
And let yourself feel open to all that is present,
The flavor of your mood,
Everything,
It's welcome.
You sit with it.
So now we begin to drop in these phrases.
You repeat them silently in your mind and just let them mingle with your being.
May I be willing to meet my fears and relax self-harm.
And then drop in this next one.
May I be happy as I am.
May I be happy as I am.
Send yourself this wish.
The last one.
May I be at peace with what comes.
May I be at peace with what comes.
If one of those feels the most valuable for your heart or it feels the most soft and gentle for you,
You can stay with that one.
Just for yourself.
Find wishes from your heart for your heart.
Cultivation.
And then you can release the phrases.
Let the words just dissolve back into your being.
Allow attention to come once again to the breath,
The breath that's still here,
Your old friend.
Feel the feelings in the body.
Follow the feelings out into the room.
As you feel ready,
Your eyes can open and you can take in the fullness of the space,
The people around you.
You can let the flavor of that meditation stay if you like and take it with you.
