Freeing The Residues Of Fear

Find some equality with your inhales and exhales.

As you drink your breath in,

Say it lasts three seconds,

Five seconds,

Let the exhale match that.

Not trying to cling to a rigid formula with breathing here,

But just to bring some equality and equanimity to the breath cycle.

Those of you who are studied in yoga know that as the breath achieves equality,

There's a,

There's a harmonization of mind and nervous system.

And so we begin with that very simple gesture as a way to train our mind and train our nervous system for being in a state of absorption.

And that's what meditation is.

It's simply an absorption,

Absorbed as if we were floating on the surface of a pool pond and through our letting go,

Through our relaxation,

We just begin to sink into the pond.

And so when you're matching your breaths,

The inhale and the exhale,

Let deep waves of relaxation or ease accompany each of those breaths.

So use your breathing to train your nervous system.

And the training that your nervous system gets here right at the beginning of this meditation is in a state of faith faith or trust or accord.

We can register within ourselves that it is actually sound,

Not only safe,

But sound to let go,

To be easy,

To be natural.

The breath may want to lengthen out.

If it does,

Just follow that natural inclination and let the breath here that you take unwind you.

So where there are areas of constriction or resistance in your being,

Usually in the places like the heart,

The belly,

The brow,

The shoulders,

Sometimes all over.

Sometimes the surface of the skin feels like it's wrapping us tightly,

Too tightly.

Let your breath,

The relaxed breath,

Unwind these constrictions and contractions.

When we do this,

We are unlearning the legacy of fear in the body.

Fear has a legacy.

It's been practiced so much,

So frequently and so many times that it has literally become the very thought of who we think we are.

So this breath we take,

It's unwinding that legacy along with unwinding the body.

And I would just simply invite you as you let this unwinding happen,

That you recognize it for what it is,

A state of no fear.

This is your natural state.

This is your illumined state.

With fear,

There is always some consideration of the past or of the future,

Not only in mind,

But in nervous system,

In the way that body itself holds a memory.

With these gentle,

Soft and reaching,

Deeply reaching breaths,

We are allowing the memory of fear to vanish.

As fear is vanishing from the system,

There is no longer a need to be vigilant or watchful in a fearful way.

There's no need to be thinking about the things that cause alarm.

There's no need to be tight.

Our heart can literally relax and be more smooth and more smoothly and less often.

Our poor kidneys can relax from producing so much adrenaline.

And just notice as you align yourself with the wellness,

The wellbeing of the present,

It is natural to feel all is well here.

All is good.

All is right.

If your breath wants to continue in this deep fashion,

Let it.

The breath may also become very relaxed,

Sometimes even hardly existent.

It may become shallow,

But in a relaxed way,

That's fine too.

Just dwell here a while in this exuberant space of no fear and all that goes with fear.

Allow yourself that taste,

The taste of what we so often ignore when we are preoccupied by fear,

Worry,

Anxiety,

Tension,

Desire,

Control.

Notice what's available to you when you're not aroused in any of these ways.

Notice how peace becomes available to you.

Joy becomes available to you.

Love.

The moment we stop participating in fear,

In body,

In mind,

In emotion,

The moment we withdraw our consent from the fearful body,

There's lightness,

There's expansion,

There's rootedness.

Just withdraw your consent.

And if the body or mind or emotions present you with another idea to invest,

Withdraw your consent.

When we are freed up from this habit,

Our consciousness may be led or guided in a new way,

In a fresh way to some new spark of insight,

Some new feeling,

Some new territory within ourselves that had been neglected.

We may even feel that our body,

Physical or emotional bodies,

Mental bodies are draining a detoxification,

A cleansing of these old residues and a new space is created in us.

There is nothing for the brain to do here.

Nothing of a thought process,

Nothing of an analysis,

Nothing of a strategy.

Just sink.

Just be absorbed.

A few of you are easily able to fall into alignment and thank you.

You're supporting all of us to do that.

We can feel in our absorption how our very essence is a help,

Like a tuning fork.

It helps.

Our state of no fear helps.

As our meditation and absorption run deep,

A great synthesis is happening where our essence synthesizes with our body,

Our emotional body,

Our nervous system.

Even our thought process is synthesized.

Here we may have intimations subtly remembering,

I am not this body.

I am not these thoughts,

Nor these feelings,

Nor these sensations,

Nor the things that are going on in the environment.

Though all of these are beautiful,

I am none of these things.

I am not housed within any of them.

I'm not contained.

I'm not trapped.

I am not bound.

I'm not defined by any of these.

You may even notice a paradox that you may feel unwell in your body in some way and well in your heart,

Well in your core.

Notice how this wellness feeds your body,

Feeds the physical,

The emotional,

The mental bodies,

Informs them,

Instructs them.

Our simple alignment,

Our simple meditation is here to undo the legacy of fear.

And that is easier and more natural and more fluid than we may realize.

But this practice will continue and it will run deep as you discover new,

Subtler layers,

Perhaps,

Of the residues of the past or the worries about the future.

Just as these residues can run deep,

Our alignment can run even deeper.

We'll spend a last minute or two just enjoying silence together.

A silence though that is rich,

And pregnant and full of color,

Texture,

Depth.

We'll close this meditation with just three simple words.

They're words that come from Sanskrit.

They often close out a prayer or a body of writing or a chant or a talk sometimes.

The traditional utterance,

Om Tat Sat.

Om Tat Sat.

Om indicates the vibration of life,

That life is a subtle vibration.

Tat is a word that refers to that,

That essence that we can never quite put our finger on.

We point our finger at the sky and say that,

That's the sky,

But we can never encompass it all.

And Sat,

Sat means it's real.

It's true.

So in ending with that utterance,

It's as though we're sealing the deal.

We're composing ourselves in that,

In those three ways here.

So take a moment,

Move your body when you're ready.

Open your eyes when you're ready.

Engage your senses as you will,

Or remain perfectly still if you like.

And then we'll close with a simple prayer.

Sat Tat Sat.