Discipline & Surrender

Today I've entitled this retreat discipline and surrender Which are two concepts that work together and are important on their own If you if you study yoga Tantra Meditation traditions it it becomes really clear That discipline is an important piece of it We must strive if we want to get anywhere Which of course is always a little confusing because then people keep telling you to surrender which we'll get to in a minute But there's this piece of it where you have to do something and you have to be focused in the yoga sutras It's put this way Practice is the continuous struggle to stay established in the state of the true self and they sort of like throw in like continuous and struggle And then it says that practice is firmly grounded when it is pursued incessantly with reference for a long time So that long time piece,

You know for a lot of people Including myself.

Oh my god.

I don't know.

I'm not quite sure I want to do this for a long time.

It's a little scary And it's asking something of us And then if you look at more tantric traditions they do as they do a similar thing One of the texts we've been looking at slowly is the spandara kita and in that text It talks about how the same energies that can liberate you can bind you In this world if if you don't have the right perspective and sort of proper orientation and discipline in your practice And The little bit out of there that I think is useful is this one Just as an object that escapes attention is more clearly perceived when we make the effort to see it better from all angles So the supreme sacred tremor appears to the tantrika when she strives towards it And this way everything is in tune with the essence of her true nature which is basically saying If you don't strive towards it and Use your practice to look at yourself from all angles you're going to have a little Trouble expanding and you're going to be able to expanding in your meditation practice So we must direct our mind in some way And that practice itself is discipline And I think the issue with the word discipline is probably because the way we've grown up and heard it in other contexts It doesn't sound very fun um And for a lot of us that is a little off-putting I think at times um And Sometimes we might feel like it's not something we really want to be immersed in Like it's more like something we want to get through like i'm going to have the discipline i'm going to get this thing Um,

But I look at it slightly differently um Discipline is more the willingness to um Maintain our perspective that we've gotten either through texts or teachers Or or meditating itself so it's more the idea that that We are In a sort of constant state of reminding ourselves of what we want It's not The same thing as doing things we don't want to do.

It's actually the complete opposite It's the constant remembrance To do to remind ourselves to do what we actually want to do So I think if we kind of frame it in that way It's a little easier to have discipline because you're like right.

This is what I actually want I actually want to know myself.

I actually I actually want that I actually want to be mindful and be more in the present And remember Right what is truly important?

And when we do that we have the ability to surrender So Without the discipline the surrender doesn't really come and remember that the discipline is actually more of a remembrance And then we have the ability to surrender The sutras have a real I like the old way of saying it The sutras have a real I like the yoga sutras mostly because it's so concise So 123 says the end of spiritual practice is only obtained by surrendering It's like pretty clear It doesn't leave a lot to interpretation.

So you're like,

Okay,

I guess I should do that surrender thing In the spandura kita,

It's a little more Poetic and to me kind of brings it home a little more with his only support the recognition of the heart The tantrika is in harmony with the world So Surrender comes by guiding our minds towards truth So there's lots of ways that's talked about some in that last Thing from the spandura kita.

It's like knowing yourself like knowing your own heart is a way to get to that truth Truth is the present Truth is the oneness of all things and especially our ability to see the interconnectedness of things So To surrender We need enough orientation and discipline to remember that we're kind of moving in that direction of oneness And To feel that surrender We need to find or feel or know ourselves at our very core So in yoga,

This is usually expressed in two ways and you'll hear this all the time knowing who we truly are Or finding our heart those are like the the greatest hits of How yoga likes to like talk about surrender So We meditate to do this and We meditate to know ourselves we meditate to find our heart we meditate to find ourselves at our core And the only way to do this is to constantly help the mind orient towards what it actually wants So today we're going to work on that we're always working on that if we're meditators But today we're going to work on that by Doing three meditations from our course I want to talk about them just a little bit before we begin So the first one is the bhi sha monster in the course And if you've done it,

It's omhe mihrim krim namaha.

It's a chanting that you then move internal So it becomes more japa So It becomes more japa And the reason I picked that one to start with is that practice is a form of discipline You're disciplining your mind to move its attention internally towards what it wants and You're using the technique of chanting And uh japa To make that easier And if you don't remember anything I said today just remember this one thing The whole thing with discipline is making it easier on yourself doesn't mean you don't do it But you always want to make it easier on yourself.

You have always have two choices the harder way or the easier way And so we are going to take the easier way Every time we can It doesn't mean it's always easy,

But we we try to do that to make uh,

Our it moves our practice along quicker and It makes it more Pleasant and there's nothing wrong with that so So today we're going to start with that and that's going to kind of entrain our mind And with any luck this may or may not happen for you because everyone's experience is different but with any luck that practice will Kind of suck your mind into paying attention to what you want it to And then our second practice is is going to be a Practice that in a couple traditions is just a standalone practice.

It's all people do In this course,

We call it.

Who am I?

And the reason we're doing that is twofold Twofold um one it actually disciplines the mind to leave Some of our rising thoughts alone so when you keep asking yourself the same question and Kind of detach from the answer over and over again the mind gets used to not reacting to its own Kind of vritis their its own thought processes So that's important and The other part of that practice is that through that it allows our mind to be much more receptive and spacious And that is the only state in which the mind can actually know itself or another way you might say it in yoga is to know The heart so we'll be doing that practice And then we'll do a surrender practice,

Uh,

That's a yoga nidra focused on ananda And that practice,

Um sort of the The ultimate surrender practice in a way because What we're asking ourselves to do is move our attention internal No matter what our experience there is so We find our heart space but for all of us that's going to feel a little bit different and internalized And our job is just to hang out and be there Um,

So hopefully with those in succession,

That's you know,

Where we'll end up Any individual practice can go anyway You know,

We could find ourselves blissed out we could find ourselves agitated We could find ourselves happy or sad Um,

And so the final thing i'd like to say is whenever you're meditating just remember that The real goal is to know yourself and to experience yourself fully Whatever that might be And the good news with that is that that means you cannot fail As long as you're here it's working So that's what we're gonna do today As you situate yourself,

Let's close our eyes You're always welcome to ignore any instructions I give I should say that before I tell you what to do.

Um,

It's your own adventure so these are just suggestions but If you'd like to Close your eyes sometimes a soft gaze is nice too,

But I wouldn't stare at the screen Take a moment to feel your own breath So take a moment to feel your own breath With that breath you might begin to feel your body So Maybe even how the breath affects your body as you breathe in and out without modifying it in any particular way Maybe even how the breath affects your body as you breathe in and out without modifying it in any particular way So this practice has several component parts for those of you who know it you can add all of them in and if you're new to this practice What we're gonna do is we're gonna chant the words om aim cream cream namaha and if you can If you're new to it keep your Your voice and your attention more in the lower part of your body.

So anywhere from your pelvis to your sternum You know the the details of the practice you can move through your lower chakras with the om indicating your entire body and then aim the pelvic floor cream Second chakra Cream third and namaha is a red or yellow triangle pointing down.

If you don't know that that's perfectly fine We'll chant it together for a few minutes You can chant it loud where you are if that's distracting for you.

You can simply chant it in your mind and after a few minutes or so We're gonna repeat the same process in our mind.

We're gonna stop chanting So we're gonna say om aim cream cream namaha and Use that to ground our mind in the lower parts of our body apart torso.

So I'll be getting you can join in whenever you're ready.

Oh,

Oh Dream cream namaha Boom Dream cream namaha Boom Dream cream Oh Dream cream namaha Dream cream namaha Oh Dream cream namaha Boom Dream cream namaha Boom dream cream namaha Boom Dream cream cream namaha Boom Dream namaha Boom Dream cream namaha Oh me Dream cream namaha Boom me cream cream namaha Oh me cream cream namaha Boom me cream cream namaha Boom me cream cream namaha Oh Me cream cream namaha Boom me cream cream namaha Boom me cream cream namaha Oh Me cream cream namaha Boom me cream cream namaha Oh me cream cream namaha Boom me cream cream namaha Oh me cream cream namaha Boom me cream cream namaha Oh me cream cream namaha Oh me cream cream namaha Oh me cream cream namaha Oh me cream cream namaha Oh me cream cream namaha Oh me cream cream namaha Oh me cream cream namaha Oh me cream cream namaha Oh me cream cream namaha Oh me cream cream namaha Oh me cream cream namaha And now we'll continue internally and at any time if you feel you're distracted you could come back to chanting out loud Oh Oh Oh So So So So So So So So So So So So So So So So So So So So So So So So So So So we begin to deepen your breathing Breathing Allow the breath to Shift your state into a more awake external state So So then as you're ready you can begin to slowly open your eyes and take another deep breath or two