I want to talk to you about the importance of practice and why even be interested in practice,
Specifically the practice of meditation.
And this can most easily be illustrated by a really fun story told by a great spiritual teacher.
His name is Swami Mukunda Nanda.
And this is a story of water and milk.
So just imagine for a moment having a container that's halfway filled with water and another container that's halfway filled with milk.
So if we go ahead and take that container of water and pour it into the milk,
What's going to happen to the milk?
Well the concentration and purity of that milk is going to be affected.
It's going to be diluted by the water because really that milk is without any defense.
It's defenseless against the water.
So let's say we rewind a bit and the milk is separated and the water is separated.
And so we take the milk and we bring it off to the side and we begin to churn the milk.
Using a hand blender or any other tool,
We start to churn the milk.
And little by little the milk starts to become a little bit thicker,
Eventually turning into cream.
And then we continue to churn,
Continue to work on it.
And then it turns into more of a yogurt consistency.
So it's getting even thicker,
Even stronger.
And then we keep going,
Keep working on it,
Keep churning.
And if we stay with it long enough,
We work and practice with that milk long enough,
Eventually it becomes solid.
It turns into butter.
Now we come back to our original scenario.
Now this time the milk has been converted into butter because we've churned it.
We brought it away from the water and we've worked on it.
We've practiced and we've churned that milk.
So now we've got butter.
Now we take the water and we pour it on top of the butter.
And what happens?
Well now the butter is strong and it has the ability to withstand the water.
And it's no longer affected by the water.
So the butter does not get diluted.
In fact,
Most likely it'll simply float up to the top and it'll rise above the effects of the water.
And so in this illustration,
The milk represents the mind and the water represents the world.
So if we have a mind that is untrained,
Then when we go out into the world,
We are affected in every way.
Our mind really has no defense.
We are essentially a slave to our senses.
So we're just following all of our sense cravings,
All the stimulation that the world provides.
We almost have no ability to come back to center,
To have a place of balance,
To have a place of peace.
But if we have a systematic practice,
One that's rooted in tradition and one that's rooted in classical teachings of yoga,
Ultimately a practice of meditation,
Then we start to strengthen the mind.
We start to increase our own power.
We increase our own ability to to operate in the world.
So the the path of yoga,
The path of meditation is very much about self-empowerment.
It's not that we're trying to ignore the world in any way.
But we do need to spend time,
Ideally in the morning,
Which is just really the the easiest time to practice.
But we do need to spend time away from the world doing our methodical practice so that we can build the capacity to then move out into the world and be even more effective.
Our mind will be less disturbed.
We'll have better concentration and we'll be able to deal with problems and situations with a power that we just simply didn't have before.
So it's on some level trusting that there is a part of our mind,
A part of ourselves that already has this vast intelligence and this infinite source of power.
And it's through the the practice of meditation,
Which is supported by the larger path of yoga,
Including physical postures and breath work.
It's through eating a diet that is supportive of meditation and yoga.
It's by combining all of these components that we are able to really start to to live our fullest life and to fully to express ourselves more fully in this world.
So I hope that this was helpful and inspiring for you and maybe provides just a little bit more insight into why we should be interested in a meditation practice.
So be well and talk to you soon.
