Day 4

today i waited until the house grew quiet late in the evening to do my practice. this was not intentional and probably not the smartest decision...because of this i felt self-conscious, like everyone could hear me including the 2 house guests staying in different rooms on either end of the house. i chanted with the shruti for a few minutes and then decided to explore what it would be like if I just chanted with no drone the entire duration of my practice. so i did it. i chanted the gayatri mantra for the rest of the time.  The mantra:

Oṃ bhūr bhuvaḥ svaḥ

tát savitúr váreṇ(i)yaṃ

bhárgo devásya dhīmahi

dhíyo yó naḥ pracodáyāt

 

The meaning according to http://www.sathyasai.org

We contemplate the glory of Light illuminating the three worlds: gross, subtle, and causal.

I am that vivifying power, love, radiant illumination, and divine grace of universal intelligence.

We pray for the divine light to illumine our minds.

 

 

 

The most powerful insight I got while chanting this was that at all times we can chose to not be in resistance with reality. We can approach our lives with a full yes to absolutely everything that we feel, hear, touch, taste, experience, etc. What if I were to make this my moment to moment practice, to say yes to it all? This is, after all, the true path to awakening yes? Living in the reality which is actually occurring rather than the one the I is willing to have happen but continuously gets disappointed because it's not happening it's way hardly any of the time.I practiced this the other day when I was driving and it helped me feel such a deeper state of peace and ok-ness with the decisions that other drivers were making instead of feeling like each "stupid" decision made by others was a personal assault on my being. wow, it took so much pressure and energy off of me to do anything extra than just driving. so this practice is something i intend to do more of. being in agreement with the ultimate reality that is happening and has always been happening whether I like it or not...

thank you Gayatri...