Last night I started reading Sri Eknath Easwaran’s commentary on The Bhagavad Gita (quite inspiring).
It got me thinking about the major premise of Hindu and Vedic philosophy, which is “Thou art That.”
In other words:
THOU (your Self/Soul the part of you that has always been, was never born and will never die)
ART (is, equals, is equivalent to)
THAT (the Absolute, Brahman, The Godhead, The All That Is).
Got that?
You are God (and of course, so is everyone/everything else). As our friend Deepak says, “I am THAT, and you are THAT, and all this is THAT, and THAT’S all there is).
So—how to remember this, moment to moment? How to live as the expression of Divinity that you are?
When you’re lost, when you’ve forgotten where you are, you need to orient yourself, using a map or a compass. One of the ways I orient myself every morning is with the four cardinal directions.
Facing EAST I feel the breath entering my body. In spiritus. I am filled with Spirit. AIR, the energy of the sky, rainbows, new life, new breath, new beginnings, new ideas bring cleansing and clarity to my mind.
Facing SOUTH I extend my arms to the sky, imagining the warmth of the sun on my face. I feel that warmth enter my body, flowing through my feet, all the way to the center of the earth, where the energy meets our planet’s “inner sun,” its fiery core. I imagine the energy rising again through the earth and up through my feet. The energy of FIRE enlivens my creative intelligence and burns away whatever no longer serves me.
Facing WEST my consciousness reaches out to the ocean. I imagine myself standing on the western coast of Ireland. Breathing, I feel the oxygen enter my lungs and course through my body via my own inner ocean, my blood. As water wears down rock over eons, I feel the wisdom of WATER connecting me to all points of time through this moment. I offer thanks to my ancestors and all who have made me who I am. I seek the support of the person I’ve been and the person I am becoming, in this life and every life, knowing that my highest future potential is available to me right now.
Facing NORTH I once again notice the breath entering my body. Spirit entering my body. I immerse my consciousness in my physical experience. I feel my feet, rooted in the earth. And as Spirit dances with Body, I know my body to be an expression of Divinity.
In recent years I’ve added one more step to my “4 directions” ritual. The ancient Irish honored 5 directions, including the direction of the CENTER or the HEART. The now. The present. The is-ness and such-ness. The heart of the matter. So I end on the floor, forehead on the ground, arms outstretched, offering all that I am to this moment. I draw upon the wisdom of my guides and guardians, the angels and saints and the Source of all.
The physical honoring of the directions centers me in my life and reminds me who I am. I am That. And you are That. And all this is That. And That’s all there is.
Peace of the Five Directions to You,
Kimberly Schneider
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What do you get when you take a person with the soul of a poet, the mind of a scholar and the heart of a healer--and turn her into a trial lawyer? Existential crisis and more graduate school. Throw in a counseling degree, a marriage and two extraordinary children and you end up with Kimberly Schneider, the Manifestation Maven. Kimberly is the host of Conscious Manifesting on WebTalkRadio.net and the author of the forthcoming book Everything You Need Is Right Here. She awakens spiritual adventurers, healers, entrepreneurs and other extraordinary individuals to the power of conscious manifestation and the joy of meaningful work. Go to www.KimberlySchneider.com to request Kimberly’s Free Conscious Manifestation eCourse.