Continued from Part 1, the preceding blog Self-realisation & Yoga.

Yoga says “self” can only be known in meditation. And it instructs us to meditate in the body, utilising the “bodymind”, as a whole.  to know self. This is why “yoga” also means to “yoke”, or harness, all. The left and right, masculine and feminine, the moon and the stars, the inner world and outer worlds.

Remember that you are looking for that which is already right there. That self is not in front of you, outside of you, it is within. And unlike an external journey to a destination, let’s say another country, far away, self is right there. It is a return to innocence.

This is where the paradox of simple complexity kicks in again. Complex simplicity. In limited perception, limited dimensionality, we tend towards, or are over-run by dualistic, exclusivity. In fact dualism arise soon as we think, as thinking is limiting because it is mental. It only knows logic. Nothing wrong with that, when balanced by the creative or intuitive. Else it can easily be a sharp, lethal tool of deception.

Being, just being, enjoying something, in the present, aware, open, releases the vice grip of the mental realm. Creativity, of any kind, going for the top of the hill or mountain simply because it is possible, for its own sake, releases duality. This happens when the surfer rides the wave, become one with its crest and face. For a moment there is only the ride. Meditation teaches us to expose reality, and it helps reveal the true self.

Exposing duality helps reveal one-ness 

Metaphysical philosophy explores quantum possibilities. Here time is linear, and one may glimpse a sense of eternal self by being in the moment, present. This is how meditation helps us understand self, and reach out to body-mind-spirit integration. It shows the binary aspect of dualism – that when we’re not in awareness of the whole, we’re either a one or zero, yin or yang, masculine or feminine, and we’re we polarised. In the non-duality of meditation, conscious awareness, one-ness is sensed, and it “makes sense” because ordinary reality is transcended.

In one-ness we are aware of the whole, and its parts

The big picture, the sum, and its parts helps us see the journey, and the traveller. Realising the fleeting nature of dualistic helps us connect with true self, and this helps surrender to pain, loss, desire, everything; one part cannot be without the other. We can them more easily accept what is, and how it is. A question here may include whether we can also accept joy, and surrender to it without guilt, or without fear that it may not last? Both joy and pain, finding and losing. left and right, top and bottom, inside and out – together – forms the whole. Surrender of dualisms leads to the embrace or acceptance of the parts that forms the whole.

Healing = awareness of the whole. It contains more detailed than the thinking mind can reason. A paradoxical-sounding state of focus and expansion. More of a sphere than a flat circle, more dimensional and inclusive than one can imagine – infinitely so. It includes all that is, body and mind, heart and soul. The whole truth can only be the whole truth.

The elements earth, fire, water and air is cleansed and purified, transformed by the fifth element, ether. Ether here is consciousness. In awareness of all the elements, one becomes conscious. We may take on the body of light consciousness and become illuminated. In our ordinary reality we may think of a person illuminated by such consciousness as an enlightened being.

This light has to be felt, brought into the body.

This essential yoga principle will be explored in a next post with greater detail and structure, with techniques and general practices of yoga bodywork and meditation, based on how I see the transition route from stiff and limited, to more loose and open.

Cosmic awareness, consciousness of the magnificence of one’s inner spaces and the connection to outer spaces is part of the process: see my music and video production and celebrate creation with cosmic consciousness.

OM-ness blessings & illuminations
Johann,
Johann Kotze Music & Yoga
Muizenberg, Cape Town,
6 July 2015

Ps: Use my yoga-light-body-consciousness-meditation-music-video to help access your meditation potential. 

The “self” yoga refers to far too easily gets buried under a heap of burdens or distractions. By losing sight of the whole, paying attention to on one aspect, self is often lost when we’re caught up in the details, forgetting the big picture. Or self may be dulled by the humdrum of the same old, same old, drowned in a fuzzy, opaque state of mind caused by the quagmire of surviving in a busy world.

Yoga asks us to go within, and search for the “true” self – which may be found when we ask the right questions, in contextual awareness of the whole and direct experience. “Self” realises it is always there, within, when it remembers – itself. It understands that it can never go away, and it is even closer than just around the corner. It realises it is right there, within. Thus self is realised, strangely enough, by self.

What happens when we remember who we are?

Possibly we stop identifying so much with the ego or worldly self, so there is less judgement and more peace with everything. The process that gets us to the realisation continues when we and carry on with whatever we were doing, or we may make big changes in our lives. But it is not what goes on on the surface, or periphereally that matters; we may find we let go more readily of that which don’t actually matter so much. Perhaps surrender to the tides of change come more easily, and acceptance comes of what can’t readily be changed or of something we don’t like, or fear. When we accept “surrender” we remember to “be with” self, now matter the conditions. Pain and pleasure, at times perhaps more than other, disappear, and joy flows more readily.

Such lightness of being transcends the ordinary self. It helps us be real; we can remember that the same being that sits in a car in the traffic sits in the studio when doing yoga or exercise, or having dinner. The meditator becomes aware of who and what meditates, and the flow and tides of life (see Ying-Yang album cover at bottom of page ) is revealed as an “extraordinary ordinary”. In yoga this experience is part and parcel of meditation, and what yoga is all about as a means of realising what self is. This is the soul, the heart of the experience.

Part 2, Self-realisation & Yoga – Meditation is the essence of yoga and the key to self-realisation.

OM-ness blessings & illuminations
Johann,
Johann Kotze Music & Yoga
Muizenberg, Cape Town,
6 July 2015

Ying-Yang

My 2008 album Cosmic Waves was one of my first an ambient music projects to help reach clear, calm and expansive states of consciousness. Cosmic Waves is a celebration of creation with slow, wave-like musical patterns of swirling, lush, ethereal synthesizer and piano melodies that create beautiful and soothing music. The two musical themes of the album, Deep Mind – inwards expansion, and New Beginnings – the outwards expression of the inner centre, is represented by the yin-yang symbol of the cover image. Read more.