|
Dear friend
Happy Sunday evening. What beautiful weather we’ve had. I hope you’re feeling rested and ready for the week ahead.
I was really at a bit of a loss as to what to write about this week. I had a few ideas. Pain? We all have it, or have had it — physical, mental-emotional, spiritual, right? In fact, when we look beyond our own small lives, it can seem that the whole world is in pain, don’t you think?
This idea arose from a conversation with a dear friend. We were speaking in particular about the pain animals experience at our hands.
“If I think about it, it’s just too overwhelming,” my friend said — “the different kinds of needless suffering of millions of animals around the globe. It’s too much.” I felt exactly the same.
It also led me to reflect on the pain experienced by so many millions of people around the world too.
Pain is sadly so woven into the very nature of life, isn’t it?
Another idea was to reflect on the importance of using our voices (have I done this one before?) — speaking up for the voiceless.
It was actually this subject that sparked the conversation with my friend. I had just relayed an incident in which I’d spoken out again in defence of another harmless animal 😔☺️. I’d seen a man hitting his dog and intervened. Not that it is ever justified to hit an animal — but this old dog hadn’t even done anything other than sniff the grass at the side of the road 😢.
As the amazing woman who trained me and my Ellie taught me, the pack leader will never attack one of the pack. They work together with mutual understanding. This wonderful teacher, Kata, never uses force, and yet her dogs work incredibly closely and obediently with her — happy, relaxed, and trusting. She helped my Ellie become happy and relaxed too.
Anyway, as we approach the season of good cheer and goodwill to all — men, women… and animals 😉😘 — and with so much sorry news around, I’ve decided to reflect this week on something more in keeping with the spirit of the season.
We had a lovely Festive Day Retreat on Saturday at The Baraset Barn in Alveston. We explored some of the challenges of the season through enquiry work and small-group sharing, and I offered ten simple Ayurveda tips for navigating this time of year — for body, heart, and mind. In our Tantra Yoga and meditation session, we nurtured the spirit of the season, opening to a connection with the love, light, and grace that lie ever-present within and around us.
As I prepared for the retreat, I recalled a class member asking me some time ago what I meant by “grace.” A very good question. It made me reflect too. How do we convey in words something that lies beyond the mind, its reasoning, and its logic?
Sometimes on the path, a word arises that seems to express exactly what we arrive at through practice — something beyond the realm of the thinking mind. And yet, because it lies beyond everyday mental experience, it can be difficult to explain in a way the mind can grasp.
As the mystics have said, it’s like trying to describe the taste of an orange to someone who has never had one.
In the case of grace, however, it is something we have all experienced — even if we haven’t consciously registered it — and continue to experience daily. We have been given so much without asking, and without being asked for anything in return, haven’t we? We could say this is a key feature of grace: it is given generously, freely, and without demand.
We have been given a human birth — not easy for the soul, according to the teachings. And many of us have been able to put clothes on our backs, have a warm home with a roof over our heads, and food in our bellies. We might say, “Well, I’ve worked damned hard for my clothes and my home.”
And yet this too is grace. Others work just as hard without success or material recompense. Many people are not born into countries where the basic securities of food, shelter, freedom of belief, movement, and speech are readily available. We so easily take these things for granted. We can call it chance or good luck — or we can call it grace.
Grace is that favour from Life, or the Divine, that seems to flow towards us independently of our personal efforts. It is unearned. It is the opportunity that lands unexpectedly in our lap, or the protection that appears to arise from nowhere.
Often, when personal growth emerges from our suffering, grace begins to flow more freely in our lives. When we meet our suffering with grace, grace takes up more and more of the fabric of our being. As I so often heard the author and teacher Brandon Bays say when I studied with her:
“Take one step towards grace, and grace will take one thousand steps towards you.”
Another aspect of grace is that it seems to flow more readily as we cultivate a state of grace within ourselves. With a loving and forgiving heart and mind, we often experience more grace in our lives. In forgiving ourselves and others, we live with greater humility, responsibility, and compassion — and grace naturally finds more space to move through us.
The path of Yoga — especially in its early phases — is a path of purification. Not only of the body, but also of the heart, mind, and energy. This purification transforms the way a practitioner relates to themselves, others, and the world. With clearer seeing and understanding, we begin to live and move more gently and more gracefully — giving, receiving, learning, transcending, and surrendering.
This doesn’t mean that suffering or misfortune disappear. But they are met differently, without the same degree of entanglement, as our identification with them loosens. Over time, karmic tendencies may shift for the better. Greater clarity allows situations to be met more wisely, often leading to more skilful and life-affirming outcomes.
The purificatory practices of Yoga do not earn grace — by its very nature, grace cannot be earned. But they do remove the obstacles to a grace-filled life. As some of you may have heard me say in class, they help us to “get out of our own way.”
We may then awaken to the truth that all that we have been longing for has, in a sense, been longing to flow to us. Grace was always here, waiting for us to be ready to welcome and receive it. From the yogic perspective, grace lies at the heart of existence itself — an existence that is illimitable in its life-giving benevolence, energy, and light.
Grace is deeply woven into the spirit of the festive season. We celebrate the return of the light — unearned by our own efforts, yet bestowed upon us in support of all life, year after year, as the sun stands still at the Winter Solstice and the days slowly begin to lengthen once more.
In the Christian tradition, we are taught that Love came down at Christmas, with the birth of Christ — the light of the world.
Light, love, and grace together form the true spirit of this season.
Amidst the celebrations and the busyness of the days ahead, let us resolve to pause now and then, to reflect on these qualities. Let us remember the love and light in our lives, and the many ways grace flows to us and within us. May we continue to receive it — and to embody it more fully.
With my love,
Sara Shama
THIS EVENING:
Lie back quietly and to begin with, please connect with sensations arising in your body, the sensations of your breath rising and falling. Then for 8-12 breaths. please regulate your breathing to an even breath count. Next let your breathing be naturally arising. Simply lie back effortlessly, and reflect on the gift of your amazing life…..how much you’ve been given, often without your even asking.
| 
