Divine Spark

I recently attended a course on Yoga Psychology. Yoga in the traditional sense is not much about poses but about transformation and the practices and knowledge that lead to realization.  Yogis study the human being from the inside out.  They are explorers or scientists of the subjective.Over thousands of years yogis developed a map of the psyche, of the inner energetic world and put names to the parts.  Naming is powerful, once we have a name for something we can be more aware of it, we can focus on it see it.This learning was fascinating to me because it is exactly parallel to what I have been teaching, and aligns perfectly with all the great teachings that we benefit from.  For me it is another confirmation that we find the real truth in the places where all philosophies overlap, that there is an underlying truth that we can all discover, it is not all subjective.I went to this program on a quest; I am always on a quest for my next awareness.  I was questing for how to value myself, even love myself.  That may seem strange to you, but it has always been a bit of a blind spot for me, it just didn’t make sense that I could value or love myself, I can accept myself, but loving myself didn’t make sense.The only place that I usually experience value or love is in the reflection that I get from other people; they like, value, or love what I do, or “who I am”.  I have been able to experience value and love really only from this reflection from the outside or my feeling good about how I am seen.In the Yoga Philosophy there is an idea of an Atman.  That is the part of oneself that transcends death, it is the deepest, most authentic aspect of ourselves, the part of us that is a part of the wholeness of the universe, part of the unification of all things, and this part is unique.What it is not is: our personality, our thoughts, our ego, our id, our body, our knowledge, our feelings, our experience, our looks, or anything that I tend to recognize as me.  However, with practice, we can get a sense that there is something watching, contributing that has nothing to do with the above characteristics, yogis call this the Atman.The more I (I meaning my personality, thoughts, body, ego, id, etc.) become aware of my Atman the more beautiful and amazing it becomes to me.  I experience this in my clients too, the more we work, the more they are able to see how beautiful they are, they begin to appreciate their spirit, their Atman, it even begins to work more though them into their life.Still, it seemed odd to me to love myself, all of myself, with its humanness, its fallibility, strange patterns, mistakes, etc.  Sure I could accept all of myself with the redeeming quality of my spirit but it still didn’t add up to love or even value to me.Then I had an idea and insight.What if my personality, my thoughts, my ego, my id, my body, my knowledge, my feelings, my experience, and everything that I tend to recognize as me were to recognize, love and value my Atman, my soul.  It would be like a turning in of love and value.  I would not be valuing myself, but myself would be valuing my Atman.Maybe this only makes sense to me, but in seeing it that way I can see that by loving my Atman, my spirit that my devotion and love might take on another form.When I am loving outside, valuing others I see them in a whole, I see their Atman.  I treat others, even with their weaknesses and mistakes and struggles with huge respect and kindness and through that love they often grow and develop.  I behave as a better person than I am to myself, I show up for people, care deeply; in this mode I am more consistent, I dress nicer, I speak better, I am more composed, more forgiving, more thoughtful, etc.I realized that I am a better person on the outside than I behave on the inside.Why?  Why can’t I do that on the inside too, or even better?  I can’t do it inside when I don’t love and value myself.  What a challenge.  How can I love myself?What if instead of my usual way of looking at loving myself were wrong.  What if my personality, my thoughts, my ego, my id, my body, my knowledge, my feelings, my experience, and everything that I tend to recognize as me were to recognize, love and value my Atman?When I feel this possibility I realize that I would behave with myself in the way I behave in the world, I would work to be really great with myself, by myself.  I would do this as a form of honor, reverence, love, and value, not for myself in the traditional sense but for my Atman, the part of me that is sacred, perhaps eternal, for the beauty of my human existence, the gift of life, the gift of the experience here on Earth.I would realize that with my Atman watching and my reverence for it I would express my inner life as love, as respect for the uniqueness of me, of this experience, the vehicle (mind and body) would honor the passenger (spirit, Atman).As I see this.  As I recognize my Atman, I see it in you too.  Now I can honor and love your Atman because I love mine so much.  As I love mine I can show you how to see and love yours.  It is not you loving mine that matters; it is only us loving ours.The yogis say “Namaste” to each other.  As Wikipedia informs us:  The gesture Namaste represents the belief that there is a Divine spark within each of us that is located in the heart chakra. The gesture is an acknowledgment of the soul in one by the soul in another.Namaste,Kyle