“Every man is a divinity in disguise, a god playing the fool.” - Ralph Waldo Emerson
April Fools Day has arrived and I'm laughing aloud as I look around and notice how fooled we all are. Really! We all forget – myself definitely included – how divine and miraculous we are. We fool ourselves into thinking we have forever in these bodies and that our time is infinite. We let outside sources fool us, in too many ways. And, we fool ourselves over and over again with the concocted dramas of our trickster mind, playing out the should-have-beens in one hand and worries of some imagined future in the other.
I led a workshop over the weekend near Mount Shasta and one of the topics was Unearthing Clarity. We used several practices to hone in on viveka, or 'discernment' and explored ways to see more clearly around various topics in our lives. It was POWERFUL to go on this journey with the group, moving towards the really real, the Truth, and watch everyone's eyes open to what IS instead of the loopholes we all create for ourselves to avoid the Truth.
This is why I love the yoga practice so much. Every time I roll out the mat, or chant japa mantra, or take a few minutes in stillness, I'm reminded to look beneath the surface, beyond the illusion and through the fallacy of separation to remember the miracle of it all. I'm reminded that we're all in this lila together, this divine play, with all of our glorious costumes, strung along like marionettes forgetting our lines, dancing to a divine symphony – and I don't want to miss a beat.
The practice says, 'Wake up!' See beyond the illusions and card tricks of the mind but stay playful, laugh in jest at it all but don't forget the grace and magnitude of being in this life at this time, see through the farce and cherish each moment with unwavering presence.
May we all know the really real,
Nat K