“Happiness is not a destination, it’s a method of travel.” – Saint John of the Cross

This quote came to me this morning.  What a wonderful gift to start my day and wonderful reminder…Be Happy!  It is our birthright after all.  And it is an attitude and a choice and it certainly beats the alternative.

The quote is not particularly the theme for this week’s blog.  I just couldn’t resist sharing it with you.  This week, I wanted to share another personal experience from this phase of my current journey. 

From 21 Stages of Meditation to Chemotherapy…my path to light and infinity…I have found there is a white and silver light that moves within me.

 I am a Libra with 5 planets in Libra.  My path is about balance if nothing else.  We say that balance, the number 5 in Tantric numerology, is the Teacher.  The Teacher sits at the balance point, where the ups and downs of life do not affect him or her.  To be the Teacher, is my gift in this life.  Something I certainly work on, and with the wisdom of age, something I pray continually improves with time. 

Balance and the challenges and lessons of balance come to me in “spades” as the old saying goes.  It means it comes in great quantity.  Here is a great example.  Last week, we taught 21 Stages of Meditation here at Yoga Borgo.  It’s a great course and for me very blissful.  It was awesome!  

21 Stages….Deep Meditation

And, this week was my six hour chemo which is not always so particularly blissful.  It can be the opposite end of the spectrum and could be the “down” to the previous week’s “up”.  So, here was my challenge and an opportunity offered to me.  Can I find the balance point?  Can I find that still point, where there is no “down” and there is no “up”.  That point we call zero, or in yoga-speak, “Shuniya”.   After a week of almost 40 hours of meditation, my answer is, “I certainly hope so!”

With 6 hours of sitting, one has a lot of time to ponder, to read, to meditate, to watch videos etc, etc.  I do it all.  Yesterday, my pile of books included The Bhagavad Gita which I am re-reading for the first time in about 30 years and the book, The 21 Stages of Meditation.  I love serendipity…where great gifts come by chance…but not really…it’s all on purpose, right? 

So in the introduction to this translation of Bhagavad Gita is a quote from St. John of the Cross, a 16th century mystic from Spain  (when cultures collide…?).  And St. John says, “ In order to be All, do not desire to be anything.  In order to know All, do not desire to know anything.  In order to find the joy in All, do not desire to enjoy anything.” 

So, St. John is talking about the zero point…Shuniya. 

Five minutes later, I am reading “21 Stages”  (maybe a little A.D.D., Libra mind after all…I can jump around a lot) and find this great Yogi Bhajan quote and reminder.  “The first principle of a teacher is, ‘I am not.’  If you cannot practice shuniya, you cannot be a teacher of Kundalini Yoga.  Shuniya means zero…In shuniya you become zero, you reduce everything to nothing…The moment you become that, then everything radiates from you. “ 

So, great minds think alike.  350 years separation between these 2 masters, five minutes in time as I changed one book for the other, yet I find the same wisdom. 

It reminded me of so many years ago.  It was my 36th Birthday.  Yogi Bhajan turned to me and said,  “I have some wisdom for you.  Remember this…In the All is Nothing and in the Nothing is Everything.  Be the All and the Nothing.  As Libra, don’t balance yourself to the world, let the world balance to you.”   So, Shuniya…be still, be zero and let All come.  

Ready for my platinum drip…the riches are ready to flow…the 9 Treasures run to me and flow through me.

And in my chemo-therapy, as I lay there pondering these thoughts, the Cisplatin begins to drip which is the heavy medicine (it is made from platinum) and for me it becomes a very out of the body experience.  I can actually watch the intravenous connection of the needle into my arm and see the Cisplatin pulsating into me and I slowly slide into a deep Yoga Nidra (relaxation).  So, this precious metal platinum, which means “little silver” is dripping into me.  And I see it morph from its gross form to light and each drop become a drop of white, silvery light of creative healing energy.  In the old Yogic science, they say that the silvery white light represents the positive power to create.  And that is what is flowing into me for the next hour…the power of creativity.  For me it becomes a healing meditative action, a Kriya of sorts.   

You never know where wisdom may come from, nor, when it may arrive.  In my Chemo, I have found my Shuniya, my zero and the Everything, the All comes to me.  I am blessed and I am profoundly grateful. 

I wish you all a most blessed and wonderful Thanksgiving.  May we always remember the blessings in our lives.  May gratitude ever prevail.

Love to you all,

Sada Sat Singh