Keep Your Heart Open

I used to live in a "spiritual community" and I forget sometimes that it's not always like that out in the world. I still keep with me that feeling that I got by living with a group of people practising being conscious, which for me was a positive experience. There was something about being surrounded by good intentions and real experiences of trust and openness that I take for granted in my "normal life" out in the world.

For a while I've been meaning to listen to a bunch of recordings I've hung onto. They're cassette tapes and I've got them in a bag and I resist throwing them out every time I move or do a big cleaning. I recently set up an old stereo that has a tape player as part of it and this morning I listened to an old Kripalu Yoga Teachers talk. It brought back lots of memories as it was recorded as a response to the community about being with struggle, which was happening back in 1994 when things unexpectedly went wild for everybody as it was revealed that the guru had been cheating with money and with women in the community. It was actually much worse than that, but that's the gist.

In this recording, Gayatri read a Bapuji quote about struggle and she sang a song. The quote was long and inspiring and was a reminder that our struggles are there for us to become stronger and that to be born in the Kali Yuga means we're all born as warriors. Our lives from birth to death are made up of struggle and it's through overcoming the struggles that the yogic siddhis appear as results. Basically, what doesn't kill you will make you stronger.

And then she sang an old classic, "Keep Your Heart Open." It was so Kripalu circa early 90's. "Keep your heart open, remember the love, that we are love, and love is all there is..." I sang along...

We do need more love in our society. Yes, it's there, but it wouldn't be overdoing it to bring a little more loving to the surface, to our daily lives.