Untrashable

Pain points out where out attachments were hidden. It is a perfect indicator of the limitations that are our selfish expectations. That is why, to the yogi, pain is a teacher - a stern one, yet one that has nothing but the liberation of its students at heart.

Inside the Yoga Sutras, Carrera

We hold the keys to our own inner peace.

The Secret Power of Yoga , Nichala Joy Devi

All of the spiritual traditions teach that at our core, what we are made of is "untrashable" by the violence that maybe inflicted upon us. Whether by poverty or racism, incest, neglect or hate, the cruelty that others or the world forces upon us cannot touch this (w)holy place within us.

In yoga philosophy, this is called Purusha or the soul within which is the part of ourselves that knows and experiences ourselves and world without distortion. It is a pure present awareness of our aliveness. Nothing has the power to name or define this inner wisdom. It is like the breath in that it is given to us by Divine grace - it is not something we create, make, or can have more of if we are "good". It is what the substance of our lives are made of even though, most of the time, we are lost to its existence. We forget that the fabric of our aliveness is made from Divinity itself and instead come to believe that the substance of who we are is dependent what we do, think, or sense.

And just as we can come to believe that our self-worth is dependent on what we do or how we are feeling about ourselves, we can come to feel defined by the violence that has been done to us throughout our lives. As James Finley has said, "We can come to believe that what has happened to us in the past has the power to name who we are." But this is only because we forget that at our core,we are by Divine rights untrashable.

A poet image of this came to me the other day as I was walking by the lake in the woods. It is as if deep inside us there is a precious and pure lake, cool, blue/black, still and of infinite depth. The violence that is done to us sends forth ripples in this lake. But they do not stick nor change the texture, the color, the coolness, or natural stillness of the lake. The ripples touch us but they spread and dissapate leaving only what is pure, still, and (w)holly its own. We are abundantly able to absorb these ripples. They do not name us, they cannot tarnish what is pure and God given, they have no power to name what is precious deep inside of us.

Moreover, any violence that we inflict upon the world or that is in inflicted upon us is not touched by this lake. Violence comes from the parts of us that have not yet come to understand our own preciousness.

When there is pain that sticks or lingers we need only to remember that no event in our lives has the power to name who we are. Yoga can help us to find this place, return to it when we have lost its essence, and with practice come to live more and more from its healing source.