Initiation

In Yoga circles, both contemporary and traditional, there is a lot of talk about Initiation. Some call it Shaktipat which is the decent of Grace into a student in the form of a 'wake-up call'. 

There are many ways to receive this WAKE UP call, some claim it can only come from a person who is anchored in the state of the highest connection with their Truest Nature.

The truth is, the 'Awakening Principle' can not be confined to any ONE form. It is the POWER of SEEING/KNOWING who we are underneath all the "packaging". And although many GREAT ones have offered this gift, that Energy has myriads of ways it offers Itself.

Initiation is a beginning, a step, a crossing over a threshold- the place where we peek in the mirror and recognize we are much greater than we "thought" and it happens when Grace/ Shakti/God decides it is the time in the story of Itself (as you) to begin to remember AGAIN. Kind of like finding the car keys you lost, they were there all along, but we just forgot where we put them.

What has been important for me is that my initiation was the beginning. I could go into the stories..they are quite extraordinary and flashy, but they wouldn't have meant anything unless I committed my life to using the gift of that glimpse to fuel my courage to go deeper, to work, to begin to open up to LIVING the TRUTH of what I experienced.

My whole life went to hell in a hand bag after the "Honey Moon", but I had this shining spark inside me that I remembered and this was the torch that lit my way through the mire of letting go of lifetimes of garbage and misunderstandings.

I feel it is WHAT you do with the gift..there are many gifts in life that we ignore, or put on a shelf. I also see that it would be easy to become 'addicted' to the HIGH of the hit of that powerful recognition..and seek the thrill instead of doing the work. We cannot look for someone or something out there to give us the wake up... it doesn't work that way. That would be like receiving a gift for your birthday and tossing it in the garbage and then putting your hand out for another gift before you even opened the first one. 

So this begs a question, how many Shaktipat/ initiation experiences do we "need?"

A great teacher of mine, Shri Mahant Baba Rampuri Ji recently told me, 'the Guru (Awakening Principle) is like going to the gas station, it fills up your tank, but YOU have to go out and drive the car, you have to DO something'...sooner or later we have to walk the walk. 

When our LIVES become a living offering of the gift we received, then the miracles really start to happen, then we are LIVING our life, not merely CHASING it.