I learned in the army first hand just how unreliable memory can be. Two people will go through ostensibly the same experience, yet if stress was involved, the memories often conflict. Most will swear black and blue that they saw ‘the truth’ and this can be a source of division.
There is, however, some danger of swinging too far off the other end of the spectrum; of relativising all experience as subjective.
The path of yoga concerns itself with universal truths that are in nature, body and mind. On our retreats, we start from the ground up.
News flash – humans are quite literally full of shit.
This is okay, we have a dedicated room of the house and a sophisticated plumbing system to deal with this in an effective manner.
Our experience is much like food, it must be digested. We eat a daily dose of content, news, information, media and substance, and when the system is working well, we feel regular and don’t think twice about that part of life.
When we are out of whack (or worse, the septic system is broken) it is then that we notice our excrement.
Metaphysically, this is when suffering overwhelms us.
Depression is a condition of past experience, of yesterday’s meals clogging us up (welcome to memory.)
The yogic activity of meditation simultaneously presences us, and also gives us permission to allow the past out.
Even a gourmet meal will be turned into fertiliser.
Meditation allows the normal release of experience, both good and bad. This makes us feel lighter (a memory of my cat jumps to mind, who after using the kitty litter would run around my old apartment in an energetic fit of ecstasy!)
Memory, when fixated upon, quite literally keeps us poking into the nasty detritus from the past.
Similarly, when we believe that positive memories hold the key to happiness, we also fail to realise that even if these were yesterday’s gourmet meals, they are in this present moment crap!
Meditation teaches that only this moment, here and now, has the potential to take us beyond suffering. And rather than ‘arriving’ at a destination of peace, one realises that they are, were, and always will be that peaceful destination.
Many paths share this radical message, that the transcendence of suffering is not years of penance away, but available to sincere Souls right now. Vajrayana (the lightning vehicle of the Buddhitst’s,) Amanaska Yoga (yoga without mind of the Nath) or here at Kailash Ashram, we call it Samarpan Dhyan Sanskar (Surrender.)
All of these paths share the same unspeakable truth that frees us in an instant.
In order to build this house of peace we sometimes need a little scaffolding; sometimes we might need the spiritual colonic to flush out the half digested gunk of yesteryear.
The Soul Retreat is both an immersive experience of recalibration and release.
It is also a place to learn how to ensure that that today is a little more present than yesterday because one thing is certain; if today we eat, tomorrow we will be full of ‘it…’ and who doesn’t love to be a little more ‘regular’
