picking up the pace

[Sash]

Today is Guru Purnima.

In the yogic culture, today marks the start of the part of the year that is inner work intensive. My sadhana will be to observe the yamas and niyamas, the core tenets or foundation blocks of yogic spiritual development, with an emphasis on bhramacharya in particular. My wish is to return to a state of inner purity; to become like a child and to love and accept myself as one would a child that is learning, making mistakes from time to time, but growing. I want to gain some momentum so that I can move past my addictions and be satisfied with my being. This morning, I made a vow to myself to put aside certain areas of my life for the time being. Though a part of me craves these things an even bigger part just wants to move onto bigger things; things that matter more. 

I am by no means an advanced spiritual practitioner, but upholding the yogic tradition has been something of great significance to me in the past couple of years. It is my own way of honoring my roots I suppose, but it goes deeper than that. It's given me some sort of guideline to follow for the time being, and I know the yogic path can take me places that few spiritual teachers in the West speak about let alone conceive as possible. I contemplate yoga's place in the modern world all the time, and all kinds of radical and ingenious ways of donning yoga in a contemporary garb, so that it can walk up and down Silicon Valley and Wall Street with some credibility and dignity behind it.

I will also be putting in time everyday to get clearer on my life purpose. I still don't feel like I have all the pieces put together. Sometimes I beat myself up for taking so long to make a clear cut decision, but whenever I try to force a decision, I just seem to go around in circles. I'm tired of running in circles. I want to commit to a long-term consistent practice and see it through to the end.

I made a deal with the universe that when this phase is over, and I have succeeded in what I am setting out to do, I want divine insight in return. I want clarity. It seems silly but, you have to state what you want and name an appropriate price for it, even if what you want is to simply know what it is that you really want, and that's what I'm looking for; something that's going to propel me out of the cyclical way I've been living; something that's going to organize my life and get me moving, taking risks, and failing.