JUST LOVE

Have you ever wondered if they're real, heaven and hell?

Perhaps when you were a young human, a child, first hearing about them you asked yourself those questions. Perhaps you wondered if you might find yourself in one or the other after you die, and if so, how would it be? 

And as you grew and matured perhaps you decided heaven and hell are naive concepts concocted to control human societies in ancient times, and maybe you decided those concepts are certainly not relevant to modern day living in our rational, scientific world. 

And yet heaven and hell are very real concepts for all of us, every day.  It is here and now in our daily living experience of who we are and how our life is.   

Whether your life is generally a happy one (heavenly) or generally a miserable one (hellish) depends on your own natural propensity to be drawn more towards happy things, thoughts, feelings, people, situations, books, movies, etc. or whether you are more easily attracted to unhappy thoughts, feelings, situations, books, movies, etc.

If you want to know if you are living in heaven or hell, choose one day to notice where your attention is naturally drawn - is it more towards happy positive thoughts and feelings or is your attention naturally focusing on less happy outcomes in the past and future? 

The possibility of a heaven or a hell is within you. 

Imagine there is a kind of natural scales or balance within you and notice if the needle, the pointer more easily moves in one direction or the other. 

Once you have this information it is a simple matter to change the direction of that inner pointer or needle, to consciously choose positive thoughts, feelings, people, books, movies etc.  instead of the old unconscious pattern of choosing to spend your time with thoughts and feelings that are sad, angry, jealous, fearful, needy, aggressive, irritable, etc.

Finding this inner balance is one of the kindest acts you can ever do for yourself.

In yoga this is called Pratipaksa Bhavana and it is one of the key teachings of the Yoga Sutras of Patanjali. Book 1. Sutra 33 says : When a negative thought or feeling arises, replace it with a positive one.

Sri Patanjali places this advice, this Sutra, right between telling us about the 8 Limbs of Yoga, the ladder towards union with Absolute Consciousness, and his detailed analysis of each of the practices - in other words he is telling us that this is the key to success within all the practices of yoga. 

As we begin to practice yoga we find space within ourselves to begin to be aware of the possibility of making those conscious choices rather than being driven by blind reactivity to what happens around us and within us.   We begin to be able to find the reins on the wild horses of the mind and to gently ease up the dizzying charge of the senses, thoughts and feelings and to say whoa there, easy boy, let's walk this way now instead.   With practice, over time, it becomes our default setting... and our inner experience of life becomes more peaceful.  

When we add Heart Practice to our daily experience we are giving Consciousness a time and a place to rest in itself, a time for the inner needle or pointer to rest on zero.   And it is here, in the perfect balance of the still point of the Heart-beyond-the-heart that we find neither positive nor negative, we find equanimity. We transcend that and find a way of being that is genuine, true and authentic and we find love. Love Itself. 

We discover the nature of Absolute Consciousness is Love and it is who we are. 

Just Love is a description of reality and the only instruction we really need. 

On Shanthi Shanthi Shanthii

Padma Devi