Walk with Love—Yikes
I’ve been walking around for about a year now—perhaps a timeframe indicative of a new government administration?—loudly proclaiming to anybody who would listen—oh, especially to you, you poor, captive readers:
Love is above my paygrade.
I’m going for kindness.
Even though I repeated this in workshops, I didn’t quite hear the oddity of my mantra.
Kindness seemed somehow more manageable, more achievable, rather than the gold ring of Love, the ultimate. Perhaps I was a bit protective of myself, too? Is it too painful to risk loving?
Then life intervened, most aggressively.
First, to jumpstart this universal intervention, Jess Frey, a dear Kripalu colleague, asked me to join her in February with a callout with Kripalu guests.
Sure, I easily answered.
The topic? I asked.
Love, she said. The topic is love.
I gulped. Love is the topic.
Then, to accelerate my realignment with love, Kripalu unveiled its new marketing platform, stunning, powerful and updated, and a pillar of mission emerged, clearly represented in many places:
Walk with Love.
Shit.
And thirdly, ever so slowly, I remember:
Oh, right! Kripalu is the Path of Love. Ohhhhhh.
So—it appears to me that life is asking me to get on the Love Train.
~~~
What does Swami Kripalu teach about love? Here is Shobhan Richard Faulds from his book, Sayings of Swami Kripalu:
Swami Kripalu saw love as the true treasure of life. Instead of praising a universal love for all beings, he emphasized the task of creating loving relationships with those closest to you: family, friends and co-workers. This kind of love is real and tangible. It is not at risk of becoming a spiritual abstraction….
As we devote our heart to loving our family, then the heart will be totally engrossed in love. The heart engrossed in love will spontaneously love the entire world.
~~~
Fascinating, Swami’s emphasis on the family, those closest to us, rather than the wider world.
Start at home.
Start with the people we interact with.
Lean into that intimacy.
Lean into those dynamics, those challenges.
And then…..
Wider loving becomes possible.
~~~
For me, this wacky aging human, the closer the people are to my heart, the more challenges arise.
Does anybody identify with this?
A great example for me is my teaching at Kripalu.
I truly love sharing workshops with you. It’s mine, my work to do.
Loving you is easy.
And then you leave.
Knowing you are leaving, opening to you is easier.
Then I come home, where hopefully nobody has left.
That’s a different field of practice for me.
So importantly, Swami Kripalu teaches about Janata Janardana,
Every being is God,
Every being is Divine.
Hum. There’s that.
~~~
What about you?
What’s easy about loving?
What’s hard?
How do you lovingly support yourself on this Path of Love?
Let’s just keep practicing—that’s my intention, my hope, my commitment.
~~~
Music! I started thinking about the television program Soul Train. Anybody remember that one? It ran from 1971-2006, incredibly. I remembered the song, Love Train, and searched for a version. I found this gem by Playing for Change.
Please watch—it’s worth watching YoYo Ma rocking out:
~~~
Dear Friends,
One step,
One breath,
On thing
At a time.
May this moment
Softly and easefully
Carry us into the next.
And on and on,
May we follow
Breath and belly
As we
Make
Our
Way
Home.
All blessings,
Aruni
~~~