Last year I was blessed to have met a "new" teacher (although felt like I've known him my entire life--his first words to me were "welcome home") Miguel Angel, a Mayan scholar, high priest/shaman and heart master. I connected with him in Yucatan Mexico while on a sacred journey with my yoga/spiritual teacher Saul David Raye. Miguel's teachings were so beautiful, that I continued ceremony and initiation with him in Guatemala this past December.
One of the more profound teachings he has shared with us is the most simple, and includes three instructions for living:
-Transmute
-Transform
-Share
Transmute: bite off from the bits and pieces within our lives, chew, swallow and digest. Keep the nutrients/vitamins, let go of the "waste". Take the everyday life, pay attention to feelings, responses in the body, in the heart, have gratitude. Transmuting is the process of attentiveness, of churning, of openness, of discernment, of diligence within our practices, re-aligning our belief systems as we go. The art of living with awareness.
Transform: Notice that when you live with awareness how your perspective on your life starts to change? You recognize more details, small things. The in-between. What used to bring you down, stress you out, tug at you, suddenly does so a little less. From transmutation, your reserve well begins to build- more freshness, perspective, understanding about your life happenings. So the EVENTS or happenings of your life might not change, but your relationship to them does! This is transformation. The art of letting go to what we used to cling to, our conditioning, karmas and understanding our role and relationship to our life. Feeling, seeing, moving towards life differently.
Share: So what good is any of this unless we allow it to seep out of us and into the world! This will look differently to each of us. I might share by writing, or teaching yoga teacher training. You might share through your art or song. She might share by being an honest friend. While he might not even "do" anything, just radiate. The deal is to never of hoard your experiences. Share them! this takes courage, and a little bit of (as my sister Lisa would say in a thick Brooklyn accent) "get ovah ya-self" The art of taking risks and going into life deeper, not running away from it. And bringing others with you on the journey.
In my experience, when I go into nature, and into the nature of me, I am shown the way to transmute, transform and share. This is deeply healing.
So let's take information and make it knowledge. Take knowledge and make it wisdom. Take wisdom and make it awareness. Take awareness and make it consciousness. Take consciousness and make it light (enlightenment). Take light and make it love. Take love and HEAL ourselves, others and our earth.
In the words of Ram Dass, "We're all just walking each other home."