Ep. 136 – Embodied Faith

There was a lot of time during the day when we weren't seated right in front of him, when we'd be off in some other part of the ashram and he was work...

he was hanging out with the Indians or having lunch or whatever he might have been doing.

And he'd send people over who would say things like, "Maharaji's not happy.

You are thinking and talking too much." Or he'd say, "Maharaji's..." They'd say, "Maharaji's very happy because you're remembering God right now." So, for many years, my spiritual practice was a lot to do with trying to understand the Dharma, what was going on, why was I suffering so much, certainly bringing meditation into the process, and working with trying to have faith in my heart, uh, beyond the belief in my mind, trusting my heart.

And I really began to notice that to trust in the heart has a lot to do with trusting being in the body.

It's very difficult to, to be thinking and to be with your sensations at the same time.

The heart is a felt experience.

So more and more, my practice is noticing that I'm in my mind when I'm there.

What does that feel like? Without judging it, without saying mind is bad, but trusting this dropping down, this dropping in, into the body, having faith and embodiment as a way of revealing the open heart that is always available, rather than me trying to do something in a way using sensation as a gateway or a portal into experiencing presence.

And you've probably heard me tell this story so many times, you could tell it better than I could.

But the famous price of milk story, which I will abbreviate, I was with Maharaji.

I was very new there.

I had just gotten off the, the train from being with Swami Muktananda, and I really didn't quite know who, who Maharaji was yet.

And at that point, I was sitting with him and my friend Mohan and a few other Indian people, and Maharaji was having this ongoing long conversation about how much Americans pay for milk in America.

"How much is a kilo of milk in America? How m- how much you guys are paying for that?" And my mind, which wanted to get enlightened, was thinking, "What am I doing here? Why are we talking about this? Why are we talking about this silly stuff? Let's talk about the important stuff.

Let's get my mind having something to chew on that's really good stuff, not this boring stuff." And as I was f- judging Maharaji's conversation, you can tell how, how egocentric I was in that moment, I had this explosion in my heart that I knew was a gift from him, saying, "We can talk about interesting things.

We can talk about this or that," but talking about something completely trivial gives us a chance to let go of the mind and dive into the heart.

And there was an explosion in my body of bliss that I was...

I experienced then for most of the rest of the daySo right now as we're beginning this talk, and I will endeavor to bring some more interesting ideas into the room here, but right now, what does it feel like in your body? What does it feel like in your chest? What does it feel like in your belly? What does it feel like in your face? Can surrendering into sensation be a direct gateway into trusting who we are and who we are is someone who has this radiant heart? So a somatic approach to faith means that faith is not treated as merely a belief in the mind.