Our Human & Spiritual Nature
I recently came upon this photo that I had taken in October of 2015. At the time, I was attending a retreat led by my incredible teacher Coral Brown, who continues to offer pilgrimages such as these. As beautiful as the scene is, I see much more than the fortitude of the mountains and the flow of a river. This particular site is called Devprayag, where two rivers, Alaknanda and Bhagirathi, merge to form the holy Ganges river. There is much to say about what the whole experience of being there meant for me, but as I look back at this specific photo, I am simply reminded of the daily journey that each of us embark on from the time we awaken to the time we retreat into sleep and even the space within our dreamy, sleeping hours. It is the adventure that each of us have undertaken in our human and spiritual form.
When I look at the two distinct rivers merging into one, I consider the two parts of ourselves that make up the integrated whole of who we are: our human or egoic self + our spiritual divine nature or our soul. Both journey with us as we experience life and create our life. Each direct the course and flow of our life. Each influence the details of the life we manifest for ourselves. In our human nature, we desire and acquire, we act out all of our roles, take on identities, learn, grow, and create. In our spiritual nature, we exist beyond the confines of the ego and attachments to the sensory world, we are limitless in our potential. We are the divine, embodied and we are able to create so much more of a purposeful life experience.
According to Sankhaya Philsophy - the Vedic Philosophy of Ayurveda, we are both human and divine. We came from the combined manifestation of pure consciousness and pure potential. We are both the higher Self being witness to our life experience and the one who gets to take in all of life through our five senses and become the creator of our own unique life story. We are both an individual - a unique human expression and part of the larger universal consciousness - connected to all things, people, and to nature. We’ve been born into a body as our vehicle to experience life, we have physical form and sensory organs so that we can take and absorb the sensory impressions of our outer world and to create our own unique verse. Beyond our physical form, is our soul. As expressed by the poet Rumi- “You are not a drop in the ocean. You are the entire ocean in a drop.”
We are both the Self that witnesses our life and the self that carries out the wishes of the ego in order to partake in the adventure of life. We incarnate into a body with thoughts, emotions, and desires all of which can be witnessed by our higher consciousness. It’s almost as if one part of us, the Higher Self, is watching the drama of our lives play out much like a television show while we are the one experiencing the highs and lows of our lives. Ideally, we live from a place of commitment to our spiritual growth while also living bravely enough to be open to our entire human experience.
The image of the Ganges river being fed by the two separate rivers is a reminder of how we can live in flow with life as an integrated whole - body, mind, and spirit. When we remember, accept, and nurture all parts of ourselves, we grow into the very best version of ourselves. Our thoughts and our actions become led by something greater - our divine nature. From this place, we create a life as the most authentic expression of who we are.
Throughout our life we spend our time seeking joy, establishing an identity, assuming a role, and finding fulfillment, pleasure, connection, and purpose. But, while we are in this body, we are also striving for a spiritual connection, a deeper fulfillment that cannot be met by external pleasures that as human beings we are inclined to seek. We get glimpses into the mystery and inklings that there is much more to us than all the roles we play and all the emotions we feel. We gather insights that are beyond that which we experience with our senses. We may describe them as feeling in flow, content, joyful for no apparent reason, aligned, whole or connected. As soon as we try to grasp and define such feelings, they’ve dissolved, deepening the mystery of their origins. When we do feel this way however, we are better equipped to ride the waves of life, to accept, endure, and embrace what is. We are also less affected by the dramas and the play of life. We are able to be in the world, but not of the world.
The irony is that in order to manifest a life that we desire most, we must go beyond our limited notions of who we are and access or return to the divine universal intelligence that created us in the first place. The life we create is not only based upon our human experiences, but also upon how we can access our spiritual Self in order to optimize our lessons while here and manifest a life we desire.
“Your life is the manifestation of God into form” - Ram Dass
We are in fact, the divine manifested through our incarnation. Ram Dass’ quote is in alignment with the teachings of Ayurveda - we’ve been incarnated in the human form in order to have the experience of life through our physical incarnation. The tricky thing is we often go about our life forgetting this. While we are here, we get caught up in overly identifying with our sense of separateness, our ego, all of our identities, attachments to things, people, and the outcome of our actions. We become addicted to things like praise and recognition. We create added suffering for ourselves through competition and worrying about the future. We attach meaning and value to things that will ultimately not bring us true joy and inner peace. In order to create the best possible human experience for ourselves we must remember the truth of our spiritual nature and utilize it to manifest an authentic and meaningful life of experience.
The goal of our soul is to return home, to remember our true nature. Life is the classroom and we are the students here to learn, create, and evolve during our lifetime. Ideally, we do so without getting caught up in and attached to the worldly drama, play, and addiction to sensory pleasures. Ultimately, when we’ve learned the lessons of our soul, we merge back with the ocean of pure consciousness. We no longer have to play the game and reincarnate. This may take many lifetimes!
How do we get there? Through tools like meditation and spending time in nature where we can utilize our human body to experience this life and connect with something larger and beyond our humanness. Being in nature, sitting in meditation, and slowing down are all conditions to remind us of what truly matters. They let us reach everything that is outside of our anxious mind, our frustrations, our worrying, or ruminating on the past, our sense of failure, loss and shame. There exists something outside of those thoughts, this is where we are. We are enough. These are the simple things we can do, ways we can be in this world that connect us to our Higher Self, to the divine source so that we can transcend the causes of suffering - attachment to ego, attachment to sensory pleasures, resistance to change and attachment to that which is impermanent.
Sankhya philosophy is rooted in the belief that:
You are already that which you desire to be.
“Thou art That”: Tat Twam Asi (in Sanskrit)
There is great comfort and ease in this. We actually don’t have to become anything, we are already enough and complete as we are. We are free to simply be ourselves, to learn, and to evolve into the best version of ourselves. We don’t need to stress by trying to force an identity upon ourselves. We are already it. We simply need to remember. This allows us the pure freedom to create our life and live into our potential from a place of contentment rather than desperation.
Ayurveda identifies and addresses the primordial cause of dis-ease as being of a spiritual nature. Ultimately, all dis-eases that settle in our physical bodies and our minds originate from Forgetting our True Nature as Spirit.
From this place of forgetting our soul, we overly identify with our ego, we become addicted to that which is pleasing to the senses. We make choices out of habit rather than present awareness for our highest good. Our food and lifestyle routines become imbalanced resulting in illness.
When we forget that we are pure consciousness and lose sight of our highest Self, we become consumed with our identities and the material world. We fixate on establishing our personas. Overly identifying with our ego, we get lost in a sense of separateness and comparison. A pattern of self-deprecating thoughts can ensue - thinking we are not enough - aren’t successful enough, good enough, smart enough, pretty enough.
In losing this awareness, we become attached to sensory pleasures, to material things, to people, and to the outcome of our actions. We become consumed with trying to satisfy the needs of the ego with anything outside of ourselves that feels pleasing and fills us up: validation from others, fame, recognition, material wealth, food, alcohol, career, etc. We will inevitably become increasingly dissatisfied if we continue to seek joy from external sources. All of this creates suffering for ourselves and is prohibitive to our capacity to create a fulfilling life.
If disconnected from the very source of our creation, our inner guiding light, we become disengaged, both within ourselves and in relationship to our outer world. We may feel out of flow with ourselves and with our environment. We meet life with resistance rather than surrender.
Within our minds, this all creates a sense of suffering that can manifest as agitation, anxiety, fear, anger, and attachment. When balance within the mind is disrupted, it affects the body by way of symptoms: anything from digestive issues, to inflammation, to more serious diseases such as diabetes and cancer.
Here is the paradox: as incarnated beings we are intended to show up to life as active participants of living and of creating. At the same time, becoming too attached to the sensory world with all of its temptations/addictions and dramas will create suffering for us. To live in the world, but not of the world, is a lifelong practice steeped in our ability to remember. Over and over again.
When we remember our true nature, we are able to care for our bodies and minds in the best possible way and access an infinite inner source of joy, wonder, and grace. We occupy a space that is unharmed by life’s challenges and circumstances. We elicit an internal resource in order to fill an inner void.
We return to a way of being that is aligned with our soul. We remember that being aligned with our soul is part of the ongoing practice of life.
We know that we are on the right path, living authentically and in connection with our outer world, when we embody the movement of the river and allow our divine Self to flow along with us on our human journey.
