Spiritual Responsibility and Faith Without Work

I am watching a documentary about the spiritual shift of consciousness of 2012 and it has me thinking deeply about our spiritual paths.  Whether you are waiting on Jesus or aliens from another planet, your spiritual responsibility is yours and no one else's. I'm not saying anything bad about anyone's faith.  I'm just saying, what are you doing in the mean time?  Are you just sitting and waiting for someone to save you and everyone else?  Do you hide behind your religion or pit your religion against others?  Do you practice faith without work?

Attending "chuch" in my preteen years, I saw so many people who sat around waiting on god to turn on the light in there lives.  The truth is that the light was never out and that is what god wanted them to realize.  People asked for healing but never ask god what his plan was in causing sickness and pain in the first place.  The point, in my opinion, was not to understand the will of god but to understand how your circumstance is apart of a divine soul lesson for you. That keeping still was meant to be taken literally.  It was meant to surrender to the moment and using stillness to learn your soul lesson so that healing may have a way to find you. 

When we remove our power and give it to a system and rely on that system to take care of us, we are being spiritually lazy.  While a religious system can provide a foundation of tools and resources for you to use on your journey, in the end your choices on how to live your life are your responsibility. The best example I can give of this are people who harm other people in the name of their religion. There are folk who take beautiful spiritual practices and use them to justify atrocities and injustices toward humanity.  A lot of folk blame this and that on a religion but it's not a religion that is responsible.  People are responsible.  

The best way I can describe faith without work is through a story.  I have a friend who likes to tell me a story involving a lesson about faith. There was a great flood warning issued to a town.  Most people were making preparations to leave but one man decided not to do anything because he knew that if he prayed and asked god to save him, he wouldn't have anything to worry about.  Well, the flood came and at the initial evacuation the man's neighbor offered to the man a ride out of the town.  The man refused and said, god is going to save him so the neighbor left.  As the waters had risen higher the man had to go the second floor of his house.  A boat came pass and the boat driver saw him in the window and offered him a ride.  The man thanked the boatman for his offer, refused, and decided to wait on god to save him. The waters got so high and the man now had to reside on the roof of his home for protection.  I helicopter came and offered to rescue the man but the man once again refused and was waiting on god to save him.  Pretty soon the water had risen so high the man had to swim to survive.  He then began to ask god why he didn't save him.  God replied to him and said, I sent your neighbor, a boat, and a helicopter.

Do we see the lesson here?

Another Neck Injury?!?!?

I seem to have injured my neck in yoga practice.  Trying to ask the right questions, I have asked what I can learn from this even?  I already know pain doesn't feel good so that's not what I am to learn. I use to spend do much time in deep analysis of so many things when the truth of the matter is always in plain site. Here's how I hurt my neck...this time.

I was in a yoga class where three new instructors were in training.  One of the instructors while giving instructions started to walk backwards in my direction while I was in Chaturanga Dandasana moving into upward facing dog.  You can google this for an image.  I saw this woman backing into me so I whispered, "hey! Whoa! Whoa! " I then proceeded to bend and extend my back in upward dog to avoid collision.  

She finally got the message and stopped herself right before stepping on my mat.  As I continued into downward dog, I felt an all too familiar pain in my neck.I immediately took a child's pose and stretched my neck.  It was not feeling well.  Stupidly though I continued my practice and then went home.  It was there that the reality of the situation kicked in: I was seriously hurt and this pain was similar to my turbulence injury.  Dammit!

I couldn't move my neck more than 20 degrees in either direction.  I decided to book a visit with a chiropractor. I was upset but I was trying to figure out the reason this familiar pain resurfaced.   It took a day in a half but I'm finally understanding this.  It was so simple to figure out and I figured it out by five events that I will try to sum up in five paragraphs.

A text message from the Ex. 
I posted, "stupid neck..." on my Facebook status and my ex husband sent a text asking how I was doing.  For some reason this immediately made me angry.  I thought, "how dare you be concerned about my pain now.  You didn't seem concerned when we were married. " Ladies and gentlemen,  meet my ego. I am so grateful for the spiritual growth I am having because I was able to catch her before she was unleashed. Instead I figured out she was trying to tell me she was holding to some shit from the past that doesn't serve my present anymore.  Guess who told me this? My wonderful ex husband in his text message: "just remember that this is not like your injury and you will be fine in no time." He is one of the most beautiful souls I know and boy does he know me well.  So grateful for him.  It was time to not only let go of my past but to appreciate all he haf done to support me and show that he cares.   He has always cared.

Checking out my body
I told you I could only turn my neck about 20 degrees in either direction. Well, it literally hurt to try to look back at my ass and see if it looked bad in my pants.  Was it worth it? Why did I even care what my ass looked like, especially in the situation I was in? I've been accepting my beauty lately. I've been loving my body ad the unique temple that it is.  No one can love my body like me and I cam either choose to appreciate it without insecurities or have negative feelings about it. The pain I felt checking out my ass was a reminder that I am no longer concerned with things of those nature and it will only cause me pain.

Looking at someone else's body
This one will be pretty similar to the above two  lessons.  I use to be much worse than I am now and I know I'm not alone.  Women are always checking out other women.  We sit there and judge them and ourselves. Even if it's just subconscious.   It needs to stop.  It's not a behavior I want to continue.   I caught myself doing this yesterday and it hurt my neck.  It's another friendly reminder that this journey is not about this body.  I can pretty only look forward right now which means there is no need to look back.  I need to stay focused on what's in front of me and how I feel. 

A video about motivation, success, and dreams on Facebook
This was an amazing video.  It had powerful words and showed people working out hard-core to reach their dreams. At first my ego didn't care for this for the simple fact that because I am injured the way that I am, I can't do the physical things I want like yoga asanas.  I am on bed rest for healing right now.   It just hit me now that my yoga practice was focusing too much on body.  I was neglecting the mind and soul connection that is so vital to my growth.  Sometimes the universe will cause extreme things to happen to get you balanced again.   Just because I can't physically practice yoga doesn't mean I have to pause my dreams.  I am going to hard on yoga right now because my dream is to be a great yoga instructor.   I am here to teach whatbi am here to learn.   Yoga can be practiced through injury.   I am here to learn this right now so that I may teach it.  God is good.

Yoga Sutra Book Two Sutra 1
And now the icing on the cake.  Pain is of service to me, to all of us.  In the midst of it when it debilitates you it's extremely hard to see this, to feel this, to understand it. From my experience I can tell you that this is absolutely true.  Pain is an alert that an issue in your body needs to be addressed.  Pain tells you to be careful, use proper form, slow down.  I am grateful for this pain.  It sounds insane but that is the truth.  In the end my pain tells me to look forward,  not backwards.