AHYMSIN Newsletter, Issue - Dec 2012 | |||||
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A Weekend in Walesby Sabina CesaroniCrossing the long bridge that, shortly, will take us to the land of Wales... Swami Nityamuktananda has been driving for hours and her attention is sharp, her driving safe. A nice warm day … in a while we'll leave England. Gently we drive through green valleys of dense woods
climbing up the black mountains, opening and (literally!) closing gates … Horses running wild, families of scary pheasants, strange birds and, of course, hundreds of sheep!! Small villages greeting us with their fresh bright coloured flowers arrangements. Just a stop at Tintern Abbey to admire the beautiful ancient Cathedral, place of pilgrimage founded by Cistercians monks. Before we enter, we are invited to read:
These vows were reinforced by 4 basic requirements:
These words, written at the main entrance are familiar to us, and we just consider that in the whole world God's word (verbo di Dio) meets humanity in silence and order, that form of respect and observation was accompanied by "practice" and personal experience, that experience which through witnessing becomes knowledge. We observe 2 minutes meditation … while white doves fly high above the Abbey … free. After a winding road, we finally reach our destination. People welcome us...a tasty fragrance of ready made fresh bread in the air! The workshop is open, the participants already organized questions before hand. Swami Nitya knitted the workshop around these questions: relationship with partners - the quality of love being in a relation. These introduced "One" is not a number but a state of Being ( in fact, we start counting from 2!) Swami Nitya quotes Plato and the famous "Symposium" (the myth of the half). The need, the quest for the "part" which was lost, those unsatisfied desired correspondences...the answer is to find out our space of Belonging, that origin that has no gender but is just wholeness. Who am I … that I am … Swami Nitya (a fantastic story teller!!) adds stories making things easier and clearer. Then introduces another important subject : "Death and life", talking about Ramana Maharshi's experience of death to discover what was it about … letting himself almost die … to see that unique, infinite, fluid, constant movement which is Divine energy continuously assuming new shapes! We identify with our mental pattern calling it individuality.Curiously, individual means not being divided! Sanatana Dharma, the Cosmic Universal Laws...we have to recognize things the way they simply are, being in the present time, not dispersing energy and practicing the 5 pillars of Sadhana: Silence, fasting, control of sleep, celibacy and meditation. These are merely tools which can help to live in an integrating way, getting very close to the ideal of the monastic laws we met at the entrance of Tintern Abbey in our journey reaching Wales … Sabina Cesaroni
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