Community is a nitty gritty field of sadhana. The joys and difficulties of being part of a spiritual community are a zone of circumstances, a gateway, to help us wake-up, to help us discover who we really are. A podcast from Satsang with Shambhavi.
FIRST WORDS FROM THE PODCAST
Much of the time we’re involved in thinking about what we wish we had, where we wish we were, who we wish we were with, what we wish we were doing, what we would prefer to be like, how we want to be in the future – or just today or tomorrow – what we don’t have, what we don’t like about ourselves, what we’re dissatisfied with in ourselves or in other people. This occupies a huge percentage of our time, being in this bhav.
Here we all are, many of us from the East Coast and the West Coast, and I don’t know how many of you can feel the joyful energy in this room of us coming together after many of us have been apart for awhile, at least in this physical body, and it would be good to feel and reflect on the extraordinariness of having teachings, of having a teacher, of having a community.
Everyone is here because you feel longing. There’s not anybody here who doesn’t feel some longing. But do you actually realize that your longing has been answered? Or, are you still going around all the time feeling like you’re missing out on something, wondering where it is. Where is that thing I’m looking for? There are many ways we can be in a spiritual community, and the most important sense of spiritual community is a field of sadhana. As you’ve heard me say many times before, there’s no reason for Jaya Kula to exist other than as a field of sadhana. We’re not here to just be in ordinary mind. It’s a place to help us wake up. It’s a situation, it’s a circumstance to help us wake up. It’s a gateway. It’s part of the tool box that we have to help us discover who we really are.
