Tag Archive | beloved

You Are Loved

Jan23

In today’s blog I share with you the words that came to me during my yoga practice yesterday morning.  I believe these are words for all of us!

Worthiness and Love

Of late, I have been reflecting on worthiness – specifically worthiness of being loved.  This love is of course about our intimate human relationships, AND I know at the deepest core of my being, that this worthiness is ultimately about Divine Love and our ability to believe we are loved unconditionally, infinitely and beyond measure.  As in worthiness of human love, we might hear that God loves us, but do we actually believe it?  Most of the time and for most human beings, I would say the answer is “NO.”  And what I have learned is that until we not only hear this love, but believe in it….with our whole hearts and souls, we are without peace, joy, compassion, mercy and fulfillment.  In other words, it is in REMEMBERING the LOVE that WE ARE…..that we find peace, contentment and joy.

God Speaks

So I showed up for yoga class yesterday morning with these thoughts wrapped around my aura.  Before beginning class, our instructor usually invites us to state within ourselves an intention for our practice.  I didn’t have a specific intention for the morning, so I simply sat in silence, waiting.  Then, clear as a bell, I hear God speak.  And this is what God said to me, “You are my beloved daughter, and with you I am well pleased.”  Yeah, Yeah….I know this is scriptural….and that it comes from the scriptural narratives about Jesus’ baptism in the Jordan by John.  And…..I also believe these are not only God’s words for Jesus….but are God’s words for us as well.  And…..hearing these words yesterday made me wonder, “Is this the truth Jesus had to hear, know, embrace and embody before he could embark upon his own healing ministry?”  I think perhaps it is!  So I used these words as a mantra during my yoga practice and allowed myself to not only hear these words, but begin to believe them.   And in being present to these words, I felt peaceful, joyful, grounded and secure.

My Prayer for You

So, here is my prayer/invitation for you today – that you take these words, You Are my Beloved Daughter/Son, and with You I am Well Pleased – imagine that God is saying these words directly to and about you……and believe that God is addressing you in this way.  Then, let your heart be open to hearing, believing, embracing and embodying this truth…..BECAUSE…….YOU ARE LOVE…..YOU ARE LOVED…..YOU ARE WORTHY….And the quicker you know this….the quicker you will know peace, contentment, fulfillment and joy!

Lauri Lumby

Authentic Freedom Ministries

http://yourspiritualtruth.com

Finding the Fulfillment of Love

Oct21

Today’s blog explores one spiritual practice that helps us to integrate the principles described in yesterday’s guest blog, and chapter six in my book, Authentic Freedom – Claiming Contentment and Joy. 

 

Seeking Love

As we were reminded in yesterday’s blog by guest blogger, Swami Nithyananda, if we are seeking love in our lives, the first thing we need to acknowledge is that love is NOT something we can get from another person.  Love is not a commodity to be bought, sold, earned or denied.  Love is our very nature and therefore can only be found within ourselves.  If we seek to have loving relationships with others, we have to start by knowing the love within ourselves…only then can we be unconditionally loving toward ourselves and toward another.  When we know the love that we are, we resonate with the energy of that love and reflect it out into the world.   In doing so, others are reminded of their own loving nature and may also decide to seek to know the love with themselves.

 

Coming to Know this Love

The journey to knowing the love that we are has many possible paths.  For me, I have found knowing God through scripture, meditation, prayer, ritual, worship, service, contemplation, writing, being in nature and working with amazing teachers (including my therapist, spiritual director, family, friends, etc. ) have all been helpful and supportive vehicles for coming to know this love.  There is one tool, however, that I have found to be most helpful (for me anyway) and that is the practice of Bhakti Yoga.

 

Devotion to the Beloved

Bhakti yoga is the spiritual practice of intense devotion to “The Beloved.”  While this practice has been officially named as such by the Hindu and Yogic traditions of India, the practice of devotion has also been a big part of the Hebrew and Christian traditions.  In this practice, meditation, prayer, chant, and worship are focused and directed toward the Divine imagined as our lover and beloved.  In the Yogic tradition, the Divine might be imagined as Krishna, Radha, Shiva, Shakti, etc.  In the Hebrew tradition, we may direct our attention toward Adonai, Elohim, the Shekinah, YHWH.  In the Christian tradition, devotion is directed toward Jesus.  The specific tool that I have found to be most helpful in this practice of devotion is sacred chant or Kirtan.

Hare Krishna/Hare Christos/Hare Adonai

In Bhakti yoga, one of the primary tools of devotion to the beloved is chant or Kirtan (chant done in a call and response format).  Chanting the names of the beloved is said to change our own vibration to more closely reflect the love of the Divine and to bring us into resonance with the love that is our truest nature.  In chanting the sacred names, we are healed, transformed, brought into harmony with the Divine in love, peace and joy.  The Hare Krishna chants, those to Rama, Radha, Sita, etc. all work toward this end.  The exciting thing is that in the Hindu and Yogic traditions, these names are universal…meaning that they all reflect aspects of THE ONE GOD and therefore transcend belief, dogma, doctrine or denomination.  I have embraced this practice, holding my personal guru (Jesus) in my mind while chanting these sacred names and have experienced great benefit from this practice.  I find that chanting the sacred names helps me to calm my monkey mind and to find the peaceful calm within that I had previously found to be elusive and nearly impossible to attain.  Additionally, I have found that I have come to know more deeply the love within that is more reflective of my truest nature.  I have found that life flows more freely and effortlessly.  I know more freedom and joy and my external relationships more closely reflect a deep and abiding love.

 

Getting Started

So, here is a little You Tube clip of George Harrison engaged in his own practice of Bhakti- devotion to the beloved….and a great way to get started on your own path to finding the fulfillment of love:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X7eFQMakhDE

Lauri Lumby

Authentic Freedom Ministries

http://yourspiritualtruth.com

Into the Arms of the Beloved

Sep6

Love, relationships, desire, passion….all things that drive the human experience.  How do we stay grounded in wholeness and not get thrown out into the ethers as we try to cultivate healthy, intimate, loving relationships?  I certainly don’t have the answers….but I do know of a spiritual practice that does help us in our quest for love.

 

 

Teaching what I need to Learn

I’m just saying this from the get-go……I know nothing about love.  I used to think I knew everything….then I got married, had joy, suffered loss, struggled, got divorced.  Apparently I didn’t know everything….and there are a billion lessons I have learned being in relationship with one individual for nearly 20 years.  Much of what I learned were all the things I did wrong and all the illusions I brought into the relationship that later proved to be false, along with all my unhealed childhood wounds that probably made an enduring relationship impossible from the start.  And while it is easy to be jaded or disillusioned about partnership, I find I still want healthy intimacy and still long for an enduring partnership.  HHHMMMM   Maybe I’m human.

Human Longing

While it would be really easy to say, “I will just be alone.  I know how to do that and I do it well,” I also recognize that as human beings, we are programmed to be in relationship.  We are a relational species and function best when in partnership and living in community.  So, while there is a profound temptation to escape into the woods into a hermitage all my own, I also recognize that we are all called to partnership and to seek out healthy intimacy.  The problem is that sometimes this longing comes out sideways and compels us into compulsive, co-dependent, addictive, unhealthy behaviors.  This is where spiritual practice becomes all the more necessary and beneficial toward our goal of healthy partnership.

Coming out Sideways

There is one primary fear and its resulting compulsion that drives the “coming out sideways” behaviors of our inborn drive for partnership.  In chapter six of my book, Authentic Freedom – Claiming a Life of Contentment and Joy, we explore the fear and its compulsion in detail.  In summary….the fear is, I am not loved and the compulsion is Envy.  When we have forgotten that love is our very nature, is who we are and who we are called to be, we seek for love outside ourselves, falsely believing that “that perfect someone” will make us feel whole, complete, loved.  WRONG!  There is nothing outside of us that can do any of these things.  Love, fulfillment, completion, wholeness are inner qualities and can only be found by seeking and journeying inward.  The good news, however, is that as we come to know the love that we are within ourselves, our external, intimate and personal relationships begin to reflect this love.  So in our search for healthy intimacy, the journey starts within!

Seeking and Finding the Beloved – the Practice of Bhakti Yoga

There is a beautiful spiritual practice that comes from the Hindu/Yogic tradition called Bhakti Yoga.  Bhakti yoga is the yoga of devotion, specifically, devotion to the “Beloved” within.  What is amazing to me is that this kind of practice is also present within both the Hebrew and Christian traditions, perhaps less obviously so, but it is there.  In Bhakti yoga, our spiritual practice is given over to rapt attention upon the Divine Beloved that resides within.  One might image the Divine Beloved as any of the Hindu expressions of the Divine – Krishna, Ganesh, Kali, Radha, etc.  In the Christian tradition, Jesus. Mary Magdalene or Mother Mary would be the image, in the Hebrew Tradition – YHWH or his forgotten feminine consort – Asherah.  And what is great about Bhakti practice is that it can take many forms, the focus being attention to the image of the Divine Beloved while engaging in whatever spiritual practice you might feel called to in the moment- Chant, Meditation, Yoga, Creative endeavors, etc.  The goal is to keep your mind fixed upon the image and the idea of the Beloved, allowing one’s self to connect more and more fully with the abundant outpouring of Love embodied by the Beloved and to sink more and more fully into remembering the Love that we are as reflected by the Beloved.  As Bhakti practice unfolds, we eventually find that there is no longer the illusion of separation between ourselves and the Divine Beloved, but that we have become one.  In this space, we remember fully the love that we are and freely and generously live that out in the world and our outward relationships begin to reflect the knowledge of this love.

Shameless Self-Promotion

If you live in the Fox Valley area and are interested in exploring this topic more deeply, I am offering a program, Conquering Co-Dependency and Opening to the Fulfillment of Love on Monday evenings starting on Monday, September 26th.  Just know….this is the teacher teaching what she needs to learn….and we will all be students in this process!

Where are you seeking outside yourself for “the person who will complete me?”

What kind of healthy intimacy do you long for?

How can you begin that search through connecting with the Divine Beloved that resides within?

Lauri Lumby

Authentic Freedom Ministries

http://yourspiritualtruth.com