Clint Dharma

       The first time I ever heard the word “Dharma” was when I was thirteen. I wasn’t checking out any sort of sacred text, however. I was examining the back cover of the first album I ever bought: Agents Of Fortune, by Blue Oyster Cult. The lead guitarist, who’s work I was already in love with, thanks to B.O.C.’s hit “Don’t Fear The Reaper”, was one Donald “Buck Dharma” Roeser. Come to think of it, considering the impact that music would have on me, this was indeed sacred text.
       Sacred musical connection notwithstanding, I would later discover the Sanskrit word “Dharma” to be translated as “sacred duty”, “true nature”, “divine order”, and “life’s work”, amongst many other incomplete definitions. Digging deeper, I discovered that one’s dharma is unique to the individual. In the words of Stephen Cope, from his book The Great Work Of Your Life; “We might say that every person’s dharma is like an internal fingerprint. It is the subtle interior blueprint of a soul.”
       So my dharma is unique to me, and is in fact a function of that which makes me unique, that which makes me, ME. And, I can only be that which I am. According to the concept of dharma, I can not really be anybody I want to be. Although the possibilities are wilder and broader and more incredible than I can imagine, it is not, as some self-help literature suggests, a complete tabula rasa.
        I can not be somebody else, or somebody else’s dharma. To be somebody you are not, to live the dharma of another, to be what you think you should be instead of who you truly are, is to live a life of misery and unfulfillment. So the question really becomes; “Who The Hell Are You and Why Are You Here?”.
       Follow me as I delve deeper into my own very personal and intimate experience with these sacred questions.


©2013 Clint Piatelli, MuscleHeart, and Red F Publishing. All rights reserved.

   
        

Inner Space

       Once I shared what was happening inside of me with my class at Kripalu (as I wrote about in my post Sharing Is Shifting), I felt a sense of belonging, of community, and things began opening up for me. My experience became broader, as other thoughts besides those of self doubt and self judgement floated through my mind. Sadness took a back seat to a sense of wonder, and I felt a bit more at peace. I wasn’t quite jumping for joy, but possibilities opened up as some space was created within me.
       “Creating space within” was one of the key terms I heard during our group meditation sessions. When I first heard it, I didn’t quite know what the hell our instructor Jonathan Foust was talking about. Initially, I had a hard time conceptualizing it, but I’ve come to my own understanding of what it means, and that understanding is still developing. For me, creating space within means allowing for more of who I am to be available for my life. Creating space within means getting a sense of how vast I am inside, and how that vastness can translate into inner and outer freedom. It means visualizing that I am this giant place within, where anything is possible. It means not becoming consumed by any particular thought, groups of thoughts, or feelings, even if those feelings hold great power. It means opening up to whatever is happening, inside of me and thus in the exterior context of my life, with less judgement, less criticism, and less monkey mind mental gymnastics.
       Through my sharing with, and hence my connection to, our group, some space opened up for a realization I had the next day while stretching. At the beginning of our morning meditation, I was sitting cross legged and doing a group stretch, right hand overhead, moving to my left and towards the floor. I noticed how tight I was, like I always do. I immediately went into my internal dialogue. It’s worth noting that usually, when I talk to myself, my mind refers to my body, and to me, in the second person, as a “You”. My mind is very invested in believing that it is a completely separate entity from my body, separate indeed from my very being. I could do a whole post on that internal sense of separation, but for now, let’s just leave that food for thought on the table. Anyway, my mind says to me “Jesus, you’re tight! You’ve gotta be the tightest “healthy” person on the planet. Okay, let’s push through this....stretch harder....pull baby pull.....maximize this stretch.....it should hurt or it’s not doing anything.....”. Yeah, I know. Brutal. And remember, this is supposed to be a light, easy morning stretch. I bet your mind talks to you like that too.
       Because some space had opened up for me, however, I caught myself talking to myself like that and heard a different voice inside. This voice was gentler, kinder, more allowing, and although not a whisper, not a scream like the last one was. This voice said to me, “How about just noticing how tight we are, allowing us to be like this, and stretching as far as you can without pain.”. And, notice how this inner voice referred to the entire amalgamation of “Me” as “We”.
       Wow. You mean I don’t have to muscle my way through this stretch? I can just notice and allow and be with it? I don’t have to “maximize the experience” by beating myself up and pushing through pain?
       I paid attention to this other voice. And that lead me to another insight, an even broader and bigger one, that I’ll share with you in my next post about Kripalu.


©2013 Clint Piatelli. MuscleHeart, and Red F Publishing. All rights reserved.

Sharing Is Shifting

       When I was a kid, I went to camp out in the Berkshire Hills of western Massachusetts, not far from Kripalu. In my series of posts from years ago, called Concentration:Camp (Parts 1 & 2), I detailed my five year summer camp experience. I’ll sum it up for you here: It Sucked. Royal.
       Since then, however, I have actually enjoyed going back to Camp Becket several times over the years to visit. It’s a beautiful place, and I do have some powerfully good memories there. I’ve been able to put the whole experience in perspective. Overall, I have, as one woman at Kripalu put it, “turned poison into medicine”. I love the Berkshires these days, and take advantage of my opportunities to spend time in this magical part of the country.
       For the first twenty-four hours of practicing social silence at Kripalu, however, whatever medicine I had created was stuck in a child proof bottle. And I was the child. I felt ten years old again, stuck at a place in the Berkshires. Sad. Depressed. Lonely. Full of self doubt. Feeling like I was a defective model in a place full of well functioning ones. And I couldn’t tell anybody. Yup. This was a reliving of summer camp.
       In truth, however, my inner experience would have been similar no matter where I did this course. If I had been at a retreat center in California instead of The Berkshires, I would have felt the same internal strife. The fact that as a kid I had a similar experience, at a similar place not far from where I was now, just made it all a bit more uncomfortable, a bit more surreal.
       By design, when you do this kind of work, your stuff comes up. By design, not talking about it and being alone with it, thus removing distractions, forces you to look at it longer, and go into it deeper. The meditation, yoga, and environment provide new ways to frame your experience, new opportunities for learning and growth, and new possibilities for raising consciousness.
       But I’m getting ahead of myself. I’m good at that. Sometimes I’m so far ahead of myself that I don’t know who I am; like driving too far in front of somebody you’re supposed to be sticking with. You turn around and they’re gone.
       Alone with all my own muck, I decided to share my experience during our  afternoon course session on Tuesday, just twenty four hours into my own social silence. Everybody else had been doing it a half a day longer, because I joined the course late. So I took the microphone and let it all hang out, getting really vulnerable and sharing how awful I felt. Looking at our instructor whilst speaking, I could nonetheless feel the eyes of everyone in the room on me as I articulated my painful inner experience.
       Then, something remarkable happened. Everyone’s head started bobbing up and down. They knew exactly what I was going through. They were all having a similar experience. I opened up. They felt me. And I felt them.
       Suddenly, I didn’t feel alone anymore. I felt part of a community. Part of a tribe. Part of a common experience. Part of something bigger than myself.
       That’s when things started to shift.
       More next week.

©2013 Clint Piatelli, MuscleHeart, and Red F Publishing. All rights reserved.

Social Fucking Silence

       I had never heard the term “social silence” before, but I immediately didn’t like it. I was at Kripalu Center for Yoga and Health, taking a course on meditation. Social silence meant that, outside of our scheduled class, I wasn’t suppose to talk. To anyone. About anything. The phrase actually scared me. Within a microsecond of hearing it, my mind projected isolation, loneliness, depression, and despair. Plus, it had a bad ring to it, like the word “rash”. And it sounded like an oxymoron.
       After hearing that they strongly recommend I practice social silence for the first few days of this new course I had just switched into, something inside of me got triggered. I wasn’t completely aware of what, but I suddenly became incredibly uneasy. All of a sudden, I completely regretted my decision to join this class.
       In the confines of my own mind, I reduced the term “social silence” to the acronym “SS” and began internally calling it that. Fully aware of the Nazi reference, it felt appropriate, considering the amount of fear and dread I was experiencing from hearing it.
       Moments before, I felt great about my decision to switch into this new course, believing I had landed just where I needed to be. Now, I literally wanted to bolt. Out the door. Out the class. Out of Kripalu. Out of what now felt like an insane asylum.
       Over the next few days, what started off as a fear became a reality. And an even bigger reality than I had first feared. I experienced not only loneliness and isolation and depression, but lots of other great stuff too. Self doubt. Self judgment. Self criticism. Pain. Self flagellation. What the hell had I gotten myself into? I didn’t need to come to Kripalu to experience that. I’m perfectly capable of creating that on my own, back home.
       Not only that, but because I couldn’t talk about how I felt with anyone, it was getting worse. I have always processed things through talking. The more I talk, and listen, and converse, the more able I am to move through stuff. And the more I’m able to connect. Now I wasn’t moving through anything, and I wasn’t connecting. At least it didn’t feel like I was. So I’m not only stuck, I’m lonely. All this shit is coming up, and I’m unable to tell anyone, save for my time in class, which offered relatively little room for that. I just had to sit with it. To be with it. To experience it. To allow it.
       And it was precisely in the being with it, in the allowing of it, that I got what I needed.
       Please stay tuned.


©2013 Clint Piatelli, MuscleHeart, and Red F Publishing. All rights reserved.

The First 48

       If my first few minutes at Kripalu could be described as “extremely memorable” (as they were in my first post about my experience there, A Virgin Of Kripalu), then my first few days there could be described as “extremely uncomfortable”. And that’s being kind. Absolutely internally tumultuous is more like it.
       I came there to plug into a different energy source; to go inside and reconnect to something deeper; to recharge my spiritual batteries; to get back in touch with what was happening in my body and in my heart; and to quiet my very active mind. In essence, I came there to feel good. So why, after less than forty eight hours there, did I feel like shit?
       As our instructor put it, and I’m paraphrasing, “When you truly set an intention to be something, then slow down and quiet your distractions and really pay attention, you will see, in sharp detail, what’s not something. So if your intention is to be happy, you will see, in 3D, where you are not happy.” Which is probably why most people don’t do this stuff. Because when you experience that, it’s painful. And depressing. And difficult. And not what I bloody signed up for.
       I had originally signed up for a course called “Whole Being”. But after two sessions, by late Monday morning, something didn’t feel right. This course was interesting, but I noticed that I was anxious, having trouble focusing, and felt I was in the wrong place. Was this just my over-analytical, critical mind working overtime? Or was my body trying to tell me something?
       On my way to lunch that Monday, I walked right by the room where another course I had considered taking was being held. A course called “Still Small Voice Within”, which was about meditation, focusing, and developing intuition. It was actually the second time I had walked right by that room. The first time, the night before, I looked inside and felt something special going on. There was an energy coming from the circle of people gathered around the instructor. It looked and felt like powerful medicine was happening there. Now, the second time I walked by, the room was empty, save for the instructor. So I took a chance, walked up to him, introduced myself, and asked him what the course was about.
       He started to tell me, and within less than thirty seconds, I knew this was where I belonged. I felt it inside. Plus, the guy had a presence, an energy, a way of being, that I wanted more of. So I asked him if I could join the class after missing the first two sessions. He said yes. I felt something settle inside of me. I felt like I had just landed where I belonged. Then I went to the front desk and took the necessary steps to make my switch “official”.
       By the way, the instructor I had just connected with was a guy named Jonathan Foust. I called hime “Michael” for the first three or four times we interacted. He never corrected me, which itself tells me about the ease of being this man has. Later, I figured out why I thought his name was Michael. Weeks ago, when I was planning my trip, I considered taking his course. There was a picture of him online in the course description. He reminded me of Michael Schenker, one of the original guitar players for The Scorpions, and leader of The Michael Schenker group. So my mind made that connection, and he became, unconsciously, “Michael” to me, even though his name was clearly printed under his picture. A good little example of how our mind can screw things up.
       So now, I’m in the place I chose to be in, in the course I need to be in, with the people I need to be with. And I’m all out of sorts, with my insides doing cartwheels. What the fuck?
       Please stay with me as I take us deeper into my experience at Kripalu.

©2103 Clint Piatelli, MuscleHeart, and Red F Publishing. All rights reserved.