The Twelve Days of Christmas -- Day 4

December 29

 

On the fourth day of Christmas,

my true love gave to me

four calling birds

I know, more birds! But trust me, as the days go by we will move higher up the food chain. For now, we've got the four Gospels-calling birds, voices in the wilderness, wakeup calls. Words from on high from those who know better.

The yoga tradition divides scriptures into those that are written as logical arguments and those that are "remembered" or channeled from Above through God's chosen mediums. The Gospels, like the Upanishads and in fact all of the Vedas, the Shiva Sutras, and other masterworks of visionary insight, remembered texts count more than written ones. Less human distortion and mistranslation, muddle and misrepresentation--more pure wisdom. 

Think of the Buddha's visionary awakening that night he sat stubbornly under the bodhi tree waiting for God to reveal Himself-out came the Four Noble Truths (ah, another four!), clear as a bell. Think of Moses reading the tablets inscribed with the Ten Commandments, or the Shiva Sutra's author turning over a rock and finding the teachings etched there (only to witness them evaporate).

Step Four asks us to peer inside and take a moral inventory of
our fears and resentments, the static between our ears and the crooked way we see. Not the most joyful way to pass anafternoon, nonetheless a tried-and-true way to get to the root of what ails you. Not a bad project as we enter a New Year. Do you really want to end up one year older still carrying the same baggage? Jumpstart your yoga practice and change your life with one of my Anusara Yoga Immersion mini-retreat weekends, which start in late January (www.blueskyyoga.com for details).